First Frost

Winter has come and though I like hot countries and the sun, I must admit that since I was a child, I have considered winter as one of my favorite season; Quietness, cold, keeping warm, the purity when everything dies just to make sure it is going to resuscitate some months later.
Winter is my hidden brother, my secret lover. I am an October child, and know of some French poet who has called his blog: Enfant de novembre - November child. I guess the link between he and I is that we both like winter or at least that we are thankful to winter for giving us so many ideas, concepts, so much inspiration throughout our writing process, I cannot say career - still too young and that would be snooty.

Anyway, what does the winter drive me to do? What am I up to? I am waiting for some great publications to come out: Poet & Geek (Scotland), Traversée (Belgium), others I mustn't talk about not to spoil anything and in which poems - in French or English - will appear. More excerpts from Post Mayotte Trauma aka PMT - a collection that was written earlier this year and has been widely acclaimed by fellow authors and publishers and from which most poems have been published here and there. No one is taking it for publication as a collection though, well not yet. Patience... I have plenty of collections left unpublished, that's why I translated most of them into the English language and submitted the poems to various publications worldwide. Successfully.

Meanwhile, I have been writing quite a few pices, not so much as in the first months of the year during which, besides PMT, I also wrote another collection based on the color red: Carmine Carnival from which poems were published throughout the year, and started another one Caves Full of Absence - erotic poetry with a few poems published. This one needs reworking hard though and there are many poems still to be written.

Since July - earlier actually - but really since I settled here in my new house, new place, new job, new life, I started writing poems - single and singular.
Some have been published, others will be... I started collected them into a single document, over twenty pieces... I don't think I have as many poems written in English since 2005 as I have poems in French since 1994, but that must be close.

Some time around this year, there may also be the publication of my collection De Maore (From Mayotte), written last year and that Northern-Ireland Lapwing Publishing was interested in - earlier this year. I have no news, but I guess Dennis Greig needs more time to manage the publication of this collection.

The publisher is busy too. X & Friends saw its first volume published earlier this month Amber Decker & Friends, available to buy from lulu.com and to read from issuu.com and calameo.com. Another volume will be out in December Norman Olson & Friends, while in November, I will edit Alphabet City by poet(s) Anon Ymous... A strange encounter and a beautiful piece of work I am proud to have the opportunity to have read and to publish.
Then, January, mgv2_71 GOLF: Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden; a pain-staking issue that hasn't met its goal, yet.

Next year, if we survive the blast, and we will as I am sure no blast will occur, promises to be a very busy year. mgversion2>datura turns quarterly and I will publish a volume of X & Friends every two months, while other collections of poetry will also be published by mgv2>publishing. And more of my poems to be published here and there. Winter is my cozy lair, my dead leaf mold, my shaky pal, the triggering of the best I have ever done .

Blue & Yellow Dog Fall 2012 Issue

Blue & Yellow is the last publication in which the last excerpts from Night Observatories are published. Some were published in the past years in man other publications: Inclement, Madhatters' Blog, Ygdrasil and Mad Swirl.
Early 2013, this short collection will be published again by mgv2>publishing, it had been self-published 16 years ago.
Indeed, Night Observatories - Les observatoires nocturnes in French - was written in the mid-1990s and published as a supplement to the journal Mauvaise graine in 1997.
I translated these poems into the English language and submitted them to various publications which accepted them - most of them.
This collection is now ready to be released on a wider scale: on line (through issuu.com) but also in hard copies which will be available through lulu.com

This month will also be the time to launch the first volume of a new series X & Friend, with poems written by Amber Decker and her fellow poets. The basis of this series is to invite a poet, writer, artist and make them co-editor. So far, ten poets and artists have responded to my invitation. This leads us to the year 2014.
Hopefully, more will follow, and maybe French authors too, who knows.

Meanwhile, the Fall 2012 issue of Blue & Yellow Dog can be read here.

The IMPpress Issue 4 now on line

It's out and it's full of good poetry. Besides, those of you who would like to know what my voice sounds like can hear me reading these two poems - "Bath" and "With Love from Euphor" - published in this excellent poetry journal run by John Richardson, the editor.

Open publication - Free publishing - More art