Rayz Reviewz

Volume 2 Number 29
I have to admit that I have struggled with this newsletter over the past few months. It began as a guide to online activities during Covid isolation, but that ran thin. 

I then tried to make it about literature and later about my own writing, but lately, I find myself tired of the enterprise. Like Sir John Hurt in the iconic Dr. Who series, I find myself saying "No More."

So, my newsletter is due for a change to my real passion, the natural world. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning and wakes me in the night to get up and stargaze.

Once each year, I give a four-hour instructional program on the natural world at night. Background on why I do this presentation appears at the end of this installment of RayzReviewz, but here are some neat activities you can use to learn about the outdoors at night. 
A Literary Approach
Poems and stories of the world at night are abundant, and some people like to focus on the terrifying ones, but I take a gentler approach. 
The poem "To Know the Dark" by Wendell Berry offers the insight that "the dark blooms and sings." You can read the short text here: Poetry Chaikhana | Wendell Berry - To Know the Dark (poetry-chaikhana.com)
The British writer Chris Yates, who spends a lot of time writing about fishing, also spends the shortest night of the year, the Summer Solstice, walking. His book, Nightwalk: A Journey into the Heart of Nature, relates his experience on one extended walk. Nightwalk: A Journey to the Heart of Nature by Chris Yates | Goodreads 
An Educational Approach
Brad Daniel and Clifford Knapp prepared an article on leading a night walk, primarily with students in mind. Knapp, now deceased, was one of my mentors at Northern Illinois University. Read their safety tips, whether exploring the nighttime world on your own or as a leader or participant in outdoor activities. Explore an area in the daytime first, and make sure you know it well before going at night.
Nighttime Adventures - Green Schools National Network
Explore the Night Sky 
We have several local resources for learning about astronomy, but most of them are closed due to Covid 19. You will have to wait a while to visit the Clarence T. Jones Observatory or Smith Planetarium in Walker County. 

I recently visited one that is open, the Star Walk trail at Harrison Bay State Park, developed b the Barnard Astronomical Society. I enjoyed a walk on the course and read the interpretive signs, which impart a solid knowledge of the subject. 

You can explore it during the daytime to learn some astronomy. Keep safety foremost in your mind. Harrison Bay State Park's Star Walk - Sky & Telescope - Sky & Telescope (skyandtelescope.org)
You can also download and print a star chart and connect some lines before using it at night. The best way to begin learning the constellations is to connect them with lines. 
Star Charts | Adventure Science Center
On the Chart, please find the two stars at the end of the dipper and draw a straight line through them. Use a pencil. Darker lines will confuse you later. 
If you continue about three times that distance, you will end up at the North star. The North Star is a guidepost for navigation, and the big dipper inspired the song "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd." It was a guide for escaping slaves on the underground railway. 
Follow the Drinking Gourd - YouTube
The North Star is the end of the handle of the Little Dipper.
Draco winds between the dippers.
Thuban, the third star from the end of Draco's tail, was the north star in ancient Egyptian Astronomy. Vega in the Lyre will be the north star in a few thousand years. Thuban - Wikipedia
Continue your line from the big dipper to the north star to Cassiopeia, the "lazy W."
•Perseus, Pegasus, Cepheus, and Andromeda are all nearby. These constellations are all named for characters in a Greek Myth. 
Medusa, the Gorgon, had hair made of snakes. Anyone who looked at her would turn to stone. A goddess she offended inflicted this condition as a punishment.
Perseus severed her head and put it in a bag so he would not become stone. The variable star Algol, also known as the demon star, represents the head. Algol - Wikipedia
Perseus saved the princess Andromedia from a sea serpent who was ravaging the coast. He showed the head to the sea monster, and the sea monster turned to stone. Queen Casiopea and her husband Cepheus had sent Andromedia as a sacrifice to the sea monster, so Perseus turned them to stone too.  
That is the discussion accompanying the first few slides in my PowerPoint presentation. My storytelling must be at its best when I give the talk.
Your interest may run to nighttime animals. I will share that portion of my talk in the next installment of RayzReviewz. Meanwhile, here is a link to my interview with wildlife rehabilitator Alix Parks as published in Hellbender Press. 
Hellbender Press - Wildlife rehabbers return birds to the sky in Chattanooga.
How I ended up doing a presentation on Nature at Night. 
My presentation is one of ten experienced by a group of people who have committed to spend four hours each month over ten months learning about nature. 
Topics for this program include everything from birds to insects to wildflowers to just about anything else you can imagine. One month they spend four hours learning about things that live in freshwater environments. 
Someone affiliated with the program remembered that I once led night hikes at a local nature center and said, "that's the guy." I don't give any of the other presentations and am happy with that arrangement.
Standards for my presentation are high because the participants will eventually present these activities.
For the nocturnal nature portion, I spent hours preparing a PowerPoint and other materials for the two hours of indoor instruction, not to mention the activities for two hours of structured outdoor learning experiences. Dissatisfied with the PowerPoint presentation, I prepared a new one this year.

