! BOOKS !

Posted on 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 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 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 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! ❤

: :

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

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.

Artwork by Catherine Skinner

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!

: :

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.

+ 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 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, may you be healthy, and have had a marvelous summer. Happy Autumn!

Welcome back to my dispatches about making and reading books!

When I wrote to you in June, I was preparing to proofread the galley for my fourth chapbook The Whole Catastrophe. Galley v.1 arrived via electronic file, I printed it, then served the document’s pages to myself at the dining table where I commenced reading from the blue and white layered over a purple straw placemats with my chosen implements: a No. 2 pencil, a pink highlighter, and a TUL pen in purple.

From June 19 to July 17, Series Editor Eleni Zisimatos, Designer Leigh Kotsidilis, and I formed an editorial team of three patient souls devoted to preparing an error-free, print-ready manuscript of The Whole Catastrophe. We read and corrected. We took a break and awaited the bibliographic record for the Library of Congress (CiP data) and International Standard Book Number (ISBN). We fiddled with the front and back coversr. We read again and corrected again until we caught all of the niggly typesetting bits and pieces that went wonky when my Word file was transferred to a chapbook file. On July 9, the CiP data and ISBN arrived. On July 12, we finalized Rosie Long Decter’s attentive words (below) for the back cover. On July 17, we made the last line break correction to v.5. Et, Fin!

Publication Announcement

THE WHOLE CATASTROPHE
Vallum Chapbook Series No. 38
Jami Macarty

The Endorsement of Rosie Long Decter

In Jami Macarty’s The Whole Catastrophe, every asterisk indicates something precious. Macarty uses the poetic form to create space for what is otherwise omitted: the fresh air outside car windows, the stars blotted out by city infrastructures, a friend gone too soon. Chronicling a road trip to the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, Macarty reflects on fragility, greed and the disasters we must withstand, from toxic feedlots to carbon monoxide poisoning. “We are never very far from an explosion,” she writes, but this is no reason to disengage. Rather, The Whole Catastrophe is a testament to the necessary entanglement of all things. “They can’t out-reverence us,” Macarty writes. Here, resisting destruction means holding onto a sense of wonder, annotating cows in their fields, waving hello to grief, knowing catastrophe like a constellation above.

— Rosie Long Decter

Hurrah, Rosie and her endorsement! I especially love “a testament to the necessary entanglement of all things” for these words get at the soul of the poems in The Whole Catastrophe. Poetry Love!

Sandhill Cranes Incoming, February 7, 2024

The first time I saw Dennis A. Boyd‘s full-color photograph of Sandhill Cranes at Arizona’s Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area (above) was on February 7, 2024 in a Facebook group of Arizona photographers. My heart took flight and my mind wilded. Every time I see Dennis’s gorgeous photograph, I am overcome. Something within in me mends. So, the moment I first saw Dennis’s photograph I knew it had to accompany the poems of The Whole Catastrophe which feature both Sandhill Cranes and Whitewater Draw. Hurrah, Dennis A. Boyd for agreeing to accompanying my art with his. Bird love!

I want to take you to Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area, one of my favorite places on Earth. From October to March, Whitewater Draw is a crucial roost site for migrating Sandhill Cranes (stock image, right). Some 20,000 thousand Sandhill Cranes overwinter at the Wildlife Area where they wade flooded fields and nibble corn stubble. They are typically joined by thousands of Snow and Ross’s Geese, among other migrating waterfowl. The cranes are an elegant sight to see and uproarious orchestra to hear! To get a sense of what it is to be in the presence of this many Sandhill Cranes, and to hear them, tune in to this two-minute video of Sandhill Cranes at Whitewater Draw recorded on January 26, 2024 by Arizona Game and Fish.

Now, let me tell me a bit about the poems in The Whole Catastrophe. The chapbook is comprised of three poems that mix documentary, elegiac, and ecological poetics attendant to the precariousness of our human and earthly lives. “Allowing for Betweens,” one of two long poems in the chapbook, records a roadtrip to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico and grieves the shocking death of a dear friend. A Mesostic poem, a type of acrostic poem invented by John Cage, celebrates the thousands of overwintering Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache. The chapbook closes with the title poem, a celebration of the ecstatic between lovers on a camping trip and a pledge of allegiance to wild lands.

