Books Acquired Recently

Anabaptist Community Bible. Harrisonburg, VA: MennoMedia, 2025.

This Bible, which includes commentary from early Anabaptists as well as present-day Anabaptist scholars, is part of the worldwide Anabaptism at 500 project created to celebrate the beginning of Anabaptism on 21 January 1525.

Whitman, Walt. Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself. Illustrated by Allen Crawford. Portland: Tin House Books, 2014.

I received this book as a holiday gift from a good friend. It is an illustrated edition of the 1855 version of “Song of Myself.”

Writing Activity, November 2024

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 were especially terrible this month!), so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others. If you, like me, have been having a difficult time since the U.S. election, you may find Bethany Karsten’s Trans Literature Preservation Project helpful as one set of concrete steps you can take to prepare for the horrors that might be coming.

The list is basically in chronological order.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. Submitted fifteen poems to Modern Haiku and had one accepted.

3. Submitted seven poems to a food haiku anthology and had one accepted.

4. Submitted my novella manuscript to a press and had it rejected.

5. Submitted eight poems to Frogpond.

6. Had the second of my commentaries on my fellow confluence fellows, on Nicky Gutierrez, published.

7. Began working on a personal essay about Dungeons & Dragons.

8. Had three poems, “pennant race / the cameraman focuses / on the full moon,” “early evening sunset the color of whiskey,” and “giving blood the nurse’s cologne,” published in #FemkuMag 37 (Autumn/Winter 2024).

9. Had two poems, “cloudless day on the steps the skateboarder’s shadow” and “too early to identify the birds outside my window jetlag,” published in Blithe Spirit 34, no. 4 (November 2024).

10. Had a poem, “bottom of the glass / mixing up / my wives,” published in Humour: The British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2024, edited by Alan Peat.

Books Acquired Recently: Haiku Edition

Bashō. Bashō’s Narrow Road: Spring & Autumn Passages; “Narrow Road to the Interior” and the Renga Sequence “A Farewell Gift to Sora”. Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1996.

My obsession with Bashō continues! I have several other translations of Narrow Road…, but I haven’t read A Farewell Gift to Sora before.

Peat, Alan, ed. Humour: The British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2024. Hampshire, UK: British Haiku Society, 2024.

This anthology, in which I have a poem, arrived yesterday.

Books Acquired Recently: Poetry Edition

Barlow, John, and Martin Lucas, eds. The New Haiku. Liverpool: Snapshot Press, 2002.

This germinal anthology was just reprinted, and I ordered a copy as soon as I heard they were available.

Durand, Marcella, and Jennifer Firestone, eds. Other Influences: An Untold History of Feminist Avant-Garde Poetry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2024.

This is a collection of essays by feminist poets about some of their influences. I read an excerpt from it online that I enjoyed, so I decided to buy the book.

Hendrix, Raye. What Good is Heaven: Poems. Huntsville, TX: Texas Review Press, 2024.

This is Hendrix’s first full-length collection. I’ve read her two chapbooks and enjoyed them, partly because she writes about OCD, a condition we share. I’ve been meaning to buy this book since it was released a few months ago, and finally did this past week because Hendrix was selling some signed copies as a fundraiser for Palestinian relief.

Root-Bernstein, Michele, and Francine Banwarth. The Haiku Life: What We Learned as Editors of Frogpond. Champaign, IL: Modern Haiku Press, 2017.

A notice about this book’s recent reprinting is what brought it to my attention. I decided to buy it because the more I write haiku, the more I am interested in reading books about others’ haiku journeys rather than just reading haiku itself.

Books Acquired Recently

I’ve been doing a bunch of retail therapy book buying as the result of the U.S.’s current political situation. This is a list of what’s come in over the past few days.

Agyei-Baah, Adjei. Afriku: Haiku & Senryu from Ghana. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2016.

I’m always interested in reading work by other haiku writers of color. I recently read an article about this collection and decided to buy it.

Beary, Roberta. Carousel. Ormskirk, UK: Snapshot Press, 2024.

Beary has been one of my favorite haiku writers since I began exploring the genre, so when I heard they had a new collection out I ordered it immediately.

Dorlin, Elsa. Self-Defense: A Philosophy of Violence. 2017. Translated by Kieran Aarons. London: Verso, 2022.

I read about this book by a queer philosopher in Maxwell Kennel’s Ontologies of Violence earlier this year, and decided that now might be a good time to read it.

Goldberg, Ariel. The Estrangement Principle. New York: Nightboat Books, 2020.

I recently heard about this book inspired by the phrase “queer art,” and put it on my list to buy immediately. Now felt like the time.

Guibert, Hervé. The Mausoleum of Lovers: Journals 1976-1991. 2001. Translated by Nathanaël. New York: Nightboat Books, 2014.

