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Mailbox Monday #130; Library Loot #4

June 12, 2011 by

Mailbox Mondays (click the icon at the right to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch.  This month our host is The Bluestocking Guide.  Kristi of The Story Siren continues to sponsor her In My Mailbox meme.  Both of these memes allow bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received this week:

1.  Beatrice Munson by Lorena Bathey from the author for review in Sept./Oct.

2.  Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney from the author for review.

3.  Somewhere Over the Pachyderm Rainbow by Jennifer C. Wolfe from the poet for review.

4. The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji, which I purchased from Amazon.

5. Everyone Is Beautiful by Katherine Center, which I borrowed from Anna.

6. The Katyn Order by Douglas Jacobson, which I borrowed from Anna and I’m excited to read after the fantastic Night of Flames.

Library Loot:

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

1.  Ordinary Miracles by Erica Jong

What did you receive this week?

Filed Under: Library Loot, mailbox monday, meme

101st Virtual Poetry Circle

June 11, 2011 by

Welcome to the 101st Virtual Poetry Circle!

Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.

Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s books suggested. Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from The Decadent Lovely by Amy Pence, which I reviewed earlier this month:

Life’s Dry Crushed Scorpion (page 25)

Had been there for some time, flattened
among the dust and fur, the cast-off
little girl toys under my daughter’s bed.
Had once reddened its claws to polish,
once wandered fractious and solitary —
red to signal the foxes, a trail
of bright delicious strawberries,
the red a slicked on waxy lipstick.
Stained red for every month
it will bleed its silent rust, will needle
her slender spine, will catch
her unawares in the hood she’s wandering
in. If she’d known it was there, she said,
she would have been afraid.

Let me know your thoughts, ideas, feelings, impressions. Let’s have a great discussion…pick a line, pick an image, pick a sentence.

I’ve you missed the other Virtual Poetry Circles. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

Filed Under: virtual poetry circle Tagged With: , ,

Guest Post: Is It Like Listening to You Talk? by Graham Parke

June 10, 2011 by

Today’s guest post is from Graham Parke, author of No Hope for Gomez! published by self-publisher Outskirts Press, about publishing, check it out:

As you probably know, to become an internationally best-selling author, you need to sell three books. This is not an easy task, but once you’ve managed to rack up these three sales, the rest is more or less a done deal.

Now, these sales themselves will not put you on the best-seller lists. They won’t even put you within a million spots of the bottom of the lists, but what they will do, and what they do every time, is spark a slowly growing buying frenzy that will get you there.

These three people will love your book, they will tell another five people, who in turn tell another seven. Within roughly four-and-a-half weeks, you finally make your first million.
That’s how it happens. Every single time.

But, how does an author tackle this monumental task? Where does he find these three readers?

I myself was quite lucky. When my novel appeared on Amazon I already knew over five people! What’s more, some of these people even liked me… somewhat. So I set out to become an internationally best-selling author by convincing at least three of these five people to buy my novel.

I started with my mother. Of all the five people I knew, I probably knew her the longest. I showed her my Amazon page and she nodded approvingly. She did not, however, make any attempts to buy a copy. So I logged on for her, navigated back to my novel’s page, and left the mouse pointer conveniently positioned over the BUY button.

She read the novel description again, searched-inside-this-book, and nodded some more. When I asked her if she’d like to buy a copy, she scrunched up her nose and said, ‘But what if I don’t like it?’
I told her not to worry. ‘It’s a really good book,’ I said. ‘I should know. I’ve re-written it like 50 times. It’s really funny and interesting.’
My mother wasn’t convinced. ‘I’m not really into comedy writing, though,’ she said.
‘It’s not just a comedy,’ I pointed out. ‘It has a real story; it’s a mystery. And it has twists and turns and believable characters.’
My mother hesitated. ‘Maybe I should just play it safe and buy another Stephen King novel…’

I ended up having to offer a personal money-back guarantee, and purchase a copy using my own credit card for the time being, but she finally cracked. I’d made my first sale!

