Where I'm at, or Gonna be at this 2014

Feeling slang today. I know my slang ain't good, but I got lots to celebrate. It's a good date, first rate. And my rhymes are feelin' fine. Not sour like lime.

Yeah, I'm at Shot Glass #12, published by Musie-Pie Press. This fine place focuses on all thing short and sweet, in poetry yeah. Check em out, they be real cool yo! My haiku and two tanka be there.

Soon to be, Imma be appearin' like a badass yo momma joke. At The Yellow Medicine Review, guest-edited by Carter Meland. Here be what he has to say:

Hello Anne Carly Abad!

I'm pleased to say that I really like the three poems you submitted to Yellow Medicine Review--The Choosing of the Babaylan, The Badjao Sisters' Wager, and The Babaylan Sleep--and will, with your permission, go ahead and publish them as part of the Spring 2014 issue. Congratulations! They are sharp little pieces and I found "The Babaylan Sleep" especially resonant. Great stuff!

[snipped]  

Carter Meland

Such beastly news! Thanks so much to the team, you can see how happy I am.:)

Just a bit of a conflict on the piece: "The Badjao Sisters' Wager," coz it's already reserved for The Southeast Review. But no more issue there, it's nice and fixed and ironed out.

About SER, where I'll also be this Fall 2014:

The Southeast Review, established in 1979 as Sundog, is a national literary magazine housed in the English department at Florida State University and is edited and managed by its graduate students and a faculty consulting editor. The mission of The Southeast Review is to present emerging writers on the same stage as well-established ones. In each semi-annual issue, we publish literary fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, interviews, book reviews and art. With nearly sixty members on our editorial staff who come from throughout the country and the world, we strive to publish work that is representative of our diverse interests and aesthetics, and we celebrate the eclectic mix this produces.

Great stuff, yeah? And great sites, too. Come on, run along now and visit em, so I can bow from my shady rhymes.

Coughing, but got several goodies

What the, despite the vitamins, fruits and honey, I have a developed a cough. Sickly girl. Sickly girl, I am.

Maybe I'll try herbs next time. I sure am getting tired of this. Ever since I was a kid, I get a cold or a cough every month. Sucks!

Some goodies: Porky, my hedgehog is growing big. He's 400g now. Little fatty :3

I've also received my certificate for my modest success at the 2013 Basho Haiku Festival:

In terms of publishing, I have four, for which I'm thankful for the editors. Thank you for believing in my work.

Have one from Modern Haiku, for my poem "Today's Special." Haiku don't really have titles, but after writing more than a hundred, tracking them is driving me nuts. I first appeared in MH in their autumn 2013 issue. You can get a sampler of their excellent haiku here.

Also have one from Liquid Imagination. They invited me to record a reading as well, for my poem "Ace Hardware." Gonna have to oil my rusty reading skills! Ahem Ahem!

Third, Expanded Horizons will feature my poem "Molting Season" in January 2014 or February. Looking forward to that. Last time I appeared on their pages, I wrote fiction, which I'm pretty sparse in now.

Last but not the least, David Kopaska-Merkel, editor of Dreams & Nightmares wrote me this very kind acceptance letter:

Anne

"Three times she loved" is sweet and poignant: how I wish I thought it a speculative poem! Actually, I like all of these, but want to buy "The visitor" for DN 97 (January, 2014)... 

Best,
David

Thanks so much, everyone. I should recover from the curse of colds soon with all these good news.

"A Feast for Scavengers" to Appear in the Inaugural Issue of Songs of Eretz

There's a new zine in town! (or out of town). I found Songs of Eretz as a new listing on Ralan, and this is actually among the few publishers who pay for work. It would be lovely if more publishers gave at least free copies, so writers could see their work and feel that what we do is actually of worth.

I sent in my poem "A Feast for Scavengers," for which I got an acceptance from Dr. Steven Wittenberg Gordon, the editor.

I really appreciate his comments about the piece. Sometimes I don't know why a place likes my work. They accept, and then after jumping around in happy abandon, I get all philosophical. In my head these questions start running around: Why do you like it? Which part of the work do you like best? What did I do right?

So thanks, Dr. Gordon.

Let me post part of his email here:

Dear Anne Carly,

I like the moral lesson you offer as well as your mocking, irony-filled tone.  The imagery takes me to a bad visual place but in a good way...

