I moved to Vallejo ten years ago this month. I began performing my poetry in December 2014. I first read at Poetry by the Bay in April 2015. I became Vallejo’s poet laureate in 2017, and during my tenure I judged 8 contests, hosted over 25 shows, and performed 141 times in 18 different cities. I’ve put together a retrospective page of some of the highlights by year with more specific details. I am slowly working on adding links to videos if they exist. I figured I’d do a retrospective blog post mainly for my own amusement, but perhaps, so others can see my statistics.
While I used to just leap at every opportunity, I have become far more discerning about the kind of performances and publications that I lend my voice to. There are currently at minimum 6 poetry open mics per month in Solano County, and I have resigned myself to not being able to commit to performing that frequently. This year I cut back quite a bit in order to focus on my ongoing health issues, and consequently, I am spending more time bird watching, drinking tea, and relaxing in solitude.
In addition to reducing my general attendance at open mics, I turned down a number of opportunities in order to bring more balance into my life. I prefer to focus on performing occasional poetry, featured sets, writing for ekphrastic events, and submitting to anthologies. I don’t mind judging or entering the occasional contest, but now that I am no longer a poet laureate, I’d rather leave the hosting, event planning, and teaching to other qualified poets.
I’ve won 44 ribbons across 4 different county fairs since 2015. Although I did not enter any county fairs in 2023, I did win a spot in the Curbside haiku contest in Tulsa which was a highlight of the year along with returning to Oklahoma for WoodyFest. It was my first time performing in front of an audience in a state other than California. The trip allowed me to see a number of old friends from my childhood that I hadn’t hung out with in years.
In 2023 despite this recalibration, I am hardly resting on my laurels. I still managed to perform 37 times and was published 21 times. I think my performance statistics are slightly below my personal average in 2023, but I’d have to reverse engineer previous years to know for certain. Prior to the pandemic I was averaging once a week. Both the number of press mentions and publication rejections were a ridiculous personal record in 2023.
2023
- 25 rejections received
- 16 mentions in the press
- 13 anthologies published in 2023
- 12 featured poet or occasional poetry performances
- 11 still pending submissions
- 8 other publications
- 8 open mics
- 7 anthology performances
- 7 radio performances
- 3 anthology publications coming in 2024
- 3 ekphrastic performances
- 1 journal acceptance, publication coming in 2024
- 1 haiku contest won
- 1 hall of fame
- 1 city council proclamation mention
- 1 contest judged
- 1 poet laureate selection committee
In late October 2022 I calculated that 25% of my poetry performances since 2015 were at Poetry by the Bay (38% just open mics in general), 13% at OZCAT (15% radio in general), 8% at Poetry in Notion, 6% for fundraisers and protests, 4% featured sets (10 minutes or more), 6% Jewish events, 4% anthologies, 3% at festivals or fairs, 3% judging, 2% writing to art, 2% with other PLs, and 1% teaching.
At that time it was a total of 380 performances. 274 of those were in Solano County. I’ve been terrible about meticulously keeping track of performances in 2023 due to life events and health issues getting in the way. I did five more performances after October 2022 and 37 in 2023, so my guess is that I’ll start out 2024 with a total of 422 lifetime performances.
I see the value in traditional publications because my poetry travels to places that I cannot, and thanks to Zoom, I am able to read for new audiences from the comfort of home. Since 2017 I’ve been published in the American states of New York, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Washington, California, Tennessee, Texas, Rhode Island, Arizona, and Minnesota. Outside of the United States my poetry is in multiple anthologies from Kenya, United Kingdom, Canada, India, Israel, and Australia.
Alien Buddha Press and Moonstone Arts Center have the current lead with number of acceptances being 12 and 10 anthologies, respectively. They both publish numerous themed anthologies per year on topics that are on my wavelength. Publication statistics are below and a detailed list is on the bibliography page.
I made 63 submissions in 2020, 15 in 2021, 18 in 2022, and 32 in 2023. Before that I didn’t keep an accurate count, and I focused on self-publishing full collections instead. 13 anthologies published me in 2023, 17 in 2022, 19 in 2021, 10 in 2020, 1 in 2019, 2 in 2018, 1 in 2017. 4 other publications in 2022, 2 others in 2021, 8 in 2020, 1 in 2015, 3 in 2016, 2 in 2017, 5 in 2018, 1 in 2019. I had 25 rejections in 2023, 7 rejections in 2022, 2 in 2021, 23 rejections in 2020. I kept track of 5 rejections in 2019, 1 in 2018, 16 in 2016, and 2 in 2015, but there were certainly more in those years than I have a record of.
I did submit to publications prior to 2015, but 100% rejections isn’t worth keeping track of. Most of those rejections were literary journals at the time. Since I started focusing my efforts on writing for themed anthologies, my hit rate has been at least 50%. I received my first literary journal acceptance in 2023.
I am not currently focusing on writing books per se, since this isn’t a money making venture. Please support Alibi Bookshop, Bookshop Benicia, and Revolution Books in Berkeley if you wish to buy my existing paperbacks. They have several in stock. I look forward to whatever my tenth year of performing shall bring.
