poetry

A note from the yard and part one of my report from the 2012 Hampton Roads Writers Conference

Rae Spencer10 Comments

My first day back from the writing conference is sunny and cool, a perfect day to spend in the yard. I had planned to run straight to my office this morning, but the day is too beautiful to ignore.

Each bed of ginger lilies began the summer with several small praying mantises. Now each harbors a single large praying mantis. I don’t know if the survivors killed their competitors or forced them out. Perhaps they shift territories from day to day and I never find the same individual more than once. But it seems logical, to me, that the one above (photographed on September 7th) lives full-time in the small ginger lily bed, while the one below (photographed today) conquered the larger, corner bed.

However it works, I’m hoping there will be praying mantis egg cases by winter.

Report from the 2012 Hampton Roads Writers Conference, Part One

In the past three years, many of my fellow poets and writers have attended the Hampton Roads Writers conference. I decided to see it for myself this year.

The conference opened Thursday evening and ran through Saturday. Presenters included literary agents, journalists, professors, editors, publishers, and a wide range of authors. All three agents held ten-minute pitch sessions and participated in panel discussions during which they critiqued a series of first-ten-line submissions. The conference also offered three free writing contests (fiction, non-fiction, and poetry) with mid-summer deadlines.

My poem “On Fossil Links That Cannot Speak” placed second in The Barbara Dunn Hartin Memorial Poetry Prize. Barbara Dunn Hartin was a longtime member of the Albright Poets and a dear friend. When her son called my name yesterday, I floated to the front of the room through a fog of tears, speechless and overwhelmed. The certificate shook in my hands as I heard her laughter in the room’s echoes and saw her sparkling eyes in every face. It was a magical conclusion for the conference.

(Except it wasn’t quite the end. After my award, two other Albright Poets won prizes for their creative non-fiction!)

Home from the Writing Conference

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The 2012 Hampton Roads Writers Conference ended this afternoon. I drove home tired and happy and wonderfully inspired. I plan to post more details over the next few days, but first I need to catch up on cat time.

Rabbit Update and a Publication Note

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The rabbits now spend their days exploring the shed and deck and irises, stretching their boundaries more and more as they grow. But they aren’t so mature that they are willing to skip a meal with their mother. They predictably return to the ginger lilies each evening, where she meets them after dark.

Even though they still nurse, they have become competent grazers. It’s fun to watch them experiment with the yard’s various weeds and flowers.

Publication Note:  My poem “Ink” appeared at vox poetica earlier this month. It’s now posted on the poemblog.

A Leopard Frog and a Blogging Meme

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I believe this is a Southern Leopard Frog. Frogs are rare in the yard, so I was excited to add this one to the archive. After getting these photos, I tried for a macro close-up. That was when the frog decided my paparazzi persistence was too intrusive. It quickly hopped away.

Actually, hopped is the wrong word. The first hop was a regular, modest jump with a lazy arc and about a foot or so of forward progress. The next jump was an impressive flat leap of at least three feet. Then the frog found another gear and zoomed off in grass-skimming lunges, each “hop” covering five or six feet. It disappeared under the deck in the blink of an eye, a beeline retreat that made me wonder if the deck is its home.

I haven’t seen the frog again, and I don’t expect to. Even so, I slowed my mowing pace yesterday, especially around the deck. Just in case.

I also made certain to mark the rabbit’s nest before starting the mower, because my mind tends to wander as I mow. Rather than mowing right up to the nest, I wanted to leave a wide margin. Hopefully, when the baby rabbits start exploring in a few weeks, the patch of grass around their nest will be tall enough to hide them from the sharp eyes of hungry hawks.

And now… a blogging meme!

Many thanks to Jackie at Swerving for Butterflies! Her posts remind me to look beyond myself (and my yard), to see the world’s tangled web of joy and grief, grace and suffering. She reminds me that I am not alone unless I choose to be. I’m honored that she thought of me, and that she enjoys my blog enough to encourage her readers to visit.

So, here are seven things about me:

1. I have registered for the Hampton Roads Writers 4th Annual Conference, which takes place September 20 – 22 in Virginia Beach, VA. I have not attended this conference before, and I’m looking forward to an inspiring weekend spent in the company of writers.

2. While my publication credits (so far) all involve poetry, I also write fiction. My first manuscript (a literary fantasy for young adults) has received positive attention from a few agents, but no offers for representation. Yet…

3. I recently submitted four photographs for publication in a literary journal. My first photography submission!

4. Submissions are the most difficult part of the writing process, for me.

5. I am working on a poetry chapbook, as well as a full-length poetry manuscript. Both will include photos.

6. My favorite piece of technology is my iPhone, and my favorite app is iBooks. I am learning to love eBooks.

7. When I grow up, I want to be a writer!

Finally, I’m supposed to pass along the “Seven things about me” meme, but I’m going to break tradition a bit. Many of the bloggers that I follow prefer not to receive award nominations and meme tags. So, rather than pursue the formal process of nominating and notifying, here are links to seven of my favorite recent posts. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Mystical Magical Mantis (The Iris and The Lily / August 24)

Stuck up a tree (WILDEN MARSH:  Another Year Living with Nature at Hoo Wood and Wilden Marsh Nature Reserve / August 24)

Cicadas’ Concert (Lynn’s Creativity Post / August 23)

In the Mirror (Momentum of Joy / August 23)

Seeing Things (random acts of writing [+ art] / August 23)

As Above, So Below (Simone Lipscomb / August 21)

Little Toddler Loves (Boomie Bol / August 17)

Luminiferous Ether

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Luminiferous Ether

They imagined a substance
Something made and measurable
That transmitted light
Bore the spectrum from shore
To shore, from planet to planet

Star to star they embraced
Aristotle’s ether, confounded
By the idea of waves
Crossing a sea of nothing
To a boundary that moves

Receding edge of confidence
Calculated into stability
Into constancy, a cosmological
Solution to infinity, dark shadow
Of mass ungrasped, cast across

Galactic coordinates and mapped
Against math, logic to simplify
The special fields of time and space
Elegant descriptions of the refuted
Ether, the vacuum tension condensed

Intelligible, static notation collapsing
Observation and paradox
Particulate light and magnetic
Matter graphed into balance
The observable universe illuminated
By luminous equations