M. Mack and the 2024 Jacklyn Potter Young Poets Competition, Hosted by Cathy Hailey.
June 3, 2024
7:30 pm
Event information is here.
Registration is listed at the link above, but as we get closer to the reading, email me for the Zoom link at mxmackpoet at gmail.
Last year, I was lucky enough to judge the Jacklyn Potter Young Poets Competition. This year, I get to read alongside the 2024 winners!
Three poems from Imaginary Kansas, forthcoming from dancing girl press in spring/summer 2015 went up at Melancholy Hyperbole: Poetry About Longing on March 12. I love longing. Well, my poems love longing. Or, I’ve always said that Imaginary Kansas fragments and queers longing. So.
The micro-poems featured are “[In this one, I imagine myself as a],” “Why can’t we be married and live in the farmhouse your parents bought on a whim?,” and “Undressing in front of your photograph in the evening.” These are some of the tiniest fragments in the project and, especially in the case of “Why can’t we…” some of my (terrifying) favorites. I’m really excited by the format of Melancholy Hyperbole, which invites direct commenting from readers. What a thrill!
In Spring of 2015, dancing girl press will publish my chapbook Imaginary Kansas. This project has gone through many iterations, and I’m so glad that it has found a home with dancing girl. I’m a big admirer of dgp and editor Kristy Bowen, and I’m honored to be among the catalog of dancing girl authors.
Imaginary Kansas is a project that fragments and queers longing. It ruminates on heteronormativity and desire. Imaginary Kansas existed as an artist’s book object in an edition of one in the Call and Response exhibit Parallel Lives during the 2013 Fall for the Book festival. I’m excited to see its next life.
When I was sixteen, I identified as a cactus. Last year, I found a journal that does, too. I found Cactus Heart through Lambda Literary, and I developed quite a crush on them. I’m pleased to have a poem from my Imaginary Kansas chapbook, “Paper house,” in Issue 8. This is an e-issue, available for $5.00 here.
Temenos put out a call for submissions a while back that included a special print issue themed on obsession. So, I sent the creepiest poems from Imaginary Kansas. They chose two for the Fall 2013 online issue, which is now live. I’ve read through the poetry section so far, and I particularly enjoy the two poems from Detroit-based poet Sonya Pouncy. “Seedbed” is really compelling in its content, voice, and form. Yes, in everything, and how the parts work together. Head on over to read them and to read my two little shorts: “I am always seeing people” and “On some days not in Kansas.”
M. Mack 