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White Egrets by Derek Walcott

April 19, 2011 by

White Egrets by Derek Walcott is a collection of deeply suggestive and blatant poems about the natural cycle of birth, life, and death and coming to terms with the later as friends, lovers, and others pass away leaving the narrator behind on the journey of life.  Each poem uses nature imagery to paint a canvas of emotion as the narrator grapples with grief, joy, and memory.

Walcott’s poems are long and narrative in many cases, which is not a form or style that calls to every reader, but even the most picky reader can easily pick out the cues that will carry them throughout the multiple part poems.

For instance, in the title poem “White Egrets” section one, readers will notice the lines “in the drumming world that dampens your tired eyes/behind two clouding lenses, sunrise, sunset,/” that signal a decline in health.  In the second section, the theme carries on in the lines “into a green thicket of oblivion,/with the rising and setting of a hundred suns/” until it culminates through a series of images and narrations in section four with the lines “and of clouds.  Some friends, the few I have left,/are dying, but the egrets stalk through the rain/as if nothing mortal can affect them, or they lift/”  and finally in section eight, “the egrets soar together in noiseless flight/or tack, like a regatta, the sea-green grass,/they are seraphic souls, as Joseph was.//”  While the poem is dreary in theme, the subject of losing ones friends slowly over time to death, it also carries along elements of immortality and being left behind as a testament to those who have passed before us.

Many of Walcott’s poems are in memory of friends, family, and others as he dedicates poems or portions of poems to them, and each takes on a meditative and reflective state as he explores their relationship and his memories of their time together.  More than just mundane relationships to our friends and family, Walcott paints a picture of humanity’s infinite connections to the past, present, and future in an effort to demonstrate how deeply we are all interconnected.  In poem 46, “catalogue of a vicious talent that severs/itself from every attachment, a bitterness whose/poison is praised for its virulence.  This verse/” Walcott harshly discusses the consequences of severing attachments, which some may actually believe is a preferable way to live.

White Egrets is a collection readers would probably tackle on a poem-by-poem basis, rather than read at once — not because they are too hard to interpret but because they tackle themes and emotions that are heavy and can weigh down the reader or provide him or her with fodder for reflection on his or her own life.  From moments in history such as the debts owed because of the Holocaust to the election of President Obama, the poet reviews moments in history and how they impact individuals.  Overall, White Egrets is a emotional roller coaster ride of longer poems that are meditative, disruptive, and thought-provoking.

This is my 5th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.


 

This is my 11th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

This review is part of my celebration for National Poetry Month!

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Guest Post: Inside the Writer’s Studio

April 18, 2011 by

Today’s guest is author Midge Raymond, whose collection of short stories Forgetting English was recently released in an expanded edition.  Her stories received the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, were nominated for three Pushcart Prizes, and received an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship.  She graciously agreed to write up a guest post about her writing space.  Please give her a warm welcome.

 

This is the first photo I took of my current writing space, taken on the day I moved into my house.

I took this photo because I wanted to remember what my writing studio looked like before I really got settled in. I loved the way this clean, empty space looked—yet somehow I knew it wouldn’t last.

Of course, the room didn’t have much personality before the unpacking began, but at the same time, this photo above represents my dream desk: no clutter, no bills, no cat sleeping on the keyboard. Nothing but the blank screen and an empty chair. I don’t even have books in the shelves to distract me. While this setup was a little too spare for the long term, I still hoped to keep my writing studio somewhat de-cluttered—as if it might become a mirror image of my brain: open and ready for the muse to do her work.

Here is my desk today:

The writing studio is more homey, certainly—and at least the cat is staying off my keyboard (for the moment). I have my creativity crystal, my water and my coffee, all the books and journals I could possibly need should I get writer’s block. And, as I’d envisioned, the writing studio is indeed a reflection of what’s going on in my brain, i.e., a cluttered mess, in which million things are spinning all at once. (What you may not be able to see in the photo is my to-do list, stuck underneath the coffee mug, with frantically scrawled items in various stages of completion.)

