Stars, luck, and revelations

“The Instagram astrologers says big positive changes are coming for me this week!” I yelled from my reading chair to my spouse at his laptop, although the cats seemed interested, too. He said something like “that’s nice, honey,” or maybe just a neutral “mmm” because he was concentrating on the hundredth book of comics scholarship he’s found himself writing for fun, because his brain grooves on producing scholarship. I sighed, shut off the social media algorithms that were mesmerizing me into a stupor, and pulled Phillip Pullman’s massive new novel onto my lap.

Hence my delay in spotting what a few FB friends had just posted to my timeline, that Mycocosmic has been named to Literary Hub’s list of 100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025. (I turned off all social media notifications years ago–I’m distractible enough, thank you.) My mycelially themed poetry collection even appears in Lit Hub’s graphic, in the understory, appropriately enough. I had just woken up and searched for the local outdoors farmer’s market page on FB to make sure they’re still opening at a very chilly 8 a.m. Instead I sat on the wooden stairs in my pajamas to read and process. I’ve never had a book appear on one of these year-end lists before. It’s a multi-genre list including eight poetry collections. That’s pretty good, right?

Lest I get TOO cheerful about it: after the article throws out disheartening stats about how seldom small press books appear on “best of” lists, it states, “This is not a best of list.” Ahem. I don’t think lists intended to be “best of” actually qualify for that label, either, as it happens. It’s not like even the most diligent poetry reviewers know about every good collection published that year, much less have given each one a fair shake. The U.S. poetry scene is big, messy, and wildly various in ways the highest-profile review outlets don’t reflect. “Best” is more like “my favorites among the books that floated across my attention this year, with an emphasis on buzzy authors and prestige presses and fellow Brooklynites who already got a lot of media because c’mon, I’ve been doomscrolling more often than reading poems, just like you.” (I do get it, Imaginary Poetry Reviewer–reading everything is impossible–I’m just perpetually irked by how NYC-centric the poetry world can seem.)

So how much of a big deal is this list mention, really? Will it help sell books or “credential” them for further attention? (In case you didn’t catch Dave Bonta’s blog digest last week or have time to follow links, see this thought-provoking post on credentialing by R.M. Haines. It’s been haunting me.)

Aaaugh, I don’t know. What actually makes me feel best is that a stranger noticed the book (meaning I and/or Tupelo did a decent job getting it out there) and liked it enough to shine a light on it (meaning the book itself appeals to at least some readers). Cool! The generosity of poetry readers can be such a wonder. Supermoon in Gemini and whatever those Instagram people said about some kind of planetary crossroads? I’ll take it! (They also predict imminent disaster for the current U.S. administration, in case that cheers you up more than my small win.)

I have dedicated this December to poetry, and indeed, as soon as Mercury left retrograde, poems started pouring out. I can suddenly see how to revise older poems that I’ve been struggling with for a while, too: they were just too cryptic about what for me are high emotional stakes, as well as being wordy and digressive in the way of so many drafts. The new poems and my clarity about the old ones concern insights about gender over the course of my life: what I’ve felt reluctant to say, even unworthy of saying, about how being a woman has always been a performance for me, not a felt identity, although there’s plenty of political solidarity expressed through my lifelong adherence to she/ her pronouns. Where will I go from these flashes of renewed self-understanding? That’s another “Aaaugh, I don’t know.” I have lots of feeling and thinking to do.

Some of it I will do in MIAMI. Next week I’ll enjoy a few lucky days at a writing retreat the Betsy Hotel as part of SWWIM’s collaboration with the Betsy Writer’s Room. I’ll also have the good luck of reading with Haya Pomrenze at the Betsy at 7 pm on 12/11. If you can’t be there, it will be livestreamed. In the meantime, more revolutions and revelations for all of us, please–celestial or otherwise.