! BOOKS !

Posted on December 2, 2025December 2, 2025 by Jami Macarty

Dear Gift Reader,

Hello, may you be healthy and in pursuit of what makes you happy.

I am happy to welcome you to this conversation about reading and making books. Today is a Big Day in my writing and publishing life. Today, December 2, 2025, is the official publication day for The Long Now Conditions Permit!

In this ! Books ! dispatch, I share with you the story of how my second full-length collection has come into being—from writing individual poems to their publication in literary magazines to the selection of the manuscript, The Long Now Conditions Permit, as winner of the 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize to finding the perfect cover image.

AnnouncingThe Long Now Conditions Permit!

**THE LONG NOW CONDITIONS PERMIT**
by Jami Macarty
University of Nevada Press, December 2025

The Long Now Conditions Permit confronts the persistent brutalities of our world through poetry that both names and resists the injustices shaping it. From the quiet sorrows of everyday slight to the overwhelming crises of ecological collapse and gendered violence, these poems document what is occurring—the horrendous and the intimate, the anguished and the magnificent.

With ethical attention, Jami Macarty’s collection engages the political, ecological, and personal forces that shape and mark our lives, offering an ecofeminist ethic of care as an antidote to extractive capitalism and patriarchal norms. Each poem meditates on power, insists on articulating what is being lost—and what must be saved and reclaimed.

Amid the exploitation and violence, these poems find moments of grace: the scent of a sea rose, a desert walk in spring, the company of birds, Earth entire. The Long Now Conditions Permit is both tender elegy and urgent call, exhorting readers to grapple with the devastating failings of humanity and the saving possibilities of love.

Winning the 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize

On March 4, 2024 my second manuscript of poetry marched forth to its life as a book when I answered a call from Claudia Keelan, editor, who told me The Long Now Conditions Permit won the 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize!

The 2023 Test Site Poetry Prize Semifinalists, Finalists, and Winners!

The Test Site Poetry Series is the collaborative book-publishing project of Interim: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics and the University of Nevada Press. Interim, established in 1944 by the late Wilber Stevens, is housed in the English Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is one of the longest-running “little” literary magazines in the United States. Interim editors and poets Claudia Keelan and Andrew S. Nicholson serve as Test Site Poetry Series editors. The Test Site Poetry Prize-winning book is chosen by Claudia Keelan and an advisory board, which includes poets Sherwin Bitsui, Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Ronaldo V. Wilson.

The editors and advisory board are looking for manuscripts that engage the perilous conditions of life in the 21st century, as they pertain to issues of social justice and the earth. The winning book will demonstrate an ethos that considers the human condition in inclusive love and sympathy, while offering the same in consideration of the earth. Because we believe the truth is always experimental, we’ll especially appreciate books with innovative approaches.

Now, some of the delicious words The Test Site Poetry Series editorial board members shared about The Long Now Conditions Permit!

from Sasha Steensen (on Facebook):

from Ronaldo V. Wilson (the book’s endorsement):

from Claudia Keelan (the book’s endorsement):

from Donald Revell (the book’s endorsement):

These poets’ words for The Long Now Conditions Permit, heart-expanding gifts!

Finding the Cover Photo

The first time I saw Masahiko Kuroki‘s photograph of the tree (above) was early December 2024, scrolling my Facebook feed. It was late at night after a long day’s driving in a highway-side hotel. I had been stressing over the just-right photo. The publisher didn’t care for my ideas, and I wasn’t wild about theirs. Such is the often fraught book cover conversation!

It’s a mystery as to why Masahiko Kuroki’s photo appeared in my feed. I wasn’t following him. I had never heard of him. Nor had I previously seen any of his photos. Yet somehow rather miraculously his photo appeared. When I saw it, I slid off the edge of the bed. Then recovering myself from the floor, I shined the image toward my partner’s face and asked, What about this for the cover? As if falling off the bed wasn’t enough!

When I shared Mashiko Kuroki’s photograph with the University of Nevada Press team, they said: “But we’re really loving the final image… It’s the most unique of all the images you’ve suggested, or that we’ve found, and I love that the tree can be interpreted literally as a tree, or with just a bit of imagination, as a woman with her arms outstretched.”

As we moved through the design process, their admiration for Kuroki’s photograph grew: “Again, our team just loves this image! It’s so evocative and interesting. I think it’s really going to pull readers in.”

And, as we arrived at the cover’s final design: “For what we’ve started calling the “tree woman” image here in the office, I still think this is the best option, by far. If you want something unique that you’re not going to find on another book cover, this is the image to choose. We were talking about it in our staff meeting this morning, and everyone agrees this is one of the most striking covers we’ve proposed in quite a long time.”

I experience Masahiko Kuroki’s photo viscerally every time I behold it. I feel an upward reaching within me. Masahiko Kuroki’s photo is perfect company for the poems in The Long Now Conditions Permit which feature the figures of trees and women and seek a freedom from the threat of violence that all too often pervades natural and domestic environments.