At the same time, I love my desk, and most days, I even prefer it to the lovely spare one I used to dream of. It’s the desk of a person blessed with a full life, and I can’t complain about that. The trick is to put on my writing blinders, to mentally nudge all the other stuff out of the way in order to focus on writing new work, or revising old work, or jotting down ideas that may be brought to fruition in yet another writing space somewhere else.

Or, I’ll just move everything onto the floor, out of sight, and that works even better.

Thanks, Midge, for sharing your writing space.  Please check out her Website, blog, and the Press 53 site.

About the Author:

Midge Raymond’s short-story collection, Forgetting English, received the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. Her award-winning stories have appeared in TriQuarterly, American Literary Review, Indiana Review, North American Review, Bellevue Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. Her work has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and received an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, along with her husband and an opinionated orange cat.

Giveaway Details:  US/Canada residents only.

1.  Leave a comment here about why you enjoy short stories.

2.  Tweet, Facebook, blog the giveaway for a second entry.

Deadline April 25, 2011, 11:59 PM EST

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93rd Virtual Poetry Circle

April 16, 2011 by

Welcome to the 93rd 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 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions and check out the National Poetry Month Blog Tour.

For today’s poem, we’re going to look at Arthur Sze:

Spring Snow

A spring snow coincides with plum blossoms.
In a month, you will forget, then remember
when nine ravens perched in the elm sway in wind.

I will remember when I brake to a stop,
and a hubcap rolls through the intersection.
An angry man grinds pepper onto his salad;

it is how you nail a tin amulet ear
into the lintel. If, in deep emotion, we are
possessed by the idea of possession,

we can never lose to recover what is ours.
Sounds of an abacus are amplified and condensed
to resemble sounds of hail on a tin roof,

but mind opens to the smell of lightening.
Bodies were vaporized to shadows by intense heat;
in memory people outline bodies on walls.

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.

***Also check out today’s National Poetry Month Tour stop at Rhapsody in Books.

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Guest Post: The Passion for Poetry: the Writer and the Reader

April 15, 2011 by

Today, we have an excellent guest post from Lu at Regular Rumination about generating a passion for poetry among readers from her perspective as a reader and writer of poetry.  I can’t wait for all of us to share our methods for reading and/or writing poetry.  Without further ado, here’s Lu:

“You can’t be a good reader if you don’t have the experience of writing,” is the essential philosophy of one of my literature professors. He has said on a few occasions now that he prefers reading and discussing poetry only with poets. Keep in mind he said this to a classroom full of students who are decidedly not poets, but rather Spanish-language literature students. Now, I’m not always the most attentive student, but this made me stop and really pay attention to what he was saying. This is exactly the kind of alienating idea that I try to work against, constantly. Poetry should be for everyone, not just those who are devoted to studying or writing it. Poetry is a sensual, literary experience for the masses, not for the few.

But what if he has a point? As someone who has studied writing poetry, not just reading it, do I have an advantage or some kind of insight that those who are “just” readers do not?

Don’t worry, I don’t actually think I am better at reading poetry than you are, but I do think there are some differences. I think the best metaphor to describe it is that reading poetry as a poet is like listening to music as a musician. I am no musician, even though I’m currently taking piano lessons again after 10 years, so when I listen to a complex piece of music (read: music with two or more instruments), I generally can’t tell the instruments apart or even what instruments are being played. I can’t tell you why I like the music. There are some things I’m more familiar with, like the piano, and that I can recognize and explain, but everything else? I just listen and enjoy.

When I am reading a poem for the first time, I am often more interested in what the poem sounds like than what it says. So, since I have been taking piano, when I first get a new piece to play, I always play my right hand first, then my left. Finally, after practicing those over and over again, I put them together and practice some more. With a poem, the first thing I “read”  is the sound. Only after I have gotten a grasp on what the author is trying to do with the rhythm, meter, rhyme and other aspects of sound in poetry can the meaning make its way through. Then I put the two together and read it again. That’s why people often say you can’t read a poem only once.

