1 April 2023
March may have had its madness, but Graceguts not so much. It was a quieter month, with fewer additions than in previous months. Here’s a summary of all the website delectables.
The biggest addition is “Selected Tanka from Woodnotes,” most likely wrapping up my extensive additions to the new Woodnotes section. This new page features 75 favourite poems selected from 257 tanka published in 1,116 pages over the journal’s eight-year history. I edited Woodnotes from 1989 to 1997.
In conjunction with the preceding task, I also created a page for “My Tanka in Woodnotes,” collecting eight of my poems, available through the Tanka page.
The Sequences page now features “Migration,” a seven-poem haiku sequence about salmon. One of these poems was just published in I Sing the Salmon Home, a Washington state anthology published by Empty Bowl Press in 2023, and the other six just appeared in Solitary Plover.
New on the Interviews page is “Tête-à-tête: Michael Dylan Welch,” featuring my responses to questions from Neena Singh. This interview appeared on The Wise Owl in January 2023, but I’ve only just now added the text to Graceguts. Neena also interviewed me on video, with different responses—see my “Wise Owl Interview” on the Videos page.
I’ve updated my Appearances page, such as with haiku workshops on May 16 and September 10, serving as MC for the Redmond Library’s “Poetry Coffee House” on April 22, and my hosting the May 13 quarterly Zoom meeting for Haiku Northwest, among other events.
I’ve added some new venues I’ve been featured at, such as Wednesday Night Poetry in Hot Springs, Arkansas, to the Venues, Clients, and Partners page, available under Workshops.
On the Haiku Workshops and Other Poetry Workshops pages, I’ve added a presentation listing for “Our Endless and Proper Work: Learning Attention from Mary Oliver.” And look for Raining Rengay on the Links page.
I’ve added “A Japanese Pigeon Poem” to the “For Fun” section of the Poems About Haiku page. It’s a silly anonymous pseudo-haiku, but I’m not above silly. More significant on the same page is my addition of “Bashō in Ireland” by Billy Collins, very much a poem of longing like Bashō’s “even in Kyoto, hearing the cuckoo’s cry, I long for Kyoto.”
I long for more Graceguts website additions in the coming months. Y’all please come back, y’hear?