Category: poetry

My Poem in Paterson Literary Review!

2025 Paterson Literary Review cover: Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Woman in Red Asian Shawl

Yesterday, I was thrilled to receive my contributor copy of the 2025 Paterson Literary Review. The link is to their site; the 2025 issue is not yet available to order but should be shortly.

For those of you who may not be familiar, the founding editor of the Paterson Literary Review is Maria Mazziotti Gillan, poet, editor, educator, artist, and Bartle Professor Emerita of English and creative writing at Binghamton University. I live in the Binghamton area and, while I never had the privilege of studying with her, many of the local poets that I have learned from through the Binghamton Poetry Project and through other local workshops were her students and often referred to her and used her books of prompts in our work together.

Having a poem in PLR is a dream come true for me. It’s an honor to be in the company of such distinguished poets. I’d start naming names but the post would go on too long and, with a 53 year history, I’d invariably leave out someone whom I should include.

My poem is “Giovanni” and is about my maternal grandfather. It’s part of my yet-to-be-published full-length collection, The Beyond Place, which centers on the North Adams, Massachusetts area, where I grew up and several generations of my family lived. The Hoosac Tunnel is part of the fabric of this poem.

Because of my health issues, I haven’t been able to do much poetry work, including submissions, for months. I submitted “Giovanni” last September and it was accepted in November, but, because the Paterson Literary Review is a huge undertaking to print – this edition has over 300 pages – it is just arriving now. It’s good for me to have a reminder that I am still acknowledged as a poet, even when I’m not able to do much work at the moment.

Thank you, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, for the honor of appearing in the Paterson Literary Review!

SoCS: two years of Hearts!

Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “something that opens.”

Something that opens is my first chapbook, Hearts. In a shameless exercise in self-promotion, I’m using this post to draw attention to a post that I just finished about the second anniversary of Hearts.

Check it out!

25 months of Hearts

A little over two years ago, Hearts, my first poetry chapbook was published by Kelsay Books. The poems center around my mother, concentrating on her final years as she lived with heart failure.

I know that many people are unfamiliar with the term “chapbook.” A chapbook is a short book that is usually organized around a central theme.

As someone who didn’t pursue poetry until later in life, I am honored to have a book in print. There are several ways to buy a copy: directly from Kelsay Books, from Amazon, on special order from any bookstore that has access to Ingram, or directly from me, in person or by mail. (Please send me an email at jcorey.poet@gmail.com to make arrangements.)

People who have been following my history as a poet know that I had very little formal coursework in poetry; I have developed my skills through the generous sharing of my poetry community, including the Binghamton Poetry Project, the Grapevine Poets, and the Boiler House Poets Collective.

What has been more difficult is developing the publicity skills needed to promote a book. I am by nature an introvert and struggle with self-promotion. I’m also not great with asking people to spend money. Unfortunately, there have been other obstacles in the form of personal and family health struggles that have kept me from doing a great job at selling my book.

I am very grateful for the friends – and the people who are unknown to me – who have read my book. I especially appreciate those who have reached out to me about Hearts, often sharing stories about their own loved ones. I write in order to connect with others and am deeply honored that my work resonates with them.

One thing that I hadn’t anticipated was what it feels like to lose friends who have read Hearts and written or spoken to me about it. It adds another aspect to their loss. I also wonder what will become of the copies that they had, especially when they are inscribed. I somehow imagine someone picking up a copy in a secondhand bookstore and wondering who the prior owner was and how I was connected to them.

I still hope to publish another book some day/year but I will always be pleased that my first book was about my mom.

And every time I see bleeding hearts, I think about Hearts and about her.

SoCS: drinks

I don’t drink coffee or alcohol or tea or soda, due to health issues. If I drink juices, I need to dilute them.

One of my more abstract poems is on the topic of drinks. It was published by Mania Magazine and you can find it here.

* Join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Linda’s prompt this week was “drink.”

Double-header Saturday

I realize that title seems like baseball, but it’s not, although Cooperstown is involved…

Despite my current health issues, I managed to attend two major events on Saturday.

In the afternoon, I sang-along with parts two and three of Handel’s Messiah. This was an event offered by the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton, with whom I serve as a singer and board member. Our artistic director, John M. Vaida, conducted a volunteer chamber orchestra and soloists with a chorus made up of those who showed up to sing along. Most of us were members of Madrigal Choir or Downtown Singers, although I think there were a few who aren’t presently in either group. It was a lot of fun to sing with old and new friends without the pressure of performance. Madrigal Choir hopes to do more events like this in the future.

Next up was heading to the Fenimore Art Museum, just outside Cooperstown, for the Write Out Loud ’25 reading, made possible only because spouse B did the driving, as we live about an hour and a half from there. I had been accepted to Write Out Loud ’24 last year with a poem from my chapbook, Hearts. When submissions opened for this year’s event, I sent the call on to my poet-friends in the area and I’m pleased to say that the Grapevine Poets from the Binghamton area were well represented this year with Merrill Oliver Douglas, Jessica Dubey, Richard Braco, and me all having work accepted.

Merrill read her poem, “Meditation in Walmart,” as the second piece in the program, with Richard reading “Pole Star Child” as the next-to-last piece in the program. Accepted writers have the option to read their own work or to have a member of the theater company affiliated with the Fenimore perform their piece. Cait Liberati read Jessica’s poem, “Love Birds.” Jessica wished that she could have been there to read it herself but she was away on a trip. I was thrilled with Sharon Rankins-Burd’s reading of my poem, “The Bridge“! I had planned to have an actor read my poem from the start because my health situation is too uncertain. I also appreciate hearing what a trained actor does with my words.