When I write poetry, what I pay more attention to really depends on the poem. Sometimes form comes first, others meaning. But for me, when I am reading and when I am writing, the two often begin as separate things and then come together to form the complete poem. However, I hope that when someone reads the poetry I have written, the two work together seamlessly. My poetry mentor once said to me, “We do all of this hard work as poets just so our readers won’t notice it.”

So how can we apply this to our daily poetry lives? How about getting people passionate about reading and writing poetry? If you are reading this post, you probably already are. I believe that the way we teach poetry makes it seem hard. I don’t think poetry should be hard. It should make you think, it should make you passionate, it should make you happy. Of course, not every poem can do all of those things for you, but introducing people to the wonders of poetry at an early age could get people passionate about poetry again.

Maybe you saw this coming, but I think the best way to get kids passionate about poetry is to get them writing it. There were plenty of things that I didn’t understand about poetry until I actually spent time writing it. Meter, for instance. I have a horrible ear, to this day I still have trouble hearing the meter in poetry. But writing in form, something I never thought I’d be able to do (and trust me, the first time, I did it kicking and screaming), really helped clarify what I was supposed to be hearing and writing.

Of course I disagree with my professor. Not everyone has to be a poet to understand, love or talk about poetry. Not everyone has to have a talent for poetry or writing to enjoy reading it. But there are advantages to studying the process of writing poetry when it comes to reading it, at least there were for me. In the end though, all that really matters, is that people are reading poetry and falling in love with it.

I don’t think everyone has the same reading or writing process that I do, so here’s my parting question to you: what is your poetry reading process like? If you write poetry, how do you incorporate form and meaning? Do you focus on one and then the other? I’m fascinated by both the reading and the writing process, so please, answer away!

Thanks, Lu, for participating in the National Poetry Month Blog Tour! I can’t wait to see what everyone has to say about their reading process.

***Also, don’t forget to check out today’s tour stop at Haiku Love Songs and Read Handed.

Filed Under: Events, guest post, national poetry month Tagged With: ,

Guest Post: Novelists Who Are Poets Too

April 14, 2011 by

When setting up the National Poetry Month Blog Tour, a number of bloggers were eager to participate, including Valerie from Life Is a Patchwork Quilt. Today, I’m turning over the blog to her as she discusses some novelists that she recently discovered also wrote poetry. I hope you’ll share with her and me some of the novelists you know that also write poetry.

It is not a great surprise to us that many past and present authors in the literary world have have written both poetry and prose. A writer throughout his or her literary career prefers, often times, one or the other form. Sometimes a writer chooses one path because of personal preference. Sometimes it is for good reason — they are better writers than poets, or vice-versa. Or, sometimes success in one field or the other is simply due to a matter of timing or circumstances.

Today, let’s look at a few people of whom we are probably more familiar with as writers, but also published poetry. I’ll present them in chronological order.

There’s the Brontë Sisters: Charlotte (1816-1855); Emily (1818-1848); and Anne (1820-1849). In 1846, and under pseudonyms, the sisters published Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. After only two copies sold, the Brontës then concentrated on writing novels, with more successful results. Unfortunately, all three sisters died young, so they produced only a few novels and their poetry for us to persue.

The Brontës lived during the Romantic Era, the same time period of the works of Lord Byron, John Keats, and others. Death and yearning are a common theme in most of the Brontë poems — therefore, their poetry may not be everyone’s cup of tea. What follows is a typical example of Brontë poetry.

The Old Stoic by Emily Brontë

Riches I hold in light esteem;

And Love I laugh to scorn;

And lust of fame was but a dream

That vanished with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer

That moves my lips for me

Is, ” Leave the heart that now I bear,

And give me liberty !”

Yes, as my swift days near their goal,

‘Tis all that I implore;

In life and death, a chainless soul,

With courage to endure.

Some sources available for Brontë poetry: Project Gutenberg has Poems by Ellis, Currer and Acton Bell ; a PDF format , by Pennsylvania State University. In print: Best Poems of the Brontë Sisters, Dover Thrift Editions (not all poems from the original 1848 publication are included).

