Paul Hoover's Blog

Paul Hoover posts reviews, poems, ideas, the works! I really liked his “Poetry Ladder” back in January 25th so if you get the chance to dig through the archives, please take a look. I think the subtle changes as you go down and down is very interesting.
Please take a gander by clicking the link below:

http://www.paulhooverpoetry.blogspot.com/

As always, thanks for stopping in. Tomorrow will be another living poet…

Poetry Tips: I ask you...

I am asking you, poets and poetry readers, to help come up with some tips! I’m looking for answers to these particular questions:

1. How can you support living poets?

2. What are some tips for reading poetry?

3. How do you seek out inspiration?

4. What are the appropriate steps to take when submitting poems?

5. How do you keep submitting after many rejections?

I am hoping to do a series including these above questions as subject lines and I am hoping my regulars and new visitors will be so kind as to e-mail an answer to any of these questions. I will quote you directly, please use one of these questions in your subject line and I hopefully will get enough responses to warrant posting the tips you provide about a month from now. This way you have time to come up with some answers. Thanks so much! Remember to e-mail any answers to poethoundblogspotATyahooDOTcom…

Colorado Review Open Submissions

Submissions of up to 5 poems are accepted from September through April 30th. You have plenty of time to submit some of your more polished work. Don’t forget to include a cover letter, a self-addressed stamped envelope, and for additional guidelines see the link below. Colorado Review suggests that you become familiar with their magazine and they have sample copies for $10.00. If you are familiar with submitting poems and have gotten into the practice of reviewing sample copies you know how important it is to send poems that “jive” with a particular journal’s tastes. Do your research and good luck on your submissions!

http://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/cr/guidelines.html

Happy Valentine’s Day and thanks for checking in, tomorrow’s Friday Poetry Tips have a twist so I hope you will stop by and respond…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176832
“Arms and the Boy” by Wilfred Owens, this one’s for the soldiers and their families…

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19514
“The Rain Poured Down” by Dan Gerber, makes you wonder the circumstances of his mother’s weeping… What do you think caused her to cry?


Thanks for dropping in, please stop by for another open submissions!

Mary Sarton

Mary Sarton was born in 1912 and publishes novels as well as poetry during her long career. Even a stroke in 1986 did not keep her from continuing to write. Sadly, however, she died of breash cancer in July of 1995. I happened to pick up her book, Coming Into Eighty published by W.W. Norton & Company, in the library. This was written after her stroke and explores the process of aging. I have a career that aids those in Nursing Homes and Assisted Living so it was wonderful to stumble upon a poet that explores this topic giving me further insight into the kinds of people I meet daily. I will also note that Mary Sarton was awarded the Levinson Prize for this particular book of Poetry.
Her preface describes a “magical year” in which poems came to her easily at night and she wrote often and well like never before. The poems in this book are as a result of that year and they are all fluid, rhythmic, and beautiful. There are also poems with clever rhyme matched perfectly with rhythm so that they could almost be songs…
“The O’s of November” is one such example, with lines: “Like the trees we are bare/And the chill on the air/Speaks of death.” The ending,also, is strong and clear and crisp just like the month of November itself.
I also love her short poem “A Thought” which is short enough that it is difficult to quote. I leave you the last lines: “Brute power/Is not superior/To a flower.”
If you happen upon this book, please read it. It holds so much more than a woman describing her life in her eighties. It speaks of universal truths and illuminated moments, it is quite worth the reading. If you are able to sit by a sunny window and sip your favorite drink, then you have set up the perfect way to read her book.
For more information about her I have included the link below…

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=6015

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more finds around the world wide web…

Writer's Resource Site

I was trying to find some poetry articles/tips and found this site. There are some ideas for poems, reasons for writing poems, and how to write certain types of poems. All in all, not a bad resource… I have written about some of these already in past Poetry Tips for Fridays but there is plenty in the list of items to look through. Check it out at:

http://www.poewar.com/poetry-articles/

See you tomorrow for another poet who has passed…

Arupa Chiarini

Arupa Chiarini is a poet and playwright in Gainesville, Florida. I found her book, The Ancestors Are Calling Down the Rainbow, published by Carl Mautz Publishing, in my local library. This collection focuses on her ancestry by giving voices of past generations of relatives their voice through poems. The voices are intriguing, relatives speak of their life and what their souls feel like after death.
In one of the beginning poems, “Lucina Hartsorne Whitaker Teft” the lines describe a unique feeling of aging: “I got so old I felt like/a piece of dandelion fluff that might/blow away in the wind.”
The poems bring forth family dysfunction and the individuals’ voices of the bullies and the victims, the poems a process of healing over a century of wounds.
“Linton Teft” was a young man who died on his way home after war in France and had a difficult relationship with his father as described in the poem. I particularly like the lines “My father said I was going to hell,/I hoped hell would be a little like/October and the hard cider would be sweet and cold.”
I enjoyed reading this collection of poems about family and skeletons released from their closets. The idea that you can envision the minds of relatives gone so long ago is not an easy one to approach in any medium so I consider Ms. Chiarini to have strong guts to take on such a project.
I could not find much on the web about her, however. You can purchase this book by Amazon.com through the link I’ve provided if you are interested, however.

http://www.amazon.com/Ancestors-are-Calling-Down-Rainbow/dp/1887694099

In the meantime, thanks for stopping by and reading. Tomorrow is another poetry web-site.

P.S. Thanks for those of you who took the time to answer how many places you’ve sent poems. I wish you luck on all your submissions, may they receive rave reviews and acceptances!