Silliman's Blog

Saturdays, for the time being until I run out, will be dedicated to Poetry Blogs. I will only feature those that are current. As in, the blogger is STILL writing in them. I’ve looked at quite a few that are running only to discover no one has written in them since 2005 or, stopped writing back in May 2007. No, you don’t need to waste your time looking at those.

I will be shocked if you haven’t already stumbled onto Ron Silliman’s blog at:
http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/
Mainly because he has been read by over one million people and I am just starting out. Ron Silliman is a published poet who speaks much more eloquently on the subject of poetry than I ever will. He is the professional in the industry and can clue you in to news articles regarding poetry as well as his own articles on criticism (all constructive, of course). I highly recommend visiting his site every day as there are always new and interesting things to learn. He has been blogging for five years or so and is therefore an experienced blogger to be taken seriously. Please check out his blog and thanks for stopping by. Tomorrow we will feature a fun-loving poet, see you then.

Also, an up-dated weekly outlook on Poet Hound:
Sunday: Living Poets Featured
Monday: Cool Web-Sites related to Poetry
Tuesday: Great Poets who have Passed Away
Wednesday: A Poem by Poet Hound OR by You, the audience
Thursday: Journals/Publishers Open to Submissions for Your Poetry
Friday: Poetry Tips/Ideas
Saturday: Poetry Blogs

Friday's Poetry Tips: Unusual Words

For those of you experiencing writer’s block, have you thought of trying some unusual words? You know, the ones people don’t say out loud very often. Sometimes it is fun to bring in a word, unsuspecting, to the reader to make their eyes pop and widen. Try writing a poem or two with any of these words. After all, how often do you slip them into conversation?

Opulent
Crass
Elliptical
Illustrious
Bucolic
Rutabaga
Melee
Taciturn
Acrid
Stench

Cimarron Review open for submissions

Hope Thursday is a good day for you. For Poet Hound, Thursday is Open Submissions for literary journals and small presses of all kinds and today I'd like to let you know that
Cimarron Review is currently accepting submissions. You may send 3 to 6 poems and absolutely no previously published pieces allowed. Response time can take up to 6 months and feel free to contact them after six months if you haven't heard anything. If you would like to submit your poems to Cimarron, here is their address, and don't forget the Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope:

Cimarron Review
205 Morrill Hall English Dept.
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74078

Good luck! We'll meet tomorrow for tips/ideas for writing poems.

A Call for Submissions

Good morning everyone!
Poet Hound would like to make Wednesdays, and perhaps Saturdays, a day to feature poems by other poets. If you would like, you may submit one poem per month to:
poethoundblogspotATyahooDOTcom (written this way to avoid e-mail harvesting spam bots)

No profanity, pornography, or overtly religious poems, and nothing over 50 lines in length. I will reply to everyone as quickly as I can but the answers may be exceedingly short depending on the amount of poems submitted. Yes, it may be previously published.

Please include a brief note about yourself and whether you have any chapbooks/books available for purchase and where they can be obtained if applicable. I am always a fan of supporting poets. It would be wonderful if poets could make a real living off their writing alone. Anything I can do to help that along I will do. If you are a beginning poet, you'll be considered, also. I wish you all the best luck for the long haul.

Thanks, and please submit, the first poem will be published Wednesday, Sept. 26th.

Fishouse, Audio Poets

Hello and welcome! Have you heard of Fishouse before? Well if you haven't, you need to check it out. Live poetry on audio, interviews with poets, and the latest happenings.
http://www.fishousepoems.org/ Click the link and go!

Don't waste time, go! Go now!

Random

Well everyone, Saturdays are usually full, and today is. I'm taking a brief moment to get personal. I've been writing poems since I was an itty bitty kid and my New Year's Resolution for 2007 was to take it seriously and try to get published in a literary journal. So far I've learned a lot more about poetry than I ever imagined. For one, I used to read only the "classics" like Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Latin poets such as Pablo Neruda. Once I joined a poetry group my world was opened to Tony Hoagland, Li Young Lee, Mary Oliver, and so on. As a result of these discoveries I try to support poets who are still living.
There's one chapbook I keep picking up and putting down in an independent book-store titled something like "Explaining the Theory of Relativity to the Cat." I would like to buy it but it is $8.00 for a chapbook that is STAPLED together. I can get all kinds of books with beautiful, normal, bindings for that price or cheaper. I know it isn't the poet pricing it, it is produced by a small press of some kind. However, $8.00??? Are you nuts?? Who do they really think will buy it? I might pony up 5 bucks, but I'd say 4$ or less should be the norm for a stapled chapbook. Anyway. That is my random comment for Saturday.
Look forward to seeing you tomorrow when we discuss another living poet!

