I have four poems eligible for the 2013 Aurora Awards and the 2013 Rhysling Awards: Zombie Poet, Zombie Descartes Writes a Personal Ad, and two untitled tanka.

All Poems Published in 2012

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Zombie Poet

After a cornered dog chewed off
his grasping fingers, the zombie poet
had to use voice-recognition software.

While the computer never correctly guessed
what he was trying to say, the words
it did come up with sold to The New Yorker and Poetry.

Critics hailed him as the voice of his degeneration.
But some argued his poetry wasn't original
because he was eating the brains of other poets.

As his fame grew, he started receiving emails with photos
of naked zombie women attached.
Necrophilia lead to an addiction to deviant brains.

One night, after a reanimated reading
from his long-awaited collection, Poems with no Brains,
the zombie poet fell apart from excess decay.

Many young zombie poets tried to capture his audience.
But their poems were too cerebral, their rhymes too loose,
and their shambling rhythm wasn't the same.

[published in Tesseracts 16, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2012]
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Zombie Descartes Writes a Personal Ad

Long-retired philosopher zombie seeks
experiential female zombie
to share unconscious moments.

Likes: the pineal gland, animal spirits,
brains, and the theater.
Dislikes: bats, koans, and Chinese rooms.

Let us shamble through the streets in search of brains.
Let us lie by the fire — but not too closely.
Let us stare into each other's vacant eyes.

Contact me if you have the qualia needed
to reduce our dualism
to moanism.

[published in Tesseracts 16, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2012]
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[untitled Tanka #1]

Gaudi can't sculpt
imaginary angels
for the church.
He uses real bones
hangs them in the air.

[published in Gusts: Contemporary Tanka, Spring/Summer 2012]
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[untitled Tanka #2]

Look at that sunset,
that's physics for you —
light bending our minds.
Why have gravity
in a world ruled by god?

[published in Gusts: Contemporary Tanka, Fall/Winter 2012]
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Thanks!Read more

Zombie Bees of Winnipeg

In slanted sunlight's glow,
some stumble into signs
and bounce off with a zing,
exhausted from zagging
down the one-way streets
of downtown Winnipeg.

They shamble, stiff-winged
this Labour Day,
these zombie bees —
a hunched and mumbling swarm
of black encircled eyes
and jaundiced stripes
without the brains to know
they should be dead.

[published on the Chiaroscuro/ChiZine.com 47, 2011]

This poem was inspired by attending the Aurora Awards presentation at the Worldcon in Winnipeg in 1994. The Awards were given outdoors in a park near the convention centre. It was a beautiful Labour Day weekend and there were many zombie bees.

Thank You!Read more

I have two poems eligible to be nominated for the 2012 Aurora Awards. They were published in 2011:

Zombie Bees of Winnipeg

In slanted sunlight's glow,
some stumble into signs
and bounce off with a zing,
exhausted from zagging
down the one-way streets
of downtown Winnipeg.

They shamble, stiff-winged
this Labour Day,
these zombie bees --
a hunched and mumbling swarm
of black encircled eyes
and jaundiced stripes
without the brains to know
they should be dead.

[published Chiaroscuro/ChiZine.com 47, June 2011]

10 things to know about staplers

1) The Greeks invented the stapler.
2) Buzz Aldrin took a stapler to the moon.
3) Staplers can refuse to staple for religious reasons.
4) Staplers regret nothing.
5) When a stapler jams, someone will die.
6) Staplers are government spies.
7) Staplers eat one sock a month.
8) Surgical staplers are alcoholics.
9) Staplers dream of electric staplers.
10) Staplers know all your secrets.

[published Star*Line, Jan/Mar 2011 issue]

Thanks!
- CarolynRead more

First the big news :) I won the Aurora Award for my poem "The ABCs of the End of the World" from A Verdant Green. I was surprised and honoured. Surprised because the competition was stiff: Sandra Kasturi, Helen Marshall, Colleen Anderson, and Robert J. Sawyer. And honoured because this is the first time an Aurora Award category for poem/song has been presented. W00t!

Next big news: I've been invited to The International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts as one of three featured poets. The other two poets are David Kopaska-Merkel and Bryan Dietrich. Can you say Orlando in March 2012!

Catch-up news:
I did go to the Simon Fraser University's Book Publishing Summer Immersion Workshop in 2010. It was exhausting! But I learned a lot.

