Thursday, February 28, 2019

Snow Angel Guide Us to Spring!

Photo by P. Tonery

In the month of February, we have experienced all kinds of weather in western NY.  Ice storms, snowstorms, wind storms, and patches of sun and warmer than usual temps, then plunging cold, Polar Vortex.

It's the last day of February.  I have just updated by web site, which was long overdue.  

Publications in 2019:


Poems
“(Un)resolved” The Pangolin Review, January, 2019
“May Life Be Kind White It Lasts” Blue Heron Review February, 2019
“For a Glimpse of the Sea” Amethyst Review, January 11th, 2019

“Fighting Death” Amethyst Review, February 18th, 2019 
 “With and Without” Amethyst Review, March 23rd, 2019
 “Nothing” Blueline 40th Anniversary Edition, Spring, 2019
 “The End in Sight,” “these woods” (couplet) and “slow moving fog” (haiku)
 The Bamboo Hut, February 2019.
 “The Lopsided Ticking of Dali’s Clocks” The Ekphrastic Review, January, 2019
“What Can I Spare?” Subterranean Blue Poetry, upcoming issue in 2019-2020
 “The Kiss” Quill and Parchment, February, 2019
 “One Breath— ” Clementine Unbound March, 2019
 “Look Up, Slowly” (Haibun) Plum Tree Tavern, February, 2019
 “Soap: Snow” Third  Wednesday, June, 2019
 “Once, Removed” Tiny Spoon Literary Magazine, 2019
 “Waiting on the Edge of the Invisible” and “Distance between Stars” Red Eft Review, March 2019
“Thinking of A Cure for Cancer after Looking at Thousands of Eyeless Fish Wash Up on a New   Zealand Beach” Otoliths, March, 2019

Fiction

“Over (cast)” A Story in 100 Words, January, 2019
“Snow” A Story in 100 Words, January, 2019
“(Re)do” Grey Sparrow Journal, February, 2019
“The Hold-up” A Story in 100 Words, February, 2019.

CNF Essays
“The Orchard” Nature Writing, February 2019
“Hair(cut)”  Eunoia Review, March 2019.”
“Mirage” Otoliths, March 2019

Nominations, Awards
“Cry, Baby” Lost Balloon nominated for the Best Microfiction Anthology, 2019

Chapbook
Finitude, a micro-chapbook, Origami Poems Project, February, 2019


Last year, I finally made my goal of 100 publications in a year. I am hopeful that I will do that again this year.  Of course, this success depends upon my ambition to write and revise every day.
Teaching can slow this process down a bit because writing is an inward practice whereas teaching is outward.  

I have been extremely busy with workshops, going into the schools, working with students, 6th -12th grades.  I have been inspired by their originality and ways of seeing and understanding the power of metaphor. It makes me hopeful.   The strong critical thinking skills.  Kudos to their teachers who have encouraged them to have big ideas.

I have just finished 6 cycles of infusion therapy; with robotic radical GYN surgery in December for ovarian cancer.  As of this moment, I am cancer free. Once again, I am looking out upon uncharted territories. The six months went by quickly.  I had wonderful care, and now I am on my own, trying
to create a new routine, which includes everything I love to do.

What am I planning? 

Another vegetable garden, I have stacks upon stacks of  seed catalogs to peruse daily, and I do, imagining  the rows, leafy and green and abundant, despite the new 8 inches of snow.

Travel!  Near and far, with good humor and a light suitcase.  I think this will be the decade of many experiences(good, bad, ugly) you know how that goes, when you are out of your element.

Writing and making art!  Of course.

Onward!  Follow your snow angel!





 




Saturday, February 2, 2019

February 2nd: Early Spring in Ground hog's sight!

Photo by  P. Tonery: Sun Dog,  Winter Morning

In an eyeblink of New Year, January came and went. Our weather  (Polar Vortex) has been cold to the bone. The Spring semester at St. John Fisher started three weeks ago, and The College at Brockport started this week. So far, all is well.

Today, the Ground Hog didn't see his shadow, so he predicts the promise of an early Spring-- make it so weather gods.

In 2018, I had the grand total of 106  acceptances (poetry, fiction, essays, reviews). 100 acceptance has been my annual   goal for several years , and I have been a bit short. I was so surprised that I actually did it this year.  I feel extremely fortunate to have my work appear in so many fine journals. Now I am working on  a new collection of poems and a collection of 100 100 word stories.  I began this work in December 2018, during those limbo holiday weeks, when everything is strangely quiet and time seems to move at a slower pace. Now I am not sure if I am on foot or horseback, and the beginning of every new semester is wild with do this--
no, do this-- and somehow, everything gets done.

Recent work published in December: 

Dime Show Review: (100 word Story)

https://www.dimeshowreview.com/another-time-by-m-j-iuppa/?fbclid=IwAR1mlkhNpaEK2jMgy0DbxuDUxpkRErB6moRi0mohpK5swDco7FyJLZKW1H4

 Poems in Ekphrastic Review.
http://www.ekphrastic.net/apps/search?q=iuppa


Poems in Burning House:
https://burninghousepress.com/2018/12/21/m-j-iuppa-2-poems/?fbclid=IwAR3QSAHQNaDZ3i3n-fmxVzBkm_GXUdIAiKDHAkYVFxjAOcbInKQQuAkmsLI

Consider sending your creative work to these fine journals.




 Quote for the Day:


“When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is life itself. And I think the world tends to forget that this is the ultimate significance of the body of work each artist produces. That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.”
                                                        ~ Stanley Kunitz