Poetry how-to's, Repetition

In poetry there are times where you may want to repeat certain words or lines to emphasize the importance of a subject or idea. For example, most songs have a chorus that is repeated throughout and most listeners latch on and learn these lines first and repeat them with gusto.

Here are some ideas to use for repetition:
1. Write the same beginning line for each stanza.
2. Write the same beginning line changing only one word at a time in each stanza.
3. Repeat the same word once in each stanza.

*Things to think about:
"Repetend" is the irregular repetition of a word or phrase at various places throughout the poem.
"Anaphora" is the repetition of a word or group of words at the beginnings of lines.

Happy writing and if you're brave, post what you came up with in the comments section. Thanks for stopping by.

Open Submissions from Jubilat

Hello and good morning. I have a few precious minutes and wanted to share with you at least one place that is open to receiving poems.
Literary Journal, Jubilat, is well-respected and is one of the very few journals that will accept poems over the internet. In fact, the editors prefer it.
Just go to: http://www.jubilat.org/n12/
and then click on "submit" in which you can then post your poems for the editors to read. You will create a name and password and you can check on the status of your poems regularly. Isn't that wonderful? This is the only place I know of where you can finally see your poems go through the stages of being read and accepted/rejected without waiting for weeks or months with no indications of what's happened.
Happy submitting! Thanks for checking in.

A Poem by Poet Hound

Sorry I had nothing for Tuesday, my internet went dead, and I have no idea why. However, it's working today and onward with the program! Wednesdays are poems by Poet Hound so here is another one for you:

Assembly

I think on it for a week-
it becomes my patchwork quilt
with squiggles and lines besides.
In the marinade of brain juice
it sloshes into view shimmering
just out of reach until
I grasp it with both hands.
Paper to table,
pen to paper,
I declare it
a masterpiece at last.

Poets and Writers Web-site

Poets and Writers is a magazine which helps writers and avid readers find publishing venues, learn the trends, and features interviews with writers of all kinds of genres.

Their web-site is great to get a taste of their magazine as well as find publishing venues. You can also find some how-to articles about how to deal with rejection, which writers are becoming well-known, and what is going on in other parts of the world.

My favorite part of the web-site has to do with the information regarding open submissions for writers. If you're not sure who will welcome your short story, poem, interview, essay, this is the place to look. The editors tell you where, when, and sometimes how to send in your material. There are also contests you can enter for prize money or to win a book deal, etc.
If you are a writer or love reading interviews of favorite authors, this is the web-site to go to.
See you there!
Thanks for checking in.
http://www.pw.org/mag/

Lola Haskins, a Woman after my own Heart

Lola Haskins has produced several books of poetry and I have recently picked one up after rummaging the poetry shelves of my local book-store. The book I have in hand is titled Extranjera and it was published in 1998. Trust me, she has written more books since then. She also happens to teach poetry, has published a how-to book, and teaches in an MFA Program for poetry.
The reason I like her is rather selfish. I love all things having to do with latin culture (though I'm not latin myself) and Extranjera recalls images of Mexico and the Spanish language for me. Her poems are lively, they describe many fantastic places and scenes, and of course, has bits of Spanish throughout which draws me in immediately. Here is a sample of one of her poems:

Los Viejitos

They leer from market stalls,
lean crudely carved in their
hundreds, on sticks of canes.
....
. First, though,
their cunjunto squeaks a set,
its violin so out of tune a dog
would run. And then at last
the old men, bent double,
enter in a twist.
....When
they lift their masks we glimpse
that even these are children.
They will overwhelm us all.

*I grew up watching this actual dance. It is clever and funny, pure entertainment, and rich with tradition. How could I not love a writer who captures all of this in such a short span of words?

