Category Archives: Poetry

I write poetry — sometimes it’s even pretty good. Anything poetry related will be under this section :)

Poetry, Published

“Daddy” @ Every Day Poets

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My poem, Daddy, is up at Every Day Poets. The comments have been very positive, which is, as you can imagine, wonderful. It’s especially nice in this case because the poem is (as you may have guessed from the title) quite personal and pulled out of my ‘real life’.

I was estranged from my father at the time of his death, in fact, I didn’t even know he had died until several years later when the public trustee contacted me about his estate. This poem, in part, came out of that.

If you’re looking for something a bit different, there is also a great haiku there by Steve Goble and several other great poems as well 🙂

Newsletter, Poetry, Published

Eep!

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Eep! Dude, it’s like the 14th already. How did that happen?

I’m working on my newsletter and I think I may pull it off on time this month (yay!). There’s still time to sign up if you haven’t already –> Newsletter <– . It’s pretty fun. I include one piece that hasn’t been published before, snippets of my works-in-progress and a poem as well as just updates and such. C’mon, all the cool kids are subscribed 😉

In other news, on the 11th my poem, Ballerina, was published on Every Day Poets. I’ve been published by their fiction site too and I have to say I really enjoy the format. I love the fact readers can comment and rate pieces — feedback from strangers is good. Good I say! 🙂

Right, I need to stop procrastinating and work on the newsletter or I won’t have anything to mail out tomorrow.

appearances, Niteblade, Poetry

Racing Death

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Do you ever feel like you’re racing death? I do! I don’t know when it started really, but I am very well aware of the fact there aren’t enough years in the human lifespan to do everything I want to. Not even close. With that in the back of my mind, I am driven to get as many things on my ‘Lifetime To-Do’ list as I can before the grim reaper cuts me down. I am, in essence, racing death.

That is how my blog entry today over at Ginger Simpson’s blog starts. If you’d like to see what I say after that and read the short poem I share, please click here and head over. As always I value your comments, here or there.

Poetry

World Fantasy Open Mic Reading

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I’m freshly returned from World Fantasy and though I keep trying to settle down enough to write about how amazing an experience it was for me, I keep failing. There is so much to say and I don’t know all the words. Suffice to say it was mind-blowing.

One part of the conference which was particularly amazing for me was the open mic poetry reading Carolyn Clink put together. Yes, the same one I was just talking about a week ago and admitting how I was too big a wuss to participate.

The week-ago me was wrong.

I went to the reading and I participated! I read a very short piece, a haiku in fact, titled “Lovers” that was originally published in Star*Line. I was -so- nervous. I could barely breathe and I’m not sure exactly how my knees held me up, but I did it. I did it because I figured it would be easier to suck up my nerves and fear and do it than it would be to live with my self-condemnation for years and years to come for being too scared to do it. So basically, because it was easier in the long run.

I’m so glad I did, though even now my fingers get a bit shaky when I think about it. I honestly don’t know how big the audience is because I seriously had tunnel vision the whole time, but I heard someone say ‘This is a bigger audience than I would have expected at a poetry event.’ so that’s good.

Best of all, after I read no one booed, in fact, there were a few chuckles, so I guess I enunciated my words okay.

That was one heck of a way to get my poetry-reading cherry popped though. The people reading were:

  • Joe Haldeman
  • David Lunde
  • Colleen Anderson
  • Rhea Rose
  • Eileen Kernaghan
  • Rhonda Parrish
  • Carolyn Clink

Yes! That really is my name on the same list as all those amazing poets! *swoon*. So I’ve done it. I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to find the courage to do it again, but…ah hell, who am I kidding? I’d totally do it again, and again, and again…and hopefully better each time. Just…not any time too soon. 🙂

Poetry

SFPA’s Online Halloween Poetry Reading

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I was invited to a poetry reading at World Fantasy next weekend and I posted an ‘Oh my god this is so cool but I am way too chicken!’ post to my livejournal. Friends kept telling me not to be a wuss and to participate, especially since I fully intend to attend and listen. I’m afraid I’m going to continue to be a wuss, partly because I’m a wuss and partly because I don’t think I actually have anything appropriate to read. Okay, mostly because I’m a wuss, but the other part is true too!

