Patience and Publishing

Publishing in literary journals takes time, but possibly that is okay because it forces me to put more attention of writing, which is what I should be doing.

Here is an example. 

Writing on the Edge is a writing and teaching journal edited and published by the University Writing Program, University of California, Davis. I submitted two poems to the journal in late December, 2025. 

I received an email on January 19, stating that the poems were under consideration for inclusion in the next issue. (This is quite a fast response, based on my experience.) I interacted with editors several times over the next few months regarding adding some comments, a name change for one poem, and various printing issue requests. I finally received my two "contributor issues" in late July--a process of seven months.

The editor notes in his introductory remarks for the Spring 2026 issue, regarding writing, "The poems, 'Traveler, Path, and Destination,' and 'The Northern Lights Danced in Iowa While I Read Poetry,' explore reading, writing, cartography, self-discovery, and the irreconcilability of artistic and natural beauty. Kepler's poems push on the limits of perception, particularly through the acts of reading and writing."

Writing poems and publishing poems are certainly different tasks. I suppose I'm talking about the art of writing and the business of writing. I'm continuing to learn and function in both areas.

From what I've read from interaction and research, most literary magazines publish around three percent of submissions. In addition to competitive numbers, there is also the great diversity of taste and opinion in what constitutes a good poem. Therefore, I'm finding myself enjoying learning the "modern" process of submitting poetry online through various platforms, such a Submittable, yet still keeping that as a secondary process, the main process being maintaining a regular writing schedule.

My quickest reinforcement from a writing community has been local with my continued interaction with local writers and performers. I've contributed to local poetry readings a few times over the last year and plan to continue doing so. 

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Regarding Family Math

Dad, Mom, and Me, 2014

Regarding Family Math:

My father’s math is easy—1920 and it’s eighty years to 2,000. Add twenty-six and you’ve got 106, his age he would have been on his birthday two days from now.

My mother’s is a bit more tricky—1924. Take the eighty, just in as dad’s, add the twenty-six, but then subtract the four from the eighty, equaling 102. Also, consider the fact that her birthday is in December, not August, so the math will be accurate in five months.

I’ll say right here that the math keeps me sharp, as if doing this one example of math will neutralize time. I know a couple of calculations will not placate time’s hunger, but we feed the dog whatever scraps we have handy.

It’s not the birthdays but the days of their deaths that I have trouble with. I just can’t seem to be able to memorize them. I have no inclination. The death days elude me. It’s like creeping charley slowly encroaching the stones that mark their graves, blurring the edges, greening the clean lines, last year’s dried detritus muffling and cloaking the sharp etched letters.

It’s not that I’m a bad son (or uncaring brother to my younger brother and older sister, both gone), and I’m not forgetful. Perhaps I’m the rebellious one in the family, refusing to remember, refusing to die. Perhaps I’m having a hard time calculating eternity.

I think it’s best to stick with beginning numbers like birthdays and just add as we go along. The math is kinder. We can all age in grace together, a day and a year at a time. My brother would have been two years younger, my sister would have just turned four years older a week ago. My first wife coming up five years older in October if cancer had not chewed through the lifeline of her chronology.

My great-uncle Charley lived to be almost a hundred. My mother told me he walked everywhere, always active, and even walked for no good reason—he just liked to be out and about. In his brown leather boots he’d step off down the road, no feeble creeping along. Then he was struck down by a car on one of his ambles. I vaguely remember the man, sitting on a wooden porch on an old kitchen chair, the first two fingers of his right hand deeply browned by cigarette smoke. 

“You’re in trouble when you stop moving,” my mother always said.

I remember her in her hospice bed, panting out her last breaths, unmoving other than the labor of her lungs. I imagine Uncle Charley chugging down the road, his leather boots sending up poofs of dust, small explosions of effort until the big bang of his ending life. My dad begged for me to break him out of the rest home. “Let’s just take off!” he said. “There’s the door, wheel me outta here. They won’t even notice!” His hands gripped the wheelchair, ready for the big push to outdistance his dementia.

My heart pumps faster when I remember, when I do the math. The open road beckons, out and gone, the hell and gone down the road, rolling free. I stick to the math of birthdays. I find that reassuring. Every year is just a “plus one,” a simple calculation. It’s reassuring, knowing that the way math works, you can “plus one” forever. Just imagining it, maybe that’s as close as we get to eternity here on earth.

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Selected Early Poems: A Garret Room at Hotel Tao

Available at Amazon

Question: Now that I've been writing poetry again for ten months after twenty years of writing prose instead of poetry, what do I do with the thirty years of poetry--my early poems?

