Debbie DeRosa, editor of South 85 Review, nominated one of my two poems that appeared in the Summer 2015 issue, “Donations,” for the Best of the Net for this year.

The Wallapa Bay Artist Residency program accepted my application for a one-month residency in April, 2016. It is located on Long Beach Peninsula, southwestern Washington (state), along one of the continent’s richest estuaries.  I am honored and excited to be invited!

In the US mail I received a certificate from the National Federation of Press Women for Second Place in the 2015 Creative Verse — Book category competition for The Water Leveling with Us, along with a typescript of the unnamed judge’s comments.  The comments reveal a thorough reading of the book. The full text of the comments is below:

Water sinks to its lowest level; therefore, the title of Levering’s collection—by bringing water down to us—sets up readers for the text’s contemplation of the “big brained apes” we are, destroying ecosystems and moving toward planetary demise. Recalling our undeclared war on Viet Nam heightened by a president who “stokes fear in millions” and more recent reminders of costly warfare citing water boarding and drone pilots, Levering reserves his most stinging judgments for the decisions causing thawing permafrost with “avenging seas” and the debacle of the Deepwater Horizon Spill. His most singular and specific pieces are, inevitably, the most personal and personally moving. He mourns a sea turtle’s need for peace, protection, and most tellingly, hope for her hatchlings with the survival of her species increasingly beleaguered. He deplores the cruelty of the racehorse industry casually exploiting and destroying these animals bred for heavy muscles and tiny, fragile feet that easily shatter under stress. His generally straightforward language occasionally rises when referencing “the red mouth of a traffic light,” but remains steadfastly literal for the most part. Perhaps the most moving and encouraging piece brings us Kent Clegg in his ultralight aircraft leading young whooping cranes on an ancient migration route and teaching them “ancestral flyways…they didn’t know they knew.” The Water Leveling with Us’ hectoring anger and blame also contains some occasional, essential reminders that Clegg’s big brained ape’s conscious choice and the sea turtle’s instinct, anthropomorphized as “hope” may be all that’s realistically possible.

Coltrane’s God is not yet in hand, indeed, the final manuscript corrections were just turned in to the publisher, but on faith in the book’s implacable path from publisher to press, through the myriad tunnels of encrypted data streams and software hallelujah conversions, it shall be printed, bound, and delivered in time for the launch,  scheduled for Sunday, December 13th of this year at 5:00 pm (or 17:00) at the Teatro Paraguas (see calendar entry on this web site). Hooray!

Jay Udall, editor of Gris-Gris, just accepted two poems which will be in my forthcoming Coltrane’s God, “Fiddle Fest Contestants” (about my itinerant fiddler grandfather) and “A Night in Tunisia,” about a wild night at the Mineshaft Tavern, in Madrid, Nuevo Mexico. Although Udall is thoroughly ensconced among Louisiana bayou poetry-voodoo (thus the name of his journal), he has NM roots (brother to our US Senator) and is familiar with the crazy music scene at the Mineshaft Tavern.

While I was in London in early September, Michelle Lesko, editor at IthacaLit, contacted me with acceptances of two poems slated for my new book, Coltrane’s God. The poems are “After Hours” and “Talking to the Octopus,” the latter in honor of the Santa Fe jazz drummer, John Trentacosta.

The I-70 Review accepted two more poems for publication, “Animal Sighting,” (which might be changed to simply “Sighting,” and “Scenes from Seaside Inn.”  Scheduled publication date is September 2016, and the release will coincide with a contributor’s reading at The Writer’s Place in Kansas City, MO.

The Southern Poetry Review issue 53:1 is now out, which contains my poem “Terminal,” which strikes me as an odd word for an airplane station.

NEWS & NOTES

I’m happy that my new web-master, Blake at TEKDOC, added this Blog tab to my web site. I will use it to announce publications, prizes, and readings. Some of this information will find its way onto other tabs, but the Blog page will post it when it’s fresh news. You, my audience, are welcome to add any relevant comments. Perhaps conversations may spark. To start with, I’ll catch up on what’s happened since the beginning of 2015.

