A member of the SOT team asked, “Mort, I’d like to see that Poets House letter accepting SOT into their Showcase.”

Of course, I obliged his request.

Here it is:

Dear Howard,

I hope your week is going well.

Thank you so much for your donation of Sea of Tranquility for the Poets House 2024 Showcase. I’m writing to confirm our receipt of this title—it is currently being added to our catalog. Congratulations on the new work.

Our 30^th Showcase of books published in 2024 is currently scheduled for December this year. Sea of Tranquility will be included in the Showcase Catalog, a print and online document that lists every item in the exhibition, making it the most authoritative resource on poetry works published in 2024. Following the Showcase, this item will be incorporated into our permanent collection, available to readers for free. For more general information about the Showcase, visit the exhibition FAQs. 

If you have any questions, feel free to be in touch. Many thanks again for your support of our library.

Best,

Leo Kreider (he/him)

Access Services Assistant

Congrats to all the SOT poets, writers, and editors on this high honor.

Well, here are some important assignments to add to your To-Do list:

It is time to calendar in this December NYC Showcase event, buy some extra copies of SOT as Valentine’s Day gifts, review our book on Amazon, and make arrangements for your trip to Cape Canaveral in November.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Mort

https://poetshouse.org

Start spreading the news, “Sea of Tranquility” is now number one, king of the hill, top of the heap in New York, New York.
And as all of you are well aware, (Sing along) “If SOT can make it there, it can make it anywhere.”
It’s up to you, New York, New York. (Thanks Frank)

Howard Camner, SFWA poet extraordinaire and co-editor of SOT, started spreading the good news when he wrote, “I just heard from Poets House in New York. If you’re not familiar with Poets House, it’s the hub of poetry in NYC if not the country. Their poetry collection is phenomenal. Every year they have an exhibition called, “The Poetry Showcase” where the best publications of the previous year are featured. People come from all over to see it. “Sea of Tranquility” will be featured in the next showcase exhibition in December. It will also be in their Showcase Catalog which is “the most authoritative resource on poetry works published in 2024.” Following the Showcase SOT will be placed in the permanent collection. So after you leave Kennedy Space Center, head for Manhattan.”

Since you may want to know more about Poets House, here’s what Wiki says:

Poets House is a national literary center and poetry library based in New York City. It contains more than 80,000 volumes of poetry, and is free and open to the public.

Poets House was founded in 1985. With holdings of more than 80,000 volumes, Poets House contains virtually all poetry books published in the U.S. since 1990, plus many that are long out of print dating to the early 20th Century. It also contains literary journals and chapbooks (small books of poetry), and many audiotapes, videotapes, CDs, and DVDs of poetry readings from the mid-twentieth century through today. Visitors to Poets House can hear the voices of Walt Whitman, E. E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Sylvia Plath and hundreds of other poets.

In 1996, the literary newspaper Poetry Flash called Poets House “The House That Holds A Country,” a reference to its dedication to being a caretaker of the nation’s poetic heritage.

Now that SOT is number one, king of the hill, top of the heap, and part of the nation’s poetic heritage it’s time to conquer the Moon in November.

By Jim Buie

Sister Mary Joseph Nodules—A Cruel Revelation
My first reaction was: Colon Cancer? How can this be? I’ve visited the doctor faithfully, every
six months, you see. Blood work done, medications taken, colonoscopies on time, No family
cancer history—yet here’s this mountain to climb.
It started with bumps around my belly button’s mark, Could it be hernia surgery’s aftershock, a
mistaken spark? Five doctors treated fungal, yeast, and the unknown, I self-treated, searching for
answers, but hope was overthrown.
Through four to five months, pain and burning my constant plight, Pills and creams given, yet no
comfort in sight. The fourth doctor suggested a biopsy’s might, I scheduled a colonoscopy with
the fifth, seeking light.
He said he’d never seen anything like this before, Cut a bump, sent it to pathology’s core. Cancer
came the verdict, a shadow on my door, The last thing I expected, my heart sank to the floor.
The cancer doctor named them: Sister Mary Joseph Nodules, Metastatic cancer, their verdict’s
gavel. My judge and jury, he sentenced me with a sigh, The cancer had spread—no cure could he
imply.
Crap, not the news I wanted to hear, A PET scan, a port, chemo drawing near. In this battle,
maybe I’ll live a bit longer, In this journey uncertain, only the time of my demise is unclear.

---

The name, was originally coined by Sir Hamilton Bailey, an English surgeon and the first to mention it in its book “Demonstrations of Physical Signs in Clinical Surgery”, published in 1949, honoring the Sister Mary Joseph (1856-1939), who was superintendent nurse and Dr. William Mayo most frequent first assis­tant, at the St. Mary’s Hospital (now Mayo Clinic) of Rochester, Minnesota.

The Sister Mary Joseph, was the first person who observed that the patients with advanced abdominal-pelvic malignancies, frequently presented a periumbilical palpable nodule.