A Magazine of Many Arts

Hello folks,

I will be at Arisia next week, so please look me up to say hello if you are around.

If you are in the Boston area, Arisia is an amazing SF convention with representation from all of the arts. http://www.arisia.org

Today is the last day at Arisia. I’ll be doing some crafts with the little kids (one of my favorite times of the con!) and wrapping up the weekend.

Orpheus by Forest Rogers

Understand, I would not
have followed her through those cold gates,
the horn twisted with the gold,
would have clung to the chill of winter,
the hint of frost.
But her ghost cried to me, called to me,
wrapping herself around my chest.
Not there.

Yet I saw her, I saw her
everywhere:
the cry of a bird,
the snatch of song,
a colorful rag,
her favorite figs —
Her. Her.
No. Not there.

I saw her. I saw her everywhere,
heard her, heard her everywhere.
Lingered over her every word, her every move,
lingered, lingered over every thought,
squeezing my memories like grapes,
until only the driest, darkest ones remained.
Each shadow —

Her.
Not her.

Caught, my breath, caught.
I slipped singing through those cold cold gates,
past the slow slow river, the endless shades,
the slow boat to the cold grey halls.
I sang, I sang, and fetched her ghost,
watched it merge with the shadows I clutched,
slowly spinning from my mind.

You ask why I turned, why I did not wait
for another glimpse of the cold blue skies,
to hold her beneath the trees’ sharp shadows,
beneath the living wind. Why I turned
at the very gates, the far sun shining
on my hands. I turned.
I had to know.
Her ghost, or the shadow
of my weaving,
a shadow of
my memory and song?

Bound, she and I, to earth and dust,
I, a little longer, until I slip past those gates a second time,
and grasp her shadow, not our mingled own.

I’ve got a batch of poems ready to go up over the next few weeks that I’m very happy about.

And more happy news — Mary Alexander Agner was nominated for a Rhysling for “Worlds Apart”, published here last Spring.

I haven’t forgotten you, I am just having a hellaciously busy summer. I will be back as soon as I can.

A friend told me that a death in the family feels like being in between the worlds, but when you come back to reality you see that the dishes are still dirty and the litter boxes are overflowing.  So the two weeks I mentioned in my last message turned into two months, and I see that a rough draft of a poem went up accidentally. That will go back when the artwork is complete — sorry for any confusion.

This is the fifth anniversary of the website.  Sadly, I have to postpone the grand posting I’ve been working on because my father died this week and his funeral is today. So I will spend the day crying and laughing and hugging people and will postpone this anniversary.  It’s a tradition in my family to postpone dates.  If we can postpone Christmas, I can postpone an anniversary, right?  I will see you in two weeks with the special anniversary post.

I must say I’m disappointed to only have one comment for my first giveaway, but my page views are up so I will console myself with that.  I will try this again in a couple of months.

Would people prefer a different type of prize for a contest, or is there another reason we had so few people chiming in?  I would like to get some more feedback for the authors since writing can be such a solitary task.

I’ll accept comments for the rest of the week, if anyone else wants to play.

Starting next week will be a month devoted to Polu Texni favorite, Colleen Anderson, with an interview and one of her poems a week.

Some happy news and some sad news…

I was thrilled to see this news: “A Good Catch” by Colleen Anderson in Polu Texni, was nominated for an Aurora award. Congratulations Colleen! It made my day to see Polu Texni’s name on Locus.

Canadians can register to vote for Colleen or other favorites.

The sad news is that K. D. Wentworth passed away this week.  I published her story “The Turquoise Horse” in my first editing venture, Vision Quests, Science Fiction and Fantasy Tales of Shamanism, by Angelus Press.  She was a very easy person to work with, very professional, and I enjoyed her work.

Whew, so this break went on way too long. It was partially due to an overly busy work life and some changes in my schedule that left me without a good weekly time for updates. I have a number of great poems that are going to be going up in the next few weeks, starting with one on Monday. I’m putting a bunch up right now, so I can guarantee weekly updates for the next few months.