Cheers,

Steve

Steven Wittenberg Gordon, MD

Editor

Will post more on this when the inaugural issue is released. :)

The International Poetry Review: Soup Bowls and A Site to Behold

I already received my copy of the journal a few days ago. Now, I can post my poems here because they're not available online.

The International Poetry Review (IPR), Spring 2013

A Site to Behold

What a sight
Beauty, behold Manila
on the streets
a fresh Bawal Tumawid
warns you not to die
like many before you

See, we’ve tidied up
the slums with a makeshift wall
whitewashed, fresh as a new page
awaiting possibilities
a spattering of starfish, squid, corals
intricate pipelines, circles and squares

See, our new kalsada
fenced and repainted
a lane for motorcycles
a lane for buses
(more or less)
moving us forward

See, even the tindera
peddling candies on the sidewalk
applies her daily mascara
and smiles as a cat steals
the half-eaten fishball
she had for breakfast

~

Soup Bowls

At the other table
two men are talking

over plastic bowls of reheated
soup and cheap egg noodles.

Father and son perhaps
somewhat reminds me of home

only instead of fastfood plastic
we sipped soup from smoothed

coconut husks, mother frowning
across the bamboo table for I said,

the food is bland
there's not enough

rice. Those two men have finished
their meal, and here my soup has gone

cold.

Published and Available for Reading

I've forgotten to post about these! These titles were accepted a few months ago and some are now actually published and available in print and/or online:

Online

• How Five Fish Survived a Two-year Journey Across the Pacific
• The Unsaid Apologies While on the Train
• One Haiku

Print

• "Piso" in Poetry Cornwall Issue 37:

Piso

A child opens his hands
to receive my coin

A child opens his hands
now empty

A child opens his hands
now still

A child opens his hands
still and empty.

In my hand
a cold coin shines a dull sheen.

• "Summer" in Paper Wasp Winter 2013

Summer

a breeze sways
the chipped garden swing—
our prayers

to the three Saints
we dance the pandanggo
sudden rain

kaimito season
the first fruit falls
from our tree

clouds
kapok in full bloom
our unborn child

drought
just a pile of coins
in the well

closing the blinds…
a streak
of dry tears

"Caskets to sleep in" to Appear in Dreams & Nightmares 96 (Sept. 2013)

I was sick again. Waddya know. Maybe I need a triple dose of vitamins. I've been on antibiotics twice already this year, this time for tonsillitis.

Over the weekend, I got cheered up by an acceptance letter for a speculative poem of mine, "Caskets to Sleep In." I am beginning to test the waters of Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Slipstream poetry, and this is my third acceptance for poetry of this kind. I had a lot of fun writing those pieces. I believe I will write some more. I think specpoetry is interesting and beautiful, as I've always been enamored by the work of Poe but have been wondering why there aren't many who write poetry of this kind. Rio Alma happens to be one in the local scene, though he writes in Filipino.

The editor of Dreams & Nightmares magazine sent me his response to my submission promptly (within 3 days! Record breaker I must say). The editor, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, writes:

Anne

I would like to buy "Caskets to sleep in" for DN 96 (Sept. 2013). It is a wonderful poem. Can you accept payment by paypal (and to what address)?

Thank you,

David

Thanks, David and the DN team :)

Headache, Backache and Writer's Bloc

Good Lord, what's up with my head? I've been getting migraines for weeks. I'm thinking it might have something to do with my love affair with chocolate, but I'm in denial. I mean, chocolate's got antioxidants and stuff, so it can't be bad for me, right?

To top it off, I have this backache. The cause of which is my table at work. It's too high up, so I have to tense my shoulders to be able to type well on my laptop. When I try to pump my chair up, within a few hours it just sinks back down. Is it cheap or is it broken? I have no idea but it's giving me back problems.

But there's good news amid all these aches and pains. I recently got an acceptance letter for two poems of mine. "A Saint to the Wise Man" and "Fear of Water" will appear in the 2013 issue of Writer's Bloc Literary Magazine, the official literary journal of Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas. Some of the renowned names that this magazine has published: Bruce Bond (read some of his poems from the Beloit Poetry Journal and I'm a fan), Marjorie Agosin, Cathy Downs, George Vargas, and others. Found the call for submissions here while looking for a home for some of my work.

Subscriptions to Writer's Bloc: Copies of the magazine are available in Fore 110 or the TAMUK Barnes and Noble Bookstore for $2.00, or via U.S. mail for $7.00.

