! Books !

Posted on by Jami Macarty

Welcome to our meeting place where we talk about writing, making, reading, and reviewing books!

I am writing to you on Martin Luther King’s birthday. I write to you on this auspicious day to honor Dr. King and you, Dear Reader, as a member of my Beloved Community. Though Fellowship of Reconciliation founder Josiah Royce coined the term Beloved Community, Dr. King popularized it with the intention of advancing goodwill for all people sharing life on Earth.

I have been thinking a lot about the connections books facilitate and how reading engenders community, communing, and conversation. Conversations like the one I have with you here, and the conversations I have with other writers.

On December 11, 2024, Vallum Society for Education in Arts and Letters hosted a space for Canadian poet T. Liem to interview me on the making of my fourth chapbook The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024).

In the interview’s introduction, T. Liem describes their reader’s enagement with the poems of The Whole Catastrophe:

Read my response to T’s opening remarks and the entire interview, titled An Inked Shorthand of Marks, in which we talk about exploding vilanelles, what poetry can do for us, verbing and nouning words, and personal and ecological grief. Join our conversation!

When poets offer poetry readings together, they make possible multiple facets of connection and conversation between themselves, among their books, and with the readers/listeners who attend. On December 7, 2024, POG Arts Tucson and Chax Press hosted me, Sarah Rosenthal, and Valerie Witte at Tucson’s 326 Gallery to read from our recent poetry collections.

The action shots (above) of us, our introducers, and some of the beautiful audience members who extended their ears and hearts to us, made for a lovely, rich, full evening of conversation about books.

Sarah, Valerie, and I have planned more gathering places for ourselves, our books, and others in Santa Fe later this month and early February. Join us if you can!

Reviewing is another facet of conversation that spirals out from books. A review faciliates conversations between author and reviewer and between reviewer and other readers of the book, and carries the possibility of building a community of readers around a book. In 2024, I offered 40 reviews, totalling almost 12,000 words, to poetry titles. Two long-form reviews were published in Colorado Review and The Malahat Review. Thirty-eight short-form reviews were published in NewPages. I tried to write four reviews a month… See the list below for when I achieved that goal.

2024 REVIEWS: An offering of 40 reviews!

Reviewing is much more than a numbers game to me. I think of my reviewing as a practice in attention for myself and as service to writers in my/our creative community. I focus my attention especially on the underrepresented voice of writers who identify as women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ, and the small presses within the publication world. I write reader’s response reviews to understand how a book has impacted me, to support the writers and publishers of books, and to support the magazines that publish reviews, which in turn support me by publishing the reviews I write. Together we form a big, beautiful community, congregating around books. Hurrah, books!

Before there can be any of the outward spiralling from books described above, there is the inward spiralling as reading impacts my reader’s imagination. Books teach me how to read. They teach me the thrill of discovery—of knowledge, interest, art. They offer company, and through representation, inspire me to be the person, woman, and artist I want to be in the world we share.

If you have been following these ! Books ! posts, then you may recall #mypersonalBigRead project. Begun in 2018 to address the stacks of unread books towering around my desk (and, if I am honest, throughout my house), the project now centers around my education in poetry and connection with other writers and readers.

In 2024, I read 262 books! Here are the stats for the project’s seven years:

Ahem, that is a total of 2000 books, Dear Reader. I read 2000 books in seven years. I have to repeat it to believe it. Perhaps because I was a child of a single parent who neither read to me nor encouraged me to read, perhapas because I have a learning disability, perhaps because I am scared each time I pick up a book, wondering if I will be able to read it, reading 2000 books in seven years is a big deal! Hurrah books! ❤

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The Pluses!

+ 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!

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

+ 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.

+ Thank you bows to T. Liem for their generous and generative conversation on the making of The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024).

+ Thank you bows to POG Arts Tucson, Chax Press, Sarah Rosentha, and Valerie Witte for making and sharing space.

+ 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 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 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 by Jami Macarty

Dear Gentle Reader,

Hello! It has been a while. Where have I been? Paddling on the river of words, of course!

How about you? How do your words flow? And, what words flow to you through books you are reading? I’m curious.

One idea I have for flowing your words: Join August’s Write, Write, Write, the five-day generative writing course I offer in person at Simon Fraser University. Writers in the course meet for 2.5 hours Monday-Friday to experiment with language, engage in word-play, and pursue their stories, poems, and memoirs, while dissolving writing blocks and befriending the sometimes cranky inner critic. Is one of the remaining seats available, yours? I would love to write with you!

Invitation: Join me in Write, Write, Write this August.

