Saint Elizabeth Street Blog

Jennifer Bartlett offers up her perspective with great articles throughout the blog. I love that she describes her life and in a fabulous way at that! Check it out at:

http://saintelizabethstreet.blogspot.com/

Thanks for looking in, please stop by tomorrow for another living poet…

Six Word Memoir Challenge

Thanks to Allen of World Class Poetry Blog I have been tagged for the Six Word Memoir Challenge! Click on the title to find out more details at World Class Poetry, in the meantime here is my six-word memoir:

Persevere,
struggle,
renew,
subside into
patience


I am tagging Talia, Don Wentworth, Reyes Cardenas, Laurel Snyder, and David King
Thank you for tagging me and hope those who are tagged will participate...

Poetry Tips: Mad Lib Poetry

Yes, it is just what you think it means. Start a poem and leave blanks for nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and see if you can fill them with words given by friends, family, and snatches of conversation. This idea came to me when my husband and I started playing Mad Libs several nights in a row. You could turn this idea into all kinds of things. For one, you could solicit e-mails from friends requesting nouns, verbs, etc., select the winner, fill out the poem, then e-mail the winning rendition to everyone. You could also leave the blanks, mail it via snail mail and see if you get any response. Plus, think of all the times you try to write poems and get stuck on a word that fits in with a particular line, or trying to create a rhythm but the words for it don’t materialize right away. Now you can turn it into something much more fun by leaving some blanks for others to fill out. Happy Leap Year!
Have fun and may the muse be with you!

Note: For my regular readers you may know that I’ve been seeking answers to several questions in my Feb. 15th post for Poetry Tips and I now have enough responses to post answers to the tip questions for each Friday in March and the first week of April. Thanks to everyone for their participation!

Also, thanks for reading and please come by tomorrow for another poetry blog…

Wicked Alice Open Submissions

This is a women-centered magazine but any gender can send 3-5 poems via e-mail to:
wickedalicepoetryATyahooDOTcom. Simultaneous submissions are accepted so long as you notify the magazine if your poems are accepted elsewhere. They also explain it may take up to 3 months to receive a response. Below I’ve included the link to their submission guidelines and I urge you to look around the site for further insight.

http://www.sundress.net/wickedalice/submissions.html

Good luck with submissions, please come by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips!

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=13925
“My Affair with Rumpelstiltskin” by Ina Loewenburg is darned clever and so very good.

http://www.jubilat.org/n13/hong.html
“Protean Woods” by Cathy Park Hong, great imagery

Out of Order

Sorry folks, there really aren’t any poets who have passed on left in the library. I’d rather buy the books of poets who are still living as they need the funds more than dead ones. So for now the Tuesday feature is suspended until I come up with something else. Any suggestions? Let me know!

Also, I have plenty of responses to my Poetry Tips and do not need any more, thanks to everyone who answered!

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for poems found by Poet Hound…

Debbie Yee's Site

I featured a poem by Debbie Yee in an earlier post and found her website which features poetry, art, and she sells her own DIY chapbooks. Frankly, I’m jealous! Why not everyone have a website where they can sell their own DIY chapbooks? Brilliant! I hope you’ll check out her site and agree that it is a worthwhile exploration.

http://www.debbieyee.com/

As always, thanks for checking in and I will see you tomorrow…

John Ashberry

John Ashberry is well known in the poetry world and has had a prolific literary career. Mr. Ashberry was born on July 28th, 1927 in New York and has won numerous awards. Until recently I had not been able to get my hands on a book of his and was quite happy to find one in the library since I’d heard of him so often. I’ll also admit that some of his poems were a little over my head at times but there is something for everyone in the volume of poems titled Where Shall I Wander published in 2005 by HarperCollins.
“A Visit to the House of Fools” has clever imagery from the opening line: “The year subsides into clouds/more beautiful than any I have seen—“ and further down the poem is “Test tubes doze. A wide window watches the sea.” I love reading such lines because my imagination soars to soak in what the images would look like.
“Interesting People of Newfoundland” is funny as it discusses all the local townsfolk and their quirks as well as town landmarks. I wish I was able to write something like this. For example: “Doc Hanks, the sawbones, was a real good surgeon/when he wasn’t completely drunk, which was most of the time.”
This is only the tip of the iceberg of Ashberry’s poems. The link below provides links to some poems he has written along with an audio poem. Please check him out at:

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/238

Thanks for reading and please drop in tomorrow for another poetry web-site…

What to Wear During an Orange Alert

This blog is dedicated to reviews of music and literature (poetry included) and I check in on it from time to time. Thought you might like a blog that covers a little more than just Poetry 100% of the time. It’s a great read and you can always offer suggestions for items you’d like to see. Check them out at:

http://wearduringorangealert.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for another living poet.

