Like my new look?

New year, new template. As long as it's free. I thought a harbor motif would suit my upbringing in a seaport on the California coast.

In other news: I recently got word that a poem from my book Femme au chapeau will be included in the anthology Women. Period. The book will be published by Spinsters Ink in August 2008. The poem is "Blood-Cycle Brooding."

Barbara Crooker's Line Dance once again delighted me today with this poem (Barbara said I could quote from the book):

At the Thistle Feeder, Finches, Little Chips of Sun

hang upside down, then flit from branch
to branch in the cherry tree,
which has been whipped
to a froth, blossoms
on even the smallest twif,
a whole rococo palace
of a tree. Lazy drowse of bees.
The air so sugary,
it makes your teeth ache.
A downy woodpecker goes up and down
the trunk, tick-tick, tick-tick. Light hangs
in the balance, like a truce in the east,
fragile, temporary. The sky wavers
over our heads, a flag of blue silk;
grass unrolls its green rug at our feet.
Peace, elusive as bird song,
flutters away.

The delicacy of this poem's aspirations captivates me. I especially like the truce in the east and the tree's rococo palace. She has a way of layering images like a painter layers translucent layers of color, emotions too subtle to name sliding one over another to create something new, unnameable and indelible. Elusive and peaceful.

More books soon!