EVERY LITTLE BEAT GOES ON

I had a cold recently. As a result I suffered with loose stools and crapped my Depends twice within a three day period. Once at home and once at a Yumm! restaurant. Yummy, eh?

See photographer here...

Now for some healthier news. My Memoir Of A Nobody is back on track. Three haiku will appear in the May issue of an online magazine Better Than Starbucks. Google a look if you'd like in May. An "Afterword" I wrote for Geoff Peterson's poetry book Archipelago is now available in his book at Amazon, Authorhouse or in any bookstore. Most bookstores will be glad to order books for you. Archipelago is a collection of  Peterson's earliest poetry. He wrote most of it before he entered the creative writing program at Eastern Washington University or during his early years there. My "Afterword" in Archipelago covers those early days and my arrival in Cheney Washington in April 1975 and our first encounters. We eventually both lived at Sutton Hall, the veteran's dorm at Eastern. He also became the poetry editor of Willow Springs Magazine that I co-founded with four other lit. majors. When I quit after a dispute over a couple of poems, he took over and—by the happy way—included the two disputed poems.

BEATNIK SILENTLY STUMBLES INTO ALGEBRA

As of November 30, 2018, I've stopped writing and returned to working on intermediate algebra problems. It's fun to sit in coffee shops and work problems and learn new things. When I retired in 2003 at age 66, I began working at algebra. I monitored courses at the community college in Spokane. I had the goal of learning calculus. My father was a tool designer and, of course, as a CNC machinist, I used lots of math to perform my duties. Math is in my genes so to speak.

I did not win the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize at the University of Pittsburg Press where I had submitted my ms based on my prostate cancer. The poetry was authentic and pretty decent, actually, but the competition is stiff. All the most recognized and ambitious poets submit to it, so it's no disgrace not to win. The same ms is still at the Iowa Review, and Ghoul World is still at DAW which says it will take at least 3 mos. to respond. I've still got several poetry submissions out at various literary magazines, and I do have a piece of prose history that's to be published by Geoff Peterson's in his Archipelago.

The reason I've stopped writing to be honest is that I tried to write a poem the other day. If writing is going well, the writer gets hits of emotion as he works. They reward writing. When those emotional jolts disappear, there's no impulse to continue writing. Writing is its own reward, and when one isn't being self-rewarded, it's time to take a break.

GEOFF PETERSON AND THE SILENT BEATNIK BOOMER

Geoff Peterson

Gray, gray Monday in Vancouver Washington. No news is good news from DAW Publishing, Iowa Review or Pittsburg Press. For a couple of weeks nothing creative has entered my thoughts, but my three kids and their loved ones came for Thanksgiving, and we played Golf card game or Splendor and talked up storms. My newly-married youngest son is in love. He and she were often absent while remaining in the room, whispering and giggling together. I loved the vision of their love, even though I distinctly felt their absence from the room from time to time. At times, the rest of us disappeared for them also, I think.

I've just finished a brief memoir about arriving in 1975 to Cheney, Washington. Friend and poet Geoff Peterson plans to include the essay at the end of his newest book Archipelago which arises from the poetry he wrote during that time when we both attended Eastern Washington University to earn MFA's in Poetry. Today, as usual, inspired by a final read through of his Archipelago, I've roughed out two lushis. His work almost always triggers my own imagination, even though our styles are distinctly different. You can find most all his books on Amazon. Click on his name under the photo, read one. You can't go wrong.

BEATNIK BOOMER BEGINS 6th [or 7th] REWRITE OF PORN WRITER

Ten days I've let pass without an entry. Sorry, but I'm keeping busy. I just began the sixth [or 7th] rewrite of The Porn Writer, and I didn't finish the 5th [or 6th] rewrite. My friend poet Geoff Peterson is visiting from Tucson, and it was his comment that caused me to return to "go" and start again. He made some sense about the history of an MFA in my narrator's past that made good sense. So I began again, and I'm happy with it. I had begun the novel with the idea Frank held an MFA then took it out because I thought the idea was cliched. Now I'm putting it back in again. Geoff's considerations had to do with potential audience, then, for other reasons of authenticity, I saw a good reason for it's remaining in the novel, because the real center of the novel is "dysfunctional relationships" that are divorced from the MFA considerations. The MFA is in it only to add to his sense of failure and inadequacy that have plagued all his relationships. 

Reason for relief above. As for the aggressive prostate cancer that threatens to lengthen the odds for my succeeding in my lone bucket list item to get someone other than myself to publish a novel of mine: I finally begin radiation treatments this coming Monday, July the 18th when the Cyberknife will shoot a first heavy dose of radiation into my cancerous prostate. It's only taken from April 25th when my primary doctor found the nodule on my prostate till now....