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Opening 2025, I have been at California Poets. I performed at Benicia’s, at Revolution Books for an Anti-Fascist Revolutionary Poetry Night and at Lake Merritt for Not My President’s Day. “American Dream� launched with Athena on February 26th and landed on the moon on March 6th. I have for the Ina Coolbrith Poetry Circle via Zoom and at Monkey House in Berkeley.

I edited a which was released by Hercules Publishing on January 15th, and there will be a reading of California based poets on June 28th at Alibi Bookshop. I am also compiling an anthology of Vallejo’s Poets Laureate and hoping to compile one of all the Solano County based poets laureate as well. I have upcoming publications in this year’s editions of Emerge magazine.

I meant to publish this retrospective on January 1st. However, life got in the way, so I am presenting it to you now.

In 2024 my poetry was published in 16 online publications, 3 print lit journals, 22 anthologies, and I also had 3 journalistic articles published. I am currently experiencing numerous months of writer’s block which resulted in my Submittable queue emptying out for the first time in 4 years. I lost track of the rejections this year, but there were some. You can see a here and here.

This year I added Colorado and Indiana to the list of states that I’ve had poetry published in, and Scotland and the Netherlands to the list of countries, bringing the total to 16 states and 8 countries. In an incredible twist, one of my poems, “American Dream� is with the Lunar Codex. It will travel to the moon twice with Athena and Polaris in 2025.

Though the number of performances this year were less frequent, they were meaningful. I’m grateful when I get to use my art to support the struggle for a better world. To my surprise the Vallejo City Council named me among several local women activists in a proclamation for Women’s History Month.

I was also honored to have a poem printed in the , and was an online panelist for the Party’s writer’s group twice. I also performed with the Revolutionary Poets Brigade at the in support of Toomaj Salehi and other political prisoners, following up on the at Revolution Books in Berkeley. I also performed at Specs for the Dadaist journal Maintenant, and at Laborfest Sing Out! at Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics. I also had three poems accepted for display as part of the Causing Cultural Anarchy: Censored & Banned exhibit. I encourage you to check out my book if you’re interested in political poetry.

Making new friends in the Oklahoma poetry community was certainly a highlight of my year, having performed at Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in Ada, Ink and Inspiration in Enid, and the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. My activism took me back to Oklahoma as well, and I am grateful for the work of the Enid Social Justice Committee. I wrote two articles for , and a followup for the .

I was interviewed on , , and by this year. I featured at 1428 Poets in the Haight and 3rd Saturday Poetry in Chinatown in San Francisco, the Solano County Fair and Visions of the Wild in Vallejo, and the Jewish People Exhibit at the Vallejo Museum. Congregation B’nai Israel invited me to perform a poem on the occasion of their affiliation with the Reconstructionist Movement. I hosted 12 Rounds featuring Kyrah Ayers at Mare Island Art Studios.

2024 marks ten years of spoken word performances. Although I was asked to share one of my poems at a synagogue gathering in May 2013, I count December 6, 2014 as my debut because I caught the performing bug, and it was life changing. After months of wrestling with my stage fright, the next year beginning April 9, 2015, I started attending Poetry by the Bay which at the time met twice a month.

62% my performing has been in Solano County which is a testament to the close knit, supportive poetry community here. Over the years I performed 104 times at Poetry by the Bay, including once as a guest host. I have appeared 54 times on KZCT, including 5 featured interviews. I attended Poetry in Notion 30 times, including 19 times as host and once to teach self-publishing. I’ve read at over 100 other events in Vallejo, Benicia, and Fairfield.

Certainly, my busiest years were during my service as Vallejo’s Poet Laureate where I was performing nearly every week. Although the number of open mics has grown in Solano County, I have cut back considerably.

If my counting is correct, then 449 performances by the end of 2024.

2013: 12014: 12015: 292016: 452017: 462018: 642019: 632020: 362021: 362022: 512023: 372024: 40

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Poetry is Dead II: Once You’re Dead, You’re Dead Forever (Hercules Publishing, ISBN: 979-8-218-54778-3) was released on January 15th, 2025. Retail cost $27.50.

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Honored to say that I’ve been asked to edit an upcoming Grateful Dead anthology by called Poetry is Dead II: Once You’re Dead, You’re Dead Forever!

Deadline is November 1st, 2024.

Send poems to [email protected]

Selected contributors receive $20 and 3 copies of the anthology.

This is the sequel to Poetry is Dead: An Inclusive Anthology of Deadhead Poetry which was released in 2022.

