A few months ago I found myself wallowing in self-doubt after yet another magazine rejected my poetry submission. I really liked the five poems I'd submitted, but I began to wonder whether I might just be fooling myself.
As one does in this era, I turned to my Twitter friends for empathy and support, and one of those friends, Josh Hewitt, went so far as to offer to read the poems and give me his honest opinion. To my surprise and delight, he loved them. Said there wasn't anything wrong with the poems and encouraged me to keep submitting them until the right magazine for the poems snatched them up. Faith in self and poems restored. Thank you, Josh. But there was a catch! Josh said he'd be asking me for a favor in return one of these days.
A couple of months ago, Josh called in the favor. He told me he was going to publish a series on his blog called
World's End and wanted me to write a poem for it. "Wait," I said. "You read my poems for me and restored my faith in myself, and the favor you want from me is to publish one of my poems?" "Yes," he said. Could I possibly have been more flattered? Not likely.
The basic premise of
World's End: in two years, a rogue planet will smash into Earth and kill everyone. There's no escape, nothing anyone can do to change that fate.
"Like a Woman in Love" is the poem I wrote in response to that prompt. And tonight it went up on Josh's blog. I'm honored to be included in his series and excited to finally get to share this poem with you.
Click here to read "Like a Woman in Love" on Josh Hewitt's blog,
A Beginning, An End, and All That Lies Inbetween.