Here's the (rare) acceptance letter:

Dear Anne,

If still available, we would like to publish the poems, "A Saint to the Wise Man" and "Fear of Water" in the 2013 issue of Writer's Bloc Literary Magazine.

The issue is scheduled to appear in November. Payment is one copy.

We look forward to hearing from you.


Octavio Quintanilla
Editor, Writer’s Bloc Literary Magazine

Thanks, Writer's Bloc!

Bottle Rockets #28 is out, along with my tanka

Yup, the journal is out. Sadly, I'm too poor to order my own copy!:<  I wish I'd like get a magical raise of double the amount I'm currently making in my day job so I can buy all the books I want. *Tears*

Anyway, here's the fruit of my literary labors. The editor, Stanford Forrester, was really great to work with. The journal is available via subscription here.

the leaves take their time
even when their time
has come . . .
to the branch, a breeze
plucks them effortlessly

Atlas Poetica 13 Now Available

Reposting from Atlas Poetica:

Keibooks Announces Atlas Poetica 13 : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka
Press Release – For Immediate Release – Please post to all appropriate venues
5 November 2012 – Perryville, Maryland, USA

Atlas Poetica 13, the latest installment of the prestigious tanka journal, is now available for purchase.
“Poet King, courtesan, leprechaun, child molester, monster. Images bright and dark, full of light and shadow, stretch across the years, the centuries, the millennia. This is what tanka poetry of place does best: to find the ‘Other’ and make it ‘Us.’ It is no longer the bones of strangers lying in the desecrated grave: it is our bones.”–from the editorial by M. Kei

Contributors to ATPO 13 include:
Alexander Jankiewicz, Anne Carly Abad, Autumn Noelle Hall, Bob Lucky, Bruce England, Chen-ou Liu, Christina Nguyen, Claire Everett, Dawn Bruce, Dawn Manning, Elizabeth Bodien, Elizabeth Moura, Genie Nakano, Gerry Jacobson, Gregory Longenecker,Guy Simser, James Won, Janet Lynn Davis, Jenny Ward Angyal, Joan E. Stern, Joy McCall, Kath Abela Wilson, Keitha Keyes, Kenneth Slaughter, LeRoy Gorman, Leslie Ihde, Lisa Tibbs, Lynda Monahan, M. Kei, Margaret Chula, Margaret Van Every, Marilyn Humbert, Mark Kaplon, Mel Goldberg, Mira N. Mataric, Nu Quang, Owen Bullock, Patricia Prime, Paul Mercken, Peggy Castro, Peggy Heinrich, Pravat Kumar Padhy, Sanford Goldstein, Sheila Sondik, Sonam Chhoki, stanley pelter, Susan Constable, Susan Diridoni, Taura Scott, Tish Davis, William Cullen, Jr.

Purchase direct from the printer at:
or at Amazon.com or your favorite online retailer.

Upcoming: Two Tankas in Atlas Poetica 13 (Fall Issue)

In the midst of these gloomy and dangerous rainy days, I got some good news regarding my poetry. Two tankas of mine will appear in the 2012 Fall issue of Atlas Poetica. :)

About Atlas Poetica:

When MET Press of Baltimore, Maryland, published Landfall : Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka (2007), it received a landslide of submissions. Thousands of poems were submitted, making it the most sought after tanka venue in the English language. It was only logical to create a journal to provide an ongoing forum for the publication, appreciation, and advancement of tanka poetry of place. Atlas Poetica was born.

Edited by M. Kei, it quickly established itself as one of the distinctive voices in tanka literature. The large format was deliberately designed to accommodate lengthy sequences, shaped tanka, tanka prose, articles, and other items too bulky for the smaller journals. In addition, ATPO reached out to tanka communities around the world, providing a venue to publish tanka in languages other than English, as well as providing lists of resources, announcements, and other information to serve the world tanka community.

Tanka poetry of place embodies the community and environment, both human and natural, through which the poet travels. Groups and places are profoundly important, forming the affective and effective boundaries of the poet’s psyche. Whether contemplating subjects as diverse as an old chest of drawers or a Romanian seashore, tanka poets find connection, meaning, and significance in the previously unremarked proximities of our lives. Tanka poets of place are pushing into new territories and creating new maps of our literary consciousness.

