Hey, gang — turns out I’ve been nominated to receive Publication of the Month from Spillwords Press for my poem, “school shooter.”
If you’re feeling so inclined, you can vote for the piece right here.
Tag Archives: Mary Washington College
Peeking Cat Literary publishes “The Rough, Violet Stone”
There’s a brand new poem of mine up over at Peeking Cat Literary — its title is “The Rough, Violet Stone” and you can find it right here.
I’m especially pleased because the poem was also selected for the next Peeking Cat Literary Anthology, scheduled for release in October 2021. Peeking Cat Literary is the new incarnation of the former Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, which recently returned after a one-year hiatus.
Thanks once again to Editor Sam Rose! I am honored indeed to see my poem both online today and scheduled for the print anthology.
Throwback Thursday: postcard from Mary Washington College, circa 1930-1945
Print postcard, linen texture.
Rest easy, Chris Irvine.
Rest easy, Chris Irvine — Mary Washington College Class of 1994. Pro Deo Domo Patria.
Chris passed away Sunday following his battle with Covid-19.
My poetry, 2020
2020 might have been a bad year, but it was the best year yet for my poetry: My Poetry and Satire, 2020. (Maybe my muse is societal nigh collapse.)
Anyway, thanks for coming along for the ride. 🙂
No, I am not actually going punk.
It’s a joke. As I’ve explained here before, I messed up giving myself a haircut. Then I realized that shaving most of it off was really my only recourse if I wanted to look vaguely normal. But I left it in a mohawk as a joke. The temporary hair dye and the earring are gags too.
I’d like to think that I didn’t do too bad of a job with the mohawk? It’s leagues ahead of the conventional haircut that I attempted first, at least. (I was doing so well for a while, too. Then I got impatient and started hacking a way at it.)
But I’m still trying to make lemons out of lemonade here. (I’ll never get that idiom right the first time, and I don’t care.) And just to add insult to injury, one of my news reporter friends made the meme you see at the bottom. The b*****d.
So I’m not as much punk as I am a punk. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to cosplay as one of those kids from “Return of the Living Dead” (1985), or maybe good ‘ol Chris Wright from my long ago acting classes. (He had an immense dyed mohawk, and he might have been the only punk at Mary Washington College circa 1991.)
Oh, well. I’ve still got The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” in my playlist. And I shared a Dead Kennedys video on Facebook the other day. (You know which one.) That counts for something.
Newington Blue Press selects my work for Issue No. 2 of Buk 100!
Great news — I am going to be published in Germany again! The nice folks over at Newington Blue Press have selected one poem and one photograph of mine to appear in the limited edition Issue No. 2 of Buk 100: My Old Man, A Birthday Greeting. The poem is my recent piece “Ode to a New Black Ballpoint Pen.” The photo is of the Shaffer’s Crossing Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge right here in Roanoke.
I am truly honored to learn that my work will appear in Issue No. 2 — especially after several of my poems appeared in Issue No. 1 of Buk 100 back in June. (These were “Guerrilla Poet” and “First Smoke.”) I am also quite happy to see that a photo of my adopted Bible Belt city will appear in a literary publication in Europe.
Buk 100: My Old Man, A Birthday Greeting is a set of chapbooks commemorating what would have been the 100th birthday of Charles Bukowski. Their featured writing and art were selected to showcase “a conversance and artistic involvement with the phenomenon of Bukowski.”
Thanks once again to Matthias Krueger at Newington Blue Press for allowing me to be a part of this unique international tribute to a legendary poet!
By Commonurbock23 – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4030361
Peeking Cat Literary will publish a new poem of mine
Great news! Peeking Cat Literary will publish a new poem of mine, both online on January 23 and in its next annual anthology in October 2021. The title of the poem is “The Rough, Violet Stone.”
Peeking Cat Literary is the new incarnation of the former Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, which recently returned after a one-year hiatus with some ambitious new directions. You can find all the details about the magazine’s new era by viewing its October 3 Facebook live event right here.
Thanks once again to Editor Sam Rose for allowing me to share my voice all over the world via this first-rate literary venue! I will be honored to see my poem both in the online magazine and in the print anthology.
“Imagine the Moon as Companion,” by Eric Robert Nolan
Imagine the moon as companion,
and it will bring you ease on sleepless nights.
Smile at its quiet path,
its torpid, bright accord of lighted arc,
as though its delaying were willful –
-its timeless passage ponderous
to pass the time with you.
For if you find the moon familiar,
it will do what all true friends do:
it will ever smile back.
And, no matter what the world’s disorders,
what woes will weight your days and bind your nights to waking,
what griefs will clamor after you at night in heavy voices, as laden refrains in your heart,
what other departures, when lights you know in other hearts revolve and fall away in their own other, foreordained arcs,
the moon will always return to you.
The moon is more certain than even your own sorrows.
Think about it.
Light is infrequent in space — in existence.
Think about the unlikeliness of it …
the moon’s honorarium of precious metal,
moving and unvarying among measureless cold spaces to find you as it elegantly burns.
It’s almost inconceivable –eternity is mostly darkness, yet
your little corner of night’s nigh infinite black is made a rare and argent, kindled silver,
meant uniquely for you,
as bright, and nearly as beautiful, as you are.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2020
Monument to Mary Washington, Frederickburg, VA, circa 1912
So I found a historical photo that was too good not to share. What you see here is the grave of Mary Washington, George Washington’s mother, in my college town of Fredericksburg, VA.
It ought to look a bit strange to my college friends who remember the site. What is now known (officially, anyway) as Kenmore Park/Memorial Park was a popular walking destination for students at Mary Washington College. (This is the site of “Mary’s Rock.” And if you partied downtown and walked back to campus, chances are you walked past it.) This site is just off Washington Avenue. The Gordon Family Cemetery was behind the obelisk. (The cemetery is pictured at left here — see the low wall — as this picture is looking northwest.)
Look at how small and sparse then trees were in 1912. (They were pretty big by the 1990’s.) This is part of a group of public domain images here at Project Gutenberg. They vary in quality, but some of them are pretty neat.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 