Next, I prodded my wife. Although she did like words in general, she wasn’t sure she was up for reading and entire book full of them. ‘Is this like your usual stuff?’ she wanted to know.
‘What usual stuff?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Is it like listening to you talk?’
‘What’s wrong with they way I talk?’
‘Nothing. It’s just, well, sometimes you talk a lot of nonsense.’
I waved it away. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I am much more interesting and ‘telligible’ on paper.’

Long story short; my second sale is almost in the bag. Now I just need to find one more person to buy my novel, and I’ll be set for life!

Check out the Summer of Gomez!

Get free books and win a Kindle or iPod.

As reviewers have been calling “No Hope for Gomez!” the perfect summer read – light, fast, fun – I decided to give this summer’s Gomez readers some exclusive content and the chance to win prizes.

Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: ,

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

June 9, 2011 by

More than a follow-up to Shanghai Girls (my review), Dreams of Joy by Lisa See is about sisterly love, loyalty, and adolescence.  Readers will see in Joy, Pearl’s daughter, the headstrong young woman that many parents see in their daughters — they know everything and cannot be told anything they don’t already know and understand.  However, what do young adults do when the times get rough in many cases?  They run.  Joy is no exception, but in her case, she not only runs from home when family secrets are revealed, but she runs to a nation she has never lived in and that is under the iron fist of communism and at the whims of Chairman Mao.  Pearl heads to China after her daughter, in a country that tortured her and abandoned her when her family needed help most.

“Yes, I’ve escaped the blaming eyes of my mother and the reproachful eyes of my aunt, but I can’t escape myself.  The only things I can do to save myself are pull the weeds in the fields, let my emotions for Tao envelop me, and obey what Z.G. tells me to do with a paintbrush, pencil, charcoal, or pastel.”  (page 87)

Set in late 1950s to early 1960s China, Joy brings us on a journey through China in her quest to rediscover herself and find her biological father, while her mother searches for her and evades deportation, imprisonment, and other punishments for her capitalist ties and bourgeois thoughts and actions.  See has taken these characters from China to America, shown us how Pearl and her sister May adapted and became American in Shanghai Girls, and in Dreams of Joy she has expanded their world and struggles, demonstrating how returning to the homeland is fraught with danger and has essentially left Pearl and Joy country-less.  To enter China, they must renounce their U.S. ties, which were hard to win and maintain when Pearl and May arrived as immigrants.

“Four months later, I’m on the deck watching Shanghai come into view.  A week ago, I stepped off a plane in Hong Kong and was enveloped by odors I hadn’t smelled in that particular combination in years.  Now, as I wait to disembark, I breathe in the scents of home — the oil- and sewage-infused water, rice being cooked on a passing sampan, rotting fish moldering on the dock, vegetables grown upriver wilting in the heat and humidity.”  (page 56)

While much of the story is focused on Joy and her first experiences with her biological father Z.G. and homeland China, Pearl’s arrival complicates the story as she and Z.G. are presented as Joy’s parents but are not married and do not share a bed. For Pearl, her journey is not only to reclaim her daughter, but also one of reconciliation with the past, which ultimately leads to the redemption she has longed for.  She returns to Shanghai to find the city in shambles and less vibrant than when she left it, but her home remains and she begins anew as she patiently waits for her daughter’s return to Shanghai from the countryside and to her open arms.

“The village, the fields, and the canteen begin to look like movie sets — just facades.  The people around me seem fake too, putting on their smiling face and shouting slogans about things they don’t believe.  Everyone still pretends to be open, welcoming, and enthusiastic about the Great Leap Forward, but there’s a furtiveness to them that reminds me of rats slinking along the edges of walls.”  (page 260)

What’s fantastic about this novel is not only the deep examination of what love is in its many forms, but what strong bonds a mother and daughter have regardless if the mother is biological or not.  There is a lot to discuss in this novel for book clubs and the like, particularly as See shows the deeply hypocritical slogans and actions of the Maoist regime and its campaigns to “out produce” imperialist nations like Britain and the United States in the Great Leap Forward, while at the same time maintaining its ties with capitalist nations through Hong Kong (which during this time was owned by Britain) and several fairs in Canton.