Upcoming Appearance: Grasslimb Volume 10 Number 2

Horray! Received an acceptance letter today from Ms. Valerie Polichar, Editor of Grasslimb journal for my poem entitled "Deciduous." It is due out this August, 2012.

The first poem they published from me is entitled The Train Comes and it came out January this year. I do retain electronic rights for that poem, so here it goes:

The Train Comes

In the company of thoughts
I might be walking in two realities:
It's you leading me to the crepe stand
in the subway halls of Seoul.
You would buy me vanilla
but I can never guess
yours always different.

Back home, I’m in similar halls
the stench of decayed concrete
and the chill of early morning solitude.
These could be your halls, too.
But the train comes
crowd upon crowd
none of them you.

Published in paper wasp, Australia

This has never happened to me before: 2 acceptances in one day (the other one in this earlier post). I didn't even know about the acceptance of two of my haiku in paper wasp, an international poetry publication based in Queensland. As their website states,

paper wasp [is a] print magazine, which is published quarterly. It is devoted to the Japanese verse forms: haiku, senryu, renga, haibun and tanka.

They're open to submissions by the way. So do check them out:)

Took a picture of my contributor's copy. Came in a cute envelope with a cute doggy stamp :3

Published in The Asahi Shimbun

Looks like all the hard work has paid off. I've been practicing haiku for a couple of months and been reading all the journals I could get my hands on. Then I started making my own haiku, taking into consideration the different elements in nature as they are, the sky, the air, the sun--and then relate these to the human condition.

Some haiku moments can't really be explained, they just sort of light up in your mind, a kind of enlightenment maybe, and they just have to be written down before the moment passes. Like how the seasons flow. How things die. How things live. How things are beautiful as they are.

Several haiku of mine appear at The Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese publication. The haiku section is edited by David McMurray. Have a read if you have team. The pieces are really short, but certainly worthwhile.

Upcoming Appearance: The Quarterly Literary Review Singapore

Great news upon opening my Gmail this morning. I received an acceptance letter from QLRS (the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore).

This is for my poem, "Daughter and I". I was merely told it will come out in their 'next' issue, and next one is this coming October 2011. So aside from a yet unspecified poem of mine coming out in the MOV anthology that is expected to be printed by September 2011, there is this. Maybe I should pinch myself, make sure this isn't a dream...

Thanks to God indeed for this blessing, and on a Monday morning, too! No reason to be blue! :D

Index of Published Works

Here's a list of my published works as of May 2011. Hopefully I can add more to this list before 2011 ends:

Fiction
ΕΞΙΣ gods, ghosts and battered cellphones (eBook, 2011) - eTreasures Publishing
Laws of Stone (Soon, 2011) - Library of Science Fiction, print and eBook
The Privilege (Apr 2011) - The Philippines Free Press; also available in print
Topheth No More (Oct 4 2010) - Printed in The Philippines Graphic Magazine
Songs of Urban Phantoms (Feb 2010) - Expanded Horizons
It Takes Seven (June 2010) - Three Crow Press

Poetry
Fern (May 15, 2011) - The Sunday Inquirer Magazine
Law of Motion (2011) - Damazine

Short Story Collection Nearing Release

I've had a number of setbacks which delayed the release of my book. But after persevering with numerous revisions with my editor Antonia Tiranth, I am at last nearing it's completion and release. I made a previous post about my signing a contract with eTreasures Publishing, which is based in Marianna, Fl. But the ebook version of "EXIS: gods, ghosts and battered cellphones" wasn't released on time. Anyhow this may be a blessing in disguise since I still don't have a U.S. Tax ID. I haven't had time to go to the US Embassy due to some problems with my passport, which I've also had to fix despite my busy work schedule. I look forward, though, to my book coming out on January 2011, because I already have a (tentative) cover.

Cover art by Jason Angeles and Cate Jose

EXIS

ACCEPTANCE from Morrigan!!!

Whew, after days of getting rejections, I got an acceptance for this horror piece "It Takes Seven". Ms. Notley's letter goes:

        Hello,

         I am pleased to inform you that your story has been accepted for publication by Three Crow Press.                I will be following up with a PDF contract which can be either digitally signed or returned in the post. (... and the other part talks about payment)

        Thank you and welcome to Three Crow.

       Reece Notley

Yipeeeeeeee!!! :))  Morrigan Ezine's website can be found here: http://www.morriganezine.com/