I had posted in #19 about a new "Best of" anthology being started here in Canada for speculative fiction and poetry called Imaginarium. My friends Sandra Kasturi and Halli Villegas are editing it for Tightrope Books. They were delayed a year, so the first one will be for poems and stories first published in 2011. So I've just submitted "10 things to know about staplers" from Star*Line and "The Zombie Bees of Winnipeg" from ChiZine.com.

I've been to three of the five Algonquin meetings this fall term. Our turnout has been light this year.

I had a great time at a bunch of SF conventions this year. Special mention to SFContario, our new Toronto convention (where I won my Aurora). Great Con!!

I also had a great time at DragonCon in Atlanta. Saw William Shatner's presentation from 2nd row centre!! But best presentation goes to Martin Landau who spoke eloquently on his life as an actor and the theory of acting, etc. Wow! Also special kudos to Ernest Borgnine, who's in his 90s and still remembers everything. His event was standing room only.

Happy Holidays!Read more

I thought I would post here my favourite of my poems published in 2010.

This was in a poetry anthology called A Verdant Green edited by my brother, David Livingstone Clink, and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box (George A. Vanderburgh, publisher).

[This anthology is referred to as Global Warnings in my previous posts.]

The ABCs of the End of the World

The Amazon burns.

Arid pollution floats
like an algae bloom
over asthmatic bumblebees —

a buzzing biomass
of clear-cut carbon
footprints

in a chaotic desert dance
of dehydration and energy-efficient
extinction. Famine floats

through flooded farms
searching for fuel-cell
resistance fighters

gone the way of greenhouse glaciers
in a hybrid car.

Hydrocarbon hurricanes
impact ice shelves, icebergs,

curling ice, and icecapades
in a final-jeopardy-worthy,
karmic, light-leakage landslide,

curdling the Milky Way
in a Magellanic Cloud of nuclear winter.

In the acidic ocean, a six-legged
octopus and a polar bear with gills
quibble over reduced rain forests,

reused rubbers, and recycled cyclones,
while solar-powered Tsunamis unleash
a torrent of ultraviolet species.

If only wind energy
came from outgassing,

or wave power from the pissing
away of finite resources on wars.

Instead, an extra-yellow river
backs up and civilization ends.Read more

Poetry Update #19

Quick update this time.

First big news, I've applied to the Simon Fraser University's Book Publishing Summer Immersion Workshop. It's a very highly regarded program -- very intense. It goes from 9am to 6pm or 9pm for two weeks. And, if I survive, I leave thinking like a publisher. :)

I missed the launch of Global Warnings because we went to Los Angeles to see the filming of Rob's episode of FlashForward at ABC/Disney Studio. Had a great time in LA! But did miss a great launch!

Gusts rejected the one Tanka I submitted. It sucked, so no hard feelings. ;)

Ice Floe, poetry of the far north, also rejected me. Bitter? ;)

The issue of Space and Time that printed my poem "Quantum Passion" arrived. Turns out I'm in the same issue with friends Josepha Sherman and Darrell Schweitzer.

There's a new "Best of" anthology being started here in Canada for speculative fiction and poetry. My friends Sandra Kasturi and Halli Villegas are editing it for Tightrope Books. The first one will be for poems and stories first published in 2010. So I've already submitted "Quantum Passion." I'll submit my upcoming poem from Star*Line, too, as soon as it's printed.

The Alquies had their last meeting of the university year -- which I missed. Sigh.

Did two hours on Haiku for Anime North, Canada's largest Anime convention. One hour was just writing, the second hour was using refrigerator magnets. I plugged SciFaiku. This was my first time at this convention. 17,000 fifteen-year-olds. Yikes! Got a good enough turn out, about 10 people for each hour.

I think that's me up-to-the-minute. Thanks!Read more

Spent today at a poetry workshop run by ChiZine poetry editor Sandra Kasturi and my brother David Clink the poetrymachine.com webmaster. It was a great workshop, well run, good location, etc. We did 14 different poetry exercises. I ended up with about 22 1/2 first draft poems.

Also, the Global Warnings anthology I'm in (new title: A Verdant Green: A Poetry Anthology to Celebrate the Lives of Anna and William McCoy) is launching on March 4th. I'm in with some great Canadian poets: bill bissett, Allan Briesmaster, Jenna Butler, George Elliott Clarke, Karen Connelly, Barry Dempster, Maureen Scott Harris, Stephen Humphrey, Sandra Kasturi, Carolyn Malyon, Allan Glenn Rose, and Raymond Souster. David Clink is the editor.

