New published poems

I've had two of my poems published at Blue Shift Journal! The first poem, "fieldnotes," was a runner up in their Brutal Nation Special Edition and got Editor's Choice. It's a poem I finished up by cutting apart a fairly different poem that I began thinking about at my first Cave Canem retreat years ago. It was essentially a lot of fragmented ideas about the nature of blackness. But I began to see intersections of a number of racist events in my life that took place in fields.

Here's a shot of the poem, cut into pieces and posted in different configurations on the wall of my studio:

The second poem, called "Prayer to the Small God of Misnomers," is something I wrote at a different residency, VCCA, last year.

And it's unlikely anyone will notice, but I did a lot of work over the last few days to make this website more compatible with small displays (that is, it looks way better on cell phones now). Whew.

Processing Your Writing: Organizing Free Writing

Is there a way to automate (!) or organize free writing into system that allows the writer to focus entirely on writing instead of organization itself? I'm currently at the Millay Colony Residency, and given that I spent the last 4 days addressing this problem, I figured I'd share the system I designed. Two of the programs, PoemTag and ShortcutFixer, I programmed myself. The last program, Robobasket 3, is available online. If there's any interest, I'll release my programs, but I feel as though I may be uniquely obsessed with process in this way.

So on to it: I free write every day. Some of those "poems" are destined only to be exercises, and some I am taken by and want to pursue later. So after I free write a poem and save it into my big "Poem" folder, I click the start menu and run PoemTag, which automatically detects which file was just saved:

I rate the poem in how confident I am with its worth from 0 (the default) to 20. By clicking okay, PoemTag creates a shortcut to this file in my edit folder, and appends exclamations to the filename to reflect its importance. So if I think asterism is a 3, it will save a shortcut called !!!Asterism - Shortcut.

This way, I have a folder that only has shortcuts to the poems I think I want to edit later.

Where Robobasket 3 comes in: I have this program set up to run in the background. When these shortcuts reach a certain ripeness (1 month? 3 months? I can change it at will), they will automatically be moved to wherever I want. Say, the desktop. Now I can't avoid seeing those files.

This way, I can forget about all the poems I've written until enough time has passed that I can give them fresh eyes.

This system does not involve any of the actual poetry files. Those are safely wherever they were saved.

Finally, if I ever decide to move the original files that my shortcut system links to, I have designed Shortcut Fixer. This program takes shortcuts that can no longer figure out where a file is located and locates the file, thus fixing the broken link.

This way, I can move the actual poem files anywhere I want--for instance, if I want to move all the free writing I've been doing to a 2016 folder.

That all sounds more complicated than it is. Essentially, after I free write and save, PoemTag pops up, I tell it a number, and everything is handled automatically.

For those of us who write so wildly that we cannot be trusted to organize anything on our own...

Site Update, Blog Revamp

This marks a radical update of both http://www.keithswilson.com and http://keithswilson.blogspot.com/

This blog/news feed will be used periodically to update readers on my publications, schedule updates, conference panels, teaching and editing news, and game design updates.

To new things!

4 of my poems published at Small Doggies

Four of my poems (listed below) have been published at Small Doggies.

There's sort of a story to this collection of poems, which I'll paste and change a little around from an email sent to the Affrilachian Poets:

 When I was in Washington D.C. for Split This Rock I began this writing project.

I was thinking back to my first and only poetry professor, Frank X himself--specifically when he told us to come up with descriptions of objects in the classroom.  The room was pretty damn bare, so you ended up getting lots of people describing the same pencil sharpener.  What was interesting to me is that regardless of the quality, these were very different descriptions.

So it only made sense to me that no matter how mundane the object, a poet should be able to write a classroom's worth of poems about it.  I don't have 30 different minds, but I can inhabit that many.  Or many more.

I decided to write what I thought "13 ways of looking at a blackbird" was going to be about before I read it, that first time.  That is, I wrote 13 poems about the most boring object I could find: a single set of nail clippers, which sit here beside me even now.  As you'd probably guess, this became increasingly difficult, and by the end, it sort of taught me about how I think, because none of these poems were about the nail clippers, or at least, none of them were just about nail clippers.

Anyway, the poems are "Chapel Carter is the Inventor of the Nail Clipper," ""Clippers, as Tends to Happen, Lost in Modernism," "What Does a Nail Clipper do in Meeting a Mole?," and "Mortality and Nail Clippers."

Now I gotta find a home for the other 9.  haha

On the liberation of Lawn Jockies

I'm a little late at linking to this but my Affrilachian-sister Bianca Spriggs has one of my favorite blog posts of 2010 about her 're-purposing' of a lawn jockey (rechristened Rocko) in Lexington, KY.