I would love for you to read The Whole Catastrophe! I would love to know your reader’s response to the poems. Would you like to read The Whole Catastrophe? If so, you can purchase a copy from Vallum. Or, if you would like a signed copy, purchase one directly from me. I would be ever grateful to you for your best-of-all book-buying support. Contact me via a comment or email. xo

Forthcoming! Forthcoming!

  • Soon, on behalf of Vallum, T. Liem will be interviewing me about the composition of the three poems in The Whole Catastrophe.
  • 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). Included in the issue will also be one of the poems from The Whole Catastrophe (#38, Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024)…

: :

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.

+ 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 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…

: :

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!

! BOOKS !

Posted on by Jami Macarty

Dear Gentle Reader,

Welcome, may you be well, and in these sorrowful days of wars across and the warming of our planet, may you be doing all that you can to care for yourself, your family, and your community.

As Earth’s poles reach maximum tilt away from the Sun, I want to share with you the light I have been basking in this year. The light I refer to is the sparkle and warmth from the connections my writing made with editors, publishers, and readers. It is truly something wild and special for me to contemplate how my dreams of writing manifested from my imagination to words on pages the eyes of readers held. Fireworks blossom in my heart! These connections are ways I am keeping my faith and hope for the future. A future where the destructive impulse is if not eclipsed then matched by the creative impulse.

During this time when open, honest communication seems ever so fragile, easily breaking down, words seeming to fail us, join me and let us celebrate our connection to words, to the expression and connection language makes possible between us. In this dispatch from my writing desk, like others I offered this year on January 27, 2023, April 23, 2023, and June 30, 2023, I focus on making and reading books. The full-length collections and chapbooks of poems I am making, the books other writers have made that I read, and the books I reviewed.

Books, so full of wonder and the possibility of discovery. Books, such portable art objects. O, what they hold! They hold individual poems, reaching out their hands to readers. The book’s provocative cover art illustrates and associates the writing within. Here are the covers of the anthology and literary magazines where my writing found homes in 2023!

Poems from my first and second books, The Minuses and The Long Now Conditions Permit, respectively, along with a poem from a forthcoming chapbook, have been published since my last post. Allow me to share the details of those sparkling occasions with you here.

Vallum cover art: Casey Flynn

In October, Vallum 20.2, an all-online issue with the theme “Endings and Beginnings,” featured my poem “Late afternoon autumn, a trembled alternative.” If I am counting accurately, this is the eighth poem of mine since 2015 that Vallum‘s editorial team has selected for publication. Hurrah time eight! For your ears and eyes: Read or listen to me read “Who the Strummer” from 16.1, “Lustrous Fugitive” from 18.1, and “Is Occurring” from 19.1. The Vallum team also selected my chapbook Mind of Spring (no. 22: out of print, but available digitally) as the winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Vallum‘s ongoing support is not about numbers; it is about what those numbers suggest: Vallum‘s ongoing confidence and belief in my writing. That is a gift precious to me. A gift for you: You can read (download, too!) the entire 20.2 issue, chock full of beautiful, lyric, elegiac poems, including excerpts from Vallum‘s latest chapbooks—Wellwater (no. 37), by Karen Solie and Lifecycle of a Mayfly (no. 36), by Maya Clubine—on Vallum‘s website. I am ever grateful to Eleni Zisimatos, Poetry Editor, and T. Liem, Managing Editor for their kind attention and for the Vallum team’s ongoing support of my writing.

Cascadia Zen cover art: Rick Bartow

Also, in the tenth month, “Equals Rains,” a poem from my first full-length collection The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), came to print in Volume One of Cascadia Zen: Bioregional Writing on Cascadia Here and Now (Watershed Press, 2023). In this anthology, my poem is in conversation with the writing of Vancouver’s Daphne Marlatt, Meredith Quartermain, and Fred Wah, and writers from California, Washington, and Writer’s Heaven, respectively, such as Brenda Hillman, Jane Hirshfield, Tess Gallagher, Joanne Kyger (1934-2017), and Denise Levertov (1923-1997), among others. Writers I love! Writers I am thrilled to share space with. My many thanks to editors Tetsuzen Jason Wirth, Paul E. Nelson, Adelia MacWilliam, and Theresa Whitehill for including my writing in this beautiful book!