When I was recently reading Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), I was intrigued that he had some poetry published in addition to his novels. Hemingway was known for his minimalist writing style in his novels, and I feel that it did not transfer as well in his poetry. Yet, during his lifetime, his poetry was published in Poetry Magazine and other publications, and in his Three Stories and Ten Poems. A modern source of Hemingway poems is Complete Poems: Ernest Hemingway by editor Nicholas Gerogiannis (University of Nebraska Press, revised edition 1992).

As follows is one of Hemingway’s better poems, published in Poetry Magazine in January 1923. In that issue, Hemingway was introduced as a young Chicago poet who was at the time abroad in Paris.

Chapter Heading

By Ernest M. Hemingway 1899–1961

For we have thought the longer thoughts

And gone the shorter way.

And we have danced to devils’ tunes,

Shivering home to pray;

To serve one master in the night,

Another in the day.

(formatting source: Poetry Foundation)

Your browser may not support display of this image.

John Updike (1932-2009) wrote many novels (including the Rabbit Angstrom series and Witches of Eastwick) during his productive career, and regularly published volumes of poetry. Collected Poems 1953-1993 includes all his poetry volumes published up to that point; and his later poetry volumes were Americana and Other Poems (2001), and Endpoint and Other Poems (2009).

As with his books, Updike’s poetic subjects were wide-ranging. He could shift from writing about sports to poems of place (Spain, Brazil) to poems with more traditional topics (such as nature). If one is in the mood for light verse –but with more depth — then Updike’s poetry might be appreciated. Many of Updike’s poems are laced with humor (but be warned: a few are quite earthy; such as “The Beautiful Bowel Movement”; some refer to sex).

Here is one poem by Updike:

Painted Wives, by John Updike (Collected Poems 1953-1993)

Soot, house-dust, and tar didn’t go far

With implacably bathing Madame Bonnard;

Her yellowish skin has immortally been

Turned mauve by the tints she was seen floating in.

Prim, pensive, and wan, Madame Cezanne

Posed with her purple-ish clothes oddly on;

Tipped slightly askew, and outlined in blue,

She seems to be hearing, “Stop moving, damn you!”

All lilac and cream and pink self-esteem,

Young Madame Renoir made the sheer daylight dream;

In boas of air, without underwear,

She smiles through the brushstrokes at someone still there.

Some online sources for more poetry by Updike: Updike poems at The Poetry Foundation , Requiem (at NYT) , poets.org.

Finally, I present a living poet and novelist: Laura Kasischke. I was first introduced to Laura Kasischke’s works when I lived in Michigan — in fact, her son and my older son were in the same cub-scout den. Our local library carried all of her works, and eventually I acquired some of her novels and poetry for myself. At that time, I had the feeling that Laura Kasischke was primarily known as a poet rather than as a novelist. But, over the past couple years, as I started following book blogs, I noticed that blog reviews focused on Kasischke’s more recent novels (In a Perfect World, 2009; and The Raising, 2011), rather than her poetry.

Kasischke has written several volumes of poetry; her most recent (Space, In Chains, March 2011) was published this year. Based on what I’ve read of Kasischke’s recent poetry, my impression is that she may be evolving into using shorter, sparer verse today than her earlier works that includes Gardening in the Dark (2004). Following is a short excerpt from “Speeding Ticket”, from Gardening in the Dark.

Excerpt from “Speeding Ticket” by Laura Kasischke; Gardening in the Dark

Truly, I wanted only

to appear to obtain such grace, and then

through the years somehow I became

a high brick wall fully expecting

the little blue flowers to thrive in my shade.

Kasischke is currently in the April 2011 issue of Poetry Magazine, and some of these poems (and earlier poems by her) are at their website (Poetry Foundation). Other online sources of Kasischke poetry are here: Poetry Daily and Poetry Daily 3/8/2011.

In conclusion, I have covered only a few novelists-as-poets here. They all range in style, and possibly, talent. Please share with us any novelists-as-poets that you know about!