A poem I wrote about lawn jockies appears on the blog as well, but honestly, check out the story and the photos first.

And spread the word!  Seriously, I love this.

I've been published in Tidal Basin Review

My poem, The Lost Quatrain of the Ballad of a Red Field has been published in the 2010 Fall-Winter issue of Tidal Basin Review.

And in a related note; probably the most beautiful cover of anything I've ever been published in.  Check it out.

I have a poem in the newest Anti-

This is a special poem for me because it's that rare poem that not only got published, but which I regularly read.  Plus, it's the poem which I named this blog for (I seriously just noticed that).  Check out the Robotto-Mulatto's own, at Anti-.

I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize!

Muzzle Magazine has nominated me for a Pushcart Prize for my recent poem Blackberry Harvest.  It pretty much has made my entire month.

Anymore, fall just feels like unemployment

I've been reading some of the letters sent between poets, as well as between them and their family.  Besides the schadenfreude associated with hearing dirt on what are, essentially, celebrities (Robert Frost calls Ezra Pound his "sometimes friend."  Ice cold.) there's a certain humanizing element to it as well.  A solidarity in reading that T.S. Elliott struggled greatly with his finances when he moved to England.  Especially now, that I am once again looking for work.

Really, at this point, it's more of the same.  Just frustrating that so much of time time is spent just looking for work.  Also, somewhat of a set back when a potential employer found this blog and rescinded a job interview.  Now, I can see their post on Craigslist.  Maybe that's something like seeing an ex at the grocery store, soon after the break up.

In any case, if there's writing that needs to be done, and you're not offended by my blog (which I personally find fairly tame), then give me a shout out.  I write everything.

My new favorite thing - Underwater art

There's not a whole lot that I can say about this that Two Four Flinching hasn't already said or which Jason de Caires Taylor, the artist behind these underwater sculptures, doesn't express in his own website.  But his life-size pieces astound and thrill me like nothing I've seen in quite some time.

I think a part of me has always been tangled in seaweed.

Because there's not enough good, Kentucky rap

CunninLynguists member Deacon the Villain and Kentucky rapper and honorary Affrilachian Poet (he's married to Bianca!) Sheisty Khrist are bringing it November 30th.

In Sheisty Khrist's words:

"if you are easily offended and don't understand off-hand humor and political commentary please do not watch. parental advisory. other than that be prepared to buy this album when it comes out this month. it is an amazing piece of work."

Couldn't agree more:

Also, if you're not already in the know, check out QN5 music, post-haste.

A photo of yours truly

I'll just share one for now, but my friend Ashley Ross has taken some photos of me.  Isn't she great?

Keith S. Wilson in Eden Park, Cincinnati.  Photo by Ashley Ross

For Colored Girls book discussion at Evelyn N. Alfred's blog

I won't lie; I love book discussions.  I would participate in them all the time if I could find one that read things other than best sellers or summer (that is, easy) reads.  So I jumped at the chance to participate in the book discussion Evelyn N. Alfred is leading at her blog and Twitter account.

Okay, jump is the wrong word, since I ended up 10 days behind.  But I went out and bought the book for the discussion (tip:  it's not in the poetry section, it's in the theatre section).  Anyway, now I'm caught up, loving the book, and loving that someone's tackling poetry in book discussion.

Keep an eye on Evelyn's blog; she does stuff like this all the time.  I think I've linked to her before, but this merits a second mention.  Please join the discussion.

My poem "How Like a Potato" has been published in the Fall 2010 issue of Poetrybay.

My poem "How Like a Potato" has been published in the Fall 2010 issue of Poetrybay.

I've been trying to make an effort of announcing my publications here.  I hate doing it almost as much as I hate writing or sharing my bio, but Bianca has been on me about it, and she's kind of right.

Also, I'm not entirely sure when it became available, but one of my poems, "Punch Line" has been printed in the AIDS anthology Spaces Between Us.  This was a particularly proud moment in my poetry career; the poem means a lot to me, as does the intent of the collection itself.  Check it out.

The ever-elusive poet in the workforce

I suggest you read the full post, entitled "Poetic Marketing":

Fellow Affrilachian Poet Crystal Good wrote this particular blog post a while back talking about the role of a poet in a business environment:

Today’s marketing world is built on two-way conversations and third-party endorsements. There is no room for pomp and cliché. If you are stumbling on how to tell your brand story think about the honesty of a poet and then ask yourself if you honestly understand your brand and your customer?