In November, Colorado Review 50.3 | Fall/Winter issue featured “From Hill’s Slant,” another poem from my second full-length collection, The Long Now Conditions Permit. This is a special accomplishment because I have wanted to be published by Colorado Review for a long time. I persisted and kept sending them poem batches. I love the feeling of my persistence meeting their “yes.” Gleefully, “From Hill’s Slant” rubs shoulders with the writing of Cole Swensen, John Gallaher, and Brandon Krieg, among other writers I admire. I am grateful to Matthew Cooperman, Editor, and Lauren Furman, Managing Editor for their time and care with my poem.

And, in this twelfth month, Laurel Review 56.1 features my poem “For L,” an elegy for my friend and poet, the late Lusia Slomkowska (1954-2014). I have in mind that this poem will gather together in a chapbook with some other elegies I have written. By sweet confluence, “For L” shares space in this issue of Laurel Review with a poem by Matthew Cooperman, Poetry Editor of Colorado Review (above), where my poem shares space with John Gallaher, Poetry Editor of Laurel Review. Hurrah, these connections, these stitched-together shapes and patterns in the great quilt or poetry! Hurrah the good company of these readers, writers, and editors in my Writing Practice!

Now, to share a bit about this year’s Reading Practice. Since 2018, I have been conducting a year-long reading extravaganza with a simple goal: To see how many books I can read. I wrote about the discoveries from previous years of #mypersonalBigRead in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. This project is a sort of numbers game, though I do not read just to rack them up. I maintain my integrity while reading books I have always wanted to read, books I have been coveting from my once extra-to-the-bookshelves, towering, and now mostly shelved stacks, books recommended to me, books I am invited to consider for review, classic and hot-off-the-presses books, books that appear as if by mysticism in the field of my attention.

This year marks the sixth year I have challenged myself in #mypersonalBigRead. Each year has had a different personality—from 2018’s beginning excitement to 2020’s trouble concentrating to 2022’s grounded breadth. 2023 has been the most personal, intimate reading year. I have read more of what I most wanted to read, more slowly, savoring, and I have read everything I could get my eyes on by the poets Jane Hirshfield, Joanne Kyger (1934-2017), Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), and C.D. Wright (1949-2016). That deep reading and study expanded my thinking about language’s possibilities and bolstered my writing of poems and reviews.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-7.png

While some years I reached a tally of over three hundred titles, so far this year I am at two hundred twenty. Of those books, I have reviewed one chapbook (for Amazon), one mixed-genre book, and twenty poetry collections. The reviews of the poetry and mixed-genre books found homes in Canthius, The Malahat Review, The Miramichi Reader, NewPages, and Vallum.

How do you decide which books you will read? Might a review pique your interest? Consider yourself most cordially invited to read my reviews as a way to consider whether or not you would like to add any of those books to your reading list. The links to those reviews can be found on the Poet page (scroll a bit) on this (my) site.

If dear Reader, you have read to this next word: “amazing,” then thank you! I am thrilled by and grateful for your attention. And, I hope what you have read inspires you in your writing, publishing, and reading endeavors.

Read! Write! Persist in and with words!

: :

The Pluses!

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! Welcome, those new here. May you find inspiration!

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

+ I bow to the editors and existence of the anthologies and literary magazines Cascadia Zen, Vallum, Colorado Review, Laurel Review, Puerto del Sol, The Ocean State Review, where I gratefully find support and community.

+ 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 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!

! BOOKS !

Posted on by Jami Macarty

Hello from the middle of June, dear reader!

This is quite a week in a poet’s life—because a review-in-conversation I have love-labored over since November 2021 now appears in The Capilano Review, and a poem from The Long Now Conditions Permit now appears in Concision Poetry Journal. Ta da!