Thank you to, Masahiko Kuroki, for agreeing to accompanying my poems with his photograph!

Writing the Poems in The Long Now Conditions Permit

I freshly wrote or deeply revised all of the poems in The Long Now Conditions Permit over ninety-five days between January 2020 and January 2021. The poems were drafted/revised among a shifting cohort of other poets during five days in person at a goddess table in January 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic was just coming to our attention. Then, over three thirty-day online poem-a-day writing sprees in July 2020, October 2020, and January 2021. I loved the practice of trying to write a poem-a-day. The intensity! There were duds, but there were keepers. The process gave me an experience of seeing just what writing I could accomplish in a relatively short period of time. It showed me the momentum of daily practice and power of cumulative effect in writing. The practice offered me a community of writers. And I made some poetry pals!

Generous Publishers of Individual Poems

What makes a full-length collection? Individual poems! They are the building blocks and act as gateways from poem to poem, and engender conversations between poet and editor, poet and publisher. Individual poems have their own lives and are part of the lives of full-length collections. Individual poems are the beginning of a book, and they point to a book when it comes into being.

While searching for my book’s publisher, I tweaked the poems and tried out the revised versions by sending them out for consideration with literary magazines in Canada and the US. This editorial process offered me valuable information about which poems would make up the manuscript of The Long Now Conditions Permit. Sometimes the poems editors believed in were also the poems I believed in. Sometimes not. So, I had to figure out which poems mattered most to the life of the book.

Thirteen editors of literary magazines selected individual poems from The Long Now Conditions Permit for publication in their the literary magazines they helm. I wish to acknowledge the hardworking and devoted editors, staff, publishers, and printers for giving time, attention, and space to my writing. Thank you, Geoffrey Gatza at BlazeVOX; Matthew Cooperman at Colorado Review; Haley Lasché at Concision Poetry Journal; Claudia Keelan at Interim: A Journal of Poetry & Poetics; Simone Muench at The Jet Fuel Review; Robert Julius and Alyssa Froehling at The Journal; Charles Kell at Ocean State Review; Richard Greenfield at Puerto del Sol; Jackie Janusis at Redivider; Jaimie Gusman at Tinfish; Eleni Zisimatos at Vallum Magazine and Vallum Chapbook Series; Gillian Conoley at Volt; Sue Goyette, editor of the anthology Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #Metoo (University of Regina Press, 2020). Special thanks to Interim: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics, Vallum Magazine, and Vallum Chapbook Series for their ongoing support of my writing by publishing my poems in several issues between 2020 and 2024.

I take the time and space above to name these editors and publications as a gesture of gratitude because they took the time with and offered space to my writing. They are important to my writing life. And they are part of the valuable conversation I want to have about my poems and poetry in general.

Seeking a Publisher

In December 2021, I offered for consideration to The Test Site Poetry Series the first version of the manuscript. It was one hundred and twenty pages long! That’s long by most standards. Typically, the recommended length for manuscripts is around seventy pages. The manuscript’s title was, and has always been, The Long Now Conditions Permit. It was named a finalist for The Test Site Poetry Series. Spur! The next year and the one after that, the manuscript was on the shortlist with Canada’s Brick Books. Spur! Spur! Then, in March 2024 it won the 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize! In all, I offered the manuscript for consideration forty-one times.

For me, the story of how The Long Now Conditions Permit came into being sums to two words: Persistence! Perseverance!

Now, Seeking Readers

Now, for my book I seek readers! Gentle, generous readers who will give The Long Now Conditions Permit the gift of their attention. I would love to count you as one of my poetry collection’s readers! Will you be one of The Long Now Conditions Permit‘s readers?

: : : :

Thank You Bows!

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! Welcome, welcome to those of you new to these dispatches on reading and writing books. May you find inspiration for your writer’s life here!

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to my precious community. To everyone who support my writing, especially women/women-identified writers for not coveting or competing, but sharing and supporting.

+ Thank you bows for supporting The Long Now Conditions Permit (2025): +Bows (continuous!) to my publisher the University of Nevada Press and staff for making my book The Long Now Conditions Permit with me. +Bows (continuous!) to Claudia Keelan and Andrew Nicholson, series editors, and the series board Sherwin Bitsui, Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Ronaldo Wilson of Interim’s Test Site Poetry Series, who selected The Long Now Conditions Permit (University of Nevada Press, December 2025) as the 2023 winner of the Test Site Series Prize. +Bows (continuous!) to Claudia Keelan, Donal Revell, and Ronaldo V. Wilson for offering your word-endorsements! +Bows to Mashiko Kuroki for his luminous tree-woman photo for the cover! +Bows (continuous) to the editors of literary magazines who supported the publication of individual poems from The Long Now Conditions Permit: Geoffrey Gatza at BlazeVOX; Matthew Cooperman at Colorado Review; Haley Lasché at Concision Poetry Journal; Claudia Keelan at Interim: A Journal of Poetry & Poetics; Simone Muench at The Jet Fuel Review; Robert Julius and Alyssa Froehling at The Journal; Charles Kell at Ocean State Review; Richard Greenfield at Puerto del Sol; Jackie Janusis at Redivider; Jaimie Gusman at Tinfish; Eleni Zisimatos at Vallum Magazine and Vallum Chapbook Series; Gillian Conoley at Volt; Sue Goyette, editor of the anthology Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #Metoo (University of Regina Press, 2020).