Thanks to Serena for allowing me to write a guest post for Savvy Verse and Wit during National Poetry Month 2011. It was a pleasure to write on the topic of novelists as poets (or vice versa).

Thanks, Valerie, for exposing us to more poetry. I do want to add that the Brontë sisters also had a poetic brother, and you can learn more about his poetry and theirs in my review of The Brontës by Pamela Norris.

So, we’re wondering which novelists you know write poetry or which poets do you know that write novels?

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An Interview With Poet M.E. Silverman

April 13, 2011 by

This week at the Poetry Blog of 32 Poems Magazine my interview with poet M.E. Silverman was posted. He’s a contributor to the magazine and was a delight to interview, especially since he loves Nina Simone, my dinner music companion Telemann, and Vivaldi.  You’ll have to check out all the great writing and poetry book recommendations.  Unfortunately, he’s a bit camera shy, but we do have an interview and a sample poem.

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.

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?

I am a Dad first and often introduce myself as Vice-President of Isabel Inc. I actually once had someone inquire in these tough economic times about a job opening there, and if he wasn’t so serious, I might have continued the joke.

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 have taken several online workshops from 32 poems with Deborah Ager to Mid American Review with Craigo and I find them all helpful and inspirational. I tried the Dnzanc one on one critique but found it less than helpful. Kooser Poetry Home Repair Manual by far is one of the best how-to books, but also Triggering Town and Cleave’s Contemporary American Poetry: Behind the Scenes. I could not put down either Kim Addonizio‘s how-to books nor Padgett’s The Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms.

Of course, there are many anthologies I also enjoyed just to get exposure to other writers, including Chang’s Asian American Poetry, Collins Poetry 180, Yale Younger Poets Anthology, Feinstein’s Jazz Poetry Anthology & The Second Set Vol 2, Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of New Formalism, A Formal Feeling Comes ed. by Finch, A Drifting Boat: Chinese Zen Poetry by Seaton, the KGB Bar Book of Poems, American Poetry Now (Pitt) and the Copper Canyon Anthology. Also, there are quite a few portable workshop books but by far the most enjoyable is Jack Myers Portable Poetry Workshop.

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?

I find strong violin sax and trumpet to be the most inspiring instruments. Naima by Coltrane is a beautiful sweet song. Clifford Brown Portrait of Jenny with Strings. Any Miles Davis but I love the album Seven Steps to Heaven. Who could resist writing with music and a title like that? Nina Simone is a goddess of the vocal chords. Occasionally, I will go to Norah Jones but mostly it is Beethoven, Telemann, Vivaldi.

He also included a poem for readers to check out:

Bubbie’s Kitchen Secrets

We cooked in her kitchen,
a small square room
with a large double sink.

The refrigerator zapped
its electric ache
and like an old noir film,

the lights flickered in response.
For herbs, she had me climb onto the counter
and open the one window,

to reach the basil, the thyme,
the sunflowers potted on the fire escape,
a hazardous garden

the whole building used.
Two or three steps were lined
with mason jars full of cucumbers,

for pickles crisp from sunlight.
On this particular Sabbath,
I did what I always did, helped her make

the kugel,
a pudding made of noodles and eggs
with a dash of her secret:

the caramel color from sugar burnt,
not too little, not too much.
We were finishing up

when we smelled the cigar smoke
and heard heavy boots
pounding down the fire escape.

Then glass breaking,
a curse, that curse!,
quick and sharp

in gun-shot German.
Bubbie screamed. Scared,
I ducked under the table.

She whispered one word
before feinting:
Nazis.

Her war from long ago. Startled,
the man stepped back,
slipped and fell

to the pavement,
dying in agony.
Later,  she told me

she thought she saw
the guard from the camp.
The guard who gave the orders.

She told me this
as we huddled on the linoleum.
No one discovered how it happened.

I should have told somebody
when I read the paper and learned
he was just a student,

a young boy, like me.
I never did.

