Snakeskin, March 2008

I have three poems in the March 2008 issue of the on-line journal Snakeskin: "Cigarette," "Baby Clothes," and "Melinda Compton." My apologies to Melinda. :-)

Of the other poems in the issue, I particularly enjoyed Alison Brackenbury's "Three," Maggie Butt's "List," and Colin Will's "Iron Road to Lhasa." Colin's poem reminded me of Christoph Ransmayr's verse novel Der fliegende Berg, which, unfortunately, has still not been translated into English.

My "Cigarette" is a further, even more dramatic example (than "River") of a poem that took its time getting published: it was the first poem I wrote in Philadelphia, which means I wrote it in September 1988. The moral again: stick with the poems you believe in and eventually they will find a home!