Green by Ray Zimmerman
After the image Pool Head by Pat Singer
Pool Head | Search Results | Rattle: Poetry
 
In the dead of winter, the leafless trees mock death.
The body of mother earth seems a corpse,
Until you arrive, embodiment of springtime.
 
Goddess or Green Man, androgynous figure,
the earth is renewed when you appear.
The green of springtime reflects your skin.
 
I search for Oberon and Titania in your headdress
of boulders and rising vapors as they dream elsewhere.
They await the Bard’s call, for it is not yet midsummer’s eve. 
 
The swimmers dive into your private ocean
just as they appeared in Whitman’s poems,       
Poet of the fecund earth he would appreciate
your presence surrounded by vines and shrubs.
 
In your vernal appearance I contemplate my age,
the mystery that I am still here after so many years.
The cycle of seasons will bring you back again,
but a man’s life is linear, physical existence transitory.
My spirit will be here to greet you, but my body may not.
 
Published in Sinew, an anthology by Poetry in the Brew.
<i>Sinew</i> Chronicles 10 Years of Open-Mic Night Poetry in the Brew | Books | nashvillescene.com
​
​Photos of Glen Falls by Ray Zimmerman

Life After Writing: a work of fiction.
This piece won the Chattanooga Writers' Guild monthly contest about a year ago. 

Life After Writing

The check was not in the mailbox. No worries. The bills were not due for another week, and my work-from-home job always paid promptly. Instead of rushing to my bank with a deposit, I faced an ominous letter from the Writers' Office of Standards, Code Enforcement Division, an organization that would occupy my time for the next week. I well remember the contents of that letter.

Dear Writer:

Your Writer's Permit has been suspended. The Standards Committee has found your writing to be outside the accepted norms for content or style. You must document appropriate writing to restore your permit. On the assigned day, please bring your copy of the Writer's Permit and good quality writing samples, preferably published, to the Office of Standards, Code Enforcement Division, for examination by a representative Standards Officer. The line may look long, but it moves quickly.

The Standards Officer will examine your works for appropriate content and style. Character development and the plot will count heavily for works of fiction. Nonfiction works should exhibit believability. Poetic works should contain both metaphor and extended metaphor as well as appropriate rhythm. Extraneous words weigh heavily against writers in all genres.

Should you receive a negative evaluation and wish to appeal the Standards Officer's decision, please be advised that the appeal is a three-day process. Rooms in the Appeals Center have Spartan accommodations consisting of a bed, writing desk, and appropriate chair. Friends and relatives are welcome to bring food to assist you with dietary restrictions which the available food may not accommodate. Visitors are encouraged to make their stay brief so you can focus on the business of completing your appeal.

Be sure to bring a blank journal and pens. Typewriters, tablets, laptops, and other devices are strictly prohibited. All appeals must be written by hand. At the end of three days, you will read your memoir, book of poems, or work of fiction aloud to a panel of three widely published authors who will judge it based on your delivery and the merits of the work. The Appeals Center will provide reasonable amounts of water and throat lozenges to allow you to complete this task.

Should you continue to write after you visit the Office of Standards and Appeals Center, please remember to conform to the standards of the writing community. Small groups of writers have at times attempted to create movements with new writing standards and achieved brief success, but only the established standards have withstood the test of time.

Good Luck
Siegfried von Machsnichst
Comptroller General
 
On the appointed day, I carried a small briefcase that held a folio of published poems, a short story collection, and a novel in progress, as well as the pens and journal for a possible stay at the Appeals Center. I had prepared a suitcase of clothing, which a friend would deliver if needed. The receiving officials would search it for pre-written material.

