My next poem up at Sidequest, “Oregon Trail Triolet,” is exactly what it says on the tin.  I’d been wanting to write a triolet for a while, although the prospect of repeating refrains in such a short line count intimidated me.  But I went for it. 

Last Christmas, one of my sisters gave me a handheld The Oregon Trail game.  Growing up in Oregon, I’d always thought it was cool having a whole game where the goal was to get…here!  So, last winter I stayed up way too late reliving those moments from my youth of stocking up on goods, wondering what calamities might befall my covered wagon, and especially coming up with punny tombstone ideas, because I’m goofy like that.  One thing I’d forgotten was how hypnotic the digital hunt could be—I was feeling guilty about that, so I decided to write a poem where the animals aren’t so defenseless.

The anthology Best Indie Speculative Fiction Vol. III is available now, and I’m so honored to be included in this great lineup.  Here’s the list, which by the way includes a story by Richard Zwicker that appeared in the exact same issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly as my entry:

• MRSA Me by Alicia Hilton
• Fellscorpe and the Wishing Well by Katherine Quevedo
• In My Image by Gerri Green
• Apple by L. S. Johnson
• Things Forgotten on the Cliffs of Avevig by Wendy Nikel
• A Dragon, Sat by Liam Hogan
• The Certainty of Echoes by D. A. D’Amico
• Seeking Same by H. E. Casson
• Echo of the Siren by Richard Zwicker
• The Auditor and the Exorcist by N. R. M. Roshak
• Moisés and El Malverde by Jibril Stevenson
• Penny the Poisonmonger: An Origin Story by Myna Chang
• The Rogue of Averath by Tom Jolly
• The Verandah by Jay Caselberg

I’m glad my little flash story continues to resonate.  We can’t wish our mistakes away, but we can choose a better path.  Usually without getting to backtrack first, but still.  Go choose.

My poem “The Deku Butler’s Son” is up now at Sidequest.  I based this one on The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, one of my all-time favorite video games.  One aspect I love about the game is you advance by helping others, but for my poem I wanted to write about a part that frequently appears in lists of the darkest moments in the Zelda franchise.  It’s a detail that infuriates and haunts me still and proves how withholding one piece of an otherwise happy ending can produce an effect ranging from irksome to devastating:  the Deku Butler’s son.  He’s one character you cannot save.  By the end of the game, you’re equipped with all the means to heal him—if you could only reach him. 

I should add that I composed “The Deku Butler’s Son” during recent incidents in the U.S. drawing greater attention to systemic racism, and I also thought of the immigrant experience within my family tree (no Deku plant pun intended there).  It got me thinking that Link lives that experience, that of an immigrant, in Majora’s Mask—and through him, so do we.  We enter a new land stripped of our identity and undervalued.  We have to find our way, educate ourselves, befriend allies, earn trust and respect.  Taking things a step further, eventually in the game we experience the privilege of being able to “pass” as different identities.  I descended from four grandparents born in four different countries (Ecuador, Peru, Germany, and the U.S.), so I think about that privilege a lot. 

At one point while drafting this poem, I jotted a question to myself:  “give closure or be tragic?”  In retrospect, that’s probably a false dichotomy.  After all, the conclusion to Majora’s Mask does both.

I recently found out one of my poems has received an honorable mention in the 2020 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, in the Traditional Sonnet category.  I’ll be reading my Shakespearean sonnet, “Kintsugi Master Pieces,” at the awards ceremony on Sunday, November 15, at 11am PST.  It will be on Zoom, so I hope you can join us for a celebration of verse and voices.  For more info. about accessing the event, visit https://www.poetsandpatrons.net/sonnet-contest.