Yes, being published is exciting, especially after the butt-in-chair love-labors of transcribing recordings and editing responses, whether those conversations are between two poets or between a poet and the world as it unfolds during a walk-poem. And, beyond being in print, there exists the possibility of connection and communion with other writers and readers, who by the grace of the Poetry Gods, may shake hands and rub shoulders with my words.

Allow me to court that possibility of connection with you right now!

You are most cordially invited to read: On Then Now: A Conversation with Daphne Marlatt, featured in The Capilano Review | See to see— column.

On Then Now: A Conversation with Daphne Marlatt, featured in The Capilano Review | See to see—

What you will read is an edited-to-two-thousand-five-hundred-word version of the twelve-thousand-word transcription of four recorded 20- to 30-minute meetings that took place via Zoom in November 2021 when Canadian poet Daphne Marlatt and I met to talk about the thinking behind and making of her most recent book, Then Now (Talonbooks, 2021). Kaboom!

A special-to-me aspect of my conversation with Daphne, which unfolded during the editing process of our review-in-conversation, focused on maintaining the tone and energy of our live conversation once it was on the page. We agreed that despite any wish to have been more or differently articulate in the moment, the meaning, awkward though its syntax may be, is clear. So, we left the accompanying awkwardnesses associated with thought coming to articulation as is. Within the conversation, Daphne talks about not wanting to “tamper” with her father’s voice in the text of her book; at another point, she says writing is “a matter of hearing, learning to hear the various levels in language.” This ethos informs our desire and commitment to leave the idiosyncrasies of our speech intact. With that, thank you for joining the conversation!

Read! On Then Now: A Conversation with Daphne Marlatt in The Capilano Review | See to see—

Daphne Marlatt

Daphne Marlatt is important to me. I love her as a person and poet. Something juicy special takes place when we talk together about the possibilities of words and meditation! In addition to poetry, we also share an interest in Buddhism, birds, and trees. I am grateful to Daphne for talking with me through her poetry, over coffee, and by offering words of support to The Minuses. I wrote more about the ways Daphne has inspired and supported me in the September 28, 2020 post.

Back to wooing you, my dear reader, and the possibility of connecting with you right now! You are most cordially invited to read: “Before, a Study of Suspension,” a poem in Concision Poetry Journal, Issue 2.2, Summer 2022 published today (!).

Concision Poetry Journal, Issue 2.2, Summer 2022

In this issue, you have the possibility of receiving the words of my poem, a reflection on some of the poem’s influences, and my book recommendations. While you are visiting with my poem and accompanying reflection and recommendations, consider yourself welcomed to the poems and accompaniments by the other fifteen poets, also included in the issue.

I first heard about Concision Poetry Journal from the community of women/women-identified writers who I referred to in my May 2022 post. In that posting, I share the publication news of two other poems from The Long Now Conditions Permit and a bit about my practice of sending writing out for consideration. This community of writers: supportive, generous, and much more!

Haley Lasché

Haley Lasché, an experimental poet and the wonderful editor of Concision Poetry Journal, is part of that marvelous community. I have come to regard Haley as an editor who is kind, thoughtful, inclusive, and visionary. What a pleasure corresponding with and getting to know her is!

Here, I give you the opening lines of “Before, a Study of Suspension“—

Read! “Before, a Study of Suspension,” a poem in Concision Poetry Journal, Issue 2.2, Summer 2022.

Right now, as I write this sharing, I realize that I am delighting in beginnings—the idea of talking with Daphne Marlatt about her book Then Now, the coming to language of a poem, the introduction to Concision Poetry Journal, an experimental poetry journal—and where those impulses and sparks of attention lead—to an expansive conversation with a beloved poet, to a deepening relationship with the imagination of a poem, to a new experimental poet friend—Haley Lasché, to the possibilities of connection with readers. With you!

: :

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 Daphne Marlatt, beautiful person, poet, and friend, for talking with me!

+ Thank you bows to Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross, an editor at The Capilano Review for supporting the conversation-in-review project through its publication.

+ Thank you bows to Haley Lasché, an experimental poet and the wonderful editor of Concision Poetry Journal, a triannual online literary magazine, she started in “2021 by looking to promote work that excites her.” I am grateful for Haley’s excitement, care, and vision. 