! BOOKS !

Posted on October 21, 2025October 22, 2025 by Jami Macarty

Hello, Gentle Reader!

Thanks very much for meeting me here to talk about writing, making, reading, and reviewing books!

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. | Oscar Wilde

Lately, I have been thinking about artistic attention, luck, and obscurity—and how each shapes creative expression. I gravitate toward intransigent, nonconforming artists (Gertrude Stein, Leslie Scalapino, Diane Arbus, Ana Mendieta, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson…) who create on their own terms. Despite pressures to conform, I take inspiration from their windy lead and endeavor to do my own thing in the lines of my poems and in their forms on the page.

One can perhaps please one’s self and earn that slender right to persevere. | Marianne Moore

Honestly, few people pay much attention to my writing, which is sort of a gift. This freedom allows me to conduct experiments and make discoveries according to my own creative process and standards without being swayed by external expectations or trends. Without the anxiety of meeting an imagined reader’s standards of quality, I find joy and fulfillment in wordplay for its own sake. That often leads me to push language further to meaning’s margins and make a word-thing that surprises and pleases me.

Obscurity grants me artistic freedom and playfulness, and occasionally, my writing resonates with the “right” reader. That feels like true luck—when someone gives my writing their attention.

The lucky gift of attention! Judges MA|DE and Kevin Spenst named my chapbook The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024) a finalist for Meet the Presses 2025 bpNichol Chapbook Award! Woohoo! What an excellent surprise!

This recognition as a finalist is especially special because the poems in The Whole Catastrophe are, to my mind, not trying to be anyone else’s or other than themselves. They are doing their own sonic linguistic idiosyncratic thing on the page.

I’m oodles grateful for the 2025 bpNichol Chapbook Award judges’ acknowledgement.

Above is a screenshot from wee three-minute finalist video—the background cover photo of The Whole Catastrophe by Dennis A. Boyd, features thousands of sandhill cranes at Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area—shown at H of the Night.

Hosted by Meet the Presses collective, H of the Night celebrates Canadian small press publishing and the glory of chapbooks! Hurrah chapbooks! This year’s H of the Night announced the 2025 bpNichol Chapbook Award finalists and shared excerpts from our short-listed chapbooks.

I couldn’t have made my three-minute video without pre-production assistance from JRW and post-production stichery from the collective’s Aaron Tucker. Thank you! Thank you!

You’re cordially invited to tune in to H of the Night! Click to 38:51 to listen and watch my reading from The Whole Catastrophe which includes a dawn liftoff of birds in the thousands! It has to be seen to be believed in your heart!

The gift and luck of attention! From generous editors of literary magazines to whom I am grateful for giving my writing airtime: Two poems—”Once Upon a Time According to the Promise” and “What moves in the river is only the river”—in Diode; Four poems—”Two Autobiographies,” “To the Jury,” “Dual Scythes,” and “Mind of Snow”—in BlazeVOX-Poetry Extra Extra section; “The Fire Walker” in Taos Journal of Poetry; “Cold Record” in Action, Spectacle; “Snow is” in JMWW; “Backyard Fable” in SWIMM Every Day. You’re cordially invited to read some poems!

These publications are important to me because they are tangible artifacts of writing new or revising draft poems and sending out those poems for consideration, even while I am between projects—The Whole Catastrophe (September 2024) and The Long Now Conditions Permit (December 2025).

“Start a new project,” a writer friend advised me in a long-ago conversation about what to do when a book project is resting in completion. I took that to mean: Don’t wait! Write! So, I write. Of course the “rejections” (71 poem batches!) outweigh the “acceptances” (8 poems!), but both offer me what Marianne Moore called “that slender right to persevere.”

Some more lucky attention from organizers of readings and their audiences! Gathering with other poets—just look at those shining faces above—to read my poems aloud to an audience is nerve-racking and heart-special. It’s not like anything else.

If writing poetry is an inward-reaching gesture then reading poetry aloud to precious others is an outward-reaching gesture—two partner energies coming together in a gorgeous wholeness.

I and my poems have been out and about! In Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Tucson, and on Zoom with Mercy Street Readings and Lit Balm: An Interactive Reading Series. Click on the live link to watch my reading at Lit Balm!

At each event, I read a different mix of poems from The Whole Catastrophe and The Long Now Conditions Permit, adding in poems from The Minuses, Landscape of The Wait, and Instinctive Acts (out of print). It was creatively gratifying to connect themes across collections and discover what’s still relevant to me in the continuum of writing poems.

