David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 148
February 22, 2019
February 21, 2019
My poem “First and Last” honored with the Poetry Quarterly 2018 Rebecca Lard Award
Poetry Quarterly has selected my poem, “First and Last,” as their 2018 Rebecca Lard Award Winner. I am honored for this selection.
“First and Last” is from an unpublished collection, Dark Fathers, about my relationship with my father, which as is often the case was for a long time a problematic one. This poem describes the time when he and I began to reconcile, which always involves forgiveness on both sides. That catharsis and reconciliation began after his major heart attack, which he thankfully survived for another 23 years, a time that allowed us to become loving friends as well as father and son. But in the time of the poem, that was unknown as was his very survival.
Thank you Editor Glenn Lyvers and the Poetry Quarterly team for this high honor.
You will soon be able to purchase copies of the issue from their bookstore.
The parent of PQ, Prolific Press, also published my collection, Final Inventory, last October, and you can purchase a copy from their Bookstore.
February 20, 2019
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine Issue #10 is out with four of my poems
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine Issue #10 is out featuring four of my poems. You can read it HERE. I am most grateful to the editors for choosing to prominently place all four at the end of their issue.
February 19, 2019
You can read my poem “The Orphan” on The Big Windows website now
You can read my poem “The Orphan” on The Big Windows website now.
February 17, 2019
Thank you to Free Lance Star for highlighting local Fredericksburg area authors (including me)
Thank you to the Free Lance Star for highlighting local Fredericksburg area authors (including me) and to Rick Pullen for facilitating this article.
February 14, 2019
Thank you Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry for accepting my poem “Fecundity” for publication mid-March
Thank you Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry for accepting my poem “Fecundity” for publication mid-March in their “Labor” issue.
Thomas Merton on the Need for Solitude
“When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, the society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment and hate.” (Thoughts in Solitude, Thomas Merton)
February 12, 2019
‘I want you to live forward, but see backward’: a theoretical astrophysicist writes the poetry of science
February 9, 2019
February 2, 2019
Thank you Sky Island Journal for accepting 2 of my poems for publication on April 13, 2019
Thank you editors Jeff and Jason at Sky Island Journal for accepting 2 of my poems for publication on April 13, 2019.
They write:
“Dark Sector Lab, South Pole, March 2014” and “Smith” transport and challenge us in ways that poetry seldom does. The deeper truths within these poems create a gravity that our hearts simply cannot escape. Quiet intimacy, articulate grace, and careful concision are the calling cards of these pieces. Your imagery is elegant, and your craft is airtight. Like all great art, these poems are gifts that keep giving; we discover more about them, and ourselves, with every reading. They create a complicated view of our own humanity, and we are beyond excited to share them with the world.