+ 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 by Jami Macarty

Dear Reader! Dear Listener!

On October 1, 2021, Sabyasachi (Sachi) Nag at The Artisanal Writer asked me nine questions about the craft of writing and reading. And, I answered them!

The Artisanal Writer asked me these nine Qs:

  1. Each of your poetry collections seem to have been either triggered by or woven around a few central ideas e.g., The Minuses, around the relationships between women and nature; Instinctive Acts, around immigration and identity; Mind of Spring, around facets of personal and military wars; Landscape of The Wait, around your nephew’s car accident. Do you arrive at the idea first and then compose around the idea or does the idea emerge from the writing, informed by the obsessions at a given period of time?
  2. What are your primary concerns when constructing a poem? Are you like Frost trying to make each poem as different from the previous as possible? Or do you think that couldn’t be?
  3. In an interview with Colorado State University, you said “I tend not to bypass what’s present, but instead use it as the prompt from which to write.” In that context, how do you arrive at meaning, or do you consciously not and allow the reader to arrive at it? How important is intention in a particular piece within a themed collection?
  4. What made you a writer?
  5. What does it mean/suggest for you to think about your craft with each published work? If you were to associate an image with the development timeline of your writing craft what would that look like?
  6. In pushing your work beyond your first title what were you most conscious of? What were/are you trying to achieve?
  7. Are there any books that you keep visiting for inspiration?
  8. Do you train your subconscious in certain ways to deal with success or rejection?
  9. How do you deal with aspects of writing that provoke negative emotions such as self-doubt, failure, exasperation? Is there an emotional ritual/practice you follow to deal with that?

The Artisanal Writer editors bestowed upon my responses a lightening accompaniment.

Fulgur Conditum!

Read my nine responses here!

May you find lightening buried among them.

Within the interview, I offer a five-minute recorded reading from the poems of The Minuses.

(Find the recording after the ninth question.)

Listen to the reading here!

: :

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

+ Thank you bows to Sabyasachi (Sachi) Nag and The Artisanal Writer for the gift of inquiry and space to respond.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to 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 (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!

! Books !

Posted on by Jami Macarty

Happy third month of 2021! Dear Reader, I am grateful for your lovely company here, where I share information about my books, the books of others, and my reading practice.

Since the publication of The Minuses a year ago this month, I’ve been writing to you to share “the constellation of pluses” around my during-the-pandemic-published poetry collection. What are “the pluses”? Pluses take the form of reviews, interviews, and reading invitations I and my poems have been lucky to receive. In this post, I will also take account of books I’ve read so far this new year as I begin reading my way through my fourth annual personal Big Read: #mypersonalBigRead2021.

Bill Neumire on The Minuses: “Macarty theorizes, “The poem exists, arises with and between the poet and the reader; the poem could be thought of as the meeting bridge.” Flannery O’Connor, drawing from Pierre Chardin, told us everything that rises must converge, and in the Sonoran Desert, described with replete taxonomical detail covering its flora and fauna, Macarty gives us a persona that sends herself “into the desert to become a third person.” If, as Don Paterson tells readers in his tome-length new reflection on the very nature of a poem’s exigency, “silence is the space in which the poem makes its large echoes,” this book is humming with desert silence, and forcefully compelling in its echoic impact.”

Bill Neumire offered The Minuses an expansive, attentive, and thoughtful review in issue 17:2 “Space” of Vallum, a magazine of contemporary poetry published in Montreal, Quebec. Vallum, edited by Eleni Zisimatos and managed by Leigh Kotsilidis, gave two poems from The Minuses a home: “Nor’easter” and “Helicopter” appeared in issue 13:1 “Open Theme.” Vallum is also the publisher of Mind of Spring, my second chapbook of poetry and winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Vallum and the good people who edit and manage it are special and important to me.

Set in a desert borderland, Mind of Spring, a poem in three parts, uses contemplation as a compositional element to call to attention the social, cultural, environmental, and personal mechanisms of war. Written across borders—both visible and invisible—between homelessness and home, estrangement and intimacy, lyric and language, the poem reflects on an accreting grief for the world and meaning of the observed, while offering the reader an alternative to the commodified and monetized.

