Closing out 2014 with a basket of blessings:

Happy New Year to each and every one of you, my friends — thank you for being such generous readers and wonderful people.

Here are the final thank-you notes for 2014; I seem to be closing out 2014 with an overflowing basket of blessings:

The Stare’s Nest has kindly published my New Year’s Eve poem, “Breaking Bread” — today, on New Year’s Eve yet! Thank you and Happy New Year to editor Judi Sutherland!

Both The Lake (editor John Murphy) and Verse-Virtual (editor Firestone Feinberg) have released their January issues a day early — thank you, John Murphy, for including my new poem “Remembrance” at The Lake, and Firestone Feinberg for reprinting “It’s a PIRATE!” in the January issue of Verse-Virtual. (“It’s a PIRATE!” is from last penny the sun, Balkan Press, 2014).

I’d like to thank Russell Streur, editor of The Camel Saloon (AGAIN) for selecting “Elusive Alchemist” as one of the two December poems from The Camel Saloon to be reprinted in The Second Hump — I’m deeply grateful to have the “Elusive Alchemist” honored in this way.

 

 

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More gratitude: Synchronized Chaos, Via Negativa, & One Sentence Poems

I’d like to thank Cristina Deptula, editor/creative facilitator at Synchronized Chaos, for publishing four of my ghazals, including two reprinted from last penny the sun. You can read them in the December 1 issue of Synchronized Chaos (they are written under the name “Halima bint Ayuba”).

I’ve been reading and enjoying Dave Bonta’s Via Negativa blog, which features at least two new poems each day, one each from Dave Bonta and Luisa A. Igloria. I’m taking on a challenge for myself this December: to write a poem every day in response to their poems. Dave Bonta has generously published my response-poems from Dec. 1 and 2 (“Reckoning” and “Loosening”) as guest-posts. Please be sure to follow the links at the bottom of each poem to see the poems by Dave and Luisa that inspired these.

I’d also like to thank Dale Wisely and Robert Scotellaro, editors of One Sentence Poems, for publishing my Hausa and English poem “Gobe, Jibi” (“Tomorrow, Day After”) .

 

Thank you notes: The Lake and One Sentence Poems

I’d like to thank John Murphy, editor at The Lake, for publishing another of my Nigerian childhood poems “Sands of Home” in the December 2014 issue.

I’d also like to thank Dale Wisely and Robert Scotellaro, editors of One Sentence Poems, for giving my poem “Diagnostic” a home.

 

More August & September thank-you notes:

I’d like to thank Dale Wisely, editor of Right Hand Pointing, for allowing me to guest-edit Right Hand Pointing Issue 78: Variations on Absence, and each of the contributors in this issue for entrusting me with their words.

I’d also like to thank John Murphy, editor at The Lake, for publishing two more of my Nigerian childhood poems “Polishing” and “Influence”) in the September 2014 issue.

 

Poems Published Online: “Red Ink” and “Dance Here”

I’d like to thank John Murphy, editor at The Lake, for publishing my poems “Red Ink” and “Dance Here” in the August 2014 issue.  Deeply honored to be included here.