This year, I have also given my attention to other writers. In addition to teaching creative writing courses at Simon Fraser University, I moderated a panel at Tucson Festival of Books and offered workshops and a reading at the Mining for Gold Writing Retreat in Gold Bridge, British Columbia. These conversations were filled with the sweetness of learning and having fun with words!

A metaphor could change your life. | a fortune I received recently

Whether I offered a reading, moderated a poetry panel, or taught in a writing retreat, each of these occasions required accepting invitations, showing up, giving attention, and receiving attention. The luck of attention! The gift of attention!

: : : :

The Pluses!

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to my community of women/women-identified writers for not coveting or competing, but sharing and supporting.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Vallum Chapbook Series and Eleni Zisimatos, Editor, and Leigh Kotsilidis, Designer, for making my chapbook The Whole Catastrophe (2024) with me.

+ Thank you bows to Meet the Presses and the judges of the 2025 bpNichol Chapbook Award for their support and acknowledgement of The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024).

+ Thank you bows to the intrepid organizers for making space for me and my words at Sandbox Music, Chatter: Contemporary Chamber Music, form & concept gallery, Tucson Festival of Books, Tucson Arts Poetry Society, Interim, Mercy Street Readings, Lit Balm, and to the very fine writers who joined me and shared space.

+ I bow to the editors who supported the publication of my poems and the publications where they were published: Jen Karetnick at SWIMM; Jen Michalski at JMWW; Adam Day at Action, Spectacle; Catherine Strisik at Taos Journal of Poetry; Geoffrey Gatza at BlazeVOX; Patty Paine at Diode.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Claudia Keelan and Andrew Nicholson, series editors, and the series board Sherwin Bitsui, Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Ronaldo Wilson of Interim’s Test Site Poetry Series, who selected The Long Now Conditions Permit (forthcoming University of Nevada Press, 2025).

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to my publisher Stephanie G’Schwind, and Mountain/West Poetry Series editors Donald Revell and Kazim Ali, et al interns at the Center for Literary Publishing (CLP) for making The Minuses (2020) with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Beth Svinarich et al staff at University Press of Colorado for their beautiful support to me and The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to monsoon storm chaser and marvelous professional photographer, Liz Kemp, whose monsoon photograph storms the cover of The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Nomados Literary Publishers, Meredith and Peter Quartermain for making my chapbook Instinctive Acts (2018) with me.

+ Thank you bows to (continuous!) Vallum Chapbook Series and editors Leigh Kotsilidis and Eleni Zisimatos for making my chapbook Mind of Spring (2017) with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Finishing Line Press and editors Leah Maines and Christen Kinkaid for making my chapbook Landscape of The Wait (2017) with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Vincent K. Wong for his friendship, creative collaboration, and for taking my author photos.

+ This bears repeating: Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! If you have any questions or comments, write me! I would love to hear from you!

! Books !

Posted on November 14, 2024November 19, 2024 by Jami Macarty

Gentle Reader,

We meet again here, where I share with you another word-ante into our ongoing conversation about making and reading books. Hurrah, you are here!

What makes a chapbook or full-length collection? Individual poems! They are the building blocks of poetry chapbooks and full-length collections. Individual poems act as gateways from poem to poem, and engender conversations between poet and editor, poet and publisher. Individual poems have their own lives and are part of the lives of chapbooks and full-length collections. Individual poems are a beginning of a book and they point to a book when it comes into being.

Behold Interim – A Journal of Poetry and Poetics (Since 1944!) Issue 41.1, the “Winners & Finalists” Issue, featuring the eight finalists and the winners of the Test Site Poetry Series Award—Jami Macarty!—and the Betsy Joiner Flanagan Award—Geoffret Babbitt.

The issue features five of my invidual poems. Four of the poems are from my Test Site prize-winning manuscript The Long Now Conditions Permit (forthcoming University of Nevada Press, 2025). The fifth poem, “Whole Catastrophe,” is from my September-published chapbook The Whole Catastrophe (#38, Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024). This Interim issue is an example and celebration of how individual poems lead to and become books.

Discovering individual poems and poems that make up a manuscript is the purview of editors of literary magazines and presses. In Interim‘s case, that is poet and editor Claudia Keelan. Poem by poem and book to book, Claudia has changed my life as a poet. She has published indivual poems from my first and second full-length collections and my fourth chapbook in Interim. She endorsed my first full-length collection, The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020):

“The poems in Jami Macarty’s devotional collection swing upon a hinge that is the recurring site of the poet’s perception in time, where what is seen shows the inherent connection of each thing to its other: ‘honey given : honey taken.’ The Minuses‘ brilliance lives in what the poet is able to give up for the possibility of finding a wholeness that is ongoing: ‘I come and go / from myself as I am / I will not return.’ A seer is, after all, one who sees. Jami Macarty is one who sees.” -Claudia Keelan

It takes a seer to know a seer. Claudia Keelan is also a seer. Under her penname, Lucy Aul, she wrote a review of The Minuses that made birds take flight in my heart. Her words blew me off my perch. I tell you true; I fell off the couch when I was reading her review of my book. And Claudia was part of the editorial team that selected my second full-length collection The Long Now Conditions Permit (forthcoming University of Nevada Press, 2025) as winner of the Test Site Poetry Series Award.

