Harvest Harmonies 2026

For Harvest Harmonies, something that Choeofpleirn Press has created, two works of poetry or short fiction are featured each week during October. My wife and I decided to add our own contributions for the last week. The other selections are available at our website, https://www.choeofpleirnpress.com/harvest-harmonies

Despite using first-person pronouns, I adopted a persona in my poem. I don't live in my mother's house, and my child doesn't live two states away. Originally, the speaker was female, but I made the gender less obvious. I was going for a feeling instead of accurate details drawn from my life. I was mowing the yard when this poem entered my head. I wish that more of my poems could spring from working in the yard. 

Coats, by the way, is a town of about 68 people in southcentral Kanas. It's about twelve miles south of where my wife was born and raised. One of my students many years ago announced that he was from Coats. I had never heard of the place before then. My wife has promised to take me there the next time we visit her hometown.

Clicking on each picture will enlarge it.

Poems In The Marbled Sigh, Issue #6

Two of my more recent poems have recently been published in Issue #6 of the The Marbled Sigh. You can find my poems at the following link: https://themarbledsigh.com/2026/10/15/james-p-cooper-seeking-the-interstate-other/  

Any comments are welcomed.

My Third Ever Painting

For the 4th of July, instead of driving to a fireworks display, my wife and I decided to paint a fireworks scene from a previous year, using a photograph that I had taken at the time. I only started painting earlier in the summer when my wife had a painting party for her birthday. Four of us got together and painted, using a Bob Ross video as a guide. We later had another party in which we painted a double rainbow over a wheat field, using another photograph that I had taken. I ended up painting over my initial picture, the one that I had created for her birthday. 

My painting of the fireworks display appears below.

It is much easier, I discovered, to paint something abstract like a fireworks explosion than to try and paint a double rainbow over a wheat field. 

Chapbook Titles Published by Choeofpleirn Press

The winning poetry chapbook of our 2026 contest and two finalists have been published recently. This contest will be our last chapbook contest. Beginning in 2027, we will be offering a poetry contest for full-length collections of poetry. Our advertisement is easier to read if you click on it first. These chapbooks are available at Amazon and other booksellers.