Bloom in Reverse

Acknowledgments

91 aCKnowLedgMentS Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following publications in which versions of these poems have appeared: American Poetry Review: “After Twelve Months, Someone Tells Me It’s Time to Join the Living,” “Confession,” “Eating Is an Act of Optimism,” “She Said: It’s Not That Things Bring Us to Tears, but Rather, There Are Tears in Things”; Cleaver Magazine: “Miniature,” “Poem Ending with Six Words from a Women’s Room Stall”; Country Dog Review: “Virginia Farm Haunting”; Crab Orchard Review: “I Have Drinks with My Dead Friend’s Ex-Boyfriend,” “Memory Is a Kind of Broken Promise,” “Suicide Is a Mind Stripping Petals off Flowers”; 5 AM: “The Exactness of Birds”; Florida Review: “Daylilies,” “My Friend Asks What I’ve Been Doing Lately and by This She Means Men”; Fox Chase Review: “Earth, Hair, Fire, Water,” “Fly Haiku”; Literal Latté: “Force”; Musehouse Journal: “Golden Ratio,” “Your Rose Bush”; Painted Bride Quarterly: “The Heart Has the Capacity to Break and Reset a Million Times,” “Online Dating”; Schuylkill Valley Journal: “Nine Man.” “After Twelve Months, Someone Tells Me It’s Time to Join the Living” was printed as a limited-edition broadside by the Center for Book Arts. “Eating Is an Act of Optimism” was featured in a “Poet on the Poem” essay in the American Poetry Review. “Force” received a 2012 Poetry Award from Literal Latté. “The Heart Has the Capacity to Break and Reset a Million Times” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Painted Bride Quarterly. “I Have Drinks with My Dead Friend’s Ex-Boyfriend,” “Memory Is a Kind of Broken Promise,” and “Suicide Is a Mind Stripping Petals off Flowers” won the 2012 Richard Peterson Poetry Prize from Crab Orchard Review. “Miniature” and “Poem Ending with Six Words from a Women’s Room Stall” were nominated for Pushcart Prizes by Cleaver Magazine. 92 “Nine Man” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the Schuylkill Valley Journal. “Virginia Farm Haunting” also appeared in the anthology Entering the Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo (Wavertree Press, 2011). Many thanks to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for residencies that were instrumental in the creation of this work. Heartfelt thanks to Ed Ochester for believing in my work, and to all at the University of Pittsburgh Press for their support. My enduring gratitude to my readers and sense makers, Deirdre O’Connor and Kelle Groom, and to the following people for their friendship and encouragement: Nathalie Anderson, David “Lefty” Bonanno, Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, Kateri Chambers, Debra Convery, everyone at Musehouse, Jeffrey Plunkett, Catie Rosemurgy, Elizabeth Scanlon, Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, and my first poetry teacher, Jack Wheatcroft. Deepest thanks to my family, especially my parents, Robert and Anna Mae Leo, and to Kyle Keenan, the brightest of blooms. ...