I read about this volume of journals in one of Sofia Samatar’s books and it sounded interesting, so I decided to buy it.

Kacian, Jim, et al., eds. Upside Down: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2023. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2024.

This is an annual anthology of poems from the year in the title (unlike The Best American Essays and other such anthologies that name themselves after the year they are published, with work from the preceding year). It’s the first time I’ve bought it; I feel like I’m serious enough about haiku now that I should begin reading it each year.

Newman, Sandra. Julia. 2023. New York: Mariner Books, 2024.

This novel tells the story of Julia from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (a novel I have long loved) from her perspective. I began reading it on Wednesday after the election results came in and finished it last night. It’s a fantastic book, true to the spirit of Orwell’s (including by staying true to the details of Orwell’s narrative and even reproducing some text word-for-word), but also fresh and original with some twists that feel earned rather than gimmicky.

Smallwood, Christine. The Life of the Mind. 2021. New York: Hogarth, 2022.

I forget where I first heard about this novel, but a line from its blurb–“a book about endings–of youth, of ambition, of possibility”–is what got me interested because I feel like I am experiencing these endings myself.

van den Heuvel, Cor. At the Top of the Ferris Wheel: Selected Haiku. Winchester, VA: The Haiku Foundation, 2017.

van den Heuvel, who is one of the most important figures in North American haiku history, died earlier this year. I heard about this book from an obituary published in this month’s issue of the Haiku Society of America’s newsletter and ordered it immediately.

Writing Activity, October 2024

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, so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.

The list is basically in chronological order. It was a very successful month! I had five poems and two essays published and three more poems accepted for future publication. It’s lovely to have times like this every once in a while when all of the hard work of writing pays off in tangible form.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.

3. Had three of the eight poems I submitted to #FemkuMag last month accepted.

4. Had my memoir rejected by a publisher.

5. Submitted commentaries about the poetry of three of my fellow confluence fellows and had the first one, on Rowan Beckett Minor, published.

6. Had two poems published in Modern Haiku 55, no. 3, including my first published haibun.

7. Had a positive review of my co-written book It Breaks Your Heart published in Modern Haiku.

8. Had a poem published in Acorn 53.

9. Had an essay on Diane di Prima’s haiku published in Frogpond 47, no. 3.

10. Began working on putting together a book manuscript of my haiku/senryu.

11. Submitted my memoir to another publisher.

12. Had two poems published in Kingfisher 10.

Books Acquired Recently

Pupello, Tony, ed. street beat: Haiku and Senryū from the Pages of “tsuri-dōrō”. New York: tsuri-dōrō Press, 2024.

I recently read a review of this anthology and decided to buy it because of my interest in city haiku.

Stiazhkina, Olena. Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary. Translated by Anne O. Fisher. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2024.

I am attending a talk by Stiazhkina next week, so I wanted to read some of her work beforehand. This book looks like it fits nicely into my recent interest in reading others’ published diaries.

Books Acquired Recently: AAMD Edition

I just returned home from the annual Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) conference in Denver, where I acquired the following three books.

Hundley, Jessica. Tarot. Köln; Taschen, 2021.

I bought this lovely illustrated volume at the Denver Art Museum’s shop. Part of the conference took place at the museum.

Jackson, Maggie. Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure. Lanham, MD: Prometheus Books, 2023.

Jackson was one of the conference’s featured speakers, so they handed out free copies of this book.

Patrello, Christopher. Northwest Coast and Alaska Native Art. Denver: Denver Art Museum, 2020.

This exhibit catalog came in my conference swag bag.

Books Acquired Recently

Higginson, William J. The Haiku Seasons: Poetry of the Natural World. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1996.

I recently began reading Higginson’s Haiku World, the companion volume to The Haiku Seasons, and quickly realized that to get the most out of Haiku World I also needed The Haiku Seasons, so I ordered a copy that came earlier this week.

Tea, Michelle. Modern Magic: Stories, Rituals, and Spells for Contemporary Witches. New York: HarperOne, 2024.

Tea’s Modern Tarot has been life-changing for me, and she’s one of my favorite writers in general, so when Modern Magic was released earlier this week I ordered it immediately.

Writing Activity, September 2024

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, so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.

The list is basically in chronological order.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.

3. Submitted ten poems to Blithe Spirit and had two accepted.

4. Had one of the poems I submitted to Haiku Canada Review last month accepted.

5. Had a microchapbook I submitted to a press rejected.

6. Submitted my novella manuscript to a contest.

7. Worked on commentaries about the poetry of some of my fellow confluence fellows.

8. Had three poems published in #FemkuMag 36 (Summer 2024): 16, 24.

9. Submitted eight poems for consideration for the next issue of #FemkuMag.