abcedarian on astrology

a brilliant celestial divination

emerged for glimpsing horoscopes.

is jupiter keeping luck moving nearer?

or perhaps queenly radiant stars tally
up value with x-pert yearly zeniths.

Jilly Dybka is a student in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. Her poetry has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review and Spitball. Jilly is the webmaster at a university and lives with her jazz musician husband in Kingston Springs, TN. Her blog is at http://www.poetryhut.com/wordpress

What's your favorite poem that you've written? Care to share it with us?

I can share a line from it. I wrote the poem when I was about 6, to my mom. I don't remember the whole thing, but one line is "You are the plum of my pear." I don't think I'll top that one. (My mom still has it back at the homestead in Michigan.)

What is your favorite poem by another poet (still alive still kicking still publishing now).

Letter to Gwendolyn Brooks forthcoming in Major Jackson's book, Hoops, (January 2006). It's a long epistolary poem in terza rima. (I think that's the title of the poem.)

What poets have had the most influence on your work?

Elizabeth Bishop, Chaucer, RS Gwynn, Sylvia Plath, Gerald Stern, Dr. Seuss

What's your pet-peeve in a poem? (ex. comma splices, obscurity)

The word "like."

What's your favorite print journal and why?

Right now, Spore. (Formerly Score). I'm on an experimental kick I guess.

Do you have a writing ritual? Care to share it? Do you ever break this ritual for artistic reasons? If yes, how does it change or improve your method?

I constantly talk to myself while writing, to hear the sounds. Therefore, writing in coffee shops, etc is out. So I write in the bathtub a lot because of the acoustics. No, I don't break this habit/ritual (though I do write outside of the bathtub as well). I would implode if I couldn't say the words out loud.