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See is one of the best books of 2011, and readers will be dragged kicking and screaming into a dark past filled with hypocrisy, corruption, and famine that makes the journey even harder for Pearl, Joy, and their family.  There are moments of joy, resolution, and sadness that will touch readers deeply.  A cultural melting pot of characters that delves deep below the surface of political beliefs and preconceptions to the core of what happiness and reunification with family really means.  Although many Chinese see their homeland and culture as tied to Mao’s liberation, it is clear that deep down their ties to family are at the core of their decisions and actions.  The circle closes around Pearl, May, Z.G., and Joy to make the dreams of bliss a reality for them all.

About the Author:

Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of Peony in Love, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Flower Net (an Edgar Award nominee), The Interior, and Dragon Bones, as well as the critically acclaimed memoir On Gold Mountain. The Organization of Chinese American Women named her the 2001 National Woman of the Year.  She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Please check out her Website and my interviewed Lisa See, here.  Please also check out the discussion guide for Dreams of Joy.

The Giveaway for my ARC of Dreams of Joy (international):

1.  Leave a comment about which Lisa See novel is your favorite or why you want to read Dreams of Joy.

2.  Tweet, Facebook, or blog about the giveaway and leave a link in the comments for a second entry.

Deadline is June 22, 2011, at 11:59PM EST

 

This is my 14th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge.   I’ve wanted to read this since I finished Shanghai Girls last year.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, giveaway, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2011, reviews, Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2011 Tagged With: ,

An Interview With Poet Hope Snyder

June 8, 2011 by

Poet Hope Snyder

This week at the Poetry Blog of 32 Poems Magazine my interview with poet Hope Snyder was posted. She’s a contributor to the magazine and was a delight to interview.  I’m especially impressed with her answer about what writing manuals and workshops have helped her most.

First, let me tantalize you with a bit from the interview, and then you can go on over and check the rest out for yourself.

Without further ado, here’s the interview.

Most writers will read inspirational/how-to manuals, take workshops, or belong to writing groups. Did you subscribe to any of these aids and if so which did you find most helpful? Please feel free to name any “writing” books you enjoyed most (i.e. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott).

I do not belong to any writing groups, but I have attended workshops at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Gettysburg Review’s Conference for Writers, and the Latino Writers’ Conference in New Mexico. Workshops at Gettysburg and Bread Loaf were helpful. I’ve also taken a couple of workshops with Stanley Plumly at The Writers’ Center in Bethesda. These were very beneficial.

When writing poetry, prose, essays, and other works do you listen to music, do you have a particular playlist for each genre you work in or does the playlist stay the same? What are the top 5 songs on that playlist? If you don’t listen to music while writing, do you have any other routines or habits?

Even though I think I should listen to music while I’m writing, I don’t always do it. That is something I would like to change. I think music can be very helpful while writing. In the past, I’ve listened to classical, Latin American, Spanish, and Italian music. Among my favorites, Beethoven’s 7th symphony, a Spanish singer named Rosana, the sound track for the film “Frida.”

How do you stay fit and healthy as a writer?

I try to walk or engage in some sort of exercise every day. Most days I walk 30 to 40 minutes. This year I joined a gym. I’m seriously considering hiring a personal trainer.

She also included a poem for readers to check out:

In The Changing Light

At first he believed she would be back, and that he would open the door.

In the meantime, he kept his job, adopted a dog without a tail,

soaked in the hot tub, and lounged on the couch they had bought

on sale. “Custom made,” the sales woman had explained

stroking the velvet. In the afternoon light, it shimmered

like silver. After four years, the other woman

has learned to cook rosemary chicken and threatens

to fill his days and his bed. She goes through the house,

gathers sweaters, pictures, and paintings. Now there will be

room for her pills and her make-up. With a drink and Barry White

on the stereo, he rests on the couch in the changing light. In his hand,

the pearl earring he found while re-arranging the cushions last night.

