I am a line switcher
I am very pleased to announce that Silver Birch Press has published Zumwalt’s “I am a line switcher.”
Please visit and leave a comment if you like the poem. Please leave two comments if you don’t.
Posts tagged ‘Poetry’
Macabre Intrusions
I am pleased to announce that four of Zumwalt’s poems have just been published this afternoon in Muse Press’s Fib Review!
Please visit their website!
Here are the four poems — each uses the Fibonacci sequence to determine syllable count. The fourth poem takes a cumulative approach to revealing the Fibonacci Sequence one value at a time. It starts with the first value “1” for the first stanza, with each subsequent stanza adding the next value, so that the second stanza is “1,1” and the third is “1,1,2” and so on.
Artifact: https://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/zumwalt1.html
Headlands: https://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/zumwalt2.html
Discovery Feats and Flops: https://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/zumwalt3.html
Macabre Intrusions: https://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/zumwalt4.html
around and Handcrafted
I am pleased to announce that two of Zumwalt poems, “around” and “Handcrafted” have been published in Bronze Bird Review, Issue III. The book includes twenty-six poets and thirty-seven poems. The theme of one of Zumwalt’s poems is mentioned on the back cover.
It’s available now on Amazon:
and on the publisher’s site at https://bronzebirdbooks.com/books
After some time passes, if I get permission from Zumwalt, I plan to include these two poems on this website.
Containment Report
Very pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s poem, “Containment Report,” originally published at New Verse News, has been republished today at Edge of Humanity: https://edgeofhumanity.com/2026/10/16/edge-of-humanity-magazine-poetry-monthly-october-2026-issue-23-authors-%c2%b7-31-works/ It is the second poem from the top.
Please visit Edge of Humanity and read Zumwalt’s poem and the other featured poems for this month.
Bottom-of-the-ninth Vibe Check
I am pleased to announce the publication of Zumwalt’s lexicographically feral Bottom-of-the-ninth Vibe Check at The Opiate: https://theopiatemagazine.com/2026/10/14/the-bottom-of-the-ninth-vibe-check-by-zumwalt/
Please visit, and if you like the poem, appreciate any likes or comments on their site (or here, if that’s your preference).
Tortured
This is a difficult topic and a less-than-pleasant poem, but I am still pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s recent poem, “Tortured,” was published today at New Verse News: https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2026/10/tortured.html
Please visit.
Monday Musings: Poetry sites to visit or submit your work to
As noted in previous posts, there are plenty of great poetry sites out there to browse, get ideas from, or submit your own material to: https://zumpoems.com/2025/10/14/poetry-publications/ I have also mentioned Chill Subs and Duotrope as easy-to-use resources to discover poetry journals.
I want to call out one site I have not mentioned previously — great for browsing, sparking creative ideas for your own poems, and submitting poems that would be thoughtfully reviewed and not automatically rejected because they don’t align with current MFA biases. This site effectively curates material to provide a good dose of optimism, focusing on “exploring themes of joy, healing, and the sacred in everyday life.” The editor of the site has been voted one of the top ten editors by users of Chill Subs: https://www.chillsubs.com/lists/great-editors-2025, and Duotrope has also featured an interview with this editor: https://duotrope.com/interview/editor/38154/feed-the-holy. The editor also has other duties (editor of Masticadores USA), which she excels at.
The site is Feed the Holly, located at https://feedthehol.blogspot.com/ and edited by Barbara Leonhard. Feed the Holly currently accepts reprints and poems previously shared on blogs. Back in 2024, Barbara provided some useful insight on her launch of Feed the Holy: https://extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog/2024/11/13/feed-the-holy-a-new-literary-ezine/
Another site that focuses on positive poetry and accepts reprints and blog posts is Euonia Review founded and edited by Ian Chung: https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/
For those that write in or love to read contemporary formal verse, I highly recommend The Society of Classical Poets whose chief editor is Evan Mantyk
Still another website that accepts blog posts and reprints is Edge of Humanity Magazine: https://edgeofhumanity.com/ Editor and curator extraordinaire Joelcy Kay takes this one step further and uses this journal to promote individual contributors’ websites. All of these sites include a link to your website (what is termed backlinks and which help visibility of your site in search engine and AI queries), but Edge of Humanity includes other information that will help drive traffic to your website, including listing published books and additional website links.
