Poetry Tips: Two Faced Poem

Sorry everyone, Tropical Storm Faye interrupted internet service so it delayed today's post, but now it's up so check it out:


Today’s idea stems from a story by NPR talking about our left and right sides of the brain being two separate selves within our body and how we literally dictate our own ever evolving story to ourselves to make sense of it.
So I ask all of you to write a poem about yourselves detailing the dichotomy of your left and right brain. Perhaps you love/hate someone in your family or friends, maybe you can’t make up your mind about re-locating to a new town or city, maybe you argue with yourself in the grocery store—all of it is possible material for this type of poem.
Good luck to all who try it out!

Thanks for stopping in, please drop in Sunday for another Sunday Edition…

Gloom Cupboard Open Submissions

"~Print Edition #4~DEADLINE 1st October 2008, Email: aprilmaymarch777@yahoo.co.ukSend at least six poems or fiction pieces that do not exceed 1000 words. Title the email 'PE Submission'. Include bio and any necessary links."
http://gloomcupboard.com
-Richard

Thanks for the heads up, Richard! I wish all of those who submit good luck, and please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179734
“About My Very Tortured Friend, Peter” by Charles Bukowski

http://www.blossombones.com/summer08/martin_s08.html
Dana Guthrie Martin’s poems “From the Killing Lines” and especially “The Apocalypse Occurred in Your Bread Lethargy”

Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Theresa Boyar's Kitchen Witch

Isn’t that a lovely eye-catching title for a chapbook, Kitchen Witch? I was able to purchase this wonderful collection from Dancing Girl Press, copyrighted 2007. Below I have included a link to Theresa Boyar’s site, which also includes a link to a wonderful interview about this collection by Rock Salt Plum so you can find out more about Theresa Boyar as a poet and how she produced these wonderful poems.

The entire collection is a fun read, there is humor, there is the sense of longing for special moments to last longer, and even the banality of everyday chores becomes interesting under Boyar’s wit.

With permission from Theresa Boyar I am able to post the following poem, originally published in 42opus:

“What I’m Here For”

Today, it’s the rise,
and billow of sheets
on the clothesline, the necessary
rectangles snapped, bleached
linen fixed with a pin.
It’s jam on every kitchen
Washcloth and broom-resistant
Crumbs that multiply across the floor.
It’s the newspaper I pick up
thinking only to read the letters
to the editor, and set back down
two hours later, my fingers
dusty as if I’ve read the walls
of mines. It’s dishes
that breed disease in a backed-up sink,
it’s an empty mailbox, a phone
call that he’ll be late from work,
a discussion with the neighbor
about how my weeds are infiltrating
her flowerbeds. I can’t allow it
to continue. It’s dinner that arrives
in a flat box, delivered by a woman
who looks over my shoulder
and sees the unmade beds
like a cankered tongue
in the mouth of this house.
It’s the sending off
To the bathroom with toothbrushes,
the reading of a bedtime story and then
just one more, and the walk to the bedroom
to bunkbeds that are still sheetless. It’s traipsing
to the clotheslines in the dark, damp
weeds beneath my feet, and the memory
in sunlight, handling wet sheets,
the promise of empty space
shaking out before me
in wide open windows.

This poem is one of my favorites because it not only describes real life but the humor of all the little things that can drive us (or at least me) crazy. I like the neighbor’s comments about the infiltrating weeds, the unmade beds in full view of a stranger whose opinion shouldn’t matter if they were to voice anything about unmade beds… Everything that makes up a day in the life of a family is laid out in all its unglamorous chaos which is refreshing in a world of well-kempt poems that I read often throughout the week. Sometimes it is nice to read about the real world from a poet who knows how to present it tongue-in-cheek and here is a perfect example.

Another poem I enjoyed which was also won the Penny Jar Prize from Half Drunk Muse is:

“Our Kitchen of Perpetual Failure”

Nothing here delivers.
We tuck in ribs, a long
empurpled rack soaked
in honey and ginger.
It comes out later, minus
the promised aroma,
the bubbling dark glaze.
We suspect a revolution.

On shelf paper turned desert
with flour spilled from flopped
almond scones, the canned goods
cluster toward revellion.
Crack open the cupboards
and they’re stacked in glimmering
innocence, eyeless totems amid
teeming armies of rice and pasta.

We do our best to ignore them
and accept invitations to other kitchens
where careless children pour tall glasses
of Kool-Aid and the wallpaper screams
of productivity. Swelled
grapes, bursting melons, a bounty
of hard, crayon-bright fruit
that multiplies into the corners.