–Published in The Gettysburg Review (Summer, 2009)

About the Poet:

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Hope Maxwell Snyder received an MA in Latin American Literature from Johns Hopkins and a Ph.D. in Spanish Medieval Literature from the University of Manchester. Her poetry has appeared in Alehouse Press, The Comstock Review, The Gettysburg Review, International Poetry Review, OCHO, Redactions: Poetry & Poetics, and other journals. Hope has been the recipient of scholarships to attend Western Michigan University’s program in Prague, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Hope has also been awarded poetry fellowships for The Gettysburg Review’s Conference for Writers and the Peter Taylor Fellowship in Poetry at The Kenyon Review’s Conference. She is the founder and director of the Sotto Voce Poetry Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

Please check out the rest of the interview on 32 Poems Blog.

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: ,

Interview With Poet Amy Pence, Part 2 & Giveaway

June 7, 2011 by

The Decadent Lovely, which I reviewed and is published by Main Street Rag, is a collection that strives to uncover the love beneath the grime, and Amy Pence‘s style ranges from the straight narrative to the more abstract.  If you missed part one of my interview with her, please head on over to learn more about her, the collection, and her obsessions.

Without further ado, we’ll take a look at her thoughts on writing, poetry’s accessibility, and more.

Do you see spoken word, performance, or written poetry as more powerful or powerful in different ways and why? Also, do you believe that writing can be an equalizer to help humanity become more tolerant or collaborative? Why or why not?

Poetry is powerful in various ways and there’s a flavor for everyone, thankfully. For me, it’s the difference between poetry as a public performance with a strong social message and poetry as a private experience with the page about the interior event. I am personally most moved by the poem as artifact, as an involution of word, form, and sound. That was my first experience with poetry and the kind of poetry I am moved to write. I like familiarizing my students with poets and performance artists like Daniel Beaty and Patricia Smith to show and celebrate their successes, but the challenge as a teacher these days is to show that an Emily Dickinson poem (for instance) is not precious or flowery—it is a complex sonic creation that briefly but deeply can show us what it is to be human.

Poetry is often considered elitist or inaccessible by mainstream readers. Do poets have an obligation to dispel that myth and how do you think it could be accomplished?

I don’t think we have an obligation to dispel it (and it’s not always a myth). As I said, I like to bring my younger students into the world of poetry’s richness that they may have thought of as stuffy or inaccessible. Last night in class we lingered over Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbird,” putting meaning aside to revel in the language and the modernist disjunctions. I don’t know if I inspired much rigorous thinking, but I try to do my small part in encouraging art appreciation as a value. It’s unfortunate that the word “elitist” has obscured what art can enact in the human.

Most writers will read inspirational/how-to manuals, take workshops, or belong to writing groups. Did you subscribe to any of these aids and if so which did you find most helpful? Please feel free to name any “writing” books you enjoyed most (i.e. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott).

I mentioned leading a workshop, and beginning about a decade ago, I’ve met with a small group off and on in Atlanta (hats off to Kiki, Gelia, Marianne, Sam, Sandi & Sunny). I like to set up themes and then we read relevant texts, write in-class, and workshop their poems. They know that they are teaching me as much as I “teach” them, yet they have the grace and generosity to pay me (hardly seems right). Two stellar writing books I return to again and again: Jane Hirshfield’s Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and Writing Poetry: Creative and Critical Approaches by Chad Davidson and Gregory Fraser (amazing poets and generous friends who teach here in Carrollton at the University of West Georgia).

In terms of friendships, have your friendships changed since you began focusing on writing? Are there more writers among your friends or have your relationships remained the same?

I have two very close friends from graduate school (fiction writer Sue Stauffacher and poet Val Martinez) who are writers and I know—even with our ups and downs—we will always be friends. And I’ve met so many wonderful writers at conferences, writing residencies and here in Carrollton. But it’s not a prerequisite, and the writers that I know typically don’t “talk” writing. I have to say I like Facebook for the way I’ve reconnected with friends from my MFA program in graduate school (University of Arizona) and to see what a vast network of poets are posting (but then, it’s very distracting). Their little obsessions and conundrums sometimes crop up, and I find that interesting. I admire so many writers and enjoyed interviewing Barbara Kingsolver, Li-Young Lee, and Paul Guest (published in past issues of Poets & Writers). I hope to do more because I learn so much from the process.