Anyway, I was inspired by my friends telling me to read so when the Science Fiction Poetry Association asked members to contribute audio recordings of themselves doing readings for their Online Halloween Poetry Reading, I decided to send something in.

If you click here you can listen to some really awesome poets reading their stuff…and I’m reading The Sepultress.

Please listen and be kind. In order to record my poem I had to borrow Danica’s ipod and use it. Unfortunately, I stumbled in my reading a couple times because I was focusing on the ipod instead of the poem. Oops. I figured you’d all forgive me though, especially since it’s my first time at this.

Poetry, Published

Whimper

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My sexy poem, Whimper, is the featured piece at Oysters and Chocolate today. This poem is very suggestive and is not meant to be read by anyone under eighteen or who is easily offended. However, if you don’t fall into either of those categories I hope you’ll pop by and take a look.

It’s a short poem, a rictameter (I loves me some rictameters) but I think it’s packed full of goodness. I hope you agree 🙂

I’ve also got a set of four poems published at The Monsters Next Door where I am in the awesome position of sharing a table of contents with several poets and authors I’ve had the honor of publishing in Niteblade. I’m in good company there and after you check out my poems it would be well worth your time to check out some of the other great work there. For real 🙂

Flash, Poetry, Published

Published @ The Shine Journal

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I admit it. I like Pamela Tyree Griffin which makes me biased, but I also like The Shine Journal. My work has appeared in it numerous times and I was honored to be one of the judges for their ‘Show Us Your Shorts’ contest earlier this year.

I’ve got two pieces in this month’s issue. If you were to judge them based solely on their titles it might seem as though they were similar, when in fact, they aren’t. Not even close.

The first, Sheltered, is a reprint of an amusing little flash which was originally published by the Mennonite Publishing Network last year.

What?

It really was. 🙂

The other is a sad poem I wrote entitled “A House Not a Home“. My great-grandmother was a poet and she wrote a poem after her beloved husband died which compared herself to an empty house; lonely and alone. Not so long ago my own husband was out of town on business and I saw a writing prompt that included a picture of a decrepit house. My loneliness, my great-grandmother’s poem and that picture all combined to inspire this short poem.

I hope you have time to check them out and let me know what you think 🙂

Poetry, Published

Inspiration Published

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My poem, Inspiration, is in this month’s issue of NewMyths.com . I’m a fan of NewMyths.com, and not just because I’ve had my work in two issues…though that definitely helps :). Really, though, if you’re a writer it’s a paying market with a wonderful and personable editor, and if you’re a reader it’s a great venue for reading fantasy works — free.

Anyway, Inspiration is online there now. I’d like to tell you what inspired it, but ironically, I can’t remember LOL However, I do remember that when Scott accepted it he said ‘How could I say no to a poem that starts with the line, Her thighs are spread and trembling?’

How indeed 😉

Flash, Poetry, Published

I’ll Squish Your Head!

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Rhonda - Headshot

My head got squished. No really, it did. I don’t know what it is about this headshot picture I’ve been using, but more often than not when it gets used on e-zines, it ends up quite squished. Today is no exception. Perhaps it’s a sign that I ought to take a new picture…but then I’d have to try and remember where my make up is, and that doesn’t seem likely to happen.

Anyway. Yes, as you may have gathered from that convoluted paragraph, I’ve got another piece published in an e-zine. Two of them, actually. Firstly, my flash fiction story, Denouement has been reprinted by Laurie Notch of IdeaGems. That’s where you get to see my squished head 🙂 I’ve also got a rictameter in this issue of IdeaGems, Writing is about, you guessed it, writing. I’m pretty sure this is the first time its seen print.

Enjoy 🙂