Y’all, the photo I picked for my Writers’ Corner page looks like I’ve just returned from a lunch after which I couldn’t eat an entire dessert myself but also couldn’t find someone to split it with me, which is actually what had just happened, so I’m posting this photograph of Gertrude Stein and I as a replacement.

I’ve got a crop of three new poems up in the latest issue of Nice Cage. I’m excited about them for a lot of reasons (they’re in the good company of great work I greatly admire, including this poem by Christian Anton Gerard), but the foremost reason is that they represent what I’ve been moving towards in my work since I received an NEA Fellowship. In my artist’s statement, which you can read here (please also stop and read the incredible work by my fellow Fellows — I’m still not sure how I’m in this group but God almighty am I grateful to be), I mentioned my plans to write about St. Teresa of Avila, which I did, for a little while. But then these other poems started to crop up, and suddenly my throat was full of the cadences of the Deep South, where I was born and raised and have returned. Before I knew it, I found myself far down the path of writing about that, about the ways the South has formed and destroyed me, about the beauty and the brutality of the place I have called (and refused to call) home. These three poems are part of that project, along with this poem in The Breakwater Review: an exorcism of sorts that started the project. Stay tuned for more!

When the squall line quickened, the room
became aching. The room became wool. No god was there.
(from “Downburst“)

I know, this totally spooked me up, too, but it’s the kind of image I was thinking about when I described doll hair. So.

I’ve got two poems in the latest issue of Foundry — “Downburst” and “A Breviary.” You can find them both here. While you’re there, you’re going to want to stick around for a while and check out the whole issue — it’s really phenomenal, and I am grateful to be a part of it.

I haven’t posted in a thousand forevers. Forgive me. I’ve been shoulder-deep in poems and drafts and, I will be honest, a lot of videos of corgis, especially corgis belonging to the Queen. Corgi care is self-care, y’all.

I have been tremendously lucky lately to have some amazing journals take a chance on my work. Here’s a list of links to poems I’ve had published online lately and where you can find them:

• “In Deep” at the Breakwater Review.
• “The Summer I Wondered Why Dresses Exist” and “My Own Sweetness, Assassin” at The Boiler.
• “Roleplaying in Boardrooms and Bedrooms” and “Bathemetry” in Really System.
• “We Turned Into Out Turning” up at LiGHT/WATER.
• “On the Self-Guided Tour of the Fountain of Youth” at Sliver of Stone.
• “Melancholy in Definitions” and “That Night In (The Car & The Inside & Outside & So)” at TINGE Magazine.
• “Viscera” at Wherewithal.
• “Alabama Winter” in About Place‘s special issue on the South.

Finally, a brief word: there’s been a great deal of talk about witch trials lately, and it feels very serendipitous that my first full-length collection, Maleficae, has gone into a second edition and is once again available for purchase on Amazon (signed copies are also available — just send me a note via the comment page!). The book tells the story of a midwife/healer tried and executed as a witch during a real and actual witch trial. It also explores the forces that led to the trials, during which over one hundred thousand people were killed. The material felt urgent when I wrote it, but it feels infinitely more urgent now.

If you’re looking for warmth this cold February Sunday, I’ve got three poems out in the online world to keep you company.

First up is “Edit,” published in the Fall 2016 issue of Causeway Lit. I’m proud to say that it won first place in the Fall 2016 contest, and poetry editor Lauren Palmbach wrote a very kind and sweet note that you can read here. Thank you, Lauren!

Second, you’ll find “Deposition: On That Night & All That Was After” in the latest issue of Josephine Quarterly.

Thirdly, you’ll find my poem “As One Would Imagine After” on the Blue Mountain Community College website. The poem received an honorable mention in what’s probably one of my favorite competitions: the Warming Station Poetry Contest, the proceeds of which benefit the Pendleton Warming Station in Pendleton, Oregon.

I’ve got three poems up in the new issue of TriQuarterly: “Yes, I Would Like to Imagine the Self,” “The Imposition of Ashes,” and “Hysterectomy/Recovery.” There’s a recording of

The poems are a little sad, so I decided to include a photograph of Gertrude Stein in the middle of doubting one of my promises.

me reading each poem, which you can listen to while looking at a photograph of the time I tried to do Valley of the Dolls hair and failed, which is posted next to my bio on the page. While you’re there, you should definitely think about Valley of the Dolls and how amazing it is for a while. When you’re finished with this important meditation, you should totally definitely visit the rest of the pieces in this issue, which are amazing and authored by some of my very favorite writers, including Maggie Smith, Emily Jaeger, Ruben Quesada — pretty much everyone in the issue, to be honest, and it’s an honor for my work to appear with theirs.