[Tim Murphy]

Because of my long vacation, I didn't send anything out for eighteen months until January. Since then, First Things published Retreat, tomorrow Commonweal publishes my big "There but for the Grace" (Slater version, thanks again Roger.) Chronicles is publishing Trebuchet, which I think I workshopped here, and today's Merriwether Lewis poem, Grand Portage. Our fearless leader is publishing my three part Ode to Ford (an older three part het met ode) which is very funny. Alabama Literary Review is publishing the following strict trimeters, mostly workshopped here: Confessio Amantis, Charismatic, Widower, Feast, and Bardo Thodol. I'll just update this thread as the rest of the submissions draw replies. Editorial support is appearing for the new stuff, but out here you never know.

Dakota Institute Press, publisher of my last three books, has gone broke (why does this happen to me, am I a jinx?) But North Dakota State University Press has snapped up the next six books ready to roll. Devotions will come out at year end. Then the monster, Miles to Go, which encompasses five collections of about 100 pages each, will follow.

I well remember rejection slips twenty years ago, and I wish all of you the luck of the Irish.

[Susan McLean]

Congratulations, Tim. It sounds as though you are on a roll. You have my sympathy about the publisher's going extinct. That seems to be an occupational hazard for poets.

Susan

[William A. Baurle]

Congats, Tim! I can't imagine how that must feel. Very broad validation and the satisfaction of knowing one is very good at what one does.

[John Whitworth]

Many congratulations, Tim. And very well deserved too.

On a personal note, I got the sack from my first publisher (who no longer exists heh heh) and my second, the sainted Harry Chambers, went bust. My third (but not, I hope, for long) has sold out of Girlie Gangs but refuses to reprint unless I buy 100. He must be mad. I sell them. I don't buy them.

[Catherine Chandler]

Wonderful news, Tim! And richly deserved.

[Maryann Corbett]

I'm very glad you're back on the horse, Tim, and going at a gallop!

[Tim Murphy]

Thank you for all the kind comments, friends. I wrote a tree planting poem, six pentameter couplets yesterday, which is getting a pretty hostile reception at Met I. It will appear in Sewanee Theological Review.

[Ed Shacklee]

That would be an impressive roll call for a poetry collective, let alone one person. Congratulations, Tim: it appears some folks know quality when they see it.

Best,

Ed

[Julie Steiner]

Hostile? Nah. We're just the Editors from Heck. You've survived much worse.

We give you a hard time because we know that your relative ease of getting published these days may tempt you to settle for writing merely passable poems. We want to make sure you're pushing each poem to be the very best it can be, because we know that your very best is FANTASTIC. And we're greedy for more of it.

[Tim Murphy]

Hey Julie, Wilbur once told me that he'd never received a rejection letter. Then he thought and said "Wait. The New Yorker once told me that they couldn't make room for my Disappearing Alphabet, but they forwarded it to the Atlantic where it promptly appeared."

The first time I met Bill Thompson of ALR he told me that his boss had sent him to West Chester to get some poems from me. I told him I had four short, very macho pentameters, but he had to listen and make up his mind on the spot. He accompanied me out for a smoke, I had them in memory, and he accepted them. Great day for me, because Bill has published a lot of my best stuff.

The tree planting poem was bound to be taken by STR because like me, Greg Williamson is an Eagle Scout. Know your editors.