Kin issue iv

Welcome to the fourth issue of Kin Poetry Journal.  We hope you've been enjoying the poetry, prose and multimedia features we've had on offer these past months, and we've also been filling out the site's feature set.  If you've missed anything on Kin you should be able to find it through our beefed up archives.  Meanwhile we head back to Colorado again for the month's feature, and in fact to the state's poet laureate David Mason whom I interview.  Over the coming month you'll see four of his poems, selected for their linked themes of place, starting with Oregon Way.  David's interview and poems are illustrated by photographs by his wife Cally Conan-Davies.

In news from Kin contributors, Jenna Le has a poem, "Transmigration," in the current issue of Massachusetts Review, and another, "Riddle," in the current issue of Harpur Palate.

Kelly McQuain was recently nominated for a “Best of the Net” award for his poem “Pussy Chant”, published in the Certain Circuits 2012 print annual and originally in that journal’s Fall 2011 online issue. His new video poem “Clockwork Heart” appears as the a video poem at Apiary Mixtape along with an interview. Recent print poems include “Alien Boy” in Bloom and “Edinburgh, Afternoon Descant” in Chelsea Station. Recent online poems include: “Annabelle” in Stone Highway Review, Vol. 2.1, Sept. 2012; “Constellation”, “First Dog” and “Leather Bag, White Clock, Exit Door” in Press 1, Vol. 6.1, July 2012; “Magic Washing Machine” and “Old House” in Transient, Vol. 1.1, July 2012.

David Rothman will be reading to the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts in Denver on Wednesday, Oct. 31, and then recording a poem about election fatigue to be broadcast on Colorado Public Radio's show Colorado Matters for Wednesday Nov. 7. He shall teach a one-day seminar on ekphrasis for Colorado school teachers, in conjunction with the Van Gogh exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, on Saturday, Nov. 3.

Rothman has also raised $20,000 to fund scholarships for new students in the poetry track of the MFA at Western State Colorado University ("World of Versecraft" on Facebook).

Kin editor Wendy Chin-Tanner is also now Poetry Editor at Stealing Time Magazine and her poem "On the Thamespath" was nominated for the 2012 Best of the Net Award by Umbrella Journal.  Kin editor Walter Ancarrow has a review  in issue 2 of Angle Poetry Journal, which includes a couple of poems by me, Uche Ogbuji, as well as poems by many Kin contributors: Rose Kelleher, Cally Conan-Davies, Quincy R. Lehr, Marybeth Rua-Larsen, Rick Mullin, Wendy Chin-Tanner, Anna M. Evans, and Ann Drysdale.  My poem  "À la Recherche" is in the SIngaporean journal OF ZOOS and my incantatory poem, "At Wounded Knee," is in the latest Verse Wisconsin (#110), for which audio is available.

Keep in touch, spread the word, and do enjoy this latest installment of Kin.

Kin issue i

The first issue of Kin Poetry Journal is complete, and we have rolled into issue ii.  This month's featured poet is Wendy Videlock, author of Nevertheless.  We will be running four of her poems, and the first of these, "Reprieve," is already up. There is also an interview I conducted with Wendy.  Here are the two of us from last year's Western Colorado Writers’ Forum.


Meanwhile our contributors to issue i have been keeping busy.  Derrick Austin's poem "Lineage" received third place in The International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Prize Contest judged by C. Dale Young and sponsored by Knockout.

Anna Evans just completed a 2-week residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  Also Anna has a villanelle, "Weltschmerz," in the Summer 2012 special issue of "Adanna, How Women Grieve."

John Foy just returned from the Ashland MFA Summer Residency program, where he was a guest poet/editor. He gave a reading, served on a panel discussing First Books, and advised students on their manuscripts. In June, at the West Chester Poetry Conference, he gave a paper on Thomas Hardy’s poem “During Wind and Rain” (related to his essay on Kin) and served on a panel discussing the Carmine Street Metrics reading series in New York and its affiliation with the online poetry journal Umbrella.  This fall John will read again in a collaborative performance piece called “Family Feelings” based on A.R. Gurney’s play Cocktail Hour. The piece blends poems by John and other poets contrapuntally with text from Gurney’s play. Among the other readers will be the actor Mark Hofmaier. It will be performed on October 19 at the Society for Ethical Culture in New York. 

And there is news from the Kin crew as well. First of all Wendy Chin-Tanner and her husband Tyler got a chance to pal around with the POTUS.  Presumably he has now read all of Kin's first issue, considering he is a fan of poetry.

Walter Ancarrow, won the 2012 X.J. Kennedy Parody Award for his poem "Sea Dirge."

I have a poem "Yamato Nadeshiko" out on New Sun Rising.  I also contributed a Jazz selection to the Largehearted Boy playlist of songs to go with the essays in The Beautiful Anthology, and in particular my essay "21st Century Beauty in Poetry."