Please describe your writing space and how it would differ from your ideal writing space.

I’m extremely lucky to have my ideal writing space that I couldn’t have dreamed of a decade ago. But I dreamed it, and my husband sacrificed some beloved trees so we could add my writing space to his house when we married. I write in front of a large window that overlooks a hard wood forest of thousands of acres of rolling hills and creeks. I have a courtyard planted with my favorite flora (the fauna are the 2 dogs, 3 cats, and a dwarf bunny) in all seasons. My writing studio has windows on all four walls. Needless to say, I’d just sit here and write or just gaze into the distance if I could. But there’s that thing called a paycheck to pay for this fine mess.

What current projects are you working on and would you like to share some details with the readers?

That Emily Dickinson novel, as mentioned earlier. It may take a lifetime. I’m not sure whose.

Thanks, Amy, for answering my questions.

For the giveaway, I have 1 copy for a US/Canada reader:

To Enter, comment on this post with either a question for Amy or something you enjoyed about the interview.

For a second entry, spread the word about the interview on Twitter, your blog, and Facebook, and leave a link in the comments.

For a third chance to win, enter on yesterday’s interview.

Deadline June 22, 2011, at 11:59PM EST

Filed Under: giveaway, Interviews Tagged With: , ,

Interview With Poet Amy Pence, Part 1 & Giveaway

June 6, 2011 by

Amy Pence, the author of The Decadent Lovely — which is published by Main Street Rag and which I reviewed last week — is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, and teacher.  She graduated from Denison University and from the University of Arizona with an MFA.  In addition to The Decadent Lovely, she has authored a chapbook, Skin’s Dark Night (2River Press), and her poetry, essays, and fiction have appeared in a number of literary journals and magazines.

Part one of our interview will introduce her more fully and explore why she chose certain text excerpts for her collection.  Part two of the interview will be available tomorrow, June 7, so stay tuned for that.

How would you introduce yourself to a crowded room eager to hang on your every word? Are you just a poet, what else should people know about you?

If there is a crowded room eager to hang onto my every word, I must be an impostor, channeling Jane Fonda or Roshi Joan Halifax (either would be cool), or I’m having a nightmare.  I do teach (no surprise: college English), but often not to a crowded room.  I think I’m good at leading small workshops and I’ve done so with a wonderful group in the Atlanta area over the years.  (More on that later).  I’m a mom to a fifteen-year-old, who is quite amazing…To talk more about myself in answer to this question reminds me of Don Draper in the episode of Mad Men when he tries to side-step the question (I’m from the Midwest; we don’t talk about these things) and then he comes off like an asshole in the article!

What was it about “Learning From Las Vegas” and “The Art of Loving” that prompted you to include excerpts from them in The Decadent Lovely?

Thank you for this question.  That The Decadent Lovely is my first published collection came as a surprise (it’s really my third poetry manuscript).  But for many years I’ve appreciated and reread the dense and interesting language and mulled over the preposterous premise of Learning from Las Vegas. Should architecture really look like Las Vegas casinos?  Let’s hope not.  I also knew that one day I would write a book about the one vaguely interesting thing about me: that I grew up in the New Orleans French Quarter and Las Vegas.  I didn’t know that the poems would come out as a kind of necessity during my mother’s illness with lung cancer and her death about eight months later.  The book, I realized, framed the poems.  While cleaning her house, I came across The Art of Loving and her marginalia in the book (when she wrote the notes and underlined the book I will never know).  I read it eight months after her death and it was frustrating and sad and an act of discovery.  I could mourn her and celebrate her and be angry with her and well, love her, as I wrote the last poem in the book.  When I completed it—in my courtyard garden—a hummingbird—meaningful to my mother and me—hovered close to my face.  Thanks, mom, I said to that little whirring thing.

Do you have any obsessions that you would like to share?

