My first book, In the ice house (Red Hen, 2011) is back in stock! Almost fifteen years (wowza!) after the initial publication date, this book is still sharp, relevant, and moving. I think so, anyway!

Some of the poems in this collection were initially published in literary journals, including Elimae, Front Porch, Mrs. Maybe, Terrain.org: a Journal of the Built + Natural Environments, Spiral Orb, Verse Daily, Rhino, Word For/Word, Map Literary, and Fact-Simile. Thanks, journals & editors! You are awesome.

In making this list, I realize I’m sad to see so many of these amazing journals are no longer active — as a poet and a reader, I’m sorry to think that I can’t anticipate reading these publications anymore, and that I can’t think of some of them as potential future places to share my work. But as a publisher, I also totally understand! Projects can run their course, and that’s okay! So many literary journals are labors of love, run by a single editor or small group of dedicated writers, without funding or institutional support, and that’s what makes them magical: that literary people are coming together to champion our art, make something out of nothing, and take a stand for what they believe in.

These journal editors are, in some ways, doing the same thing I’m doing as a writer: taking chances, building collections, sharing creativity, and putting poems out there and waiting to see what happens.

I’ve learned a lot about the “business” of being a poet since I published In the ice house. (Short version: you can think of it as a business, but you can also just keep your head down and write.) I also find that some of my core beliefs still feel true: that writing is very much about the process as well as the product, that publishing poems means getting to contribute to the ongoing conversation of what literature is, that the goal of publishing and sharing work is to find your audience (and it doesn’t really matter who small or large that audience is), and that sharing work can take many different–delightful–forms.

I’m happy to see that some of the poems from my first book that were initially published online can still be accessed! I definitely enjoyed going back to read them:

Here’s one poem, “The bird noises that do not acknowledge us talking,” over at Word For/Word from 2007

Here are four poems (+ audio) over at Terrain.org from 2010