Here’s a project that I’ve been excited about for quite some time! One of my poems, “The Fury of the Moment,” has been included in the anthology Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan (New Rivers, 2018). This one has been a long time coming, so it was such a thrill to finally get this book in the mail on Friday.
To have a poem in this anthology is a great honor for me. First, as you may have gathered if you’ve read this blog for a while, I’m a big fan of Bob Dylan’s music. I’ve dedicated blog posts to the rhyme scheme of “Queen Jane Approximately” and to placing “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” in the ballad tradition, but neither compares to contributing to the conversation around Dylan’s work through my own poetry. Second, it’s a privilege to share space in this anthology with such esteemed writers as Johnny Cash, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dorianne Laux, and Paul Muldoon. Certainly my work is put to shame by their example, but for the moment, I feel like I’m getting away with something.
Here’s a little background as to how this came about. New Rivers Press, which is based out of Minnesota State University Moorhead, announced that they were planning this tribute to Bob Dylan in early 2016, and in response I wrote a handful of new poems inspired by Dylan’s work. The one they eventually selected, “The Fury of the Moment,” attempts to capture the feeling of listening to “Every Grain of Sand,” the last track on his last born-again album, Shot of Love. I submitted my work in August 2016 (not too long before Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature), received the acceptance contract in December 2017, and at long last got my copy yesterday. Like I said: a long time coming.
Special thanks to the editors, Thom Tammaro and Alan Davis, for including my work in this project, and for accommodating a last minute change of address!
Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan is published by New Rivers Press, Moorhead, Minnesota. As of this writing, the book is listed as temporarily out of stock through both Small Press Distribution and Amazon, but with any luck it’ll be back in stock soon!
Michael Mingo's Blog 
How wonderful that you are included in such a special project! Do you ever go on to Submittable and see which poems are still just sitting there in the “in progress” category? *sigh* And it doesn’t help that Submittable actually counts the number of days since you submitted, which exacerbates one’s feelings. I don’t write as much as I should, but I actually chugged through three creative writing degrees, ending with an MFA in fiction at the University of Notre Dame.
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I’m don’t check Submittable all that often, but I do have a habit of refreshing the Recent Responses page on Duotrope. Either way, all part of the futile effort of reverse engineering the editors’ process! Best of luck wherever you currently have work in the hopper!
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