I do not know Claudia but in her I find a dream-come-true ally to my poems; Claudia understands and reads for the devotional spirit of my poems. Her readership is a poetry-expanding and heart-expanding gift.

Gentle Reader, your readership is also a gift! I cordially invite you to read my poems in Interim – A Journal of Poetry and Poetics. To whet your reader’s appetite, I offer “Harbinger” (above). Read my poems and be introduced to The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024) and The Long Now Conditions Permit (forthcoming University of Nevada Press, 2025). While you are visiting Interim Issue 41.1, visit my colleagues, the other poets whose individual poems join mine. May your reading kindle inspiration for your pages. Happy Reading!

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The Pluses!

+ Thank you bows to my community of women/women-identified writers for their generous, loving support, inspiration, and encouragement.

+ Thank you bows to Vallum Chapbook Series and Eleni Zisimatos, Editor, and Leigh Kotsilidis, Designer, for making my chapbook The Whole Catastrophe (2024) with me.

+ I bow to the editors who support my reviews and the publications where they were published: Denise Hill at NewPages; Stephanie G’Schwind at Colorado Review, and Jay Ruzesky at The Malahat Review.

+ I bow to Claudia Keelan and Andrew Nicholson, series editors, and the series board Sherwin Bitsui, Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Ronaldo Wilson of Interim’s Test Site Poetry Series, who selected The Long Now Conditions Permit (forthcoming University of Nevada Press).

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Beth Svinarich et al staff at University Press of Colorado for their beautiful support to me and The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to monsoon storm chaser and marvelous professional photographer, Liz Kemp, whose monsoon photograph storms the cover of The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows to Nomados Literary Publishers, Meredith and Peter Quartermain for making my chapbook Instinctive Acts (2018)with me.

+ Thank you bows to Vallum Chapbook Series and editors Leigh Kotsilidis and Eleni Zisimatos for making my chapbook Mind of Spring (2017) with me.

+ Thank you bows to Finishing Line Press and editors Leah Maines and Christen Kinkaid for making my chapbook Landscape of The Wait (2017) with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Vincent K. Wong for his friendship, creative collaboration, and for taking my author photos.

+ This bears repeating: Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! If you have any questions or comments, write me! I would love to hear from you!

! BOOKS !

Posted on March 6, 2024September 21, 2024 by Jami Macarty

Welcome back, Gentle Readers, to my dispatches about making and reading books!

I have good, sweet poetry book news to share with you! Good news comes alive and is multiplied when shared!

On March 4, my second manuscript of poetry marched forth into its life as a book when I answered a call from poet and editor Claudia Keelan, who told me 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒕 won the Test Site Poetry Series Prize!

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒕 won the Test Site Poetry Series Prize!

I cried and laughed, and fell to the floor, praising the Poetry Gods. My poet’s heart taking Deer leap and Owl Eagle flight!

My second book will be coming forth in 2025 from the University of Nevada Press! Hurrah!

What does this acknowledgment mean to my life as a poet? I have been thinking about how, in part, this acknowledgment gives space to my voice in an expansive poem-making conversation. The conversation with and companionship of other poets is everything.

I bow in the direction of Claudia Keelan and Andrew Nicholson series editors, and the series board editors Sherwin Bitsui, Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Ronaldo Wilson. I admire these writers and love their poems, so to be given their confidence, well, my heart fills with exclamation points!

Interim offers two awards. The Test Site Poetry Series Prize I won and the Betsy Joiner Flanagan Award. Hurrah, parallel good poetry news! Congratulations to the Betsy Joiner Flanagan Winner:

𝑨 𝑮𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒉, by Geoffrey Babbitt.

Throughout the selection process, my manuscript was in the company of hundreds of other poets’ manuscripts. Though some of these poets remain anonymous to me, I acknowledge their word efforts and companionship. To the 12 poets with whom I have spent the last two months as a semi-finalist and then finalist (listed below): I trust I will hold in my hands your books soon, soon! Thank you for your good, sweet company, dear poets.

There is a story about when and how the poems in 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒕 came to words. I will tell you that story in another post. For now, the story sums to two words: Persistence! Perseverance! Between December 2020 and December 2023, I offered this manuscript for consideration 41 times. Persistence! Perseverance!

Persist! Persevere! A writer must!

Persist! Persevere!

Tell me, Gentle Reader, about your life as a writer. Tell me how you persist. Tell me how you persevere. Send your comments below.

: :

The Pluses!

+ Thank you bows to my community of women/women-identified writers for their generous, loving support, inspiration, and encouragement.

+ I bow to the hardworking editors, publishers, readers, and printers at literary magazines who publish individual poems and who have supported my writing.