More invitations as you read on…

Publication news to share

Haiku Hike 2024 | Serenity

2024 marked Tucson’s Fifth Annual Haiku Hike Literary Competition. The 2024 theme: Serenity. Haiku entries were judged by Tucson’s Poet Laureate, TC Tolbert. The Stats: 2,069 haiku were submitted; 1,385 submissions came from Tucson; 29 different states were represented in the submissions; 27 different countries were represented in the submissions.

I entered three haiku in the competition. And, one of my haiku won! Tralala! Of the 2,069 haiku that were submitted, there were 20 winners. Each of the winning poems was embossed on clear plaques which were then planted in big pots of flowers that line one of Downtown Tucson’s major corridors for all pedestrians to read (See map below).

A wee story: The day I took myself on the Haiku Hike to see and read each of the 20 haiku when I arrived at my haiku there was a lovely person there already visiting with my poem and I overheard her say, “Oh, I like this one.” Is there sweeter music to a poet’s ears?

Preview each winning haiku in the 2024 Haiku Hike Literary Competition with accompanying images taken for the Downtown Tucson Partnership (DTP) by JJ Snyder Photography.

Invitation: Then, after you take in the 20 haiku, write some of our own.

Cascadia Zen

To celebrate the publication of Volume one of Cascadian Zen: Bioregional Writings on Cascadia Here & Now, anthology co-editors Paul E. Nelson, Tetsuzen Jason Wirth, and Adelia MacWilliam came to Vancouver and convened with contributors Kate Braid, Daphne Marlatt, and me (Jami Macarty) at People’s Co-op Bookstore for a lovely and loving community-based celebration of Cascadia. Image L to R: Kate, Paul, Adelia, Jason, Daphne, and Jami.

Invitation: Listen to the reading’s audio.

A Journal of the Plague Years

Some of you know that during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wrote the essays “Endangered Species” and “Protest, Police, Pandemic & Palimpsest—Tucson, Arizona” accompanied by poems for The Journal of the Plague Years, Susan Zakin, Founder and Editor.

Then, for a while, I served as the Poetry Editor for the journal. In that capacity, I had the chance to acquire a group of terrific poems written by poets I respect. Four of those poets—Lauren Camp, Maxine Chernoff, Paul Nelson, and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer—and their poems join my essay, “Endangered Species” in the journal’s anthology A Journal of the Plague Year (Blue Books, 2024), which Dean Kuipers at Red Canary Magazine called “A fascinating and cathartic read about an experience that is not over, but keeps getting weirder and more dangerous.”

It is gratifying for me to see my efforts as a writer and poetry editor come together in one volume.

Invitation: Read my and the poets’s poems.

Orbis International Literary Journal, #208-Summer ’24

A poem I started writing in January 2020, “The Giant Redwood Addresses Subhradeep Dutta” was given space in Orbis #208. This is my writing’s second appearance in Orbis, and I am grateful to Carole Baldock, Editor for her kind attention to my poems. All in good time, my prettys!

Reading & Writing Practices

I have been keeping up with writing a poem ish thingy each day. As for my reading practice, I am not reading as many books as I sometimes do, but what I am reading feels just right. Since I last wrote you, one long-form and seven short-form reviews have joined the words of the world. You can find all of the reviews I have offered, among other things on this site’s Poet page.

Invitation: You are cordially invited to peruse!

Forthcoming! Forthcoming!

Soon, Interim – A Journal of Poetry and Poetics (Since 1944!) will be publishing their “Finalist Issue,” featuring the semifinalists, finalists, and winners for the Test Site Poetry Series prize. That issue will feature some poems from my Test Site prize-winning manuscript The Long Now Conditions Permit (forthcoming University of Nevada Press) and a poem from my forthcoming chapbook The Whole Catastrophe (#38, Vallum Chapbook Series, summer 2024). I am right now in the process of proofreading the galley for the chapbook, so stay tuned for more about that process and and my fourth chapbook’s publication…

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The Pluses!

+ 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!

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

+ I bow to hardworking editors, publishers, readers, and printers at literary magazines and anthologies who publish individual poems and who have supported my writing, especially TC Tolbert at Haiku Literary Competition; Paul Nelson at Cascadia Zen; Susan Zakin at A Journal of the Plague Years, and Carole Baldock at Orbis International Literary Journal.

+ 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.

+ Thank you bows to Vallum Chapbook Series and editors Leigh Kotsilidis and Eleni Zisimatos for making my chapbook The Whole Catastrophe with me.

+ 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 and the Besty Joiner Flanagan Award in Poetry.

+ 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 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!