I arrived at the Office of Standards early, but a line of twenty-three people already awaited the Standards Officer's arrival. A short woman in a business suit entered the room.

I expected her to immediately begin examining works by the writer at the head of the line, but no, she took the space at the end of the line and gave me a sardonic smile. "Better get in line; more of us will arrive any minute now. Is this your first time through the process?"

I had not thought anyone would go through this daunting process more than once. As I took the twenty-fifth place in line, I noticed a window at the front of the room, closed with a wooden shutter and protected with iron bars.

The window had a counter large enough to hold a manuscript. Two similar windows flanked it. A clock above the window indicated five minutes until opening time.
"Why the iron bars?" I wondered aloud.

The woman in front of me snorted. "They keep rejected writers from grabbing the Standards Officer while making threats or shouting about being the nation's most excellent up-and-coming author. Sometimes they belittle the Standards Officer, the Standards Committee, or the Office of Standards. Sometimes they get out of hand. I saw one hauled off to an asylum. Too bad, his writing was actually OK."

Every eye focused on the window as it opened with a loud screech. A rotund man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a light blue shirt, and a blue pinstriped blazer surveyed the line from behind the window and blinked.

Presumably, the blazer had matching pants, but he could have been wearing Bermuda shorts from our perspective. His large handlebar mustache was incongruous on his otherwise cleanshaven face and head.
"First writer!" he proclaimed.

Each writer, in turn, placed their writing samples on the counter. The portly Standards Officer briefly examined one or two pieces and stamped the Writers' Permits "Approved" or "Rejected."
He pointed to his right for those who were accepted, left for those rejected.

All went smoothly until the seventh writer in line, a thin, nervous man, received the rejection gesture. "No, no, no," he shouted. "I won't appeal. I can't give this place another three days of my life." He exited through a previously unseen door.

With a chuckle, the woman in front of me said, "Frequent flier. He'll be back. He has three days to change his mind, you know."

According to the clock above the window, an hour had passed. The line behind me stretched to the entrance. A guard, now stationed there, briefly opened the door and assured the writers outside that they would be admitted as space allowed. 

After completing his review of the twelfth writer's work, the Standards Officer proclaimed, "Break time. Reviews will resume in fifteen minutes." The window screeched shut.

Easy for him to say," said someone further up the line. "He actually gets a break."

Upon ascertaining that I would hold her place in line, the woman in front of me strolled to the ladies' room. Others noticed this and availed themselves of the facilities. In some cases, arguments ensued when they returned to their places in line.

Precisely fifteen minutes later, the shutter screeched open. "Thirteenth writer," proclaimed the now-familiar Standards Officer.

The window to his right likewise screeched open, and a woman in a silk blouse and navy blazer proclaimed, "Hold your places in line. Fourteenth writer, please."

Ten minutes later, the remaining window opened. A man with an angular, carrot-shaped head and red hair looked out. He wore a black shirt with a matching black tie. "Seventeenth writer," he proclaimed.

Half an hour later, he called out, "Twenty-fifth writer."

I stepped forward and placed my writing samples on the counter.

He fanned through the portfolio of poems and set it down. He did the same with the short stories. "Published collection. Exceptionally good."

Then he picked up the manuscript. "Novel in progress. Excellent. I'll look at this." He fanned through the pages, quickly read two, and proclaimed, "Sophomoric! Work rejected." He stamped the rejected seal in red ink on my permit.

"Are you appealing?" he queried.

"Some people think so," I nearly replied. I thought better of it and simply said, "Yes."

He stamped the purple seal of appeal on my permit and pointed to his left, my right.

As I entered the hallway and walked toward the Appeals Center, a raspy yet melodious voice singing the strains of "Downtown Train" issued from the overhead speakers. An auspicious omen, I thought.

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Bull 'Gator's Lament
A Performance Piece Rendered on Screen

What's that man lookin' at, down here in this cypress swamp, so thick with branches that sun barely gets through? He's lookin' at me, Old Bull 'Gator, and I'm lookin' at him. Why don't you come on over for dinner?

Speaking of dinner, you should have seen me grab that turtle from his sunny spot by the water hyacinths. When I broke through to the meat, those tourists thought a rifle shot had gone off. Fish, man, bird, or turtle, I get my dinner.

