Sunrays to Dispel San Diego June Gloom: Poetry Publications and Tarot Podcast News

A Year in Ink Anthology Launch Celebration

Thanks to editor Judy Reeves and Team Ink, along with 39 other authors, I have a poem coming out in the San Diego Writers, Ink Anthology. The poem, "Dropping in the eight"  is for my youngest son Nicholas and celebrates the hours I watched him skate and drop into the eight bowl so fearlessly--how do those skaters fly on out over that lip and drop into oblivion?

Here's the backdrop to the poem: Last summer while flipping through a poetry anthology when I was visiting my father, I remember thinking about how my relationship to writing poetry and my relationship to reading poetry are different. Depending on one's mood, when acting as a consumer of poetry, the interaction can range from casual (entertain me) to intense (help me understand something about the world, people, God, self). 

My husband likes to remind me that my poetry tends to be cryptic or too insular to reach someone cruising to connect. Would I convert a casual reader to poetry, I think he's getting at, if they came across one of my poems? I hope this particular poem is one that readers can relate to and enjoy. 

I'm looking forward to reading and sharing the stage with our San Diego writing community; copies of the anthology will be on sale.  Join Editor Judy Reeves and Team Ink for a celebration including food, drink, and readings from the anthology.  $5 suggested donation at the door or an unopened bottle of wine:

A Year in Ink Anthology Launch

Old Town (Cygnet) Theater 

Tuesday June 13: 7-9 pm

Whale Road Review

"Goat Milk Ice Cream" is also up in the latest issue of Whale Road Review: A Journal of Poetry and Short Prose, thanks to editor Katie Manning. Can I just say I love that metaphor--what a beautiful name (Whale Road) for the ocean and the massive gliders of the deep we get to witness spouting now and then. WWR is also currently open for submissions; check out the entire issue, full of lovely work and additional features like Pedagogy Papers and Reviews.

And I’ve also made you a sound recording of the poem if you prefer audio.

Tarot for Two Podcasts Now Live

In other forays in sound, Mary Allen and I are thrilled to have posted our first two podcasts:

Podcast 1: How does the Tarot work? (about 12 minutes long) and

Podcast 2: What do we do with the bad cards? (About 19 minutes)

And honestly, we are just getting our podcast "sea legs" so I would love any feedback you can give us about our pacing, podcast length, subjects you think we should take up for you, questions, whatever comes to mind.

Tarot Deck Makers Interview: Tarot of the Sixties

You may also have missed the latest Tarot Deck Makers Interview with historian and photojournalist William Haigwood. His Counterculture Tarot: a photo journey of the sixties is a beautiful sojourn through that particular time and the events and how they relate to the Tarot archetypes. 

Here's an excerpt from the interview: 

As I searched through my 40-year-old photos I began to find subjects that worked amazingly well as Tarot images and that also suggested, with their reference to Tarot qualities, the experiences many of us actually “lived” during that period.  The Tarot cards, all 78 of them, appeared to be silos of experience through which I could interpret many aspects of the Sixties.  Educated as a historian at Berkeley, I began to write essays that reflected on the quality of each card’s traditional meaning and how those meanings related to specific experiences of the Counterculture.

Read the interview here.

Anniversary Love


Eighteen years of marriage today and I'm so grateful we've made a house of poetry, constant motion, ocean, three children, and the love of our friends and family. I wanted to repost a link to the poem Silver Birch Press recently published. It sums up the interlacing of our love, our loves apart from one another, and our art. Dollars from my first paid poem prize went towards the artwork (a pencil drawing of Kolmer's Gulch where my husband loves to dive). Here's the poem, Kolmer's Gulch, about the reality of loving a diver, raising children, and still having something left over to witness and bring it to the page.

Transition Love

...And I want to sign off with a final dose of love going from my heart to yours...as so many of us are getting ready to witness children or loved ones graduate and move on to their next adventures. My transitions..."mansitions"....are just that, the bittersweet joy of watching my two sons and the sons of my friends, sons of my extended heart, grow and change. 

Blessings on this season of letting go... Be kind to you and yours....here's to trusting the world to receive and challenge our boys in ways that best help them continue to grow and become the best versions of themselves. 

Photos:

Exception of 1) top photo of the anthology, the photos are by yours truly. 2) My youngest at Coronado skate park at rim of the eight bowl, 3) stars from the underbelly of Nikki de St. Phalle's Queen Califiia mosaic sculpture in her Magic Circle Garden in Escondido, and the last photo here is from mural art on the old Monte Rio School Gym wall at the skate park.