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I have a poem in the new issue of Sweet, an online magazine with a wonderful section at the end called Fan Mail!

Here's the table of contents. You can click around!

My poem is called "Winter Starlings," which reminds me that fall is coming, and then, yes, winter, too. Snow.

The harvest has begun. We saw combines out in the fields yesterday, a sunny blue sky day, and even a finished field.

Maybe not today, as it's still raining, a rain that began at suppertime (or volleyball time) last night. One of those gentle rains that reminds you of mercy and Shakespeare...

"Sweet" reminds me of Shakespeare, too: Sweets to the sweet...

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I've received a zillion rejections, but today I want to direct you to the Angry Grammarian and her 1 Year, 100 Rejections project, also recounted here in Specter Magazine. I love this project and have started keeping track, myself, as of September 1, 2011, in the spirit of Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, blogger/poet. You've got to love someone who calls herself the Angry Grammarian, right?!

Also, in honor of Brett, I am making it a Cranky Doodle Day on Thor's Day in the blog. Partly because I was so disappointed to start reading a literary journal received recently--looking forward to poems by poets I admire--and having to set it aside after finding three significant typos by page 18.  (And, you know, there's front matter, so the poems didn't even start till page 5.)

I'm OK with typos and even grammatical errors in blogs.  (Forgive me, Brett, if you ever come here, as you are likely to find some!) Blogs are quickly posted and often informal.

But a literary magazine has an editor!

One always hopes the poet has a chance to proofread her/his/hir poem, but that's not always the case. One hopes there's a chance to send the poem electronically, so there won't be errors introduced in re-typing or corrected from scanning. Again, not always the case.

It's true, I picked up the magazine later, to give it another chance, and this time just skipped around in it, seeking out poems by some whose names I recognized. Immediately, an error of "lie" and "lay" confusion, evidently the fault of the poet. Again, there's an editor! If the editor does not know the difference or make the change, then what?

I do sound cranky, don't I? I must hasten to confess that I have introduced errors into the editing or proofreading process of my own work, often stymied by technology or stupefied by lack of caffeine, sometimes just plain wrong. So I know it happens, and I accept and forgive all concerned.

Except...there's an editor! Isn't there? Sigh....

Anyhoo, I was tempted to cheat on the 1 Year, 100 Rejections project I started for myself on September 1. If only I had started on August 30! I would have an immediate acceptance, one of those rare, wonderful things, on August 31!

But, no, as of September 1, instead I have an immediate rejection of something I sent for a special project; true, two of those poems were already published, so does it even count? And does it count as one rejection, or three, since I sent 3 poems? I can tell that math challenge might get the better of me here.

As of September 1, I have sent out 5 separate packets, a total of 18 poems, and, have had one rejection. Mostly, I'm waiting 4-8 weeks or 3-6 months to hear on these, as on the many others still out there in the world.

Also since September 1, the summer Sow's Ear Poetry Review has arrived, with me in it, along with Traci Brimhall, Ellen Bass, and many other wonderful writers and artists, and I have proofread (I hope correctly) the electronic version of a poem for Confrontation. Where there are meticulous editors!

I am no longer even a weensy bit cranky, and I am just as grateful and enthusiastic as I was at the start about The Angry Grammarian!

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On Monday, Labor Day, I celebrated and moaned a bit about My Ideal Job being already created and filled by The Bloggess and suggested that you visit Labors of Love at Escape Into Life.

Today, I refer you to Art as a Labor of Love, by me, with art by Aurelio Madrid, also at EIL, where, of course, I work for free. 

Please let us know what wonderful ways the arts community is giving back to you.

Lest you think all I do is moan and groan and visualize ideal jobs emerging from slightly erotic seedpods, I want to assure you that I am actively looking for real jobs and actually applied for four fine jobs this summer for which I was well-qualified, except maybe by strict online keyword standards if your application is being graded by a machine.

Clearly, I did not get them. I had a fabulous interview for one, but it went to an internal candidate, as so many ideal jobs do. I had even asked about that possibility during the interview, so I had a heads-up. It would have been “ideal” in being part-time and allowing me to pursue my artsy fartsy interests on the side and on the job, but less than ideal if internals wanted it to go to someone else. Which is often true, as is the fact that many jobs are merely posted for legal reasons but will go to previously determined very, very likely candidates.