In February, Literal Latté posted my contest winning poem, “The World Recast by Flash Cards,” on their website, which carried a $1,000 prize. This organization has an interesting history as a samizdat distributor to NYC coffee shops before they converted to online editions. Go to: http://www.literal-latte.com/2015/03/the-world-recast-by-flash-cards/

Two poems that were written during Jane’s and my 2014 honeymoon in Puerto Rico are getting an airing. “Once More” is featured in the Volume 24 #3 of the premiere surfing publication, The Surfer’s Journal. And Midway Poetry Journal accepted “Desecheo Proving Ground,” about an island off the northwest coast of Puerto Rico used as a bombing range that is now a wildlife refuge.

In April, Gary Worth Moody and I traveled to Ada, Oklahoma for the Scissortail Writing Festival. Gary blew a lot of people away with his reading – I don’t think some knew such a kind of poetry existed. I got to read entirely from my Coltrane’s God manuscript. I was pleased to see Leslie Ullman, Dorothy Alexander, Walter Bargen, and others there. Kudos to Ken Hada for his directing such a relatively ego-free writer’s confab.

On the way back from Scissortail, Gary Worth Moody and I were invited to crash a reading at the Paper Crane Gallery in Canyon, Texas. The reading was hosted by the artist and poet Steven Shroeder (whose art was on display), and we got to chime in with the wonderful poets Larry Thomas and Sarah Webb.

Concrete Wolf gave my chapbook manuscript, Ear Worm, an honorable mention in their annual contest.

The Winter 2014-2015 Malpais Review contains an interview with me by Gary Brower and a generous sampling of poems. I’m honored to be featured in this publication which also features a section on Robert Creeley and a memorial tribute to Tony Mares.

“Snow Squall in April” appeared in issue 36 of The Coal City Review.

South 85 Journal accepted two poems, “Donations” and “Waiting for the Repo Man.”

My book, The Water Leveling with Us, won first place in the 2015 New Mexico Press Women Creative Verse Book Competition. The winners of this contest organized a reading at Op Cit Books in Santa Fe. Thanks to Ioanna Carlsen, Janet Eigner, and Linda Whittenberg for collaborating with me on this reading. Also, thanks to Diane Schmidt of NMPW for her support.

As a state winner of the NMPW contest, The Water Leveling with Us was subsequently submitted by NMPW to the National Federation of Press Women competition, where it placed second in the Creative Verse Book category.

My poems, “Coveting Dr. Freud’s Shoes” and “Searching Sigmund’s Suitcase” appeared in the Winter/Spring 2015 issue of Notre Dame Review.

My poem, “Barrelhouses,” took First Runner-Up in the 2015 Mark Fischer Prize. Part of the prize was getting a free pass to events at the Telluride Talking Gourds Festival, which occurred on a snowy Memorial Day weekend at 8,500 feet. I got to read with the other prize winners such as Jill Burkey and other good poets such as Debbi Brody. I renewed my friendship with festival organizer Art Goodtimes and was delighted to meet the new Western Slope Poet Laureate, Rosemary Wahtoma Trommer, and see her perform. See http://talkinggourds.weebly.com/burkey_fischerprize.html

My latest book manuscript, Coltrane’s God, was accepted by Red Mountain Press for publication in 2016. Progress continues apace with the editor, Susan Gardner, on refining the text. I am honored that Susan and Devon Ross are willing to work with me on my 3^rd book with them.

The Southern Poetry Review accepted the poem “Terminal” after a fruitful, cooperative exchange with one of the editors, James Smith, to revise the poem to suit us better.

Op Cit Books generously hosted another reading in June at which I read, this time with the inimitable Nathan Brown and Gary Worth Moody.

Stand accepted the poem “Coffin’s Neck” written on and about a peninsula near Lubeck, Maine. The process was interesting as first the Virginia Commonwealth University editor, David Latan, screened it before passing it on for final approval to the editors at Leeds University in Great Britain where the magazine has been published since 1952.

To wrap up this summary at the half-way point of 2015, my poem “The Terrorist” was short-listed for the Fish Poetry Prize. If I am interpreting the announcement correctly, the poem placed 13^th out of 1,432 entries. But who’s counting? (http://www.fishpublishing.com/2015-short-long-lists.php#ppls15)