About the Poet:

M. E. Silverman moved from New Orleans to Georgia and teaches at Gordon College, with work appearing in Mizmor L’David Anthology: The Shoah, Crab Orchard Review, 32 Poems, Chicago Quarterly Review, Tapestry, The Los Angeles Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Cloudbank, Pacific Review, Sugar House Review, and other magazines. M. E. Silverman was a finalist for the 2008 New Letters Poetry Award, the 2008 DeNovo Contest and the 2009 Naugatuck River Review Contest.

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

***Also, please check out today’s National Poetry Month tour posts at Layers of Thought and Read Handed.

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Interview With Poet Halli Lilburn

April 12, 2011 by

Welcome to today’s interview with poet Halli Lilburn for the National Poetry Month Blog Tour.  Please welcome her.

1. 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?

I’m boring!  My mind doesn’t come out my mouth.  I think the first thing I would do is sing.  Poetry put to music conveys emotion faster and lasts longer in people’s memories.  Then I would follow with this introduction; My name is Halli – it is a form of Hallelujah which in Hebrew means praise to Jehovah.  My middle name is Dee, which is Hebrew for delicate, weak, languishing and is a form of Delilah who was a false and treacherous woman.  So I love God, it’s true, but I’m not very good at it.

2.  Do you see spoken word, performance, or written poetry as more powerful or powerful in different ways and why?

Spoken word is a social convenience for sharing art. It takes a certain type of poem where the sound of the words is an important feature, as well as the meaning.  Some poets, like myself, are not very good actors. The poem is lost in a bad performance.  The written word is not gone in a flash.  It is to be mulled over, reread, and pondered upon.  There is time for the reader to find hidden symbols and messages.  So unless I get a thespian friend of mine to recite my poetry for me, I would way rather have someone read it.  Even then, it’s disappointing to me if they only read it once.

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

I can’t stand open drawers and doors.  It’s super anal I know, but if there is a cupboard or drawer left open it drives me crazy.  Even metaphoric ones.  I can’t keep secrets.  It eats me up inside.  If there is an unresolved issue I have to “close it” right away.  I don’t want to see the clutter inside.

4.  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).

Studying the craft of writing is essential.  No writer is so good that her art couldn’t use a little help.  Some of my favorites are continuing education classes on-line from ed2go.com.  Easy art journaling or creative writing class can give me a million new ideas.  I also rely heavily on NaNoWriMo or I’d never get anything finished.  Getting a personal e-mail from Lemony Snicket telling me I would never complete a 50,000 word novel so why bother, was the most amazing boost of motivational reverse psychology I’ve ever received.  Critique groups are always essential.

5.  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?

Art is made of two motivating components; therapy and impact.  There are hard times in my life when I used art for the sole purpose of therapy, but I don’t show it to anybody.  It will only make sense to me.  Readers think you’re an art snob, if your work is too cryptic.  If you create art solely for impact, then it ends up too extreme, fluffy or entertaining.  You’ll gather the wrong crowd.

6.  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?

Music and I have a complicated relationship.  I definitely have a soundtrack in mind when I replay scenes in my mind.  I’ll list the music in the back of my books as a suggestion to my readers.  But when I’m struggling to put the long form down on paper I have to have quiet so I can get inside the mind of my characters.  Luckily for me all my kids are in public school this year.

Here are five songs that keeping coming back to me:

So Heavy by Florence and the Machine
Kingdom Come by Cold Play
Hallelujah done by Jeff Buckley
Anything by Heidi Happy
Reasons Why by Nickle Creek
Blue Lips by Regina Spektor
Oops that’s six.

7.  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 reward myself periodically while writing as soon as I start to despise sitting for too long.  I love baking, especially cinnamon buns or butter tarts.  Yum.  I have hobbies like, gardening, painting, scrapbooking that I try to throw in once in a while.  I have to leave time to disconnect myself from a writing project so I can go back with fresh eyes.  When writer’s block hits it’s usually because I’m trying too hard.  If writing doesn’t make me emotionally drained, then I’m not doing it right.  I keep several projects on the go and I’ll switch back and forth. A writer can’t create constantly, they need to refine, edit, work on submissions and social networking.  That takes up a lot of time.

