The Martyrdom of St. Valentine (and other romantic stories)

You can thank Geoffrey Chaucer and Hallmark for Valentine's Day. Really, he was just a guy, maybe a bishop, maybe a number of bishops, who got his head chopped off maybe for refusing to adore a false idol, maybe? Anyway, the Catholics phased him out in 1969 but as with many things Catholic (ironically Catholic means universal), no one else really seemed to take note.

You might say I loathe Valentine's Day, but honestly, it's not as bad as Sweetest Day. At least the former has both bloody and confusing elements to its origin. The latter was invented by candy companies. And it's in OCTOBER. As though Halloween was not enough revenue for those people.

All of this is to say, it is entrancing and frightening both just how much perceptions can be altered by the course of centuries and a lot of deceptive marketing.

Love should be neither obligatory nor heart-shaped - nor should it be confined to the various ceremonies of jewelry and roses (delivery by Feb 12 only.) I will never refuse a good box of chocolates (Vosges, preferably), but would like to have them any day but the 14th. I'd rather meditate on the possible decapitation of that guy/guys. It seems more visceral and more true than chocolate.

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Another lovely thing of which I am proud: my chapbook, Signs Point to Yes, is officially officially on the docket for fall of 2010 from Dancing Girl Press! Huzzah!

I also just got a couple more poems picked up by Puerto del Sol for their upcoming pop culture theme issue.

I think I've finally (after a few years out of grad school) found a good rhythm for submitting poems. I have to get them out while they're hot, kids, and pay careful mind to where I'm sending them. It seems like a no-brainer, but the kind and amount of attention that I need to pay is a delicate thing to balance - while I can't be too cautious and get fear-stymied, I have to evaluate certain criteria both on my end and theirs before I submit, and I find that those criteria are ever-shifting, from experience to experience and from journal to journal. Editorial expectations are mostly elusive and sometimes it feels like luck of the draw; however, I strongly feel that trying to get my work published is more than just an odds game in the end.