Back home, our kitchen echoes
back each tap of our wooden spoon.
We double-check measurements,
read everything twice, and still
the custards never set, the soufflés
always fall. The salmon emerges
pink and shriveled and we
consider giving up altogether.

We eat in silence over our plates
each night, the shiny utensils
stretched between us.

It’s not just me, you
see it too, the way they look
more and more like barbed wire.

Yessir, this poem reminds me of my own kitchen failures, how about you? What I love is that the food in the kitchen is crying “mutiny” during all attempts at perfecting a recipe. Also, the comparison of other kitchens that don’t seem to give their families any trouble just makes the frustration in this poem more palpable. I especially love the very last stanza where the utensils are likened to barbed wire. Don’t you just love Mrs. Boyar’s way of describing an every day frustration? This one I also find humorous because you can always laugh afterwards at failure and I found myself laughing after this poem thinking of my own kitchen disasters. I hope you enjoy this poem as much as I do.

Not every poem in this collection is about housework, children, and neighbors, but those are the poems I enjoyed most while reading them. There are poems about being an artist in a gallery, of fanciful notions, of humbling lives lived in hardship. It is a wonderful collection all around that I am sure you will enjoy as well. This chapbook is available at Dancing Girl Press or from the author herself at her site linked below:

http://theresaboyar.com/

Many thanks to Theresa Boyar for allowing me to post these poems and many thanks to all of you for reading!

Please stop by tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

American Poets Portrait Site

I INSIST that you visit this site!!! Didi Menendez has a beautiful gift for painting poets and I had always admired looking at Talia Reed’s portrait on her blog and for whatever reason kept forgetting to ask her where she got it. Now I know and you can find plenty of poets whose portraits are painted (wow, an alliteration of p’s by accident, interesting) by clicking the link below. Her portraits often are accompanied by descriptions of the poets and their work so please peruse at your leisure…

http://americanpoets.blogspot.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow with some full-length with permission from Theresa Boyar poems and a review of her chapbook, Kitchen Witch…

Poetry Tips: Reviews

I always enjoy reading reviews of poetry and know that many of you enjoy my reviews as well. Today I challenge you all to review a book of poems you enjoy—no matter how popular or obscure—for others to learn about. It can be posted to your web-site, blog, or simply typed up and mailed to friends and family.

My formula for reviews is fairly simple: I only review that which I enjoy reading and I also try to find information about the author on the web, usually by visiting Poetry Foundation and/or Poets.org. This way you can provide some background information on the poet in addition to your review of the poems themselves. From there I usually review two or three poems and explain why I liked them and quote between two and six lines for examples depending on the length of the poem for readers to get an idea of the author’s style of writing and for the poem itself. You can do a review however you like, and if you do, I hope you will let me know via the comments section for all of us to take a look. You may just win over some new readers for your site and for the author of the collection—a win for both sides.

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by NEXT Sunday for answers to last Sunday’s Search and the next edition…(I will be out of town and unable to post, so please stop by the following Sunday, otherwise I’ll see you this Monday…)

Damselfy Issue 5 Open Submissions

Send 1 to 3 poems is a Microsoft Word or .RTF attachment, and contact information on a separate page (of attachment) to: Lesley(AT)damselflypress.net
Be sure the head-line on your e-mail says “Poetry” only! Check out all other guidelines by clicking the link below:

http://damselflypress.net/submissions/

Thanks for checking in, please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.sundress.net/wickedalice/gillespie.html
“Luminous Monotony” by Jenny Gillespie

http://juked.com/2008/07/inversion.asp
“Inversion” by Jon Swan

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for another Open Submissions…

Edward Hirsch's "Special Orders"

Mr. Hirsch was born in Chicago in 1950 and has written poetry, prose, and a popular prose book titled “How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry.” I picked up his collection of poems titled “Special Orders” at the library, published 2008 by Alfred A. Knopf.

In this collection, I enjoyed the fact that these poems were easy to read and were all heartfelt as Mr. Hirsch relates moments in his life. One of his poems, “Branch Library” can be listened to at this link: http://poetryfoundation.org/journal/audioitem.html?id=427
I enjoy this poem because when I first read it I thought of a book-loving lad burying himself in the shelves who visits the library daily. It’s a fairly short poem so it is hard to post the lines without posting too much of the poem, hence the link for listening. Mr. Hirsch explains which library in Chicago this poem was inspired from and that he discovered poetry in this library. One of my favorite images are from these lines: “pecking at nuts, nesting in broken spines, scratching/notes under his own corner patch of sky.” Who doesn’t think of school students scratching notes amongst dusty books they must read for class or research’s sake? It is a happy poem that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading in general.