+ I bow to the editors who support my reviews and the publications where they were published: Denise Hill at NewPages; Manahil Bandukwala at Canthius; James M. Fisher at The Miramachi Reader, and Jay Ruzesky at The Malahat Review.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Beth Svinarich et al staff at University Press of Colorado for their beautiful support to me and The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to monsoon storm chaser and marvelous professional photographer, Liz Kemp, whose monsoon photograph storms the cover of The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows to Nomados Literary Publishers, Meredith and Peter Quartermain for making my chapbook Instinctive Acts with me.

+ Thank you bows to Vallum Chapbook Series and editors Leigh Kotsilidis and Eleni Zisimatos for making my chapbook Mind of Spring with me.

+ Thank you bows to Finishing Line Press and editors Leah Maines and Christen Kinkaid for making my chapbook Landscape of The Wait with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Vincent K. Wong for his friendship, creative collaboration, and for taking my author photos.

+ This bears repeating: Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! If you have any questions or comments, write me! I would love to hear from you!

! BOOKS !

Posted on October 31, 2022November 2, 2022 by Jami Macarty

Hello from late October, dear Readers!

I am here with you to share good news.

The good people at Vallum Magazine have nominated my poem “Is Occurring” for a best-of-the-small-presses Pushcart Prize! Whoo Hoo! This is a precious acknowledgement and I am honored that the editors at Vallum put forth my poem. I wrote about Vallum Magazine‘s good people and just how very supportive of me and my writing they have been in May. To read about the mutually appreciative and supportive relationships between a poet and editors who believe in and support her writing— the stuff of community—take a peek at my celebration of Vallum Magazine!

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Heron Tree banner & logo w/ my poem’s title

I am also here with you to announce the publication of two of my poems and to invite you to visit with and read them.

“Snow-Image,” created from “The Snow-Image: A Childish Miracle” in The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1852) was published in Heron Tree, an online poetry journal, on September 14, 2022.

What do I mean by “created from”? I mean the poem was created by a process of highlighting some words—a sort of erasure—I was drawn to on each page of Hawthorne’s short story, removing the words from their original context to reveal new word combinations and meaning. This process, in effect, rendered all other words to the background, as if they had been erased. Sometimes that procedure would leave but two words on a page. For example, below are sections 6. and 7. (of the 22-sections) within the poem “Snow-Image.”

Each section refers to a page within the 22-page story. The choice to have sections and then to have each one correspond to a page of the story emerged after the poem was composed and I began thinking through how it would live on the page. I talk more about the poem’s composition process in an accompaniment to the poem. Here is the beginning of the statement…

While making this poem, I became lost in the best of ways—intuitively, creatively—within the compositional process. Erasures are fun! Their compositional process is akin to a treasure hunt for words. I have wanted to answer a Heron Tree call for erasure poems for a while and hurrah “Snow-Image”—made and sent for consideration on January 15, 2022, accepted for publication 16 days later (whoo hoo that near-to-instant gratification!)—is now a poem in Heron Tree Volume 9, along with other poems created from the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son, by John Mills, and other pre-1927 materials, all now in the public domain. Among the gifts that accompany the publication of “Snow-Image” is that I share space in Heron Tree Volume 9 with B. J. Buckley and Iris Dunkle, beautiful poets and good pals. B. J. Buckley created her poem “Imagine a Grand Picnic” from John Mills’ Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son (1922); Iris Jamahl Dunkle created her poem “Earthquake” from The Valley of the Moon by Jack London (1913).

Read my poem “Snow-Image” created from “The Snow-Image: A Childish Miracle” in The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1852), along with the composition process note in Heron Tree Volume 9.

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*Concision Poetry Journal* cover art: excerpt of “Another World,” by Deborah Keenan

There is more! It is true, I am fortunate that editors recognize my writing by publishing it. Another poem from my manuscript, The Long Now Conditions Permit, “To be for infers” appears in the Fall 2022 of Concision Poetry Journal Issue 2.3. Concision is also an online poetry journal. Accompanying my and the other poems is cover art by Deborah Keenan. See an upper portion of the collage, “Another World” above and a lower portion below.

Meow! I made “To be for infers” via a similar procedure of highlighting individual words and language formulations that came to my attention, but in this poem’s case, the source material was my own writing. As I recall, I started with a three-page block of text. A chunk! Slowly as I read, individual words and language formulations called themselves to the foreground, while simultaneously other words were relegated to the background, where they faded away.

The making of “To be for infers” was a process more engrossing, involved, and time-consuming than that which brought to life “Snow-Image.” I think that is owed to a few reasons. I was drawing from my own writing. There is just some other attention and effort that requires of me. Also, I was taking the time to read in order to discover what possibilities were contained within the text block while also culling word bits and language pieces that called themselves to the foreground of my attention. Plus, I was composing as I read along and made selections; each selection associated with the one previous, and therefore holding the whole in my mind as I went along. Intense, absorbing fun! Eventually, the bits and pieces were assembled, pretty much in order of their discovery in the text block on fresh, spacious pages. Some words were added, and of course the poem went through a few rounds of tweaks. Those tweaks were mostly to the poem’s middle; the beginning and ending of the poem stayed as is.

