I’m pleased to announce that my poem “Confessional” has been published in the annual print edition of The Sandy River Review. I admit that I love seeing my poems in print; the edition will also be available online at a future date.
Many thanks to the Humanities Department of the University of Maine at Farmington, their Creative Writing students and faculty, and the editorial team for including me in this beautiful volume of poetry, prose, and visual art.
“Confessional” was written in response to a July, 2020 Binghamton Poetry Project prompt based on James Wright’s “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota.” It’s about my first confession as a Catholic second-grader. In the spirit of no poem ever really being finished, a revised version is part of my full-length manuscript which I will begin submitting to contests and presses soon.
I’ve been wanting to write a long, catch-up post for my Vote for Democracy ’24 series because so much has happened, but I haven’t had much good-quality brainpower to do it.
Sorry about that.
I hope you have more patience with me than I have with myself.
Just a quick note that I am working on re-configuring my author site and blog.
I’m in a bit of a tangle with WordPress support in how to actually implement what I thought I had done when I acquired joannecorey.com as my custom domain last September.
For now, please note that what had been the main menu items for Top of JC’s Mind are now in a drop-down menu. I’m not a fan of drop-down menus but I haven’t yet figured out how to retain the prior look of topofjcsmind.wordpress.com under the joannecorey.com domain.
If I can’t figure it out, you may have to put up with some more finagling in the coming days. I’m hoping not to have to change my theme because it suits me and is, I think, easy to read.
I thought I’d do a brief update on my health status, despite still being in the middle of the diagnostic swamp.
When I wrote my last update, I had not yet started vestibular therapy or had my hearing test. The hearing test ruled out hearing loss as a cause for the tinnitus. I’ve been making progress with vestibular therapy and my balance is improving, although fatigue or being out in the summer weather aggravates things considerably.
It’s looking increasingly like the basic problem may be in my neck, so I have just begun physical therapy on my neck and we are looking into referrals to specialists who might be able to arrive at a diagnosis.
Meanwhile, I’m continuing to operate at diminished capacity. The tinnitus remains constant. There is still a lot of fatigue and brain fog and some periods of fuzzy vision. The neck pain, headache, and tingling come and go. I have to be careful not to do too much on any particular day and sometimes need naps. I am cutting back on my responsibilities and activities, which is frustrating.
Today marks the first anniversary of the release of my first poetry chapbook, Hearts (Kelsay Books, 2023). It is available from either of those links or directly from me by emailing jcorey.poet@gmail.com. Bonus: I can sign or inscribe for you, if you wish.
The poems in Hearts center on my mother, mostly in her final years when she was living with heart failure. It is a chapbook, so it is only 21 poems. (Chapbooks are generally under fifty pages and are organized around a central theme or device.) One of the blessings of having the book out in the world is that so many people have told me that my experiences with my mother reminded them of taking care of their own loved one. I appreciate that my poems touch people’s hearts and minds and give them an opportunity to reflect on their own lives.
As many of you know, I returned to my childhood love of writing poetry in my fifties and my education in the craft has come largely through my poetry community, which includes the Grapevine Poets, the Boiler House Poets Collective, and the Binghamton Poetry Project, recently re-named the Binghamton Writers Project. At times, I’ve felt the learning curve has been steep, but I’ve managed to keep learning and growing as a poet.
What I didn’t fully realize before the publication of Hearts was how daunting the whole publicity enterprise is and how little I understood what it would entail. Kelsay provided a helpful packet of information and I initially sent out some queries to get reviews in journals, but no one responded, life intervened, and I dropped it. The thought of entering contests was bewildering. I made some attempts at getting my book into local bookstores but there was a persistent problem with listing at a distributor. I’ve gotten several cold calls from a scammy publicity company, even though I’ve asked to be removed from their call list. I’m grateful to have had a handful of signing and/or reading opportunities locally but I can’t wrap my head around what it would take to organize an actual book tour.
When my first annual royalty payment arrived, I realized that a good percentage of those sales through Kelsay or Amazon were from people that I knew who had ordered from them. I had sold more copies personally than had been ordered online, which was simultaneously a pat on the back and a stark reminder of my responsibility for marketing my book.
Are you on Goodreads? If so, I’d be honored if you would follow me, Joanne Corey, there and follow Samantha Terrell, too. While it’s no longer National Poetry Month, it’s always a great time to support poets and poetry!
Sharing that my poem about my mom, “First Grandchild,” is now part of the ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER series on Silver Birch Press; my blog post about it is here.
April is National Poetry Month in the United States and I had a busy time this year, so I thought I’d do a post with links for those who wanted to catch up.
On April 14th, I sang with the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton in a concert entitled America Speaks. We sang settings of poems by American poets with readings by members of S.T.A.R. (Southern Tier Actors Read).
On April 2oth, I travelled to Cooperstown for the Write Out Loud 2024 performance which included my poem “Some Time Else” from my chapbook, Hearts.
On April 27th, I read with the Grapevine Poets at the Broome County Arts Council, where their POETREE was on display.
Throughout the month, my poem “North Adams Public Library” was part of their National Poetry Month display.
