My publishing year was great--the new book that came out from Big Table Publishing Company took up a lot of my time but the experience was wonderful and the final product looked great. Also my last two novels were made into audio-books in 2024. I appeared in three podcasts, and also had four individual pieces of work published.
Some Best of Stuff. First is the Best News Blooper video for your amusement. Underneath the video, not the best but the MOST VIEWED BLOG POSTS FROM 2024. And it's the top 11 as the 12/24/24 blog post about the piece "Mom and Pops" had a lot of hits this week
Only one singular published piece made the list, and that needed a 4 day very viewed post about Mom and Pops. Five on the list had to do with Book 19 (Almost Bluing for X-Tra Whiteness, released in Sep 2024) and Book 20 (The Shadows of the Seen, due out May 2025). The top three had none of those categorical posts. Trends? Who cares. Enjoy the list.
Grateful to Lo Galluccio, Poet Populist of Cambridge, who wrote a wonderful review. Also, grateful to Doug Holder, poet, and Poetry Czar for publishing it in The Somerville Times...
Why---and now that you were interested, what's it all about? (and the F-word)
After I talked with Eliz McKim about my new poetry book Almost Bluing for X-tra Whiteness she was amused at some of the references, but most of them were obscure Easter Eggs, so allow me to fill in some of the blanks. Below is the Table of Contents and a comment, video or link for each one. When you read the book, read the part of the blog before each of the poems.
So let's start with poem 1, page 9
I Didn’t want to call the 988 Operator Using the movie Don't Look Up as metaphor. There is even a line in the poem about the broteroc mentioned in the trailer below.
I wished myself extinct / like that bronteroc,
Dependents
What Cannot Be Fixed
After You Go
Dogged Years
These four are poems about my late MOTHER and FATHER
The next eight (8) are poems about a relationship ending. Comments withheld.
Remember That Smile: I remember, when I was a child, driving with my family while the trees on the side of the highway were ablaze. For years after that area looked like this, an image still stuck in my head
A Place Familiar
The following lines can be recalled from the opening poem (page 9)
weeks later, at the farm/ we stayed at in Maryland,/ that was one of the good/ things from the year.
How to Extinguish a Raging Fire Interested in this one? Go back in early November posts in this blog for the last 14 years about my recovery. This is a recovery poem.
reply to someone who said, “there’s a lot of selfish
going around here.” I write a lot of "reply" poems. There is one earlier in this book. In this one I don't remember who I might have been replying to.
Tennessee Songbirds: True story about real birds and musicians in Nashville
The Definition of Abuse is all about power dynamics in our culture.
Poetry Found on TwitterThese are exact twitter posts from the accounts of:
1) Lauren Boebert—On Another Shooting. 2) Michelle Obama—On Knitting. 3) Melania Trump—On Christmas Ornaments being
NFTs. 4) Marjorie Taylor Greene—Saying Stupid as Fuck
Things 5) Amanda Knox—On Losing Control 6) Margaret Atwood—On New Year’s Day
There are some good guys and bad guys in this poem .
Rainy Days and Every Day Always Get…My mom used to listen to this. Side note from video: I don't think he's playing the harmonica---he's playing his f-ing hand.
Valentine’s Poem written in the style of Eliz McKim. She picked up that the poem sounded like a heartbeat.
Picturing One Great Love Kind of like the guy pictured below, but sometimes you get to finish the work, and sometimes you don't.
Flashbulb of a Lightning Storm. About making love in the middle of a lightning storm. It happened.
Into the Silent Sea: This was written about the same time as It Sunk. Processing sea-creatures and hopelessness.
Animals Which Don’t SleepGrief and sleep problems the following line within Instead of saying goodbye you said, /“I’m sorry,” and refuse to lie down
Standing Wave and
Star Island, Night One, 2024
These next two were written for and about Star Island. The second was nominated for a Pushcart. Star inspires as these didn't need much revision.
The final section of the book is lighter, perhaps funnier poems
Abecedarius This is a form poem, the form being 26 words in the poem, using all 26 letters in alphabetical order.
Out and In the Void for Jeremy Hilary Boob Google Jeremy Hilary Boob and then the lyrics to that song the search points to. The poem is all synonyms to each/most words of those lyrics.
Almost Famous Massachusetts has the record for total number of Roast Beef joints that are famous but in name only.
Literary Action Figures Imagine if famous authors had action figures like star athletes or GI Joe. Wait...maybe?
On Dodo Oh My God. Want to go on a heartwarming trip? Of course, you do. Careful, you may get sucked into The Dodo rabbit hole for half the day. So this poem looks at Dodo and how it differs from those other feelings in real life.
Poem About Jon Wesick, written in the style of Jon Wesick; During the pandemic, writer Jon Wesick was on nearly every zoom reading and open mic. He had a series writing in the style of some of the other poets. I decided to do one on him.
Recipe Dumb-Ass Men Cook to Feed Women : A misandry poem from a man noting how men are obvious and stupid in their manipulations.
Poem Stolen from Other Poets at Dinner Yes...it's a found poem staring the dialog of many of my friends.
Found poem within the rules of the board game
Mystery Date : It pretty much uses the game rules verbatim. It was written for the game night event for the Improbable Places Poetry Tour.
Petition to Remove the Word Burble from our language Such a harsh sounding word.
Things You Find in Miami Beach (Poetry Form: 25,000 Pyramid) So I've invented a form. The poem reads like the clues given in the bonus round of the 25,000 Pyramid game show.
Big Table Publishing will be putting out Almost Bluing for X-Tra Whiteness, my tenth book of poetry, sometime soon, looking at before the end of the year. The title covers the multiple themes held withing the page: aging, pop-culture, music, feeling blue.
The book will be divided into four sections:
1) Blue
2) X-Tra White
3) Re(a)d
4) Blu-ing
Here's are the ver first two blurbs from Jennifer Martelli and Gloria Mindock
I have blurbs for my next novel, Shadows of the Seen, but no publisher as of yet---I've sent it out to quite a few, now it's time to play the waiting game. My vision for a cover is below and please note, I am not a graphic artist.
It's no secret the way we treat our elderly in their end of life journeys. I saw it first hand, and it's heartbreaking. I've had conversations with my own children about it, and they think I'm joking, but I'm not.
So read all about it with the poem accompanied by a wonderful picture "Empty Chair" from Digby Beaumont
Always such an honor to be nominated. Thank you Robin Stratton and Big Table Publishing for the nomination, and for publishing many of my books. Although I Never Called You Beautiful does not appear on-line. It is within the pages Best of Timothy Gager: Poems, Essays, and Stories, 2002-2022. It also appears in another secret book, whish is sort of like a secret menu item---and only one of those exists in the world. So, there's that. So very grateful to be nominated for the 18th time.
You are extremely grateful when Muddy River Poetry Review nominates you for your 17th. The poem When You Have this Connection (published April 2020) was given the honor by Editor Zvi Sesling. The great thing about Pushcart nominations is that there are no "do me a favor and vote on-line for me" moments. The poem can be found HERE
Fingers crossed, as one can never assume there will be an 18th.
Congratulations to the other poets for being Muddy River Poetry Review’s Pushcart Prize nominees. I hope you win:
Eileen R. Tabios — Cigar Puffs
Marge Piercy — How I Bury
Taylor Graham — The Alpha Fire
bg Thurston — Lineage
Gloria Mindock — Deeply
Oh, and, by the way, besides 17 nominations, 17 is a pretty cool number. Look at all the 17 things shown below...Thanks Google!
There have been 16 others, and I've posted about some of them.
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