Mind of Spring, #22 in Vallum Chapbook Series, sold out of hard copies, but is available in digital format at either Vallum or 0s&1s, literary playground. Consider yourself invited to visit Vallum—to check out Mind of Spring and to read Bill Neumire’s review of The Minuses in issue 17:2 “Space”!

: : : :

Now, to my reading practice, which consists of challenging myself to read a volume, or part of one, each day of the year. For me, a volume is a collection of poetry, a chapbook, a magazine, a literary journal, a novel, memoir, essay collection, etc. I’ve written about why I’m doing this in other posts. The main impetus that prompted this Big Read was the realization that books were stacking into to-be-read towers around my desk. I seemed to be buying books, but instead of reading them I was coveting them. The mounting stacks were causing anxiety about when and how I would ever get to all of the books. Rather than pull out my hair, or do nothing, I decided to just start reading and see what I could read. The first year, 2018, I read 300 volumes. In 2019, I read a few more than 300, and in 2020, I read 200 volumes. I have to type it out: I read 800 volumes in three years. That number also gives you a sense of the to-be-read towers to which I’m referring.

The stacks have dwindled considerably, but there are still more books to read. In 2021, I intend to keep reading.

Here are some of the volumes I read in January 2021. For the first month of the year, I had the loose intention to read mostly writing by women, and that’s what I did. Seventeen of the twenty volumes of poetry and nonfiction essays depicted are written by women. The remaining eleven volumes I read during the month were written by a mix a binary and nonbinary writers, and were read in digital formats. Included: ~250 poetry submissions of three to five poems each—that’s about 1,200 poems!—for The Maynard, the poetry magazine I co-founded and edit.

Reading is, of course, teaching me a lot about myself, writing, the world—and about reading. There are times when I think about reading to such an extent that I no longer quite grasp what it is or how to do it. Reading is getting weirder for me. During a recent think on reading, I came to realize that reading scares me. I’m not convinced I can do it or be good at it. Every time I pick up a book I have the question: Will I be able to read and understand this? Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop me; I just keep reading.

Here’s February stack! For February I made the intention to read Black and biracial writers. I wanted to do something tangible to celebrate, honor, elevate, and be an ally to Black poets and writers. This stack contains 23 (one volume is three-books-in-one!) volumes of poetry, stories, essays, and memoir—all by Black and biracial writers from the US, Canada, Kenya, Ghana. Additionally, I challenged myself to write a reader’s response to each book; you can read those on my Facebook page.

As of today, March 1, 2021, I have read 65 volumes, with #66, Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, on the go. The recently released The Selected Works of Audre Lorde, edited by Roxane Gay, is on my list!

I acknowledge that reading and having the time to read are privileges.

I’ll be back in touch soon with more reviews of The Minuses and to share more about my reading practice in 2021.

Thanks very much for joining me here, for reading me! I’d love to hear about what your reading practice and what you’re reading. Leave me a comment!

: : : :

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! If you have any questions or comments, write me!

+ Thank you bows to reviewer, Bill Neumire, for his attentive, thoughtful, generous review of The Minuses.

+Thank you bows (continuous!) to Eleni Zisimatos and Leigh Kotsilidis et al at Vallum for their confidence in and support of my writing.

+ Thank you bows to the writers and publishers who brought their grand accomplishments of books into the world.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to 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 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 (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!

& Instinctive Acts

Posted on by Jami Macarty

As the sand drains to the bottom of December 31’s remaining hours, and just like the end of 2017, lasts, like this day, point me toward reflection and acknowledgment, announcement and celebration. In my previous post, I took stock of my year in poetry, bowing to those who joined and supported me. 

In this post, I announce Instinctive Acts, my third chapbook of poetry, published in October 2018 by Nomados Literary Publishers, edited by Meredith Quartermain and Peter Quartermain. 

Here’s Meredith Quartermain unveiling Instinctive Acts on October 19, 2018 at Nelson The Seagull (cafe). Instinctive Acts joins my other two chapbooks of poetry. 