Well, see, I’ve already mentioned Emily Dickinson (because I’m obsessed!) and I’ve written a couple of essays, many ED-inspired poems and am working on a novel about her. She’s obsession-material for me and many, many others, as I’ve found. I tend to burrow into a person’s life story; I used to read bios on film stars such as Bette Davis and Louise Brooks because there’s such a public/personal split that I find fascinating. Currently, I am very into Jane Fonda. Other obsessions seem to just crop up in my poems and well, we don’t really want to ferret those out, do we?

How do you stay fit and healthy as a writer?

I run, but there are so many triathletes and marathoners out there that my 5k to 10k jaunts sound paltry—I run fast to get it over with.

Do you have any favorite foods or foods that you find keep you inspired? What are the ways in which you pump yourself up to keep writing and overcome writer’s block?

I seldom have writer’s block because of my writing space (see the next answer), but I suffer from writer’s distraction (see previous answer). Puttering around in the garden and house can be fruitful or just a time suck. Often I have to turn the internet off or I’ve ended up web-surfing so far away from my original search that it’s head-spinning (huh? how did I get here?). In terms of pumping myself up and a quasi-food that keeps me inspired: copious amounts of coffee with cream. I’m ashamed to say how much—except to use the word “copious.”

When writing poetry, prose, essays, and other works do you listen to music, do you have a particular playlist for each genre you work in or does the playlist stay the same? What are the top 5 songs on that playlist? If you don’t listen to music while writing, do you have any other routines or habits?

Right now I’m listening to the Philip Glass Radio on Pandora. Chamber music (with lots of cellos) is also good. I have to be wary of Philip Glass though—I’ll be writing and suddenly I feel like Nicole Kidman wearing her Virginia Woolf nose in The Hours. And then it’s all stream-of-consciousness. (Just kidding).

Thanks for answering these questions, Amy. You’ll have to come back tomorrow to hear what Amy says about poetry’s “elitism,” friendships, writing spaces, and her current projects.

For the giveaway, I have 1 copy for a US/Canada reader:

To Enter, comment on this post with either a question for Amy or something you enjoyed about the interview.

For a second entry, blog, tweet, or Facebook this interview and leave a link in the comments.

For a third chance to win, enter on tomorrow’s interview (link is not live until June 7).

Deadline June 22, 2011, at 11:59PM EST

Filed Under: giveaway, Interviews Tagged With: ,

Weekly Geeks 2011-01

June 5, 2011 by

I have been MIA where Weekly Geeks is concerned, a meme started by Dewey at The Hidden Side of a Leaf .  I used to this every week when Dewey was alive, and her passing left me shell-shocked for a long time.  I love the questions and activities this meme often comes up with, though many weeks I’ve run out of time to do them.

So here I am, back in business, so to speak, and hopeful that I can continue this meme each week.

This weeks activity; you can choose to do one or both:

Option 1: Write a post (or leave a comment) with suggestions for future weekly geek topics! Share as many ideas as you’d like! Be as creative as you want. Or if you can’t think of any “new” topics of your own, consider listing your top five topics from the past, from our archives.

Option 2: Write a post about your genre prejudices or your genre allergies. (I tend to be allergic to westerns, for example.) Are there genres that you haven’t read that you avoid at all costs? Are there genres that you don’t take seriously? Would you be willing to try something new? (Or someone new!) Consider asking for recommendations and challenge yourself to get outside your comfort zone a bit. Alternatively, you may want to write a post about one of your favorite genres and recommend titles to newbies. Which books would you recommend to those readers who are new to that genre?

Ok, I decided to both of these activities, so under option #1, here are my five topic ideas for upcoming Weekly Geeks’ posts.

1.  Feature one poem that you’ve loved or a poem you’ve written.

2.  Video yourself reciting a poem and post it or find a YouTube video of a poem being read and post that.

3.  Profile a favorite writer or poet and include a little about their education, writing, and lifestyle.

4.  Write up a post about a poetic form and why you enjoy reading it or writing it.

5.  Share a nursery rhyme you remember or one you have a hard time remembering and explain why you remember it or why you have trouble remembering it.

For option 2:

I’ve already talked about poetry books I would recommend for newbies, so this time around, I’m going to talk about my genre prejudices.