What I share with you on process in the note above, adds to the brief reflection accompanying the poem in Concision Poetry Journal. Along with the reflection on the poem and the poem, I also offer a list of five books that occupied my attention during the last few months. A bonus to the publication of “To be for infers” is to join and be joined by the poems by women writers from my community: Deborah Bernhardt, Joanna Furhman, and Rachel Mortiz.

This is the second time this year, one of my poems has been published in Concision Poetry Journal. “Before, a Study of Suspension” appears in Issue 2.2, Summer 2022. I wrote about that appearance in my June sharing. Through these two appearances, I have had the chance to get to know Haley Lasché, Editor. I really like her; she is kind, generous, and responsive. I am thrilled to have joined the Concision Poetry Journal community and to be in conversation with Haley Lasché.

Community is everything! I am thrilled we are in one together, dear Reader! Now that I am nearing the close of this post, I can share a reflection. I come to these posts knowing I want to share with you news and events arising in my writing life, but I allow how that sharing unfolds to emerge spontaneously as I write. That way we meet at discovery and surprise. One of the surprises for me in this sharing is the connections between the compositional processes of the two poems “Snow-Image” and “To be for infers,” and now, this post. I did not plan that or this; it occurred and I went with it. That makes me so happy! That. The discovery in real time of connections between poems and approaches, and between writer and reader—me and you. Such gratitude abounds!

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The Pluses!

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention!

+ Thank you bows to my community of women/women-identified writers for their generous, loving support, inspiration, and encouragement.

+ Thank you bows to the good people at Vallum Magazine for nominating “Is Occurring” for a Pushcart Prize and for their continuous support of my poems.

+ Thank you bows to Chris Campolo and Rebecca Resinski, the founders of Heron Tree for their support of my writing/making practice and for giving “Snow-Image” a home roost.

+ Thank you bows to Haley Lasché, Editor of Concision Poetry Journal for her continuing support of my writing and for giving “To be for infers” a concise home.

+ I bow to the existence of Vallum Magazine, Heron Tree, and Concision Poetry Journal, where I find community.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to my publisher Stephanie G’Schwind, and Mountain West Poetry Series editors Donald Revell and Kazim Ali, et al interns at the Center for Literary Publishing (CLP) for making The Minuses (2020) with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Beth Svinarich et al at University Press of Colorado for their beautiful support to me and The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to monsoon storm chaser and marvelous professional photographer, Liz Kemp whose monsoon photograph storms the cover of The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows to Nomados Literary Publishers, Meredith and Peter Quartermain for making my chapbook Instinctive Acts with me.

+ Thank you bows to Vallum Chapbook Series and editors Leigh Kotsilidis and Eleni Zisimatos for making my chapbook Mind of Spring with me.

+ Thank you bows to Finishing Line Press and editors Leah Maines and Christen Kinkaid for making my chapbook Landscape of The Wait with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Vincent K. Wong for his friendship, creative collaboration, and for taking my author photos.

+ This bears repeating: Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! If you have any questions or comments, write me! I would love to hear from you!

! BOOKS !

Posted on May 29, 2022June 14, 2022 by Jami Macarty

Dear Readers, Dear Readers,

Here I am at May’s end to share with you two poems from my second collection, The Long Now Conditions Permit (awaiting a beloved publisher), that have been recently published, and to talk a bit about my practice of sending my writing out for consideration.

*Jet Fuel Review* #23; Cover Art: *Terrarium with Heart of Amateur Mycologist*, by Karyna McGlynn

Jet Fuel Review first came to my attention within a community of women/women-identified writers who share their publishing yeses and nos. Yes, also the nos. Because receiving a no is an indication of taking the time and making the effort to research magazines, prepare a batch of writing, and send it off for consideration. That is, a no is not feedback on its own, but it is a sign that the writer is committed enough to her writing to share it with editors, publishers, and readers. So, our community celebrates the nos. In fact, we challenge each other to send our writing out into the world enough in order to reach the yearly goal of receiving one hundred nos. This is a intersectional feminist literary action meant to confront especially the gender imbalances in the literary landscape.

*Terrarium with Eve and Split Durian,* by Karyna McGlynn

A few of the women writers in this community shared that they had received a yes or a no from Jet Fuel Review. After the name of the magazine appeared in the field of my attention a few times, I felt called to take a closer look. What first captured my attention when I visited the Jet Fuel Review website: the artwork! I found it to be a beautiful blend of the provocative and evocative, speaking a visual language resonant with my imagination and writing. Then, upon reading the writing, I found much to react for and against—both ranges of responsiveness are important to me as a reader. Respecting what I saw and read, I sent the editors a batch of my poems.

