personal

Introducing PARTIAL GENIUS

/ marybid

Even though this is my sixth book, the feeling of unboxing never becomes less exhilarating and terrifying and awesome. Partial Genius arrived along with a number of back to school parcels, on a rainy day, and I’m glad I didn’t know the package would be arriving (I’m a worrier). My first thought upon unboxing was delight with the color of the cover. It’s cheerful and loud, as well as contemplative. I am grateful for the care that Amy Freels took with the cover design and the interior; I think I’ll be able to perform from this book without reading glasses, which is a plus.

Thanks to all who have offered congratulations and shared my excitement about this new book, my first collection exclusively made up of prose poems. Partial Genius is now in stock at Black Lawrence Press, and at SPD, as well. There’s a peek inside feature if you would like to read a few poems before buying a copy for yourself or your best friend or your secret crush.

Update in the thick of July

/ marybid

IMG_0312

I’m not a numbers person, so when I looked at my “Summer 2018” poetry word document and saw that I’d written, apparently, over fifty pages of new poems since the beginning of June, I figured it was some kind of mistake.

I always use a calculator when figuring final grades or balancing my checkbook. Sometimes when I read text with a lot of numbers I find my eye doing the same thing it did when I was a student in classes involving statistics (skipping over the numbers like they are bread crust and I’m a picky kid).

However, it’s Monday morning, somewhat cloudy, and I am adequately caffeinated and showered and realizing that wow, I have written a lot this summer, and it makes me feel good. This may be the most I’ve ever written in a summer, and it’s not over.

With the record number of Akron Poetry Prize submissions on my docket (687!) I had feared I would not have much of a writing summer. But the proof is there at the bottom left of the screen. Pages: 51 of 51. Words: 10,133.

Clearly these are not all “keepers.” And yes, I have trouble generating new work during the academic year, so this is catch-up in many ways. But I’m still rather proud.

PS: I’ve been doing #summerofprompts over on Twitter again this summer. Check it out!

New poems in Waxwing and Tupelo Quarterly

/ marybid

img_0058.jpg

News flashes times two for this hot June morning.

I am over the moon about having my poem “Heaven and Dirt” published in the new issue of Tupelo Quarterly (15) with such excellent company. This is a recent poem, and I’m thrilled that it found such a fine home.

Also, much gratitude to the editors and fellow contributors of Waxwing XV. I’m honored to have these four poems appear in the issue. “Fantasy Sports” and “History Town” are two prose poems from my forthcoming collection Partial Genius, so this makes me extra excited.

For a year or so I had inexplicable anxiety about sending work out. I am much more comfortable helping other people with their creative work, and really needed to think through my trepidation and take steps to eliminate it. And now that these poems are out, I have no excuses about getting more work into the atmosphere.

In other news, we received a record-breaking total of 687 submissions to the 2018 Akron Poetry Prize competition. You know what I’ll be doing for the next two weeks.

Take on May

/ marybid

IMG_8064

It’s the first day of finals week and I already have that loopy off-my-routine feeling. Waiting for things to grade, and when those things arrive they’ll be magnificent: finals from writers on writing, essays from my grad poetry lit class, and mimetic poems for books on our syllabus. This was an eventful academic year, that’s for sure, and next up (immediately next up) I’ve got plenty of Akron Poetry Prize reading and a compressed, three week World Lit course to teach. And hopefully, later in the summer, new poems.

I’ve got news to share. New poems of mine will be appearing in upcoming issues of Court Green and Waxwing, two journals that I admire immensely. It’s such an honor, and helps put a bit of wind to my sails as I am on the brink of sending more work out. I am also incredibly honored to be on this list, as a recipient of an Individual Excellence Award in poetry from the Ohio Arts Council. I’m thankful to live in a state where these kinds of grants still exist.

I spend a lot of time editing and mentoring and talking about making a sustainable writing life, but at the same time I find myself relying so much on “positive feedback” in order to propel myself forward. I think I have less, not more, confidence as I get older. Is that unusual? I suppose I’ll find out eventually.

Partial Genius

/ marybid / 1 Comment

I wrote a couple of prose poems with five stanzagraphs. Then I wrote a bunch more. Then I couldn’t stop, and they turned into a book. I named the book Partial Genius. You can read it in summer 2019, thanks to Black Lawrence Press.

