I thought I’d repost this as it was given short shrift during the 30/30 frenzy.
Many thanks to editors Joshua McKinney and Tim Kahl for including my poem “Between” in the current issue of Clade Song, one of my favorite poetry journals. A recording is also available for your amusement. And please check out the beautiful and intriguing musical piece on the home page – composed of various animal calls, guitar, flute and shaker.
Congratulations!
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Thank you, Andrew. This one is particularly satisfying, as I so enjoy their aesthetics.
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You’re welcome.
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well done on getting published somewhere you like, i felt the same about FourTies, as i admired the John Michael Flynn poem about George Bashovia & your own poem there. i can’t help but feel ‘between’ doesn’t have the same abstruse force your poems usually have Robert. what i always admire about your poems is how they baffle with such erudite abstractions that are handled like origami & proverbial phrases that hint at something purely of feeling, the life of emotion itself, i read your poems open to that sensation & it always satisfies, but it didn’t happen with ‘between’, i wonder why? it is quite peculiar. i hope this doesn’t upset you.
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Ha! How dare you not love all of my poems! I was a bit surprised that this one was taken over the others I’d submitted, as I felt they were superior pieces. But that seems to happen quite often. This one seems to be a bit more “clinical” in tone, perhaps in part due to the circumstances – I was suffering from a sciatic nerve problem, feeling uncomfortable, in pain. I believe that I “stepped back” a bit, and wrote from a slightly different perspective. I’m so pleased that you noticed – very perceptive of you.
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Phew. Glad i said something to get the anecdote. I don’t so much dislike the poem,. rather it doesn’t fit the criteria i have come to attribute to your work. Perhaps that is a criteria i must alter now.
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Don’t revise your criteria – I appreciate perceptive comments, and hardly ever take offense. 🙂
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Congratulations. I really like the language and the imagery in this one
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Thanks, Derrick. The imagery, as usual, is reflective of my life’s circumstances.
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Restless, observing and searching for meaning “Between” oneself and the world. I feel it. Joan
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Thanks, Joan. The between is a sometimes interesting, sometimes bewildering, place to be.
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Loved this, Robert! Congratulations and nice job on the audio…
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Thanks, Tanya. The last recording I did for Clade Song was terrible – background noise, hissing. I’m much happier with this one. Better equipment does make a difference!
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Congratulations Robert and I love the recording too, well done! :o)
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Thanks very much. I’m learning how to produce better recordings, but it’s been a bit of a slog. 🙂
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This one sounded really good so you’re doing it right! :o)
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Good to hear!
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Congratulations. 🙂
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Thank you, Brenda. I’m thrilled to have another piece at Clade Song.
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You’re most welcome. You’re a very talented writer so I can understand them wanting to include you. 🙂
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Ha! I’ve received a dozen rejections thus far this month. But there are 11 days left! 🙂
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Love this image. Sally
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Thank you, Sally. It’s from morguefile.com.
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I think Daniel’s comments above are interesting, as I also noticed that “Between” seems to diverge a bit from your norm, predominantly in that it is a bit more verbose than a lot of your other pieces (which actually resonates stylistically for me, as I’m sure you can imagine…). Otherwise, I find that your hallmark convergence of metaphysical/abstract concepts with natural/tangible imagery is well intact, not to mention exceedingly erudite…
Yet, while Daniel (perhaps, not wrongly) seems to have felt an absence of the exquisite, piercingly emotional imagery that your readers generally enjoy and expect, I didn’t experience the world of “Between” as being emotionally wanting, exactly because I understood the poem’s denial of resolution/satisfaction for the reader to be deliberate, which definitely felt disconcerting, but I’d say refreshingly so. I received this between-ness (and its fitting sense of existential dimness and lack) through the giving that only withholding makes possible; and I felt an emotional clarity and complexity that only a clinical survey can afford.
Anyway, congratulations on placing this poem!
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The circumstances of Between’s genesis are out of the norm, too. I was asked to submit a few pieces to a themed publication, and I started writing this poem. Try as I might I couldn’t make it fit the theme, and I let the deadline pass, even though I’d completed the piece. It wasn’t quite right. I’d been concentrating on a series of prose poems for a few months, and this was a shift from that. Nine months later, I revised and sent it, almost as an after-thought, to Clade Song. The one piece I considered a shoe-in was returned to me, as were the other two good candidates. Ha! I’ll never understand the mysteries of the publications process, as this seems all too common.
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I totally get that dynamic. My knee-jerks and afterthoughts seem to be more positively received, in general, too. For instance, whenever I send in clever form poems to clever form poem contests, I get crickets in response. When I submit a veritable temper tantrum on paper (albeit a sophisticated one) on a whim before going in for back surgery, then promptly forget I even wrote the thing, I get a Pushcart nomination… Lol! Maybe there’s something to that? Of course, as soon as we become aware of that fact and make any effort to tailor things accordingly, then the whole shebang gets undermined.
So, the best rule of thumb I guess is not to have one — beyond refusing to compromise ourselves, that is…
Anyway, I love your (I dare say like-minded) grapplings with ontological considerations (and their relevance to human spiritual viability), and I’m apparently not the only one! 😊
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It seems I’m more successful when I think less. Hmm. Something to think about. 🙂
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I listened and read and enjoyed at surface level. I am going to have to come back to this one. I don’t think my brain is big enough to grasp it. But I am big enough to admit that 😉
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My feeble mind was happy to get just a few words on the page!
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Funny! P.S. I am having nerve pain right now :(. Started when I started full time work. My habit of walking doesn’t seem to offset the damage of all the sitting with clients and then at the computer.
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Ouch! I’ve been spending way too much time sitting in front of the computer! Think I’ll take off for a day late next week.
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Oh yes, you should after all those poems plus your regular job!
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Well, my regular job can get me moving around. Those tools listed in “Watermelon” are actually for my job. 🙂
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Oh, so what is your “actual” job? I know it involves numbers.
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I retired from the numbers job 18 months ago, and worked part-time helping out with that and rewriting a website (which led me to realize that I did not want to do that kind of writing for a living) for about 9 months. Now I’ve a part-time job with a fancy title, but mostly I’m an administrator/caretaker/gofer for a (non-working) ranch – I meet with laborers and contractors, do a little handyman stuff, a little of this, a little of that.
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Congratulations, well done and full speed ahead. Does me good as a poet to see how others progress because that is encouraging.
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Thanks very much. I try to move forward…
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Sweet!
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Thank you.
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I welcome this change of pace and perspective.
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Thanks, Mary. Who knows what’s next?
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Beautiful poem. i don’t know your work well enough to sense any deviation but judging with fresh eyes, it is perfectly beautiful.
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Thank you, Annika. Much appreciated.
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amazing poem, congrats!!
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Thanks very much!
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