I do not like to read westerns or romance generally because they often are very formulaic and predictable.  It’s very rare when you find one that isn’t.  I’m looking for fresh characters, not caricatures of real people.  Cowboys, I’m sure, were more than just macho and bent on saving the lady in distress, and women in romance novels could be more than damsels looking to be saved.  I also don’t like self-help books or nonfiction that is written more like a textbook.  In terms of memoir, they have to be stories that are more than woe-is-me, and look at how hardship changed me, etc., etc.

How about you join the bandwagon and talk about your genre prejudices or what you’d like to see covered in the next Weekly Geeks.

Filed Under: meme, weeklygeeks

100th Virtual Poetry Circle

June 4, 2011 by

Welcome to the 100th Virtual Poetry Circle!

It’s hard to believe that there have been 100 meetings of the virtual poetry circle and my wonderful readers are still commenting on poems and taking a shot in the dark about what they mean.  Congrats to you all!

Stay tuned for the big giveaway on June 12 to celebrate 100 VPCs and my 4-year blogiversary.

Now, onto this week’s Virtual Poetry Circle.  Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.

Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s books suggested. Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Horoscopes of the Dead by Billy Collins, which I reviewed earlier this week.

Revision (page 84-5)

When I finally pulled onto the shoulder
of a long country road

after driving a few hundred miles
without stopping or even blinking,

I sat there long enough to count
twenty-four cows in a wide, sloping pasture.

Nothing about the scene asked to be changed,
things being just what they were,

and there was even a green hill
looming solidly in the background.

Still, I felt the urge
to find a pencil and edit one of them out,

that swaybacked one standing
in the shade in a far corner of the field.

I was too young then to see
that she was staring into the great mystery

just as intently as her sisters,
her gorgeous, brown and white, philosophic sisters.

Let me know your thoughts, ideas, feelings, impressions. Let’s have a great discussion…pick a line, pick an image, pick a sentence.

I’ve you missed the other Virtual Poetry Circles. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

Filed Under: virtual poetry circle Tagged With: ,

Guest Post & Giveaway: Bruce Littlefield’s Writing Space

June 3, 2011 by

Normally, I’m not a children’s book reviewer, but there are those occasions when a kid’s book will grab my attention, especially if it has a good message and includes dogs.  I’m a sucker for a good dog book; must be the dog owner in me.

I recently read and reviewed Bruce Littlefield’s The Bedtime Book for Dogs, which he wasn’t kidding when he titled it because dogs do understand the book and will often beg for treats or a trip outside if you are reading it to your little one.  Wiggles and I have read this book a number of times, and she loves the colorful illustrations by Paul S. Heath.  Check out my review if you missed it.

Today, however, we have a special treat . . . a glimpse into the writing space of Bruce Littlefield:

My summer writing perch is on my front porch swing with the Esopus Creek running behind me.  Growing up in South Carolina, my grandparents had a huge southern porch.  I’d sit out there with my notebook and sip her sweet ice tea and dream up my stories. Edgewater Farm, my house in the Catskills of NY, used to be a bungalow colony (think Dirty Dancing) and I like to write here.  It’s got a lot of creative vibe.

Thanks, Bruce, for sharing your writing space with us and let’s hope it continues to inspire you.

Now for the giveaway:  I have 1 copy of the book for a US/Canada winner.

1.  Leave a comment on this post about your favorite children’s book you remember reading or that you’ve read to your child.

2.  Spread the word about the giveaway via Twitter, Facebook, etc., and leave a link for a second entry.

Deadline is June 20, 2011, 11:59PM EST

Filed Under: giveaway, guest post Tagged With: , , ,

The Decadent Lovely by Amy Pence

June 2, 2011 by

The Decadent Lovely by Amy Pence, published by Main Street Rag, is a collection lush in mystery as it is in setting and pulsating with dramatic domesticity.  Broken into seven parts, Pence begins the collection with the “ugly and the ordinary” and moves to the end of the collection with the infinitesimal.  Her images call attention to the darkness of the narrator’s family as they witness the drunken stupors, like in “Landing Space, 1970” (page 5-6), “Cutting too:/the eyes of the sunflowers/the swell of them, pulpy,/like my stepfather’s,/roused too soon//from an alcoholic stupor/for the graveyard shift.  Was it too much/what they saw or not enough? . . . ”