Infinite gratitude to BLP, to my friends and students who are always encouraging me, and to the editors of the literary magazines where these poems have appeared so far (there are many that I’m sending out soon, too).

I told BLP a bit about the process of writing this book

On writing Partial Genius

When writing the chapbook Saint Monica, which became my first collection with Black Lawrence Press, I stumbled upon a form that felt both compelling and expansive. The prose poem in five stanzagraphs made its first appearance with “Saint Monica Composes a Five Paragraph Essay on Girard’s Theory of Triangular Desire.” I wrote this piece with the well-worn essay format in mind as a gimmick, but ultimately felt that each discrete prose chunk forged its own identity while striving to, as they say in composition class, provide support for the thesis. I decided to return to this form with Partial Genius and to create a series of these poems that align and overlap to illustrate the experiences of one central speaker.

The poems of Partial Genius build upon the form in a collective narrative arc, working in unison to craft a larger story where plot points shift via juxtaposition and association. Thematically, this book is post-youth, post-love, mid-epiphany. What do you do when you finally realize that you are really good, but only at unremarkable things? What value does memory hold when weighed against other heavier commodities such as money and time and conventional beauty? Partial Genius ponders the years spent waiting for reconciliation of past wrongs, the ownership of former selves, and the desire to truly fit into one landscape or another.

IMG_7040

Two new poems in Diode

/ marybid

One journal that I return to again and again is Diode, and I am so honored to have two poems in the newest issue (10.3). “Skill Games” and “Open Search” appear here.

IMG_6709

I also have poems in past issues of Diode, now hanging out in the archives. Here are some from Diode 3.1, and a few poems from Diode 4.2.

My office and home are replete with cool Diode swag from AWP, because Diode has the best swag.

I hope that after reading this Diode love-fest you consider reading their current issue (if not every issue in the archives, too) and sending your own work along.

Three new poems + catching my breath

/ marybid

IMG_6588
Over the summer I started making a real effort to send poems out to journals again, and I was pleased to find new journals with a cool aesthetic, including Grimoire. I have three new poems in the current issue of Grimoire, with awesome company. What an honor!

I could hang out with the words and images over at Grimoire for days. They even have a Spotify channel. I feel like this magazine is a retroactive gift to my wee goth self of yesteryear, sitting in workshops in my Skinny Puppy t-shirt and black lipstick. Where have you been all my life, Grimoire?

These three poems are from a couple of different projects (including a very new one), so it’s exciting and terrifying for me to find them hanging out together. Seeing poems in print makes them feel real in a way that’s different from peering at them in your own folders.

IMG_6579

I’m still in a tizzy over our National Book Awards news at the UA Press. I am not used to being around so many flowers. I’m excited to attend the ceremony, even if it means wearing a legit evening gown. I guess, if all else fails, I can default to something goth.

September drifts in with new poems

/ marybid

IMG_6280

First, a little accountability. At the end of last academic year I vowed to get my act together in terms of sending poems out to journals. So many other commitments were getting in the way of it, along with a heavy dose of self-doubt.

I’m happy to say that even though I did not succeed in becoming totally organized with my archives, I did undertake a flurry of revisions, and I sent work out, and now I have poems hot off the press and forthcoming and it feels good. I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this without the help of my dear friend and poet Julie Brooks Barbour, who offered excellent suggestions and much needed encouragement. Having someone to share your drafts with can make all the difference, especially if you usually keep your work to yourself. Thank you so much, Julie!

I’m excited to share a few of the new poems that have found homes. “Emerging Leader” and “Unstable Systems” are part of the debut issue of Gold Wake Live. I’ve long admired the books from Gold Wake, and I’m honored to have poems appear in its first volume.

The prose poem “Trouble Shirt,” from my manuscript called Partial Genius, is over at Border Crossing. What a beautiful issue! So many excellent contributors in both of these journals.

As the picture above shows, we’re back to school here at the University of Akron and NEOMFA program. One week in, and I’m happy and exhausted all at once, which is my favorite feeling. I sense another manuscript taking shape, but right now I’m going to focus on revision and submissions and letting the new poems drift in, as they do.

Best wishes to all who are back to school, or sending out work, or both.