Sometimes, though, man eats us. He'll come down to this swamp and put a bullet in a 'gator's brain. Those poachers skin the 'gator right out here and cut up the tail meat for Cajun delight. The hide gets made into boots.

The poachers never got me, though. Grown 'gators missed their chance too. I had to be careful when I was young But now, I'm the king of this here swamp.

Springtime is my favorite time of year, when Spanish Moss flutters in the breeze like curtains in an old mansion house. That's when I get to bellowing. 

My bellows echo off the cypress trunks and all through the swamp. Those lady 'gators bellow right back. When one of them judges Old Bull fit, we spin like two demons in a whirlpool.

Pretty soon, she'll be building a nest out of mud and sticks. When the eggs hatch and that fierce old momma 'gator hears those young 'uns grunting, she gently pulls the nest apart and tenderly frees them. That's when she won't want Old Bull around because we've been known to eat our own.

Maybe I'll wander off and watch those fishing boats go past. Perhaps one of them will flip over. Man, fish, bird, or turtle, I get my dinner.

Look over yonder at those little 'gators sunning themselves on their momma's snout. I believe one of them is a baby bull. He will have to grow some before he can be king of my swamp.  

Family - Fictionalized Memoir

One grandma died young. Her story is hearsay for my generation. Every story ever told is true, but that does not mean they are factual.

My mother became her nurse at age twelve. She helped the lady of the house to the porch so she could sew in the sun. Her dad called her their little nurse.

​Mom's older sister read constantly and wrote stories that I have never read. Perhaps they are lost or preserved by another member of the family.

Each morning she packed her daddy's lunch, an unasked question on her lips the day he dropped a pistol into the lunch box.

The miners were on strike. Grandad walked the picket line, wary of company goons. "Don't let anyone in the house. Those company men are tricky."

Another grandma succumbed to madness when her husband abandoned her with all those kids.

The orphanage kindly welcomed Papa. Two maiden aunts later took him in so he could go to high school.

I wonder how much I should let you see through my disguise. Perhaps I will let in just a little more light.
We may have been poor, but we owned land. The garden fed us all summer. Mason jars of beans, tomatoes, and corn got us through most of the winter, supplemented with rabbit and pheasant from Dad's game pouch.

Trips to the store were occasional, for grits, coffee, sugar, and bacon. Mama's hens provided eggs until the zoning commission said they had to go.

Some nights, I slept in my tent. During the day, I read in its shade. My companion was a hound dog, barely grown from a pup. I named her Babe after Paul Bunyan's blue ox

I read every story I could about that legend of a man.

Paul Bunyan's frying pan was so big two lumberjacks skated across its surface with slabs of bacon strapped to their feet. They greased the pan for the dozens of eggs he cooked and ate for breakfast each morning.
When the blue ox Babe stopped for a drink, the Round River ran dry.

Before I left fundamentalism behind, they dunked me in the water:
Three times!
Once for the father!
Once for the son!
Once for the Holy Ghost!
I emerged primarily unchanged.

Late August Collage: A Lyric Essay

Begin with the yellow flowers of a Jerusalem artichoke. Make strands of its essence. They are warp and woof, a framework for your tapestry.

Weave in the golden-brown of coreopsis, the pink of coneflower. Add the red of fireweed, and you have made a start. Weave in the rich brown feather of a wren, dropped near her empty nest.

Eggshells make a nice touch if you can find them.

Hang your tapestry from a hickory branch. Let it ripen with the nuts.

When the time is right, add lichen: the kind known as old man's beard, the ephemeral green vessels called pixie cups, the red-topped British soldiers.

Let it bake in the August sun and steep in the lightning of sudden storms. It will hide its eyes from the pounding rain and soften in the nurturing mists.

Now your tapestry is ready to receive the gentle songs of chickadees and nuthatches. Let the pileated woodpecker drop chips from his drill as he feeds on carpenter ants. A few will stick.

Seek the help of a spider. Her silk will bind the work together. Hang your tapestry on your wall if you must. When spiderlings hatch from its thread, you will understand that it belongs in the woods. This change will happen at the time of day when the buzzing of cicadas gives way to the trills of katydids.

