Lit Pick Pub Notice With Dedication:

2012 was a difficult year, with the loss of a dear friend and a reluctant move from the city I love.

I am getting back to the blog a bit late with notice of a recent publication, "Across Pollination" in Painted Bride Quarterly, which was released in October.  There is much amazing work and heartfelt insight in this issue of PBQ, so I hope the few who stumble across The Common House will check it out:

Painted Bride Quarterly

In this most recent issue, #85, the editors explore the topic of Displacement.

Little did I know how apropos this theme would be, having been inspired by a neighbor and her simple act of walking out the door of my building, my home of ten years which has come to a sudden end, and shortly after the move, the departure from this life of one of my closest friends, Kara Niski-Kunsman, just days prior to the publication of issue 85.

I hope readers as well as the editors of PBQ will forgive me for my delay in announcing the issue's release with the usual, speedy self-promotion that most poets might ordinarily engage in.  I hope also that they will forgive me for my tardy response to a second acceptance notice I received from Painted Bride not long prior to Kara's passing.  I may be announcing this prematurely, as I am uncertain if they may still take the next piece so long after sending the acceptance.

I won't use time or space here explaining my complicated friendship with Kara or the despair, the bewilderment that I have experienced this past fall.  Instead, please read the issue of PBQ. I think there can be no finer tribute to our friendship than the sharing of fine literature with the particular theme of this issue.  Kara's spirit was filled with generosity, kindness, acceptance.  We shared a love of humanity and justice.  It is a kindred sensibility which I believe moves the poets and authors who have contributed to the theme of this issue.  

I will save the more specific stories and memories of Kara for other future poems.