Post Number 401

The most recent post within this blog, Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge, was number 400 in nearly sixteen years. That's a rough average of twenty-five posts each year. My sixteenth anniversary running this blog will be February 11, 2022.

This blog will probably continue. At the least, I will be adding my pictures, just as I have been doing of late. I used to write more before I went public and attached my name to this blog. I felt less inhibited prior to going public. Although I don't know whether anyone from where I work ever reads this blog, I have been writing less and sharing less of myself.

What free time I have had during the past year has been going toward my own writing. Covid for me has made me more productive as a poet. I feel compelled to write as much as I can. 

One of my poems, by the way, has been nominated for both Pushcart and Best of the Net. 

This emphasis on poetry will be reflected when I describe the books that I have been reading this year. 

I have chosen the picture included with this post because it looks forward.

Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge

During the Thanksgiving holiday, I visited a nature refuge. It was once named Squaw Creek, but the name has since been changed to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge. During this time of year, the refuge is mostly a home to snow greese and bald eagles. At 250mm, my telephoto lens doesn't capture as much detail as a 400mm lens, but I am adding a few pictures, nonetheless.

If this nature refuge weren't three hours away, I would like to visit it more often in the fall and spring. The number of snow geese and bald eagles has increased significantly since Thanksgiving, according to the latest waterfowl survey. I particularly like hearing the clamor of thousands of snow geese as they gather in one section of the refuge. It's a sound that will stay with me.  

Chapbook Contest

Choeofpleirn Press, the press that my wife and I created, will be offering a poetry chapbook contest in 2022 for those poets who have not yet published a full-length collection. The deadline for submitting chapbooks is April 30, 2022.  Laura Read, author of Instructions for My Mother's Funeral, Dresses from the Old Country, and the chapbook The Chewbacca on Hollywood Boulevard Reminds Me of You, has agreed to serve as judge. More details can be found at the following link--https://www.choeofpleirnpress.com/poetry-chapbook-contest