It's interesting that there is such a stigma between business and art.  I understand the philosophy behind it.  But ignoring businesses entirely is no more helpful of a poet than writing nothing but poetry that never makes it out of your notebook.  If there is wrong, do something.

In any case, I love what Crystal is doing not only as it pertains to legitimizing poetic force in the workplace, but also for what she does for the community in general, especially in West Virginia. Let's recognize that poets exist outside the coffee houses and classrooms.

The Affrilachian Poets hit Frostburg State University Part III of III

Sorry for the huge delay between this and the last Frostburg video set.  I essentially lost, for a week, the ability to get the videos off my computer.  But here are the final two videos.  Affrilachian Poets Crystal Good and Ricardo Nazario-Colón.

Be sure to check out Part I and Part II for a selection of the whole Affrilachian performance, which included the poets Bianca Spriggs, Norman Jordan, Ricardo Nizaro-Colon, Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Ricardo Nazario-Colón, Crystal Good, and Keith S. Wilson.



Ricardo Nazario-Colón performing "Witness."

Applying for grad school is not nearly as fun as it sounds

I spent most of yesterday researching exactly what is required of me to send with the applications of all 13 of the universities I wish to apply to. What a nightmarish process.  There isn't the slightest bit of uniformity between where the websites store information.

And so many of these schools require online submissions, which seems easier than paper applications, but it isn't.  Not if you have 13 schools you want to apply to, and have to tell each of your recommenders to go to 13 different websites.

And finally, the application fee itself is pretty upsetting.  And knowing that in addition to that, I have to pay to take the GRE, then pay for copies of that, and then potentially pay my school to send copies of my transcript (not sure if I can even send as many as I need to yet.  Sigh).  It will cost me 610 dollars in application fees alone, in a field that gaurentees little financial security.  I'm honestly considering taking a second job to pay for these application fees.  Which could actually be my only job soon as I lose my current one.  More information on that later, I guess.

At the same time, this cost is paltry in comparison to what I stand to save by having multiple options of schools to attend.  You know.  Assuming I get in to any of them.  A little bleak, maybe, but it's a little difficult to get excited about a 600+ dollar hole in my pocket.

The Affrilachian Poets hit Frostburg State University Part II of III

Part two of a three part video series of the Affrilachian Poets' performance at Frostburg State University, in Maryland, for their Appalachian Festival last Saturday.  Readers included Bianca Spriggs, Norman Jordan, Ricardo Nizaro-Colon, Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Ricardo Nazario-Colón, Crystal Good, and Keith S. Wilson.

The Affrilachian Poets hit Frostburg State University Part I of III

The Affrilachian Poets performed at Marlyand's Frostburg State University for their Appalachian Festival this Saturday.  Bianca Spriggs, Norman Jordan, Ricardo Nizaro-Colon, Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Ricardo Nazario-Colón, Crystal Good, and I were in attendance.

I'll refrain from speaking about it, and instead give you some of our performances.  Without ado:

Gypsy Poetry Slam and the Kentucky Women Writers Conference Part II

I had intended on posting this the day of, or perhaps the day after the last day of Gypsy Slam, but everything was such a whirlwind for me that I ended up getting 10 minutes of sleep in two days and sort of running through Monday in a haze.  Which says something about Gypsy Slam and the KWWC, doesn't it?

I'd never actually been to the KWWC, but after spending a late night out for Gypsy Slam, I woke up very late, finished some of my work, and drove the hour and a half drive back to Lexington to see Diane Ackerman's reading/dialog.  From conversations before the event, it sounded like most of the people there were had read (or had come to see her because of) her book The Zookeeper's Wife, but she read one of her essays.  It was on writing and nature (and many other things), and at one point she read "School Prayer," the first poem from her collection of poetry I Praise my Destroyer:






After the reading and dialogue, Laura Yes Yes asked Patricia Smith if I could come to the second workshop.  Who would have thought that just asking, I could sit in on a workshop lead by the estimable Patricia Smith.  The catch, though, was that I had missed the first workshop and had to write two poems before the following day.  So I went home, ate, worked, and then wrote, and wrote and wrote and drove back for the workshop the next day.  Maybe you missed it, but I didn't: there was no sleep between those two events.

The workshop, though, was interesting.  "Confronting the Poem That Strikes You Silent" was a lot of opening up to one another, which of course involved trust and respect, and if I do say so myself, some amazing writing.  Patricia Smith is observant and if not shrewd, astute, workshop leader, and I think everyone left with more than they came in with.