The Fenimore Art Museum has released the recording on their YouTube channel. If you click “more” in the description, it will open the program with links to the beginning of each piece.

I had figured that expending that much energy in a day would knock me for a loop and it did. I spent most of the day yesterday in bed and will lay low today, too, just going out for physical therapy. I’m grateful that I was able to attend these events and hope that we are able to get a better handle on my diagnosis and treatment options soon so that I have more energy to do two things in one day – or even one thing…

JC’s Confessions #31

In the first few seasons of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert did a recurring skit, then a best-selling book, called Midnight Confessions, in which he “confesses” to his audience with the disclaimer that he isn’t sure these things are really sins but that he does “feel bad about them.” While Stephen and his writers are famously funny, I am not, so my JC’s Confessions will be somewhat more serious reflections, but they will be things that I feel bad about. Stephen’s audience always forgives him at the end of the segment; I’m not expecting that – and these aren’t really sins – but comments are always welcome.

On April 6, 2025, Pope Francis appeared in public for the first time after returning home from his long hospitalization. It was at the end of a special Jubilee liturgy for the sick and health care workers and others who care for them. He had written the homily and a special blessing for the mass, although they were read by others. Francis wrote:

In this moment of my life I share a lot: the experience of infirmity, feeling weak, depending on the others for many things, needing support. It is not easy, but it is a school in which we learn every day to love and to let ourselves be loved, without demanding and without rejecting, without regretting, without despairing, grateful to God and to our brothers for the good that we receieve, trusting for what is still to come.

I am currently entering the second year of dealing with a complex medical situation that has not yet been fully diagnosed. I don’t know if I will be able to be adequately treated or if I will continue to see progression in my symptoms.

It’s hard.

I confess that I am not always gracious in this situation. I manage to let others do things for me and to ask for accommodations if I need them, but I find it difficult to set aside regret and to trust in the future.

This is especially hard for me in regard to my future as a poet. I don’t know if I will regain the creativity I’ve lost to brain fog and fatigue. I’m even losing the concentration and attention to detail needed to do submissions for my already existing poems and manuscripts.

I’m trying not to get to the point of despair.

These next few weeks are important in that I have a new batch of tests and specialist visits coming up.

Maybe having some more information about what is happening will help me to be better with being sick.

Maybe not.

I’ll try.

(I realized when I went back in my blog to find the number confession this was that this confession is, in a way, a continuation of #30.)

SoCS: calendar

My calendar used to be filled with meetings, volunteer gigs, poetry workshops and readings, family events, and music rehearsals and concerts.

Now, it’s mostly medical appointments.

I am still holding on to singing with the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton. We are coming up on performance week, which will be a challenge with my diminished energy.

Maybe this next round of tests and specialists will get to a full diagnosis and some kind of treatment to improve my situation. I know that it is unlikely to be fully reversed but I’m trying to retain hope that I can bring back the most important abilities and activities I can’t manage now.

If that happens, maybe my calendar will have somewhat fewer medical appointments and more poetry – with some more travel to see family and outings with friends.

Maybe that can even happen later in 2025.

It depends on what happens with the tests and doctor visits that are in those calendar boxes this spring…
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “calendar.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/03/21/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-22-2025/

SoCS: crumpled?

I remember reading Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday yesterday and thinking that I would pass this week because absolutely nothing came into my head, but, this morning, as I lay crumpled on my bed because taking a shower was too tiring and I’m trying to rest so I can participate in a poetry reading this afternoon, I thought I should post because I thought the prompt word was crumple but it was actually crackle, so never mind.

Yeah.

Brain fog.
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Please join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Details at the link above.

“Two-Hour Delay” by Abby E. Murray

Last Sunday, I shared Rattle Poets Respond offering “The Skaters” by Dante Di Stefano.

This Sunday, editor Timothy Green has chosen “Two-Hour Delay” by Abby E. Murray, which, to me, expresses perfectly the state of mind of these harrowing times in the US. (Link will open in a new tab, so you can read it right now or listen to the audio clip of Abby reading it. Make sure to also read Abby’s note that accompanies the poem.)

The opening lines are:

It’s February                                 and already
I’ve overspent my budgeted bewilderment

for the year, most of it on deep & constant
sorrow…

It’s true.

Interestingly, both Abby’s poem this Sunday and Dante’s poem last Sunday feature the counterpoint of a young daughter, enjoying the wonderment of winter, playing against the hard reality of current events.

It is my privilege to know both Abby and Dante, who each earned PhDs from Binghamton University. When I first joined the Binghamton Poetry Project, a community outreach program founded by Nicole Santalucia, Abby was our director. I was honored when Abby agreed to write a blurb for my chapbook, Hearts. It is so beautiful that I still tear up when I read it.

Mid-poem, Abby writes:

Belief is the new disbelief. Grief, not shock,

is this year’s renewable resource, and baby,
the harvest looks plentiful.

I’m really feeling it.

Thank you, Abby, for giving voice to what it is to be dealing with our present times.

Reblog: Poem by Deborah Marshall

I had to share this heart-breaking poem from fellow Boiler House Poets Collective member Deborah Marshall in the Silver Birch Press ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER series. Anyone who has been a care-giver for a loved one with dementia will likely find resonance with this achingly real scene.

Day 15, Bed 201B, Granger 2 by Deborah Marshall (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)


This has been one of the longest-running series for Silver Birch Press. You can find my post about my own entry here.