New collection, Pushcart nomination & health update

The new and selected collection coming in 2023 officially has a title: Wonder & Wreckage. I think I mentioned this in another post, but I'm too lazy to go back and look, so I'll just tell you again. This isn't going to be your usual new and selected collection. I've selected poems from all of my previously published collections and chapbooks along with work that has appeared in journals and mixed it all up with work no one has ever read to create a story arc that stretches from Atlanta to LA. It's unapologetically dark and expands and reframes narrative arcs previously hinted at in my other collections. Consider it a director's cut or perhaps -- with a nod to Taylor Swift -- Collin's Version. 

There will be an initial print run of 300 signed and numbered copies from Poetry Atlanta Press, which will be available exclusively from me. There will be an online store for ordering. If you don't want it signed, you'll be able to order it from Amazon or, preferably, your local indie bookstore. 

This is likely my last collection of poetry, or at least the kind of poetry I've been writing for the last 30 years. This collection puts a period – a full stop – to a very long journey that is now coming to a close. I'll still be writing poetry, but it will come to you in various forms and mediums. I feel further and further removed from the poetry industrial complex, so leaving the traditional/expected behind is a direction I've been headed for a couple of years now.

I'm definitely taking a poetry hiatus once the book is out to turn back to finishing the long-simmering book of short stories and a fourth novel that puts "poetry assassin"  Juliette Lacombe from Leaving Paris front and center. 

And while I'm starting to pack up my poetry bag, I get wonderful news from Limp Wrist editor Dustin Brookshire that he's nominated "Roosters and Hens" for both a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

I must also send thanks to poet/curator Maureen Doallas for not only including my poem "The Virgin Mary Appears in a Highway Underpass," but work from contributors to the Mother Mary Comes To Me anthology in her "MARY, MARY: Contemporary Artists and Poets Consider Mary" on exhibition at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Arlington, VA. You can view the art and poems virtually at this link.

And my health: the recovery is taking awhile, but I'm feeling stronger and more focused lately. I'll be going for my six-month cancer scans in December. I'll either get an "all clear" or "oops, we missed a spot." Fingers, toes, and legs crossed for the former.