I worked all weekend gathering some of my political poetry into a chapbook to submit to the 2026 Rattle Chapbook Prize. It’s one of the few places where you can submit poetry that has already been published, as long as this collection has never been published as a whole.

I didn’t realize how many of my poems have been of a political nature lately. It is the way I vent and relieve the tension that results from the horrific goings-on in the United States in the past year. I ended up submitting 15 poems. My friend Cheri suggested that I enter a recent poem I wrote about love and loss. Since that didn’t fit the theme of the chapbook I submitted, I compiled a second submission of 18 poems that contained that theme.

I won’t know the results until April 15th. Wish me luck!