Poetry Tips: Mother's Day

Surely, you knew this was coming? In other words, write a poem about your mother, or write a poem for your mother. In fact, it doesn’t have to be your mother per se, but anyone you’ve looked up to for guidance. So for Mother’s Day I ask you to write a tribute poem to the woman you admire most in your life and send/give it to her for Mother’s Day. Sounds simple enough, but if you are like me, many times those turn out to be cheesy poems. So I wish you luck and eloquence, may the muse be with you!

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Gloom Cupboard's Print Edition 3: Open Submissions

Straight from Richard’s e-mail:

Print Edition #3: It's only PoetrySubmissions are now being accepted for our third Print venture. All I ask is that you send a decent selection as this time each writer will have four pieces showcased. Mark your email 'Print Edition Submission'.Send what you deem to be appropriate

Also we have a new feaured writer section cleverly name 'Out of the Cupboard'

Out of the Cupboard: If you want to be considered for this new feature then all you need to do is send a batch of words and a bio. We will then interview you and shine the light in your eyes.

http://gloomcupboard.blogspot.com

email all subs. to aprilmaymarch777@yahoo.co.uk


Cheers
Richard


Thanks to Richard for the heads up, good luck to all of you submitting! Please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips

Poems Found By Poet Hound

http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/Bernato.html
“Mission” by Richard Bernato

http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/Winter_2007/poems/D_Revell.html
“Under the Railway Bridge in Albi” by Donald Revell

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Poetry Slam

I received this book for my birthday a couple of months back and have been reading through it leisurely. Poetry Slam The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry is edited by Gary Mex Glazner and published by Manic D Press. Don’t you just love the publisher’s name?
I have never been to a poetry slam and I don’t believe there are any nearby, I’ve tried looking. However, this book is a wonderful read to learn about the art of performance through poetry and there are many poems from various slams included.
I normally review individual poets however there are too many to name in here so I will focus on what I’ve learned as a result of the book. How a poetry slam works: Basically you have the poets who are willing and ready to stand up in front of the crowd and entertain through their poetry. There are judges, and the judges are picked at random from the crowd. This happens at every show. Some slams have rewards for the best poet but it is entirely up to the venue.
General Rules for Slams: For national competitions, this book sums up the rules nicely. Poets have three minutes to perform their poem and points are deducted for going overtime. No one is allowed to use props or costumes but you can imagine that some people may wear clothing and accessories that leads others to argue as to whether they’ve broken the rule. Also, the poet must read their own poems, which seems simple enough. Unless you’ve co-authored a poem, and then it can be a bit tricky.
The book includes plenty of wonderful slam poems and one in particular caught my eye, and that is a poem titled “America (It’s Gotta Be The Cheese)” by Eitan Kadosh. I loved this poem so much I recited it animatedly and loudly several times to my husband. I’ll admit my husband could leave or take poetry but he loved this poem, too. The poet essentially boils down the essence of America into its love for processed cheese, such as your Kraft Singles, individually wrapped, and ties the cheese into all kinds of American cultural icons and moments. For example: “who shot J.F.K., J.R. Ewing, J.C. Penney—its gotta be the cheese/internment camps—it’s gotta be the cheese/the WWF—it’s gotta be the cheese/” and it continues. It doesn’t end every line with “it’s gotta be the cheese,” by the way. It does have a great flow if you read it aloud and certainly inspired me to want to give slam poetry a try.
If you get a chance to read this book you should, it can give you perspective on slams vs. poetry readings and perhaps get you involved if you aren’t already.

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more poems found by poet hound….

Ibbetson Street Press' Blog

News, interviews, reviews, you name it, they’ve got it, all based out of Boston! Great reads, don’t miss it, check it out at:

http://dougholder.blogspot.com/

Thanks for checking in, please stop by tomorrow for a book review…

Poetry Tip: Picnics and Poems

Yes, the weather is getting gorgeous and what better way to enjoy the weather than to traipse outside with your journal or laptop and write some poems? Think of how many poets get their inspiration from the outdoors, particularly in nice weather. Mary Oliver springs to mind… So your tip for this week is to go outdoors, whether it’s for a picnic, BBQ, Frisbee, or sitting in a lawn chair, and absorb some of those wonderful outdoor moments into poems.

Don’t just use the visuals of the outdoors, think of the sounds! I, for one, hear my neighbors’ wind chimes and the birds chirping, all of which could fit nicely into a poem. What about the sound of the water sprinkler? A watering can over the vegetables and flowers? How might the sounds of warm weather affect your poems? Next there are the insects, animals, trees, breezes, wind, etc… Plenty there for a poem or two!

May the muse be with you and please drop in again soon…

Adirondack Review Open Submissions

Send between 2-7 poems via e-mail to tarpoetry@blacklawerencepress.com.
Be sure the poems are between 8 and 80 lines, they don’t publish much rhyme, and include a brief bio. For more details visit the link below, good luck on your submissions!

http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/submissions.html

Thanks for dropping in, please visit tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found By Poet Hound

http://www.nzetc.org/iiml/bestnzpoems/BNZP07/t1-g1-t19-body1-d1.html
“Blame Vermeer” by Vincent O’Sullivan

http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0408/poem_181322.html
“What is it to be Human?” by Waldo Williams, translated by Menna Elfyn


Thanks for checking in, please stop by tomorrow for another Open Submissions

Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov was born in Ilford Essex, England in 1923 and passed away in December 1997. During her lifespan she converted from Judaism to Christianity, was educated entirely at home, had her first poem published at the age of 17 and became a nurse while also maintaining a prolific writing career. Even after her death, her poems were still being published. More about her can be found at the link included below at poets.org. I picked up her book Sands of the Well, published by New Directions Books in 1994, at the library.