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I moved to Vallejo ten years ago this month. I began performing my poetry in December 2014. I first read at Poetry by the Bay in April 2015. I became Vallejo’s poet laureate in 2017, and during my tenure I judged 8 contests, hosted over 25 shows, and performed 141 times in 18 different cities. I’ve put together a of some of the highlights by year with more specific details. I am slowly working on adding links to if they exist. I figured I’d do a retrospective blog post mainly for my own amusement, but perhaps, so others can see my statistics.

While I used to just leap at every opportunity, I have become far more discerning about the kind of performances and publications that I lend my voice to. There are currently at minimum 6 per month in Solano County, and I have resigned myself to not being able to commit to performing that frequently. This year I cut back quite a bit in order to focus on my ongoing health issues, and consequently, I am spending more time bird watching, drinking tea, and relaxing in solitude.

In addition to reducing my general attendance at open mics, I turned down a number of opportunities in order to bring more balance into my life. I prefer to focus on performing occasional poetry, featured sets, writing for ekphrastic events, and submitting to anthologies. I don’t mind judging or entering the occasional contest, but now that I am no longer a poet laureate, I’d rather leave the hosting, event planning, and teaching to other qualified poets.

I’ve won 44 ribbons across 4 different county fairs since 2015. Although I did not enter any in 2023, I did win a spot in the Curbside haiku contest in Tulsa which was a highlight of the year along with returning to Oklahoma for WoodyFest. It was my first time performing in front of an audience in a state other than California. The trip allowed me to see a number of old friends from my childhood that I hadn’t hung out with in years.

In 2023 despite this recalibration, I am hardly resting on my laurels. I still managed to perform 37 times and was published 21 times. I think my performance statistics are slightly below my personal average in 2023, but I’d have to reverse engineer previous years to know for certain. Prior to the pandemic I was averaging once a week. Both the number of mentions and publication rejections were a ridiculous personal record in 2023.

2023

25 rejections received16 mentions in the press13 anthologies published in 202312 featured poet or occasional poetry performances11 still pending submissions8 other publications8 open mics7 anthology performances7 radio performances 3 anthology publications coming in 20243 ekphrastic performances1 journal acceptance, publication coming in 20241 haiku contest won1 hall of fame1 city council proclamation mention1 contest judged1 poet laureate selection committee 

In late October 2022 I calculated that 25% of my poetry performances since 2015 were at Poetry by the Bay (38% just open mics in general), 13% at OZCAT (15% radio in general), 8% at Poetry in Notion, 6% for fundraisers and protests, 4% featured sets (10 minutes or more), 6% Jewish events, 4% anthologies, 3% at festivals or fairs, 3% judging, 2% writing to art, 2% with other PLs, and 1% teaching.

At that time it was a total of 380 performances. 274 of those were in Solano County. I’ve been terrible about meticulously keeping track of performances in 2023 due to life events and health issues getting in the way. I did five more performances after October 2022 and 37 in 2023, so my guess is that I’ll start out 2024 with a total of 422 lifetime performances. 

I see the value in traditional publications because my poetry travels to places that I cannot, and thanks to Zoom, I am able to read for new audiences from the comfort of home. Since 2017 I’ve been published in the American states of New York, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Washington, California, Tennessee, Texas, Rhode Island, Arizona, and Minnesota. Outside of the United States my poetry is in multiple anthologies from Kenya, United Kingdom, Canada, India, Israel, and Australia. 

Alien Buddha Press and Moonstone Arts Center have the current lead with number of acceptances being 12 and 10 anthologies, respectively. They both publish numerous themed anthologies per year on topics that are on my wavelength. Publication statistics are below and a detailed list is on the .

I made 63 submissions in 2020, 15 in 2021, 18 in 2022, and 32 in 2023. Before that I didn’t keep an accurate count, and I focused on self-publishing full collections instead. 13 anthologies published me in 2023, 17 in 2022, 19 in 2021, 10 in 2020, 1 in 2019, 2 in 2018, 1 in 2017. 4 other publications in 2022, 2 others in 2021, 8 in 2020, 1 in 2015, 3 in 2016, 2 in 2017, 5 in 2018, 1 in 2019. I had 25 rejections in 2023, 7 rejections in 2022, 2 in 2021, 23 rejections in 2020. I kept track of 5 rejections in 2019, 1 in 2018, 16 in 2016, and 2 in 2015, but there were certainly more in those years than I have a record of.

I did submit to publications prior to 2015, but 100% rejections isn’t worth keeping track of. Most of those rejections were literary journals at the time. Since I started focusing my efforts on writing for themed anthologies, my hit rate has been at least 50%. I received my first literary journal acceptance in 2023.

I am not currently focusing on writing books per se, since this isn’t a money making venture. Please support Alibi Bookshop, Bookshop Benicia, and Revolution Books in Berkeley if you wish to buy my existing paperbacks. They have several in stock. I look forward to whatever my tenth year of performing shall bring.

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