Poet Hound's Daily Regimen

To those of you who read this blog, I'd like to let you in on how I figure out what to place in the blog each day. Think of Poet Hound as being a professor of Poetry 101, it's very basic in describing terminology, types of poems, and clueing you in to useful places, awesome poets, and so on. Here is essentially the basic format (which will vary from time to time):

Sundays: Devoted to Poets who are living writers. This way you will be supporting poetry in the now, and can still write letters to those poets who inspire you the most.

Mondays: Cool web-sites involving poetry.

Tuesdays: Anything goes. Could be news, could be a magazine, could be personal blogging. You'll just have to wait and see.

Wednesdays: A poem by Poet Hound. These are most likely rough drafts, poems that have already gotten published, or poems that may not ever be sent out to get published.

Thursdays: This is essentially another "anything goes" day, though I try to devote it to definitions of basic terminology in poetry and what all you can do within your community in your pursuit of the written word.

Fridays: Poetry How-To and Tips, such as how to write a certain kind of poem, how to get on a publisher's radar, how to expand your imagination when writing.

Saturdays: I was hoping to make this day a "contest" day for others to post poems, so please feel free to do so. I will happily post other people's poems that I like on the "comments" section, otherwise it is pretty much an "anything goes" day. There are several of those "anything goes" days which I hope to turn into something more steady and productive as I become more familiar with blogging. You see, I've never done it before. Perhaps you've noticed? :-)

That's the basic format. And now my next post will be about a living poet!

Science of the Sonnet

Yes, sonnets may seem archaic, tired, old, and so on... However, Shakespearean sonnets are pretty much what people think of when it comes to sonnets. Did you know there are other kinds of sonnets? While all of them consist of fourteen lines, there are a few variations and the sonnet, which originated in Italy, means "little song."

Your typical Shakespearean sonnet has an ending rhyme pattern of:
a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g

Petrachan (named after the poet Petrarch) has the fourteen lines divided into an octet (set of eight lines), and sestet (set of six-lines) rhymed like so:
a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a and c-d-e-c-d-e

Finally, we have the Spenserian (named after poet Edmund Spenser) who is a mix of the above:
a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c-c-d-c-d-e-e

I found this information in a book titled: The Poet's Companion by: Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Lux.

Now here is a sonnet by Shakespeare to ponder upon while you notice the format and rhyme scheme:

16.
But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time,
And fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blesses than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset
With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit.
So should the lines of life that repair
Which this time's pencil or my pupil pen
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
To give away yourself keeps yourself still;
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet
skill.

Thank you Shakespeare, and thank you all for reading. Poet Hound will not be posting on Saturday, so check back on Sunday. Have a wonderful week-end.

Small Presses

The small press is a godsend to many poets and poetry lovers. Without them we wouldn't have nearly the range of poems that we see on bookshelves or in internet stores. Small presses are basically small versions of publishing houses.
Sometimes it is run by just one person who may be stapling chapbooks together and distributing them to independent book-stores, or having chapbooks and regular books "perfect bound" and asking a distribution company to help distribute them. Some are larger and produce more than one book a year. Either way, they are heavily relied upon to spread the diversity of poets' writing throughout the world.
Some small presses are:
Marjie/IntuiT House, Wings Press, Dancing Girl Press, Beard of Bees, and Counterpath Press. The majority of this list came from a Poets & Writers magazine featuring the small press. There are hundreds more to be listed. Part of the reason I run this blog is to show people small presses to help them find poetry they may be missing in the stores, and to help small presses get their name and recognition out there. I am unable to produce the web-links for all of these at this time, I happened to get up early enough to post some of this before work started. I will, however, be able to attach Beard of Bees' press to the web links on the side of the page.
Visit the small presses and send them a wink and a smile, thanks for checking in!

Poem by Poet Hound

Kilbourn Hole

Making love to sand
sifting away in dreams,
the sweaty breath of
salt baking, left over
from oceans
long since receded.

Sweat picks up all grains
grinding against the sunburned
skin- the sun marking its territory
in the deserts of New Mexico.

Sandals slide in dust,
shoes gather grains
in the toes, the desert
spreads itself farther
into homes, houses of
musty memories.

The desert is never
as forsaken as
the romantic writers
would have you believe.