Good News

Hi all.  Recently found out that I won second prize for adult poetry in the Click Create Celebrate literary competition, sponsored by the Caledon Library.  Here is the poem:

Untitled

the sky is charged tonight

timorous stars, ears turned earthward

listen for their true voices, that

like blind gospel psalms—echoing

upwards from upturned palms

—rise out of the vocal sacs

of a sea of peeper frogs

who fill the wetland bogs

with intense ululations

a sexuality of supernovic proportions

light years separate star and frog

yet are they not one being

as the hand is, at heart, no different

from the head in its seeing?

they sing, these tiny astral amphibians

to give cruciform voice to a longing

felt in the farthest reaches of inner space

to teach me something

I cannot fully comprehend

like a dream I cannot quite place

the sky is charged tonight

it needs us to attend

it needs to birth universes

stir up cosmic dust dances

toss its connecting light

like a seine net over us all

drag creature-Earth to shore

so that we finally find each other

the way a hand searches for and caresses

the furrowed field of a brow

to share in its many sadnesses

my yes, my heart cups

the hive of the world

whose shiver chatters bones

its heft-sensuous curves

braille-like textures intone

the warp and weft of

Being in its becoming

and when I look at you

with my stars singing in your eyes

your frogs peeping in my ponds

I am made to ask

where do I end and you begin?

Meanwhile, we carry on writing towards the collection of flash fiction now tentatively titled AND MAYBE YOU FLOAT AWAY, with the goal of completing it and shopping it around for Spring of 2014. Working with a professional editor has really helped my understanding of 'conscious' writing, which is to say that I am more aware now, as I write, of the intertwining of narrative/character/thematic elements inherent to good storytelling. It is very much an art and a craft, this business of scribbling.

Next up, Anthony Carnovale and I will be offering a presentation and workshop series for seniors in Snelgrove, Ontario, on Nov. 7th, on the topic of MEMORY, IMAGINATION and the POWER OF STORYTELLING. We're also working on a series of workshops for autism spectrum teens. Busy period! Keep you posted.  Cheers.