Hang it on your porch. Let the light from Altair and Deneb illuminate its recesses. It will waffle in the breeze of early morning as bats retire to take their daytime rest.

Ask yourself: have I woven this tapestry, or has it woven me?  

A slightly different version of "Late August Collage" appeared in Catalpa Magazine. Downloadable files of this magazine appear here: Catalpa | UTC Scholar | Student Research, Creative Works, and Publications | University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

 Photo - Coke Ovens at Grundy Lake
​by Ray Zimmerman
A few months ago, I started on a feature article about the Friends of South Cumberland State Park and their dedication to supporting the park and its managers. It was rambling and far too long at 1,700 words. The final article is a tribute to State Park Naturalist Mack Prichard, 1939–2021, and his achievement in helping the park to grow. Publication is pending. Here are a few paragraphs I had to cut to streamline the article. 
 
The State of Tennessee established South Cumberland State Park in 1978 with approximately 10,000 acres, already large by state park standards. It has since grown to 30,899 acres, and some sources say it is our largest state park, though one source credits the Cumberland Trail State Park as the largest. Those two are our only state parks with more than 30,000 acres. The Friends of South Cumberland State Park was incorporated in 1993 to assist the park and its managers.
 
In the film Mack Prichard—My Story, Prichard thanks donors for two other parcels of land. 
The Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lee Carter Class II Natural-Scientific State Natural Area is a 931-acre tract donated by the Carters, including caves and waterfalls typical of the Cumberland Plateau's karst topography. Rangers from South Cumberland State Park give occasional tours at Lost Cove Cave, also known as Buggytop [AM1] Cave. This portion of the park is a sensitive area with some rare plants and animals. Carter (Harry Lee) (tn.gov)
 
The University of the South donated the tract now known as the Natural Bridge Class I Scenic-Recreational State Natural Area. This three-acre tract includes a natural sandstone arch spanning a 50-foot-wide opening. Natural Bridge (tn.gov)
 
Denny Cove is another portion of the park, just south of Foster Falls. This natural landmark includes a waterfall, rock climbing opportunities, and rare plants. Further information is available from the Land Trust for Tennessee: Denny Cove (landtrusttn.org). The Southeastern Climbers Coalition assisted in acquiring this acre 380-acre parcel of land.
 
***
 
Multi-Genre Submissions Calendar
 
Here are some publications you may have overlooked, but they are open to all writers and produce a fine product.
 
Number One
Website: Publications | Volunteer State Community College (volstate.edu)
Genre(s): Poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction with an emphasis on sense of place
Notes: Volunteer State Community College faculty produce this journal, not to be confused with their student publication, the Pioneer Pen. They print one issue per year in the fall. They have published my poetry.
Submissions: Materials are due in February to emily.andrews@volstate.edu
 
Catalpa Magazine
Website: https://scholar.utc.edu/catalpa/ 
Genre(s): All
Notes: This magazine is affiliated with the graduate program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Copies can be downloaded from their website. Graduate students produce one issue per year in the spring. They have also published my poetry.
Submissions: Contact scholar@utc.edu  for further information
 
Nashville Review
Website: Nashville Review – A Publication of Vanderbilt University
Genre(s): All
Notes: Sample works from the current edition are available on the website. Join their mailing list for alerts about submission deadlines.
Submissions: Accepted through the Submittable platform in January, May, and September
Submit (vanderbilt.edu)
 
Open Mic Opportunity
 
Poetry in the Brew
Website: https://poetryinthebrew.wordpress.com
Notes: Poetry in the brew offers an online open mic via Zoom on the final Saturday of each month. They also have a midmonth in-person open mic at Portman Brewing East in Nashville and poetry pop-up events in surprise locations. Christine Hall hosts the two-hour online event and allows four minutes per poet.

​Unknown Territory
This piece is a response to “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever” by Brian Doyle, published by Orion Magazine and available at: https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-greatest-nature-essay-ever.
Brian Doyle has given us a fine essay on the art of essay writing. After my initial response to the word “greatest” (is he kidding me?), I calmed down and found five paragraphs of genuine, perhaps gently humorous, views on what should happen in a nature essay. First, the essay must get the reader’s attention—not in the sensationalist terms of the news headline, but in a way that takes readers out of themselves and into an unexpected place where they secretly hoped to go.