This is the current job market, and it stinks. But I am still somehow “furiously happy,” as The Bloggess puts it!

For one thing, I still have my excellent job as Poetry Cheerleader, which does not require me to do the tiger jump.

The right job will come my way, and I wish it would come my way the way it does in books. In the book I am currently reading, which shall remain nameless to avoid spoilers, all three sisters have been offered ideal jobs in passing during random conversations.

Would you like to be a barista? Yes! How about a tenure-track teaching position where you always wanted to teach? You betcha! Oh, by the way, I’m taking a leave of absence. Even though you don’t have any experience or a degree in this, would you like my job as head librarian?

OK, some of this is going to work out, and some of this is going to get complicated for all three characters, because that’s what happens in novels. But why don’t I ever get offered a job in passing during a random conversation?

Oh. Yes. That’s how I got my last ideal job. Which I really did love and was grateful for. But which ended up as the stuff in the hand that fills up faster.

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Before this weekend I had never eaten fresh figs.

Yes, I was a fresh fig virgin.

Sure, I'd had my share of Fig Newtons and dried figs, not to be mistaken for human ears, as in "The Colonel," by Carolyn Forche. And at this very moment I have a jar of fig preserves in the fridge, to spread on toast.

But I had never eaten fresh figs. I had only seen pictures, as in the painting above, by Jonathan Koch. Fresh fig on table top, right of strawberry.

Oh. My. God.

You can see why people get upset with Jesus for smiting the fig tree, and you can see why Jesus got upset with the fig tree for not having any fresh figs on it!

Pausing to breathe in. Breathe out. And to say: Edna St. Vincent Millay. A Few Figs from Thistles.

OK. Many thanks to Jan, who brought fresh figs from Fresh Market to the poetry workshop this weekend. I will remember you forever.

Many thanks to Jonathan Koch, who lets me use his paintings in my blog. Many thanks to Wikimedia for the public domain/free use fig images. This fabulous fig cutaway is by Rainer Zenz, who says we can have it!  Oh. My. God.

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Happy Labor Day. 

Since I am out of work and still looking, I have been “visualizing” my ideal job! Ta da! It exists!  But somebody else already has it. The Bloggess!

Yes, she apparently gets paid to write about all the categories of her existence, including momhood, anxiety, sex, and silliness. And she has a book coming out in 2012. I am totally buying it. Or using my free Amazon coupon thingey to buy it. I know she will forgive me, because she is generous as well as funny. But she might mock me for writing for free. For that, I guess I forgive her.

We all have anxieties, OK?

Anyhoo, it’s possible I should also visualize more practical or likely job opportunities, since The Bloggess has already created and taken my ideal job, and good for her! 

OK, so my other ideal job is Poet in Residence. I reside here and write poetry, and get paid.

Or Generalist in Residence. (As I can also teach short fiction, literary editing, and acting, etc.)

In this ideal position at a local college or university, I teach but am not required to attend department or committee meetings.  I am paid to teach workshop classes with no paper grading, and to set up readings and performance events for the students, inviting the town, and having lots of fun. The students would be traditional and nontraditional college students and members of the community who write, act, or whatever. 

We would have a big event every year and invite The Bloggess as our guest speaker. She can say whatever she wants, and would be free to stage another zombie apocalypse.

Another version of the ideal job is one in which I have my own office, fresh flowers in a clear glass vase, and a friendly candy dish (wrapped candies for all, to avoid germ spreading).

It’s a job in which I get to wear more of the clothes in my closet, all saved for a rainy day on which I go to work and get paid. Right now, I wear jammies on into the day, forget to eat breakfast, and then, if I have to go beyond my back yard or my front stoop, put on an outfit I might wear off-and-on for the next week, until there’s some real reason to wash it.

I did have a reason to wash my clothes after creating the homemade compost bin from a garbage can, and after climbing up a ladder into the lilac tree to pull down the seedpods of sweet autumn clematis, which resemble the lady parts of the Wicked Witch of the West and all her female progeny. I can’t even find images of these on the Internet, and I know why!

Fear not, I am actually making a go of it with freelance work and visualizing labial seedpods opening to spread money into my eagerly cupped hands. 

I am furiously happy to blog and write poems for free.

See also Labors of Love at Escape Into Life.

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