Poetry Rules

If I look at my poetry accomplishments, it seems 2015  has started incredibly well. I have had 4 poems accepted for publication in Menacing Hedge and 2 poems accepted in  The Más Tequila Review . My heartfelt thanks to editors Kelly Boyker and Richard Vargas. I also received feedback from Kristy Bowen that my fifth chapbook, "Love and Other Demons," will be published by {dancing girl press & studio} next year. I am so happy to have a second chapbook published by dgp after Diagnosis , which has been released just 2 weeks ago. Thank you to all of you who have purchased it already. I hope some more of you will follow the hare in this Plath-inspired chapbook. My translations into English of a selection of poems by my fellow RBP poet Marco Cinque has just been published by CC.Marimbo Press in California. The book's title is At the Top of My Voice . The New Anthology of American Poets that I have edited and translated should be released by February, or anytime soon. I h...

I am so pleased that my new chapbook, Diagnosis , is now available from  {dancing girl press & studio} . I am indeed happy and grateful that Kristy Bowen chose it in the first place. I know a few of my friends have already ordered a copy and I hope more will. Let me tell you something about how the poems of this chapbook came to me. The original poem, which is also the one that gives the name to the chapbook, revolves around the idea that being "diagnosed" with poetry can be a lacerating experience. Writing about the hare in this poem made the whole difference. Indeed, when picking up my collection of poems by Sylvia Plath just a few days later and leafing through its pages, I ended up reading her poem "Totem." It was then that I found the path I was looking for. The following lines struck a chord deep within me: "In the bowl the hare is aborted, Its baby head out of the way, embalmed in spice, Flayed of fur and humanity, Let us eat it like Pl...