bless this mess

I'm rather proud of our messy apartment. It used to be that I couldn't stand the clutter. Now I just go with it and when I have time to tidy, I do. When I have better things to do, I do them instead. I can't clean up the mess around me thinking that it will calm the mess inside me. It only works for a time, a short-lived balm, a shot of tequila. It's good to just embrace the mess.

unwriting

sometimes you just need to have one of this days inside your head. a day where you can’t open the windows or even the curtains. maybe you don’t shower until after dinner. maybe you don’t shower at all. cereal is essential.

what do you do when you can’t find desire? or when desire is a laser beam. or one grain of rice. that’s where all the wanting lives. singular concentrated metallic taste like a spoonful of ten grapefruits packed into a mason jar. i won’t remember writing this. i don’t remember writing much of anything anymore. the best i can do is unwrite.

Poetry About Outer Space

Helix Nebula - Unraveling at the Seams

Since a handful of people keep landing on my little blog trying to find poems about the final frontier, I figured I'd help you, dear poetry seeker, by sending you in the right direction with some useful links. I hope you find this helpful. If you find any other great sites feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll update this post on occasion. I wish you all a happy intergalactic poetry adventure!

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1) The Poetry Foundation is a great starting place when you are looking for poems about a certain topic, written by a certain poet, written during a particular time period, in a particular style, and more. I've already searched for poems by Subject: Nature: Stars, Planets, Heavens, which gives you over 200 results. You can continue to narrow down this search by using the handy search feature on the left. For example, if you wanted outer space poems written in the 19th century or kid-friendly outer space poems (under "Other Options" then select "are good for children"), you can filter for either or both of those. You can also look for examples of a particular type, form, or even literary device.

2) The American Academy of Poets also has a less extensive archive of poems. You'll want to select the Advanced Search option from the main page, then use the "Theme" drop down and select "Space" to find about 20 poems. Again, I've done the search already, because I'm cool like that. You also have the option to browse by title and first line, if you're looking for a particular poem.

3) The Poetry Out Loud website has an online anthology of poems that qualify for their national annual recitation contest. This archive is alphabetical by title or poet and has no browsing or filtering functions. You can, however, search the whole site using the search box in the top right corner of the site. If you search for things like "stars" or "space" or "planet" you will find links to poems, though not all of them will be. But don't overlook some of the video performances from past finalists; these have a power all their own and are worth at least a viewing. You can also listen to poetry recitations.

Submission Bombers Seeking New Targets

The Submission Bombers are currently seeking editors of literary publications that want to collaborate. Here's a little about what we do:

The Submission Bombers are a group of 700+ writers who want our (often marginalized) voices to be heard. Through online events called "bombings," group members are encouraged to submit to a collaborating journal. Our goal is to take large-scale action that will bring about the change we want to see within literary publishing. 

A publications must be either 1) one year old with one issue published or 2) less than a year old with two or more issues published. Available upcoming time slots are listed below and are FCFS. If you're interested in setting up a bombing, please email me with your top 3 preferred time slots.

Jun 24 – Jul 5
July 1 – 12
July 15 – 26
July 22 – Aug 2
July 29 – Aug 9
Aug 5 – 16
Aug 12 – 23
Aug 19 – 30
Aug 26 – Sept 6
Any Monday starting September 2nd through December 23rd (excluding the Monday before Thanksgiving).