Dear Friends,
How can it be May already? When I last wrote I sent Valentine wishes all while I was busy volunteering at a vaccine clinic and also the call center. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and we have a saying here, "Throw a stick, hit a poet." And I was reminded that while volunteering as the incredible poet Heather McHugh drove through the vaccination line as well as the wonderful poet, Stan Rubin. I mean, you're doing your job and a MacArthur Genius Grant Poet comes into view--the gifts are around us if we look for them.
Here's me going all fangirl with Heather McHugh.
Now it's May, many of us are fully vaccinated and I've neglected to share that my new book of poems,
Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press) is out in the world!
So I wanted to write you to invite you to my Copper Canyon Press Spring Release reading on Wednesday, May 5th at 5 pm.
Click here to get a link to the reading. You'll get a great sampling of upcoming spring books including
Kayleb Rae Candrilli,
Arthur Sze,
Nikki Wallschlaeger, and
Noah Warren.
(And if you can't make this and want to follow where I'll be reading next,
you can check out my calendar here.)
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Opportunities: Rhino Poetry is open for submissions until June 30.
Southeast Review is looking for submissions. ($3 reading fee.)
If you haven't published a book of poems yet, you are eligible for the
Best New Poets prize!
And here in the Pacific Northwest, the cherry blossoms bloomed so much later than normal--and you know it is spring when the poets start writing about petals.
I leave you with this poem by Kobayashi Issa (小林 一茶, June 15, 1763 – January 5, 1828):
under cherry blossoms’ shade
even those whom we don’t know
are not strangers
* * * May we continue not to be strangers.
I will send you another much more fun electronic postcard later, but I wanted to say thank you to all who have sent photos of copies of my book out in the wild and for all of you who continue to walk into the world leading with love, kindness, and a passion for the arts. You are an incredible community, and I thank you for all your joy and support.
Love, light, and poetry,
Kelli
(If you haven't ordered
Dialogues with Rising Tides and want to--it's available on
Bookshop.org &
Amazon--OR order from your favorite local bookseller!)
P.S. If you are reading this on Gmail on Chrome and having issues with seeing the photo, make sure to click "load all images" at the top. You can also right-click the photo and select "open in new tab" on the photo--, OR I have found they show up in Safari or on your phone.
Dear friend, 