In her poem “The Speed of Darkness,” Muriel Rukeyser says, “The world is made of stories, not atoms.” She then spins the reader into her world of pain. This is what Doyle proposes the next few paragraphs should do, but in the realm of nature. The beauty unfolds, but a threat to the natural world is unveiled. He then states that the writer should “tiptoe” back to the gently unfolding story without sermonizing or grandiose conclusions. I picture this perfect essay ending with the reader aware of a tapestry of beauty with dark threads of threat interwoven into a cloth of hope.

Some reviewers have said that Doyle’s essay meets its own criteria, that it is in fact “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever.” This makes the piece a “meta-essay,” a work written in the form it describes, much like the “Ars Poetica” of Horace (who, perhaps unexpectedly, founded a school of poetics that took the name of his poem). Though originally written in a poetic form, it is usually translated as prose, and the full text appears on the website of the Poetry Foundation.
Ye who write, make choice of a subject suitable to your abilities; and revolve in your thoughts a considerable time what your strength declines, and what it is able to support. Neither elegance of style, nor a perspicuous disposition, shall desert the man, by whom the subject matter is chosen judiciously. – Horace
 
Doyle’s essay might have led me to the conclusion that I have read very few nature essays. Make no mistake, I have read extensively from the works of naturalists, from Thoreau’s Waldon and Cape Cod to Annie Dillard’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Peter Matthiessen’s National Book Award–winning The Snow Leopard. I had never heard of Brian Doyle before, and this may have led me to my first impression of arrogance. Greatest nature essay ever? From an author of whom I have never heard? Having read the essay, I’ve changed my mind. I like his work, and now want to read more of it.
So, I find Doyle’s comments helpful, but not an exclusive set of criteria for nature essays. The self-aware aspect of the work is interesting. I suppose the phrase “in the flow” might describe its opposite. This phrase is a poor approximation of the ancient Greek term “Kairos,” as opposed to “Chronos,” which is the ordinary time kept by a clock or chronometer. Kairos is sometimes described as “the opportune moment” but can also mean sacred time. It is the time in which hours pass unnoticed. It is the intersection of the divine with the ordinary. My time spent in nature and writing about nature is more Kairos than Chronos. 

Seeing you there, I take comfort in your presence. One standing in the water, safe from predators, as the other flexes wings in a posture of landing, beak agape. I hear the rattling call telling me all is well in the world of cranes, my land of solace. 

I learned of you from Aldo Leopold of Wisconsin, the naturalist I never met. I read his book, A Sand County Almanac, in which he lamented the sadness of marshes that held no cranes. He saw you as a disappearing species, like your cousins the whooping cranes, cut down to just a few hundred. 

You may have visited my childhood Ohio, but I never saw a crane there, not even a photograph. For me, a crane was a machine, an earthmover, or a steely blue-gray bird I would later call a heron, one Audubon calls the "heron crane." 

In later years I saw you in my adopted home of Tennessee, along its mighty river. I saw your winter dance as beaks gaped open, and I heard your call from miles away as you flew over or I approached your cold-weather refuge. I wrote poem after poem of your mystic personas. 

Year after year, the bird alerts tell me you have returned. "The cranes are back"—an annual event, but in the longer view, back from the brink. You fooled old Aldo Leopold and everyone else, abounding in tens of thousands beside the Tennessee, hundreds of thousands along the Platte. 

You always return along rivers, and we hold a festival here, though it will not take place in the years of Covid-19. Last year, I looked out at November fog and pondered anew, "the cranes are back." Festival or no, I will drive to the refuge and seek your presence there, being older now and not knowing if another November will come.

I drove to the refuge several times that winter and cranes were abundant. They came closer with the smaller number of people to view them. I will be back with their annual return this year. 

Matthiessen called cranes The Birds of Heaven, described every species named, called you "The Bird from the East," as you are known in Siberia where some members of your tribe nest, returning across the Bering Strait for winter. 

But you will always be the birds of Tennessee for me. You returned as I knew you would, back from Wisconsin marshes where you appear in pairs to sing, dance, mate, and nest. Welcome home.

