Good [fill in the blank] to you.

Spring? I think?

What’s new in your world, folks?

I’m approaching the second half of my second semester teaching and learning at UNC-Greensboro. It’s been a strange and COVID-y semester, but not without bright spots. The impressive Chris Shipman invited equally impressive Jennifer Tamayo (and me) to read at Scuppernong Books in celebration of his new book. Reading new work in-person to a beautiful crowd of beautiful human people felt medicinal. I recommend it, if you’re into that kind of thing.

And I have a poem forthcoming in this cool looking new journal, Litmosphere: Journal of Charlotte Lit. You should preorder a copy, because it will have work by a bunch of great writers. I’m looking forward to reading it!

In the meantime, I’m going to be writing about Elizabeth Bishop and wishing I were by the ocean. See you soon, I hope, maybe in a room full of people reading poems or maybe by the ocean.

It’s Been A Minute

Lil tree working hard on Pilot Mountain.

Well hi there. How are you?

I know I’ve been quiet here, but I promise I’ve been busy elsewhere. I’ve given virtual readings for Moon City Press/ Missouri State University, Poetrio at Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville NC, and TGI Reading Series, all of which were a blast. If you missed them, just click the links to watch the videos! Hurray for technology that makes such things possible!

I’m hard at work on my next book RIGHT NOW (well not RIGHT now, because I’m writing this, but you know.) and I’m reading a lot. Have you read Stone-Garland? It’s an anthology of Greek lyric poems translated by Dan Beachy-Quick, and it’s my latest favorite book. Read these lines from one of his translations of Simonides, and tell me you don’t want to read the whole thing:

of sky          of sea         
   some black-turning-black force
          void desolate of mortals and also
     the goat-shanked gods divine                                                                                                                                                               

I also have new poems forthcoming in Moon City Review, which is available for pre-order now. You should check out the cover; it looks so cool!

Until next time, which will be sooner that last time– KG

Fall for the Book!

Guess who (uh, it’s ME!) gets to read at the amazing Fall for the Book festival in October? I’ll be reading on Friday, October 12th, at 4:00 PM. Check out the festival lineup and make plans to attend! Or, you know, just envy attendees from afar.

I’m smiling more than usual because Fall for the Book is incredible and I can’t wait to go to many events that will be amazing, including (I hope) my own. Rather, I hope it will be amazing also. I will be there regardless.

There’s No Place Like…

teeth

Moon City Press. Which is to say my manuscript Crybaby Bridge has found an amazing home via the Moon City Poetry Award, and will be published by Moon City Press this fall! You can read a bit about it here, and/or you can just imagine me grinning like an anatomical drawing of teeth, because that’s what I’m doing!

 

 

 

(image from The anatomy, physiology and pathology of the human teeth : with the most approved methods of treatment including operations, and the method of making and setting artificial teeth, 854)

Teacher-ing

L0067232 Page from An atlas of anatomical plates

Me, teaching. (“Page from An atlas of anatomical plates of the human body … “/ by Frederic John Mouat)

It’s been a few weeks since my chapbook class for The Loft ended, and I miss my students. Probably most teachers think/feel this, but they really didn’t need me. They wrote beautiful poems and gave each other insightful feedback; I just held space for them and read their work and enjoyed the conversation. And I’m so impressed that everyone who participated in the class finished a draft of a chapbook! When one designs a new class, one never knows how (if) it’ll work, so I’m pretty happy about how it all shook out.

Now I’m deep in detail-planning mode for a new class I’ll be teaching in a few days. It’s an intensive poetry class for high school students called “Poetry in the Real World” and it’s going to be amazing (well, or not… see above re: class design on paper vs. reality…) The point of the class is to give students the agency to engage poetry as something touchable, to see how it is *of* the lived world and lived experiences. Too often I encounter the idea/feeling that poetry is esoteric, and while I love the esoteric, poetry is so broad and vital a form, so full of living possibilities, I hate thinking that students don’t have access to it. We’ll read all kinds of cool stuff: poetry of the body, protest poetry, eco poetry, and write a lot, too.

Best of all, the class will culminate with a poetry reading in which the students will share their own work with the public! EEEEk I’m excited.

Chapbooks Chapbooks Chapbooks

Beginning in September, I’ll be teaching an online class for The Loft designed to help participants write a complete chapbook! It’s going to be so much fun, if your idea of fun is writing and workshopping a ton of poems. I can’t wait! Please check it out here, and feel free to share. <3

Lycoris radiata, Henry Charles Andrews

Two for Joy

Hey friends! My full-length manuscript has been out looking for a home. In the process, it’s been named a finalist for Trio House Press‘ Trio Award, and a semifinalist for Pleiades Press Editors Prize. I’m grateful to the editors of these presses for their care and attention, and humbled to be in the company of poets whom I admire. Stay tuned (to what? how? funny idiom in these post-radio and tv days…) for more news, soon!

(Two Crows, by Kawanabe Kyōsai)