Another poem I enjoyed is “Self-Portrait.” Before I go into the poem let me tell you that it came just after hearing a special on National Public Radio in which a researcher explained that Virginia Woolf’s style of writing mimicked the real human brain and how we are two selves rolled into one and how does our “self” explain this? In Woolf’s book, Mrs. Dalloway, you experience the free-flowing thoughts of Mrs. Dalloway and this researcher explained that our right and left sides of the brain are perfectly represented in Mrs. Dalloway’s thoughts and that Virginia Woolf had caught on to this dichotomy so that all humans ended up telling themselves an on-going novel to reconcile the differences between the left and right side’s wants/needs/ideas. Now, I tell you all this to explain that Mr. Hirsch’s poem describes a similar idea in a much smaller time frame, in fact, he does so in just over a page. The very first two lines are perfect for the example of what I mean: “I lived between my heart and my head,/like a married couple who can’t quite get along.” This grabbed my attention from the NPR special I’d heard. Then, Mr. Hirsch explains his body’s differences with “My left leg dawdles or danced along,/my right cleaved to the straight and narrow.” I think this is a fabulous example of how all of us have an internal war with ourselves and here Mr. Hirsch out-lines this all in a poem. After he explains his own dichotomy he goes on to expand out to the dawn of man and closes with the idea that in death, his two halves will reconcile with the lines “I suppose my left hand and my right hand/will be clasped over my chest in the coffin,/and I’ll be reconciled at last,/…” I’ve probably included too much of this poem but I found it absolutely fascinating in light of what I’d just heard on the radio and thought I’d share it all with you.

There are many fine poems in this collection and while they may seem simple at first they are all deeper in meaning at second glace. I hope you will pick up this book if you happen upon it and wish you happy reading. You may also find out more about Edward Hirsch using the link below.

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=3173

As always, thank you for reading and please stop by tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Cherry Pie Press Blog

Check out this small press that produces women’s poetry! There are also links to articles and other fun things if you poke around a little. Just click the link below:

http://cherrypiepress.blogspot.com/

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

Sunday Search Edition 2

Thanks to everyone who liked the idea of the Sunday Search Puzzle for Poet Hound. We are now going to continue onwards and we’ll see how long this lasts. Let’s go for round two!

1st Edition Answers:
1. Lucille Clifton
2. Elizabeth Bishop
3. Mary Oliver
4. Ron Silliman
5. Justin Barrett


Sunday Search Edition 2:

1. Which poet wrote the popular poem “The Bells”?

2. Unscramble the letters to reveal the poet: IYSLVA TPALH

3. Which poet was published with a collection of love poems (now very famous), was born in 1904 and came from Chile?

4. Which poetry journal only publishes poems that are ten lines or less?

5. For regular readers: True or False, Poet Hound has given a negative review to a poet among her archives.


Thanks for participating, please stop in anytime, and of course drop in next Sunday for the answers and a new set of questions!

Poetry Tips: Summer Procrastination Poems

Summer is almost over and surely some laziness has hit as a result of vacation destinations, travel, summer reading, fun events, all things that make it hard to get back to the grind-stone. Why not commemorate summer fun with some procrastination poems? Make your excuses for not getting that report turned, for not getting your car washed in lieu going for a swim at the lake, for not tending the garden so you could attend the BBQ at your neighbor’s. Turn those lazy moments into a poem or two before getting back to the grind-stone for fall.

Thanks for clicking in! Please drop in around mid-morning on Sunday for the next Sunday Search

Umbrella Open Submissions

Be sure to check out their web-site and read the poems before submitting between 1-10 of your own to the e-mail address: umbrellajournal (AT) gmail (DOT) com and the dead-line is August 10th! Please also read the formatting guidelines for the e-mail submission as well.

http://www.umbrellajournal.com/submit.html

Good luck to all who submit, please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.versedaily.org/2008/stripgrief.shtml
Ruth Stone’s “Mobius Strip of Grief”

http://juked.com/2008/07/gorillacostume.asp
Arlene Ang’s “I’m Not Supposed to Wear This Gorilla Costume”

Thanks for dropping in and reading! See you tomorrow for more Open Submissions...

Blossom Bones Blog

This blog is fun in that it has random aspects with lots of personality along with up-dates on the Blossombones journal. I love the post asking “have you ever been so stressed out that you crocheted a series of small gnomes?” Can’t say that I have! But thanks for the laughs! Check it all out at:

http://blossombonesblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please stop in Wednesday for Poems Found by Poet Hound (yep, ran out of time and books to review for Tuesday again, sorry folks…)