They said yes to “Splitting Lesson,” a poem from The Long Now Conditions Permit. Whoo hoo!

l am grateful to everyone who makes Jet Fuel Review (JTR) a vibrancy; I appreciate being included in the JTR community. How dear and special to be in conversation with careful and thoughtful editors.

Sweetening the pot of this yes: That sister writers from my community brought Jet Fuel Review to my attention; That my poem shares space in the magazine with writing by some of those sister writers; That my poem rubs shoulders with poems by poets new to me, including poet and artist Karyna McGlynn whose art is featured in the issue. I dig her marvelous collages!

*Queen of Melting Ice*, by Karyna McGlynn

In our writing community, we not only share yeses/nos, we share our experiences with magazines, bringing to the fore: Those new or lesser known; Those receptive to particular styles of writing; Those with/out artist-friendly editorial practices; Those magazines to approach with trust or caution; Those to avoid. This sharing—rather than coveting—of experience, knowledge, information, and resources is the precious stuff of a supportive community that expresses not scarcity, but abundance. This ethos strengthens our community and broadens it, bringing more writers together with writers and readers. Simply grand!

Of course, the practice of sending writing out for consideration is also, in part, a numbers game. One cannot win unless one plays. As the wisdom goes. And, the way laws of averages work, the more writing a writer sends out for consideration, the more chances there are for it to receive a yes. I am engaged in this practice of sending my writing out for consideration, because I want to learn what there is to learn from the process. But I know this is not a practice for every writer. For me, it is a question of do I want to keep my writing to myself or share it? I want to share it! And, in the process, I am building my tolerance for no. I have come to understand that much about being a writer is about building tolerances for various aspects of the writing practice that are beyond my control. And, I imagine eventually being unshaken by nos…

And, in the same way, being unshaken by yeses, though shaking with despair at the nos and delight at the yeses may not be helped.

One flavor of yes that emerges from the practice of sending writing out for consideration is the opportunity to build a positive relationship of mutual respect, trust, and meaning with the editorial team of a literary magazine in which my writing appears. Those qualities are surely, brilliantly alive in my relationship with the editorial team at Vallum: Contemporary Poetry.

*Vallum: Contemporary Poetry* 13:1 “Open Theme”; Art: Matt Crump

The lovely, good people at Vallum have been enormously supportive to me and my poems. “Helicopter” and “Nor’easter,” two poems from The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), appeared in issue 13:1 “Open Theme.”

Cover of *Mind of Spring*; Cover: James Bremner, Jr.

“Mind of Spring,” my long, three-part poem won the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award and was subsequently published with a cheery yellow (the color of palo verde blossoms) cover, in a limited edition chapbook (sold out in print, but available digitally).

*Vallum: Contemporary Poetry* 18:1 “Invisibility”; Cover: Antoine Janot

Also, my Vallum darlings have published two poems from The Long Now Conditions Permit. “Lustrous Fugitive” appears in issue 18:1 “Invisibility.”

Vallum: Contemporary Poetry 19:1 “Bridges”; Cover: Nora Kelly

I like and admire and respect the editors at Vallum very much, and I like the art and writing that the magazine publishes. Not all of it of course, but most of it and that’s something, because I can be a picky and picayune reader. We each have our preferred chords and flavors and such. “Is Occurring,” another poem from The Long Now Conditions Permit, seems to have struck a chord with the editors of Vallum 19:1 “Bridges,” where it appears. Whoo hoo!

Hurrah bridges!

Poetry Bridges!

Community bridges!

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The Pluses!

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention!

+ Thank you bows to my community of women/women-identified writers for their beautiful, generous, loving support, inspiration, and encouragement.

+ Thank you bows to Simone Muench, Faculty Advisor, Cassidy Fontaine-Warunek, Managing Editor et al who make Jet Fuel Review a vibrancy; I appreciate their professional and stream-lined editorial production methods, and now that I am taking in issue #23, I am appreciative of their collective, inclusive, expansive editorial vision and artistic direction.

+ Thank you bows to Eleni Zisimatos, Co-Editor-in-Chief & Poetry Editor, Jay Ritchie, Managing Editor et al at Vallum: Contemporary Poetry for including me and my poems in your sustaining, important, and beautiful presence of and for poetry and art in Montreal, Canada, and internationally.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Beth Svinarich et al at University Press of Colorado for their beautiful support to me and The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to monsoon storm chaser and marvelous professional photographer, Liz Kemp whose monsoon photograph storms the cover of The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows to Nomados Literary Publishers, Meredith and Peter Quartermain for making my chapbook Instinctive Acts with me.

+ Thank you bows to Vallum Chapbook Series and editors Leigh Kotsilidis and Eleni Zisimatos for making my chapbook Mind of Spring with me.

+ Thank you bows to Finishing Line Press and editors Leah Maines and Christen Kinkaid for making my chapbook Landscape of The Wait with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Vincent K. Wong for his friendship, creative collaboration, and for taking my author photos.

+ This bears repeating: Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! If you have any questions or comments, write me! I would love to hear from you!