Since January 2021, I’ve been keeping a list of my writing activity for each month (here’s last month’s). I do so partly as a form of encouragement for myself to show that I am still able to do some writing despite the energy-sucking terrors of our times, and partly as an archive that I can look back on in the future. As such, I include negative happenings (e.g., receiving rejections), not just positive ones.
I think that it is important for me to share my list publicly as a genderqueer bisexual disabled Latinx writer because mainstream discourse tries to either pretend voices such as mine do not exist or actively tries to suppress them. Whether one is part of an oppressed group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times (WHICH ARE ESPECIALLY TERRIBLE IN THE U.S. RIGHT NOW–make no mistake, the current “presidential” administration is a fascist one), so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.
Writing-wise, this month was fantastic! It’s felt really good to have my work with haiku and related forms continue to bear fruit. The list is basically in chronological order.
1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.
2. Submitted four poems to the 2025 Haiku North America conference anthology. The conference will take place in September.
3. Submitted ten poems to Kingfisher and had them all rejected.
4. Found out which one of the five poems I had submitted to the 2025 Haiku Canada Members’ Anthology will be included.
5. Submitted three poems to the 2025 British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology and found out which one will be included.
6. Had my issue of confluence published.
7. Worked on and submitted some collaborative pieces to confluence with two other fellows for a forthcoming issue of collaborations.
8. Had a poem, “cleansing his memory a leaf bounces off the smoke,” published in Frogpond 48, no. 1 (Winter 2025).
9. Had a solid review of It Breaks Your Heart: Haiku and Senryu on the 2023 New York Mets published in the aforementioned Frogpond issue.
10. Had two poems, “heartbreak / not wanting to acknowledge / the multiverse,” and “Cold Moon / the tundra / of my depression,” published in Blithe Spirit 35, no. 1 (February 2025).
11. Had a poem, “trick or treat the children without coats this year,” published in Modern Haiku 56, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2025).
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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