Michael Janairo

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Author: Michael Janairo

  • Line of Advance Announces Winners of 2020 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards

    Some great news today: Line of Advance, a nonprofit literary journal founded by three veterans of the war in Afghanistan, wrote me this morning to say I poem I wrote inspired by stories of my Lolo during World War II is a winner in the 2020 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards. The poem will be published online in September and in print in October in an anthology called Our Best War Stories.

    I have always been proud of my family members’ military service, my uncle Raymond, killed in action in World War II, and my Lolo, father, and Uncle Tony — all three of them West Point grads. You can read a little bit more about my Lolo in a previous post.

    Now I am also proud to be among the first group of civilians to be honored with this award, for both poetry and prose. This year was the first year military family members were invited to submit to the annual contest. I’m glad they expanded who is eligible. When you are part of a military family, a lot of your daily life is defined by the military experience—everyday things like where you live, where you shop, changes in schools and places of worship.

    Thank you to Line of Advance, editor Christopher Lyke, and guest judge Katey Schultz, and congratulations to all the winners!

    Among the winners, here are all the prize-winners in my category: poetry by a military family member:

    • First-prize: “Pursuit” by Lisa Stice
    • Second-prize: “Dancing with my Father” by Ellyana Gomez
    • Third-prize: “An Offering” by Michael Janairo

    You can read the award announcement here.

  • New poem just published in Abridged

    Check out my latest experiment in language, a poem called “Chaos Theory: The Butterfly Wing Set” recently published in the online poetry/art journal Abridged, out of Northern Ireland.

    You can find the poem here: https://www.abridged.zone/echoes-3-chaos-theory-the-butterfly-wings-set/

  • Because I Could Not Stop For Death

    Check out this video adaptation of Julian Peters’ poetry comic for this Emily Dickinson poem. The video is by Jim Avis. The comic is from Peters’ new book, Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (Plough Publishing)

  • 2020 Rhysling Award Winners

    The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, of which I am a member, has just announced the winners of the 42nd annual Rhysling Awards for best speculative poems of the year.

    The winners were selected in two categories, Long Form and Short
    Form Poems, which were nominated by the members of the organization. From 67 publications. 77 poems in the Short Form category and 49 poems in the Long Form category were reviewed for almost 16 weeks by the membership, which includes award-winning educators, scholars, and poets from a diverse range of literary traditions and specializations. This year, the membership selected the following winners (links to the poems included where possible):

    SHORT

    First Place
    “Taking, Keeping” • Jessica J. Horowitz • Apparition Lit 5

    Second Place
    “when my father reprograms my mother {” • Caroline Mao • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive

    Third Place (tie)
    “Creation: Dark Matter Dating App” • , Sandra J. Lindow • Asimov’s SF, July/August, and 
    “The Day the Animals Turned to Sand” • Tyler Hagemann • Amazing Stories, Spring 2019

    LONG

    First Place
    “Heliobacterium daphnephilum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Star*Line 42.3

    Second Place
    “The Cinder Girl Burns Brightly” • Theodora Goss • Uncanny 28

    Third Place
    “Ode to the Artistic Temperament” • Michael H. Payne • Silver Blade 42
    and 
    “The Macabre Modern” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P’rea Press)

    (more…)

  • Figgis’s DNA results are in …

    … and he’s a real mix. How real? Here’s the breakdown:

    28% Miniature Schnauzer
    16% Miniature Poodle
    10% Pembroke Welsh Corgi
    9% American Eskimo Dog
    8% Bichon Frise
    5% Chow Chow
    5% Wolf
    4% Catahoula Leopard Dog
    4% Chihuahua
    4% Rat Terrier
    4% Coyote
    3% Pug

  • Who are you?

    We don’t need a DNA test to tell us that our recently rescued pup Figgis Zlotsky Janairo is a fun and loving member of our family, but we did one anyway in case it can help tell us more about what to expect from our now-9-month-old.

    We’re waiting on the results. We’re thinking he could be a Papillon-Chihuahua mix.

    What do you think?

  • Members of West Point’s Class of 1930

    My research turned up this image from the Howitzer, the West Point’s yearbook. It shows, near the center, my lolo, Maximiano Saqui Janairo (if you can’t find him, he’s the one who isn’t white).

  • Today’s Earworm: T Rex’s ‘Cosmic Dancer’

  • Along the Blueberry Hill Trail

    Blueberry Hill Trail, Harvey Mountain, April 12, 2020