***
​
Please visit my website for links to my works published in Appalachian Voice, The Chattanooga Pulse, and the Hellbender Press: Home (rayzimmermanauthor.com)

I also have pages for my color and monochrome photographs, and I archive these newsletter articles in my blog: The Rains Come (rayzimmermanauthor.com)

My newsletter began as a source of online activities during the early days of Covid-19, hence the title RayzReviewz. It became a place for my rambling writings, but I am now attempting to keep the writings short and make room for information of interest to other writers here in the review section. A few current opportunities:

The Southern Festival of Books returns to in-person programming on War Memorial Plaza in Nashville, October 9–10, with virtual programming during the week leading up to the festival. Chattanooga author KB Ballentine will read from her most recent poetry collection at the festival this year. Southern Festival of Books – Humanities Tennessee

Cagibi is currently accepting submissions. The journal is online, but they published a print edition at the end of 2020. My essay, “Postcard from Hiwassee Island,” appeared in the online journal. Cagibi – /kä'jēbē/ ▸n. a literary space. (cagibilit.com)

Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry at the University of Tulsa is now accepting submissions. I have sent them work in the past but none have been accepted. Nimrod – International Journal (utulsa.edu)

Writers/South Awards is a writing competition with prizes in several genres. I have not investigated or entered the contest, but information is available on their website. Writers/South Awards – Charlotte Lit
You may have noticed some changes in my blog and newsletter. I am now working with the exemplary editing support of Red Pen for Rent. Red Pen for Rent – Writer Support Services

 
Could a mockingbird mimic the strains of “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity,” or any other section of “The Planets,” that lovely set of tone poems composed by Gustav Holst? Imagine the melancholy tune of “Mars, the Bringer of War” issuing from the throat of a bird. Though such complex mimicry may be beyond birds’ abilities, animals frequently amaze and amuse us with their behavior.
 
Why do these behaviors hold such charm for us? Is it the recognition of our own triumphs and foibles when we look at them? We see ourselves in their behavior and even their anatomy. The bones of a bird’s wing, revealed in the glow of an X-ray, are those of a human hand. The same is true of a whale’s flipper, which moves it through the ocean in tandem with the thrust of its tail.
 
Our assessment of animals is often inaccurate. We gasp when hearing how a captive killer whale, incarcerated for years, bit more than the “feeding hand” and took the life of its keeper. These intelligent beings learn tricks rapidly, but intelligence makes them dangerous captives. For millennia, killer whales have survived in ocean currents, but an escape becomes a “current event.”
 
We forget that they are killers, able to take a seal or a man in a fast attack. Charm ends here, for they have become too much like us. We, too, kill to survive. Whether dining on wild-harvested venison or range-fed beef, we sacrifice other lives on the altar of our continued existence. Even a vegan, consuming only plants, feeds on the lives of other beings.
 
Killer whales, intelligent captives in public displays, are not meant to perform for our amusement, let alone on a regular schedule, not even when that performance includes a narrative intended to generate empathy and respect. We will only make peace with our animal neighbors when we see them in us as we see ourselves in them.
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Where else would my article on the hellbender, North America’s giant salamander, appear than in the Hellbender Press? I wrote the article after interviewing Dr. Brian Miller, professor and researcher at Middle Tennessee State University. Dr. Miller has been researching hellbenders for 40 years and offered great insights into the lives of these impressive yet reclusive creatures. Hellbender Press - Hellbenders falling off Highland Rim of Tennessee
 
Waxing & Waning, a literary journal, publishes a diverse array of contemporary southern writers. In their own words, the editors “want what’s on the fringe. Whatever is deep and true. The moon represents this idea: what is dark, what is brooding, what is wild, what is crescent and changing.” https://www.waxingandwaning.org     
 
April Gloaming Publishing of Nashville has released Sinew, a collection of poems by Poetry in the Brew participants. This open mic group recently celebrated its tenth anniversary of live open mics at the loft of Portman Brewing East, a Nashville coffee shop. Pandemic panic sent them online, and while the online event continues, live performance at the coffee shop has returned as well. My poem “Green” appears in the anthology, along with work by Chattanooga poet Christian Collier. April Gloaming Publishing – “Amplifying the voices of the unbridled holler.”
April Gloaming Publishing – "Amplifying the voices of the unbridled holler."
 
I just received a copy of Bearshit on the Trail: Essential Poems of Earth First! The 477 pages of poetry appear to be drawn from the poetry column of the Earth First! Journal. There is an ISBN but no identifiable publisher.