Answer: Publish a book of selected early poems.

The last time I published a book was five years ago when I put together a little book about my camping adventures, RTTC Bears in the Wild: Rustic Trail Teardrop Camper Adventures. For twenty years, I'd published prose books--novels, short stories, essays, memoirs. 

I'm looking forward now to writing poetry again, and my new book, A Garret Room at Hotel Tao, provides closure for those early years of poetry writing. Along with my first book published, Bare Ruined Choirs, I have now published my complete early poems. If you want to buy and read, then the poems are available. I almost lost them, lost on an old external data drive in a file marked "Backup."

I'm excited to be looking forward to writing new poems and sending some out to literary journals. There has been a lot of change in twenty years; online submissions are now the norm, for instance. It's an exciting time, and I'm glad that I have places where I can share. An easy way to ensure that you received updates is to follow by email. I'll send announcements and links to blog posts. Thanks!

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Exciting Update News: Writing, Poetry Reading, Publishing

I've been writing every day for three months and have written about twenty poems that are finished or close to that status. Of course, what "finished" means is that the poems look pretty good for now, but if I have an insight anytime, I'll revise! I've been busy in three areas: writing, poetry readings, and publishing. 

• Writing: Besides writing new poetry almost every day, I'm busy revising, which I find just as satisfying as original inspiration, perhaps because revision also provides satisfaction from analysis and application of prosody techniques.
• Poetry Readings: On January 15, I read four poems at Cafe Paradiso's Thirsty Word readings. Thanks to Meredith Siemsen for her support. We're now exploring possibilities for choral readings for the future. Whether or not those work out, I find it exciting and supportive to be able to be a part of the local writers' scene. Also, the sound aspect of speech is emphasized when I give poetry readings, which enhances the creative process.
• Publishing: I am learning how to submit my work online to various literary journals and websites. I have a couple of poems that are "finalists" for a University of California, Davis, publication. I've learned how to use "Submittable," a website used by many journals for submitting work. 

Two specific writing projects that have come as a surprise to me are 1) an emulation poem of Allen Ginsberg's "America" and 2) a poem titled "The Redemption of Tantalus," which is about 1,900 words of verse that utilizes accentual verse and is in the style of Homeric verse. That is an interesting project that combines the styles of the Odyssey translations and Greek plays, including a chorus. I've made myself a promise to keep all creative doors open, so I've been "traveling" to quite interesting landscapes . . . or should I say mindscapes?

Every week is an experience of inspiration and new writing, of research and consideration of various avenues of performance and publication, and of revising and polishing. Oh, yes! And I'm also putting together a book of selected poems from 1970-2005. I'm busy, happy, healthy, and will keep you updated.

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I'm Writing Poetry Again

In about two weeks, January 15, I will be reading some recent poems at Cafe Paradiso's Thirsty Word readings, 7:30 P.M. A funny thing happened in October--I started writing poetry again. Poetry was my main creative writing activity from the age of 15 (around 1967-68) until around 2005. Then I published my poetry book Bare Ruined Choirs and wrote prose for the next twenty years. I think after the death of my first wife, Barbara, I wanted to just make stuff up for a while and not so much be a journalist of the soul, a poet.

In October I wrote a poem, and then another, and then another. I'm still riding that wave of momentum and am enjoying the experience of writing at a deep level of creativity but not having a finishing timeline projected out a year or more. The size of a poem is more its depth rather than word count. The idea of fully engaging in creative writing yet not committing to a years-long project takes a weight off my shoulders. Besides, poetry has always been important to me.

I'm also assembling a book of selected poems, 1970-2005. This project began with the realization that I had no clue where (and how) I'd stored my earlier poems. I did remember an old external data drive, about the size of a tissue box, but I wasn't sure where I'd put it. I also knew I had stored a box somewhere . . . but where? Then I found the external drive, but there were no poetry files on it! Panic, and then I accepted that maybe those poems were gone. However, in a folder within a folder within a folder, I found a last folder, "Poems," where I found most of my earlier poems typed. After locating my box of poetry folders, I had located my early poems--or at least enough for satisfaction. 

I have to update some glitches on my online book outlets, a project for the first of the new year; however, I'm writing now on two projects, my selected poems (poems and notes) and all my new poems. I'm feeling a great deal of creativity, and with winter here I have time to sit by the woodstove and write and revise. I hope some local folks get a chance to come to the next Thirsty Word and hear me read some poems. I'll keep you posted.

Here are the titles of some recent poems:

• Paleolithic
• The Northern Lights Danced in Iowa While I Read Poetry
• Mind Maps
• Elder-Love
• Simple

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