In one month and eight days, it will have been a year. A trivial milestone to acknowledge when the real markers are things like the first time we took my mother to a restaurant without him. My first self-prepared tax return (he was an accountant). The first big decision I had to make without his counsel. The first Arkansas football game. The first Thanksgiving, which will happen in a couple of weeks. How to have a family meal without his jokes, his eagerness to try anything I cooked, his hug goodbye, his insistence on paying for the groceries I’d bought? How to acknowledge my complete and utter fear of taking the reigns as turkey carver?

Last Thanksgiving, we talked over the pros and cons of self-publishing. We decided together to publish Adam in the manner I did. A year later, Adam sits at #1 in its sales category on Lulu, appeared as #1 on Amos Lassen’s Best Books of 2010 Lambda list, and opened the door for me to build Sibling Rivalry Press (complete with a storefront that went live yesterday). I’m a publisher now. People put their careers in my hands. Ocean Vuong’s first chapbook launches Monday.

Has all of this really happened within the space of twelve months?  My dad’s death. Adam‘s entrance and subsequent dance, Lethe picking up The Hanky Code, Ganymede Unfinished (which is Number 9 in Lulu’s Top 10 GLBT Books, meaning two SRP books are in the Top 10).  I’ve become friends with Gavin Dillard, my literary-hero and the man whose anthology A Day for a Lay: A Century of Gay Poetry changed me to the core, and he’s talking two SRP projects, one as author, and one as editor.  My journal Assaracus debuts in January, and apparently it’s got buzz, y’all. I’ve been to New York City twice and made dear, real friendships there. I’d never been before this year, and now it feels like a second home.  I say these things not with ego – but with amazement. I’m doing what I love. I’m happy. These are the things I’d want my father to see.

While building the foundation for Sibling Rivalry Press has taken much of my time and has taken me away from regular blogging, I’ve been dedicated to poetically chronicling the-year-that’s-been.  I’ve still been writing, and I’m extremely proud of what’s shaping up to be Less Fortunate Pirates: Poems from the First Year Without My Father.   This book will be my gift to him, and to anyone who’s lost a parent. To anyone who’s known loss in any regard.

I’ve not yet decided how to bring Less Fortunate Pirates into the light.  I can always publish it through Sibling Rivalry Press, but something tells me the book needs another path. I have to listen to those voices. They’ve not led me astray before. The manuscript isn’t complete yet – and won’t be until December 20, the anniversary of my dad’s passing. After I write that final poem, I’ll make a decision on how to move forward. I can tell you that these poems are the strongest I’ve ever written. They are for my father, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Memorial Day

It is Memorial Day again. The neighbors
fly a flag from their front porch. Our family

visits, my in-laws, my mother. It dawns
on me I no longer can use the word parents

in the present tense. These are our holidays
now. My husband cooks hamburgers

on the new grill. The onions I chop for salsa
sting my eyes. When it is time for dessert,

I put out too many bowls, one too many
spoons. After the meal, we play badminton

in the backyard. As the sun goes down,
I clean the grill before the charred meat

sticks to the grates. It is the beginning
of summer. I smell like a grown man.

I’ll leave you with how the table of contents for Less Fortunate Pirates is shaping up, which will give you some idea as to the content and context of the book.  A couple of you have read earlier versions of the manuscript and have helped me along the way. I love you for that. Some of you will recognize a few poems that have appeared at vox poetica or on the blog.

I’ve never written something that rips me apart before.  These poems rip me apart, then put me back together. I can’t wait to share it with you.

Less Fortunate Pirates: Poems from the First Year Without My Father

Instructions on How to Approach the Bereaved
Walnut Lake
Christmas Day
Social Network Obituary
The Moment I Read Walt Whitman to Three Hundred People
My Companion Piece
Coincidences and Synchronicities
Saturdays Before My Birth
The Day I Break the First Commandment
Recalling A Last Conversation Between Father and Son
Dream Journal, 26 December
The Night I Laugh Inappropriately
Your Birthday
Valentine’s Day
The Lady Chablis
The Day I Kiss Science Goodbye
Car Crashes Are My Family’s Cancer
How Your Explorer Ended Up in the Lake
Dream Journal, 30 December
On Being Intimate in the Company of Ghosts
The Day a Man Asks My Mother on a Date
The Day I Run the Little Rock Marathon
The Nights I Think of My Brother
Dark Horse
The Day I Pack His Things
Mergers and Acquisitions
Introducing a Grandson to his Grandfather
The Day I Find My Father’s Lost Wedding Ring
On the Significance of Dark Horses
Phantom Limbs of Family Trees
Reasons My Father Did Not Commit Suicide
A Study on the Grieving Habits of Humans
Memorial Day
The Days I Believe in Ghosts
There’s Talk of Selling the House
Long Division
In the Doctor’s Office Waiting Room
Father’s Day
Father’s Day II
The Night I Fight with My Husband
The Day I Start My Business
The Fourth of July
The Morning I Stare at the Water for Hours
My Birthday
The Day We Do Not Choose Your Headstone
The Day I Return To My Wanton Ways
Arkansas Post and Other Battles of the Civil War
The Day the Fair Comes to Town
The Day My Mother Says She Wants to Move
The Words We Choose
The Day I Cross the Bridge
Two Examples of Many Instances
The Day Tears Explode Like Bombs
The Night My Marriage is Saved
Watching Inception at the Movie Theater
August 25: The Morning I Call the Psychic
August 27: Two Days After Mary
My Father’s Hanky, Left Pocket
The Afternoons I Sip Herbal Tea
How to Grieve
The Day Arkansas Plays Alabama
The Day Cemeteries Change
Acceptance
Swale
Ancestory.com
Apples and Oranges
How to Carve a Turkey
Spared
Thank You Note
What I Want You to Know