8.  What poetry books published in 2011 are you looking forward to reading or would recommend to readers?  Or which poetry books you’ve read have you recommended?

There are some journals that I am fiercely loyal to: The Malahat Review and the Antigonish Review, both Canadian publications.  When it comes to authors I must reveal my complete bias towards Tim Lilburn since he’s my uncle-in-law.

Here are some places where my work is available:

poetryquartery.com has accepted ‘First Kiss’ for their spring issue.
Seedingthesnow.net has accepted ‘Mother Tree’ for their spring issue.
Redfez.net has accepted ‘Messed Up’ for their spring issue.

Thanks to Halli for letting me interview her. I hope you are enjoying the National Poetry Month Blog Tour.

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An Interview With Poet Terri Witek

April 11, 2011 by

Poet Terri Witek

This week at the Poetry Blog of 32 Poems Magazine my interview with poet Terri Witek was posted. She’s a contributor to the magazine and was a delight to interview, especially since she’s got some interesting things to say about Brazil and Elizabeth Bishop.

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.

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?

I love ephemeral creations, and as I have been working with Brazilian new media artist Cyriaco Lopes since 2005, have become more and more enamored of doing things that disappear—words and images (he uses photographs and video), sound pieces. We did some ipod voice pieces for an installation and I loved that…watching people lean into the rooms to catch fragments, etc. Of course I still love words on the page. But I really like staging “events” with him where we switch out—it feels unexpected, even when I know what’s going to happen, as I do now with the day you left, a 50-minute piece we’ve done several times. Actually, I find collaboration deeply mysterious and satisfying. I make no larger claims for it except that it puts you right into someone else’s technical stuff in a way that seems pretty magic. Is this equalizing? More that to play together in the same space feels temporary and precious. Maybe world peace would feel just like this.

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?

I listen to music in the car and in the cardio room—usually only playlist rule is that it has to be in Portuguese. But my husband Rusty made a playlist of R&B hits from the year of the Civil Rights Act (1964) that Cyriaco and I used in an installation, and that’s now completely internalized.

But not when I work—I get the rhythms mixed up. My husband works with music, so I hear it in the distance during the day and evening. But I write early—before 9am—so it’s bird cacaphonics for the most part. School busses. Trash pick-up. The girl who crosses the lawn to the bus stop talking to friends on her phone.

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?

You sound like a gym rat yourself—and maybe a CSA member! Rusty is a great cook and as one or another of our kids is usually a vegetarian he’s very resourceful and skilled. Loves doing it, thanks goodness, as I’m impatient and inattentive (bad kitchen combo). Ost of our local friends are foodies so I just let them do it. My contribution is putting fruit in different colored Pyrex bowls

(Unfortunately, I’m not a gym rat, so much as an outdoor hiker and walker, but I do love food.)

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

Well, I’m completely enthralled by museums, galleries, and contemporary art sites. I now go to Miami Art Basel every year. I have had some of my very best moments in the presence of great art—-sometimes even not great art that just catches me in a certain way. Fill in your own amazing experiences with such things here.

But mostly something just sorts of presents itself and then I follow it without trying to think too much. For example, last summer in Brazil I slept in a pouso in Ouro Preto where it turns out Elizabeth Bishop had stayed. I felt such a hit from that room I’m going back alone this year to try to write in the room. We’ll see what this is about—I have a few mini-stirrings, but am ignoring them, as it’s early days. But I have the plane ticket, and a folder that says “Ouro Preto.”

She also included a poem for readers to check out:

Ale’m

q. Where am I?
a. Ale’m (Beyond)
q. What am I tripping over when I try to wake up?
a. Rock underwater
a. Rock awash at any stage of the tide

Given that one eye, the forgetting one, plays it close to the vest, stays small. Given that from here no mar with its fault line horizon, no broken tide of the mouth.