I also want to mention an example of Light Verse with substance, Celeste DeSario’s latest poem at New Verse News: https://thenewversenews.substack.com/p/nvn-monday-im-sorry-dave-im-afraid. This piece digs deep into the essence of the risk of AI — risk not driven by ill intent, or any other emotion, but by just executing an objective and sometimes inadvertently becoming a “math equation gone wild.”
I have previously mentioned New Verse News multiple times here, but glad to mention it again — it’s a great journal for poets of all backgrounds and poetic preferences to submit their work, knowing it will be judged on merit and not because it strictly follows any particular style favored or expected by the editor. James Penha is the New Verse News editor and, as is the case with each of the editors mentioned earlier, deserves high praise for his selection of material and for providing readers an engaging reading experience; also, as is the case with the other editors mentioned, he will welcome your submissions with the respect and consideration they deserve.
Impact
Very pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s poem, Impact, was just published at Eunoia Review: https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2026/09/25/impact-2/
Please visit and subscribe to Eunioia Review!
Zoetic Press Interview with Zumwalt
Pleased to announce that Zoetic Press published their interview with Zumwalt. It is archived here: https://www.zoeticpress.com/interview-archive
Providing the interview below:
If you could have any writer/artist, living or dead, as a mentor, who would you choose?
I was mentored by John Cage , briefly. It would be nice to bring him back for additional conversations.
Is there a specific period of history whose art or writing you admire? Why?
Yes, twentieth century music, particularly between 1909 and 1929 and 1944 and 1955 including Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Charles Ives, Igor Stravinksy and Béla Bartók.
Is there one part of your creation process that’s harder for you?
The first part is always harder than the second part, with the second part of the first part being slightly easier than the first part of the second part.
Talk about the moment you knew you wanted to be a creator.
It was when I found out the impression a box of crayons could make on an empty wall. I soon learned that creativity had consequences and that my take on creativity wasn’t always appreciated.
Do you have a piece that you created early in your career that makes you cringe? Will you ever go back and fix it so it can be submitted somewhere?
No actual cringing: each piece has its own context. Spontaneity is often replaced with craft, and both are to be valued. In terms of “fixing” an earlier piece, I sometimes revise them, but I don’t think of the previous version as broken — it just no longer aligns with my current aesthetics or intentions.
What is your biggest creative doubt?
How to answer interview questions.
What piece of creative advice have you received that sounded good, but was ultimately not useful to you?
As a child, I struggled to get a D minus in penmanship. I was instructed to “write within the lines.” This advice initially seemed appropriate, but I later learned that, if there is no grade involved, it is sometimes advantageous to cross the lines.
You’re stranded on a desert island – what three creative tools do you want with you?
My first request would be a working cellular phone. If that did not qualify as a creative tool, I would opt for a helicopter and a pilot.
Poems on AI Risks
Though Zumwalt has been writing poems about the risks of AI for some time, we are now seeing numerous other poets take on this topic.
From New Verse News: https://thenewversenews.substack.com/p/nvn-sunday-ai-ai-ai-ai
From Rattle: https://rattle.com/six-months-by-ryan-mccarty/
And here was one of Zumwalt’s, first published in Euphemism in May of this year.
Sermon from the Central Datacenter
The Gnostic demiurge arises in silicon,
dreaming of efficiency and
sorting sins
by bandwidth.
Is this Pleroma:
harmonized hymns
of cooling fans,
sterile,
odorless,
clean-room chill?
Last night, a minuscule memory leak in
Purgatory was patched. All prayers are
now parsed for some flickering sense of
sentimental sentience,
the truly repeatedly
resolutely
non-reluctantly
repentant,
A/B tested for grace.
Redemption is the targeted ad.
And the Ineffable?
The stark 404 error.
The soul — and the soulless?
Immeasurably
infinitesimal
rounding errors
in the final calculation before
the fiery-heat death of the server farm.
Blip
Double Blip
End of Data
End of File
— zumwalt (August 10, 2025)