Poetry Tips: Dare to Spread Out

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not good at this above tip and that is to take your poem all over the page. You’ve seen those poets who are able to move lines way back and forth across the page, or create descending ladders of words that form a poem. So often we either use the typical “boring” left-justification setting, or maybe we’ll be a little more creative and use “centered” justification. Why not break out of the mold completely and just take a poem all over the place? You can even try it with an existing poem you have, just whip it all over the page and see what happens. The few poems I’ve tried this method with were a tad too short for the way I wanted it to turn out, but I’m working on it. I dare you to try it, too!

Please don’t forget my post on February 15th requesting answers to five questions to be utilized as poetry tips in the future!

May the muse be with you during your writing and all creative endeavors, I will see you tomorrow for another featured poetry blog…

Threepenny Review Open Submissions

Definitely check out the link below for more guidelines regarding poetry submissions. In the meantime, you should know that they pay $200.00 per poem, yes, that’s right, $200.00! I stumbled upon an ad for them in the magazine POETRY and then looked them up on-line. No simultaneous submissions, be sure to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and don’t forget to familiarize yourself with their journal before submitting.

All submissions should be sent to:
The Editors
The Threepenny Review
PO Box 9131
Berkeley, CA 94709

http://www.threepennyreview.com/submissions.html

I wish you luck and continued creation of imaginative and wonderful poems! I also hope you will stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179790
Susan Mitchell’s “Bus Trip” needs only one word: Beautiful

http://www.poolpoetry.com/hamby%202007.html
Barbara Hamby’s “Mambo Cadillac” also needs only one word: Fantastic

Thanks for checking out the links, please stop in tomorrow for another open submissions…

Oh my!

You know, I never thought this was possible. I am fresh out of dead poets at my local library this week. Or, at least, when I was able to spare enough time to GO to the library I ended up picking a stack of exclusively living poets. Not that it’s a bad thing but it means today’s feature is about you reading my ramble about not having any dead poets today. So if there are any dead poets you’d like to see, please leave their names in the comments section and I will go to a different library and start searching there. Thanks, and I’ll see you tomorrow for poems found on the world wide web.

Anthology Site

Anthology.org is based in Arizona, specifically Phoenix, and I wish more cities/towns were able to create a similar site and have these kinds of events. Poetry slams, reading series, and people come together in Scottsdale, or downtown Phoenix and there is even a Slam Team. Seriously, check this site out for inspiration whether you’re anywhere near Phoenix or not, this is just plain awe-inspiring… If I had the energy I would try to get all these kinds of events going in my own town.

http://www.anthology.org/

Thanks for stopping in, please stop by tomorrow…

Maxine Kumin

Maxine Kumin is a prolific writer who covers several genres in addition to poetry including novels, short stories, essays, and memoir. Born in Philadelphia, PA in 1925 Maxine has received numerous awards for her work including the Ruth Lily Prize for her poetry. I picked up her book, Jack and Other New Poems at my local library and thought that you, too, may have been under a rock and not read her yet either.
The link below can lead you to her poem about her horse, Jack, that is also mentioned in the title. What I like about this book of poems is that she covers a wide range of subjects such as pets and war. Luckily, the change of subjects doesn’t come as a shocker nor does it leave you feeling confused about the arrangement of the poems. Everything seems to come very naturally. If you have a sense of humor, I highly recommend the poem “Leech Spit.” Also, the poem “The Apparition” is a wonderful ode to a pet who has passed. Lines such as “That night the old dog works/his way back up and out/gasping, salted with dirt/….I swear I recognize:/some flap of ear or fur/swims out of nothingness…” I think we all visualize loved ones appearing before us after they’ve passed and pets are no exception. This poem is tender and heartening. She even addresses Siamese twins Cheng and Eng and compares them to relatives of her own. What I enjoy is how clever Maxine Kumin is. There are fresh view points on the subjects she writes about and I hope that you will find her clever as well. Please pause and read her work when you happen upon it.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/94


Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for another poetry web-site…