While Levertov is plain-spoken, that is, every poem is readily understandable, there is grace and beauty in every one. There are two poems that I will focus on and the first is titled “Threat.” It speaks of the majestic beauty of a pinetree and the fear that comes from having one so near your house yet also the fear of losing it altogether. For example, her lines say: “You can live for years next door/to a big pinetree, honored to have/so venerable a neighbor, even/when it sheds needles all over your flowers/….” Then goes on to say “under respect, under your faith/in the pinetree’s beauty, there lies/the fear it will crash some day/…the fragility of the safe/dailiness you have almost/grown used to.”
What I love is that she has such respect, love, and fear all mixed in the same poem about nature and human’s nature towards it.

The second poem is “A Gift” and I simply cannot do this one justice by talking about it. I wish that I could. The poem is gorgeous and contemplative. The beginning lines are fabulous: “Just when you seem to yourself/nothing but a flimsy web/of questions…” and goes on to say that questions from others are being given to you so that “in the emptiness of your hands,/…butterflies opening and closing themselves/in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure/their scintillant fur, their dust.” Essentially the poem says the questions you ask of life that are never answered are replaced with questions from others that somehow satisfy your need for answers. Isn’t that a beautiful idea?

There are many pages of this book that I “dog-eared” where I liked the poem so much I wanted to go back and absorb it again and again. I hope you will find her equally satisfying when you come across her in your own library or book-store, or perhaps on the web.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/41

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound

Tomasso Gervusatti's Site

Gervasutti discusses poets and their works in his blog. His comments are personable and I enjoy dropping in on him from time to time. I hope you will, too, check him out using the link below…

http://tommasogervasutti.blogspot.com/

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for another featured poet…

Poetry Tips: I talk of Dreams...

Poems about dreams can be interesting to read and fun to write. If you are so lucky as to have a Dream Dictionary on hand, you can go even further in writing a poem about a dream you’ve had because you can look up the hidden meaning and try to include it in some way. To write about dreams you can take several ways, one could be free-form thinking where images from your dreams are written line by line as they come to you. Or you can take a dream you’ve had and turn it into a story-line. You can also write a poem as though you have a dream for the future, much like many great speeches. For example, I have lots of dreams about caves, and according to my Dream Dictionary it a meeting with death and rebirth. I just may try writing a poem about my cave dreams and I challenge you to write poems about your own dreams. If you’re really motivated, keep a Dream Journal and then you’ll have plenty of material for poems.
Good luck and may the muse be with you!

Please stop by on Monday for another featured site…

Oranges and Sardines Open Submissions

This is entirely new; please check out the guidelines at the site using the link below. You can send 8 to 12 poems via e-mail to didimenendezAThotmailDOTcom. No simultaneous submissions, for more information, check it out at:

http://www.poetsandartists.com/

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.conjunctions.com/webcon/steward08.htm
“Oktombro” by D.E. Stewart

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/03/poetry/aura
“aura” by Arlo Quint


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Adrienne Rich is Rich in Writing

Adrienne Rich was born in 1929 and is thought of very highly in the world of poetry and in literature in general. She is known as one of the front runners for feminism and has written many books of poetry and essays. I picked up Telephone Ringing In The Labyrinth, published by W.W. Norton and Company in 2007, a collection of poems from 2004 – 2006 at my local library. (What on earth would I do without a library? What would you do without one?) There are two poems I quite enjoy and they happen to be back to back, so to speak, in this collection.

One is titled “Calibrations” and it caught my eye because it mentions a prosthetic hand and a ghostlimb. “A prosthetic hand calibrates perfectly/the stem of a glass/or how to stroke a face/…” It catches my eye because in my personal life I am close to someone who uses a prosthetic limb. Also the same with “ghostlimb” where her lines say “it’ll come with you the ghostlimb/…the shadow blind/echo of your body spectre of your soul/…” Again, it catches my eye for personal reasons. However, the poem itself is beautiful and raises eyebrows as you ponder the person tuning their guitar in the beginning and the poem which then shifts to the idea of the person’s touch being replaced by the prosthetic hand which cannot feel touch.

The second poem is “Skeleton Key” and I just love each and every line I have to say. Adrienne Rich is just wonderful at poems with marvelous lines that catch your eye and set you thinking, but I just happen to love the long and short lines of this poem. How does she do it? The way she spaces words out or divides them up makes it an enjoyable read. I can’t copy the way the lines are arranged thanks to the blog program being a bit stubborn, but I can quote some lines: “a small wound, swallow-shaped, on my wrist/ripped by a thorn/exacerbated by ash and salt/…” the imagery there is beautiful and somber at the same time don’t you think? Then there is “Then I slept, and had a dream/ No more/No mas/From now on, only/reason’s drugged and dreamless sleep/…” it seems such a simple thing to say yet it makes you pause… Just a wonderful poem.

The entire book is, of course, a worthwhile read and I hope you will look up her books in the store or library. I have also included a link below so you can find out more about her.

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=5680

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow…

Poemeleon

This is an on-line journal with great personality. Last I checked their open submissions closed in February but you can still poke around and see what’s happening in events and links and other posts. Check them out at:

http://www.poemeleon.org/

Thanks for dropping in, stay tuned for tomorrow’s featured poet…