I had a poem accepted by Star*Line last month -- to appear later in the year.

I have to submit 3 tanka to Gusts for their February 15 deadline. Oh, and in December, I submitted to Ice Floe, poetry of the far north. Have not heard back.

I keep missing meetings of my poetry workshop: the Algonquin Square Table. But should make it tomorrow. Polish up one of these exercise poems from today and take it in. :)Read more

Yikes, the year went by fast! Two months in Saskatoon will do that. :)

Still waiting on the publication of Global Warnings, should be Spring 2010... maybe. Also pissed that while I made the deadline, other poets in the book couldn't be bothered to. They were turning their poems in in April. Hey, my poems could have used another round of editing, too.

Distant Early Warnings: Canada's Best Science Fiction came out this summer -- looks great! Got paid for it and everything! :) Also got my contributor copies of Room and a cheque. W00T! Did not submit to Tesseracts 14 -- ran out of time. Same thing for Gusts and NoD and a bunch of other mags. Sigh. If you don't submit... :(

Poetry editing for Chizine is going along well. I've got some in my inbox that I must attend to this weekend. Poets!

And Al Moritz, the intrepid leader of my poetry workshop (the Algonquin Square Table), won the Griffin Award for his poetry! Way to go, Al!Read more

Wow, first blog of the new year! ;)

So, I did meet my brother's deadline of 8 pages of environmental poems due January 1st. And they are pretty good if I do say so myself! ;) No indication of when the book Global Warnings will be published.

I did hear back from Tesseracts 13 -- a nice personal note from one of the editors, Nancy Kilpatrick. She says that one of my poems was on the short list, but in the end they decided not to publish any poetry. Sandra Kasturi got the same story, so it must be true. ;)

At the last minute, I submitted to Room: A Space of Your Own because I heard 3rd hand that they were doing a speculative issue. And I got accepted! W00T! Which leads me to the next paragraph.

I signed up for the Market Maven newsletter from Cythia Ward. It contains all kinds of market news for speculative magazines. So, I could have found out about Room's call for submissions before the last minute. (Not that I wouldn't have procrastinated until the last minute anyway. ;)

Oh, and I submitted 3 Turkey tanka to Gusts just before their February 15th deadline. (Tanka about the country Turkey, not the bird.) (I've now run out of smiley faces.)

W00T! I got paid by Pearson Educational for the two reprint poems they accepted last summer ("Very Large Array" and "Stars") for their upcoming textbook Literacy in Action 8: Time will Tell by Chris Atkinson. It was odd because they asked me how much they should pay me. So, I eventually decided to err on the cheap side and asked for $50 each. I probably could have gotten more...

"Stars" is also being reprinted in the RJS Books anthology, Distant Early Warnings: The Best Canadian Science Fiction to be launched at the World SF Convention this August in Montreal. My brother David's poem "Copyright Notice, 2525" will also be in the book. (Both our poems were Aurora Award finalists earlier this millennium.)

I have been told that W00T!, to be correctly spelled, must have zeros instead of ohs. So, I'm trying to do that.

I had entered the Writers Circle of Durham Region's poetry chapbook contest in Spring of 2008 (judging chapbooks published in the previous year). I made the "long list" of about 15 with Snapshots published by believe your own press. And I knew I didn't place in the top 3 winners. (Each winner got $100.) But this past weekend I found out I just missed the cut! I was in the final 5! Which is really nice to know. :D Credit is due to the chapbook's designer, Carleton Wilson.

That's all my poetry news for now!

Today, I heard from Space and Time Magazine, they accepted one of the five poems that I submitted in November. Woot!

I'm still working towards my brother's deadline. He needs 8 "pages" of poetry, where a page is 25 lines or so. I have 5 pages that have been workshopped and are in pretty good shape... and three pages of first draft. It'll be close. ;)

I bought The Canadian Writers' Contest Calendar 2009. I buy one copy every year for me and one for my brother as a Christmas gift. It has "detailed information on Canadian writing contests, awards and prizes, organized month by month according to their deadline dates." Visit White Mountain Publications and check it out.

I have not heard back from either Dream Catcher (the Irish magazine) or Tesseracts 13. But they both had October 31st deadlines, so I suspect I'll be waiting a while.

And I paid up my dues to the Science Fiction Poetry Association. They're a great organization, check them out! The price is more than worth it just for the publications!