Landscape of The Wait
Mind of Spring

In my first chapbook, Landscape of The Wait (Finishing Line Press, 2017), a poetic response to my nephew William’s car accident and year-long coma, the landscape is hospital and waiting rooms on the Atlantic coast in the Northeastern US, where I grew up and where my family still lives, and the conceptual landscape waiting carves in the minds and hearts of the waiters. In my second chapbook, Mind of Spring (No. 22 Vallum Chapbook Series, 2017), the landscape is the Sonoran Desert that surrounds Tucson, Arizona, and includes streets and neighborhoods (Barrios) of the city’s Downtown. This long poem in three parts also takes place in corporate America and oil-rich Middle Eastern countries surrounded by the Arabian Desert. 

I A covers (2)

The landscape of Instinctive Acts is Vancouver, British Columbia’s Downtown Eastside and Gastown neighborhoods. In these poems, I’m writing to locale/dis/location; place/dis/placement; neighbor/neighborhood. The poems are written as taking place in the city and so by that association they are of a city. Weirdly perhaps, I do not think of them as commentary on city (the urban) or in contrast to the (suburban) small village I grew up in on the other side of the continent or to the desert. Place is important because of a feeling of exile, displacement, immigrant status, and, the loneliness that comes with being new and other in a place, especially one that tends to remind you of your otherness. 

Everyone has their pre/occupation. In these poems, mine is: How do I and my neighbors live together? What is neighbor/neighborhood? Who belongs–the geography of self? Who is inside/outside–figuratively and literally? How do we connect? Where do we find community? What is home? Where is it found? To what elements of deconstruction are connection, community, and home vulnerable? 

The vulnerabilities are revealed through: Woman walking. Violence–against women. Writing on the wall, as literal and metaphoric implication. Talking to walls. Speech. Communication. Listening/watching in order to locate. In order to be. In relationship. In community. With self, other, streets, alleys, restaurants, birds (nature), and rain. It wouldn’t be Vancouver without rain.

In Vancouver, rain is often a source of complaint, keeping residents inside. By contrast, in Tucson, rain is a cause for celebration, dancing residents into the streets. I’ve always loved the rain. Rain that washes but that’s not what it’s for. Rain that punctuates but that’s not what it’s for. Rain no matter what. Rain on everything. Rain indiscriminately. 

Rain–its absence or presence. Birds. Location. These are three constants in my work.

I want to tell you a bit about how the cover came to be.

As with the other two chapbooks, I wanted a photograph for the cover. Meredith Q. was hesitant, so I was in the process of accepting a text only cover for Instinctive Acts when I had a dream in which a photo of the gargoyle, as I call it, in an alley near where I live became the cover of the chapbook. The next morning, I contacted Vincent Wong, my friend and a wonderful photographer to see if he’d come take the gargoyle’s picture. He agreed! 

Here are some of Vincent’s beautiful captures of the day.

Once I had Vincent’s wonderful photographs, I selected the one (bottom left) and mocked up a cover for Meredith to see. She loved it, and when I told her about my dream, the new cover was born! 

What a joy it was to collaborate with Meredith and Vincent on the book! I bow to them, and to Joanne Arnott and Wayde Compton, who offered their endorsements for the poems. Terrific artists all, who make Vancouver’s arts and my community more vibrant.

With the book all together, it was time to celebrate! 

Rolf, the owner of People’s Co-op Bookstore, where we gathered to celebrate Instinctive Acts welcomed us. First up: Jacqueline Turner, a new friend and wonderful poet read from her new work forthcoming from ECW Press. Next Jacqueline and I read part of a poem we wrote in collaboration for Pandora’s Collective Poetic Pairings reading (October 30, 2018). Then, it was my turn! I read 10 poems from Instinctive Acts. The reading closed with Japanese poet, Soramaru Takayama and I reading two more poems from the chapbook. I read in English, Sora read his translations of my poems in Japanese; then, we read the poems in our respective languages simultaneously (Go to this post on my Facebook page to listen to Sora’s and my performance).

There’s another chapbook of my poems into the world. Tra la! Will you read it and then share with me your response? That’s a poet’s hope! Happy All Year!