No greeting but green. Fanned (given) but no veil, no dingy velvet curtain yanked to burlesque in a banana hat, Tem Banana na Banda. The ship depends on frapping line, flares, buoys, subjected people. Today’s left eye, opening first, depends on palmetto, the understory, what can be eaten without collapsing into some telenovela loop of how the bus left Arlington without her. How the man said my puppy’s in the car. A palmetto, one or more handed, fibers by the brown millions curled at the base. Green motionless wavings. The lid palpitating a little–not in memory’s exhaustive enumerations (palmetto), not in surprised-in-sand lanterns (palmetto), but in green (verde, verdade) the truth.

About the Poet:

Terri Witek‘s books include The Shipwreck Dress (Orchises Press, 2008), Carnal World (Story Line Press, 2006), Fools and Crows (Orchises Press, 2003) , Courting Couples (Winner of the 2000 Center for Book Arts Letterpress Chapbook Contest) and  Robert Lowell and LIFE STUDIES: Revising the Self (University of Missouri Press, 1993).  A native of northern Ohio, she holds the Art and Melissa Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing at Stetson University, where she teaches both literature and poetry workshops.

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

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Mailbox Monday #124

April 10, 2011 by

Mailbox Mondays (click the icon at the right to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at The Printed Page passed the torch.  This month our host is Passages to the Past.  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.  The Beach Trees by Karen White, which I received for a TLC Book Tour in May.

What did you receive in your mailbox?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme

92nd Virtual Poetry Circle

April 9, 2011 by

Welcome to the 92nd 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 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions and check out the National Poetry Month Blog Tour.

For today’s poem, we’re going to take a look at Greater Love by Wilfred Owen:

Greater Love

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft,—
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,—
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear,
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

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.

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Gatekeepers Post Interviews Me . . .

April 8, 2011 by

I’m glad I had the opportunity to answer the interview questions I received from The Gatekeepers Post even though I was in the midst of moving and just learning how best to care for my new daughter.  The online publication offers a number of videos, interviews, and more.  I’m glad I was given an opportunity to discuss National Poetry Month and the blog tour.

Check out my interview.

Filed Under: announcements, Interviews Tagged With: ,

Interview With Poet Natalie Shapero

April 8, 2011 by

Poet Natalie Shapero

This week at the Poetry Blog of 32 Poems Magazine my interview with poet Natalie Shapero was posted. She’s a contributor to the magazine and was a delight to interview.  You’ll have to check out the videos and songs that inspire her writing.

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.

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?

I used to be more of a full-time poetry person than I am now – I wandered away somewhat to go to law school and spend summers at some great organizations that work on civil rights and poverty issues. I also make music occasionally, insofar as jumping and yelling may be, by some, considered singing.

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

When I lived in Columbus, Ohio, I was really taken with Open Line with Fred Andrle, this amazing call-in show on the local NPR affiliate, but Fred is retired now. This has allowed for the head-rearing of various other fascinations, including Wallace Shawn, trends in Wikipedia vandalism, and pocket Constitutions. I am also pretty interested in fashion – much to be obsessed with there, from eastern European street style as documented by college students in Krakow to the alarmist tabloid coverage of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s tomboy aesthetic.

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?

Music, yes! Usually it is sad music I know well enough that I’m not distracted by the lyrics, because they’re already sufficiently ingrained in me to sound more like low noise than words. Here are five good dorky songs:

She also included a poem for readers to check out:

Implausible Travel Plans

He said, the water down there, it’s so clear

you can’t see jellyfish. That indicates

nothing, I said, and he said, I don’t care

is the hardest line to deliver in all of acting,

as though he knew of an acting laboratory

where researchers developed hardness scales

and spattered across them devastating fragments.

show me the steep and thorny way to heaven.

I liked to rehearse my Ophelia during blackouts,

the traditional time to make the worst mistakes

and, later, soften the story. Nothing working

but the gas stove. God, I felt so bad

that time we used the crock instead of the kettle

and watched it smoke and shatter. I was the one.

I was the one who wanted stupid tea.

–First appeared in FIELD.

About the Poet:

Natalie Shapero’s poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in Blackbird, Conduit, Poetry Northwest, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago.

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

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