Poetry Collection Coming in 2026

I’ve signed a contract with Wiseblood Books for a full length collection of poetry that will be published in early 2026. The collection is finished, except that after I submitted mine, I then read co-Wiseblood poet Anna Lewis’ collection Memory’s Abacus and thought, “Whoa! She has some fireworks!” Then I got nervous and thought, “Maybe I should add a few more and tinker with some others.”

This is what every author does when the hope of being read publicly finally comes to bear. So five or six more poems, rounding the whole collection up to 50 poems. The earliest poems in this collection I wrote 20 years ago, deep in the shadow of Robert Penn Warren’s The Leaf which he wrote emerging from the shadow of Eliot’s The Wasteland.

Anyway, this is news and good news that I want to share with you all, but we’re still driving into a long headwind for the next couple of years. The world will be a totally different river by then. Lord willing and the prairies don’t burn, we’ll have a book in 2026. I sure appreciate y’all sticking with me.