Like the pleasant and the darker aspects of the family, Pence juxtaposes the landscape of New Orleans to that of Las Vegas, with the darker elements of family life up in neon lights.  But there is darkness in New Orleans, a past that cannot be escaped and a past that can be touched only through the voodoo of memory and self-assessment.  In “The Waiting Room” (page 40), “Maybe/she’ll talk of a version of her self/decades before the cancer:  the Rose Bowl court in the 50s/or her years in New Orleans, to relate, she’d say/to the woman waiting.  In that/hazy B&W film, my mother/was one of the Golddust Twins,/the flashier one, running headlong out of Ohio, constantly/misunderstood by husbands, children, lovers./Maybe the black woman would begin/to resent my mother as most did, would/see her as merely another shipwreck in Vegas,/unmade by her own addictions.  . . . ”  Readers will find the new perspective on these mundane scenes fresh and captivating, as the narrator reveals the truth behind the surface interactions of women in a waiting room.  Pence has a number of these moments in her poems.  However, there are poems that will require more time, reading them several times and greater reflection for each image and line — a process that could bog down some new readers of poetry.  That being said, the collection is worth the effort.

Put Muse Here (page 22)

Dalí renders Dante’s Beatrice with
his beloved’s form, face obscured. Uses

grisaille, a netting & rivulet to dress her
ginger-crisp: a locust shell split. Then

there’s me: putting another face where the Dark
should be, like dreaming (an Emma Bovary),

of punctuation. The colon: two face one-upon-
one, the lock in the door, a figment well-oiled.

In the slash / my avarice: cut (an Emily Brontë)
window across which I rub my wrist.

Then there’s the period — the body’s
rush to an ending. The Thee (an Emily Dickinson)

through which the self moves —
finds the mouth, fills the face, enters in.

Sometimes cryptic, sometimes plain spoken, Pence crafts an inside look at family (those are her parents on the cover) and the happy dysfunction that can occur and often does.  Beyond that, she draws parallels between that dysfunction and the human condition, which we often attempt to control and fail to control.  The Decadent Lovely is a self indulgence worth wallowing in, if not to examine one’s own life but to understand that humans tend to be self-indulgent even though they espouse the shedding of ego.

 

This is my 15th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

This is my 23rd book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2011, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Bedtime Book for Dogs by Bruce Littlefield

June 1, 2011 by

The Bedtime Book for Dogs by Bruce Littlefield, published by Hachette Book Group in June 2011, is chock full of large, colorful illustrations that even catches the eyes of infants.  My daughter is only 3 months old and she was drawn into the book by the illustrations of the dog and the park with its bright greens and browns.  The story is short and sweet, which would make it easy to read for those learning and those wanting to read on their own.  Littlefield’s story is one about friendship — a companionship that dogs even have with their owners — and sharing.

Dogs will even love the story as well, with their ears perking up at familiar terms like “out” and “treat,” but be careful because readers may find that they’ll have to give them an actual treat or actually take them out!

The only drawback is that some of the text gets lost in the images, particularly the busy image of the inside of the house with its dog bone wallpaper.  But even that does not occur most often — it’s just on a few pages.  What’s great about the narration is that many of the words are written in large type, making them easy to recognize.

Readers will love how the story speaks to the listener — whether its a dog or a child — telling them to “sit” and “lie down” to listen to the story.  Its a good way to get them ready for bed.  The story is short, however, which means it could take several readings before a child will actually fall asleep, but that’s typical with any bedtime story.  The Bedtime Book for Dogs by Bruce Littlefield and illustrated by Paul S. Heath is a cute book that readers won’t mind reading again and again, as some of the lines rhyme like poetry, making the flow easy to remember.  It’s a colorful, happy story that should be added to any child’s shelf.

This is my 22nd book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: children's fiction, Hachette Books, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2011, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,