I contributed to the Tioga Arts Council’s Poetry Out Loud series with a recording of my poem, “The Bridge.”
On April 30th, current US Poet Laureate Ada Limón read at Smith College, which, though I could not attend in person, I wrote about here.
One thing that was missing from April this year was attending workshops with the Binghamton Poetry Project, which is in the process of being re-organized as the Binghamton Writers Project. I missed the chance to learn from Binghamton University grad students and other community poets who attend these workshops.
I took another step forward with my full-length poetry collection by sending a revised draft to April Ossmann for review. April has sent me extensive feedback so there will be more revisions and then a new round of submissions. Stay tuned for updates!
Early May bonus is that poet Samantha Terrell is featuring me in the SHINE section of her website.
I love it when National Poetry Month goes into overtime!
I’d love to hear in comments about others’ National Poetry Month experiences this year. Stay tuned for more poetry news – and more eclectic musings – here at Top of JC’s Mind.
I first met Samantha virtually through the Binghamton Poetry Project last year. Her poetry lives in a socially conscious context and she is very generous in sharing her talents with the community.
She recently led a workshop at the Broome County Arts Council entitled “Using Your Voice: A Poetry Workshop for Authenticity.” This inspired the creation of a new poetry club, Binghamton Beatniks, which will meet for the first time on May 14, 2024 at 11 AM in the Fenton Free Library, 1062 Chenango St., Binghamton NY. Local poetry lovers are invited to attend and bring along a poem to share.
Many thanks to Samantha Terrell for featuring me on her website this month and for all she is doing to celebrate poetry in our community!
On Saturday, April 27, seven of the Grapevine Poets happily returned to the Broome County Arts Council’s Artisan Gallery to offer a reading in honor of National Poetry Month.
We decided to use the format of our first group reading at BCAC in April ’23, with each poet reading their own work together with that of another poet. After a welcome from Connie Barnes, BCAC’s Gallery and Education Manager, and introduction from Merrill Douglas, Richard Braco gave a moving tribute to Myron Ernst, the local poet who was the origin of what grew into the Grapevine Poets and who passed away over the winter. Myron’s work appeared in many journals over the decades. His 2013 collection, God Time Creosote, follows his life from childhood through old age.
My own selections this year centered on the interplay of the arts, history, and our current social circumstances. I read two of my yet-to-be-published ekphrastic poems, “Revelation in Shadow” and “Memphis, Tennessee,” along with Robert Frost’s “Choose Something Like a Star,” which was set to music by Randall Thompson and performed by the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton at our concert earlier this month.
One of the things I especially liked about our reading this year was the frequent expressions of how important community is for us as poets. While the stereotype of writers in general and poets in particular is that they are off alone in a secluded spot scribbling away, the reality is that our work is often strengthened by coming together to share our works-in-progress with our fellow writers. I often acknowledge the Grapevine Poets, the Boiler House Poets Collective, and the Binghamton Poetry Project in my bios because I know I would never have been able to publish without their example, advice, and support. During National Poetry Month, it was good to acknowledge what we are to each other as poets.
This year’s participants were (left to right) with quilt exhibit in the background: Sharon Ball, Wendy Stewart, Susan Thornton, Richard Braco, Joanne Corey, Jessica Dubey, and Merrill Douglas.
After the reading and Q&A, there was time for us to greet our guests, browse the Artisan Gallery, and visit the POETREE, which is pictured above. Several of the Grapevine Poets had poems that were part of the POETREE display, which showcased short, spring- or renewal-themed poems from local writers.
Many thanks to Connie Barnes and the Broome County Arts Council for inviting us to read with them in honor of National Poetry Month. We Grapevine Poets look forward to more collaborations in the future.
If you expand the description of the video, you can read the program, which is helpfully indexed to bring you to the beginning of each segment, first the writer’s biography and then their poem, essay, short story, or play. If a piece is performed by someone other than the writer, that information is included, as well.
With 22 writers represented, the full video is two hours, so it is nice to have it organized in this way so a viewer can easily choose segments to watch when they have time.
You can read my blog post about my participation in Write Out Loud 2024 here .
My thanks once again to Mike Tamburrino, Christine Juliano, the Fenimore Art Museum, and the Glimmer Globe Theatre for including me in Write Out Loud 2024 and making it such a memorable experience.
I hope that I will be able to submit work for future Write Out Loud performances and, perhaps, be fortunate enough to be included again. Writers within a 100-mile radius of Cooperstown, New York, can be on the lookout for the submission call coming out this fall for Write Out Loud 2025. Playwrights from that same geography should look for the NEXT! series, which offers staged readings of new work. You can read my post about Eva Schegulla’s Fall Forever, which was part of NEXT! 2024, here.
If you are visiting the Cooperstown area, be sure to check out the Fenimore Art Museum and their partner-across-the-road, the Farmers’ Museum. Both museums have winter closures; the links should take you to the page with their hours and dates for the current year.
To hear more about what it’s like to live in Cooperstown, which most people know as home to the Baseball Hall of Fame, check out the final piece of Write Out Loud 2024, Robert Harlow’s “Cooperstown, an insider’s guide.”
Joanne Corey 