Strange Machines

I’ve pretty much retired from writing poetry. So the next thing for me to do is to properly catalog the work I have done. And I confess I have been very tardy about it. Just the other night I pulled out a stack of magazines my work has appeared in and scratched my head on how to type all the poems out. Most of my poems were lost in a tragic 2004 computer death. I shed many tears over that. (Remember to back up your computer. Now.)

Anyway, I’ve been collating all my poems online and the remaining ones in some form of text from random files in my computer into Google Docs and Awesome Note, but the rest remain in print. Rather tired to type, I’m going to try this iPhone app OCRTOOL which appears to work as a scanner and converts the image to text.

Update: Just tested it. It works beautifully! No need to type my old poems. Just snap a photo of it (or use one from the photo album) and it corrects automatically to an accuracy rate of about 95%. Best $1.99 I spent on the App Store!

I was very thrilled to receive an acceptance from Tales of the Talisman for my SF poem Earth 2007 which will appear in volume 6, issue 1, scheduled for June 2010.

My poem Mercury Rising appears in this exquisite issue of Tales of the Talisman, graced by the eternal Marilyn Monroe.

The poem is about the survivors of a flooded Earth, now living in skyscraper-sized Habitats in orbit around Venus.

It was written back in 2007 during a sudden burst of inspiration along with 2 other still-homeless poems I’d neglected to find a home for.

Although it is a premise that has been explored extensively in many literary mediums, in poetry, such tragedy and triumph can always be remolded into a thing of laconic beauty.

Tales of the Talisman can be ordered here and its TOC here.

This was one of the funnest projects I’ve been privileged to be involved in and with such great company too. The Exquisite Corpuscle, in the words of its editors, is “a literary game of telephone”.

Edited by the fabulous Frank Wu and Jay Lake, this project also includes: Kenneth Brady, Alan DeNiro, Richard Doyle, Michaela Eaves, M.C.A. Hogarth, Michael J. Jasper, Aurora Lemieux, Kristin Livdahl, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Tim Pratt, Bruce Holland Rogers, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Nigel Sade, Maia Sanders, Heather Shaw, Diana Sherman, Gary W. Shockley, Matt Taggart, and Greg van Eekhout.

The anthology is centred around a theme: the exquisite corpuscle, and one person creates his or her interpretation and then hands it to the next who then interprets it in another medium. The result is an amazing collection of work and a really cool bio section at the end.

It arrived today in the mail (the mailman actually caught me on the way out and so thankfully avoided it being squashed and mangled in my tiny mailbox), and I wore a silly grin for half a day, shushing everyone so I could have a good look at it, read Frank’s intro, pored over my poem and bio. After being out of the writing scene for such a long time, it is wonderful to see my work again in print.

Thank you, Frank, for including me in this grand and exquisite project!

Pop by Fairwood Press today and check it out.

I was very very thrilled to see a plug (and my mug) for my reading of The Nightmare Avatar’s Nightmare in Weird Tales!

Humongous thanks to Mike for telling me about it.

My poem Ghost Month appears in Space & Time #100.

In a review, Endicott Studio said: “There are just too many good authors in this issue to ignore, and you’ll be kicking yourself when it’s sold out and you didn’t get one.”

So get ye grubby hands on this ubercool issue, which features my poems The World’s Edge and Miss Cossie’s Pies.

Yesterday was a busy but remarkable day for Jack and I. We went to the office to talk to my boss about returning to work, went home for Grandma to bathe Jack (she does a better bath experience for him really), and then off to his favourite uncle’s place for dinner.

His Granddad happily cooed at Jack while he looked on amusedly and then made squeals of delight, some of which I’ve never heard. I tried to get him to say “ack ack” (Jack Jack) as he did some days again but he didn’t bite. He’s been making an effort to talk more. He said “Hi” (okay, maybe more of a sigh but it was very pronounced) at 6-7 weeks, and has said “Hey” twice since, once in response to my “Hey”.

He happily watched his uncle’s fish while we all ate dinner. After that, my brother grabbed his Jack Jack (from The Incredibles) piggy bank and waved it at Jack who stared back wide-eyed and curious. “That’s you, Jack Jack!” he exclaimed. Jack giggled in response.

I discovered HBO and the whole family sat and watched The Forgotten (guaranteed to make any Mom clench their sons closer to them in horror) and then, Stepford Wives (strangely appropriate during this time of my life). The Hub collected us at 1030pm and Jack was asleep by midnight as usual.

In the mail arrived the 2006 Rhysling Anthology and also Mike Allen’s cool new book of poetry Strange Wisdoms of the Dead, which included 2 poems we collaborated on: Transformations and Asunder. I had a quick flip-through while nursing Jack and was brought to wonderment by the amazing poems I so missed over the past couple of years.

Meanwhile, a huge congrats to Mike and David for winning the Rhysling awards for short poem and long poem, respectively. It has been an awe-inspiring experience to be listed in their and the other nominees’ great company. I’ll be reading poems from both books to Jack. I hope he’ll be as fascinated with science fiction as I am and inherit the wonderment I have for science and the natural world.

Perhaps it had been a long and tiring day, but Jack slept till 6am this morning. He nursed for a while and was asleep again by 630am. He muttered to himself around 9am but didn’t wake till 10am. After another feed he was asleep again. I left him to nap while I made breakfast and read beside him. He had his arms up above his head. It was so cute.

Finally I declared it morning when he fussed at 11am, turned on the main light, opened the windows, and played Mozart for him. He smiled and cooed as I changed his diaper and put on his Doggone Cute t-shirt. I sat him up on my lap and we talked and laughed till noon.