Blog: Home of a Cackling Jackal

Reb Livingston, creator of No Tell Motel, has created this blog. She happened to add my blog because I featured one of the poets she published, Laurel Snyder. I started reading her blog before she featured me and I was happy to see the link for Ms. Snyder. Reb is funny and insightful and will clue you in to Poetry sites and poems galore. Not only is the blog fun to read, it can be a great resource. I highly recommend stopping by regularly since she posts often. Check it out at:

http://www.cacklingjackal.blogspot.com/

Please take a moment to answer the poll by scrolling down to the picture at the bottom. Thanks again for stopping by, please come back tomorrow for a living poet…

Poetry Tips: Reading Poems Aloud

This seems simple enough, but how often do you read your poems out loud after writing them? I used to be lazy about it until I joined a poetry group. You will be able to uncover words that don’t sit next to each other well, and you may find that you are adding words that aren’t in your poem so that it flows easier.
Be sure to identify any places that trip up your tongue, any punctuation that disrupts the flow negatively, and any words that sound out of place in your poem. It is amazing what you will discover if you read them aloud to yourself. In addition, try to read them aloud to someone else and get their feedback. This has proved invaluable to me. Your audience (no matter how large or small) will be able to say whether the poem made sense in regards to what you wanted it to say, if there are too many “big words” or changes in subject or too simple or too abstract. Depending on the audience you want for yourself, the feedback can also let you know if you are on the right track to reaching them.

Good luck with crafting the perfect poem, please stop by tomorrow for another featured blog!

ALBATROSS Open for Submissions

I am so happy to feature ALBATROSS for open submissions because while you can easily download and read the magazine at your leisure for free, I was able to find the printed hard copy version at a local indie book-store and it is much easier to curl up in a chair and read with a book rather than a laptop. They consistently feature great collections of poems that flow nicely together. Some journals have poems that differ from each other so much that I have a hard time moving from one poem to the next with ease. ALBATROSS issues always flow and ease you into each successive poem and all of them are superb. I never regret spending time reading each of the issues.

ALBATROSS requests 3 to 5 poems not to exceed 200 lines each, no simultaneous submissions, a biography and a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE). For further information about their press and guidelines go to:
http://www.anabiosispress.org/

Good luck with your submissions, and please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips.

Poem by Poet Hound

October’s Embrace

October girls are not obscured in costume,
they are lit from within
like carved pumpkins
delighted to behold bold colors
of autumn forests,
crackling leaves
under every footstep
when the air is becoming
as crisp as their voice
commanding attention
and a foothold
on your heart.
Do not deny her the pleasure
of shaking your hand
or warming you with an embrace
that melts the surliest of souls.
October girls are confident,
clever, and kind
with a pinky-swearing ability
to never let a friend down.
Preserve such a girl,
keep her close,
for if you are lucky
she will prepare you a toast.



Thanks for reading my poem, please stop in tomorrow for another Open Submissions!

Octavio Paz and the Labyrinth

Octavio Paz was born in 1914 in Mexico City and began writing at an early age. His grandfather had an extensive library and was an active political journalist which passed down to Octavio Paz’s father. Octavio also founded the journal Taller featuring emergent writers. He is well known for his work The Labyrinth of Solitude. This book was his study of the Mexican Identity. He is known as an essayist and poet and while he passed away in 1998, his writing is as important today as it was while he was alive.
The following poem comes from a book of his poems titled: The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz 1957 – 1987.

A Draft of Shadows

in magnetic rotation
link and scatter
on the page.

I am where I was:
I walk behind the murmur,
Footsteps within me, heard with my eyes,
The murmur is in the mind, I am my footsteps,
I hear the voices that I think,
the voices that think me as I think them.
I am the shadow my words cast.

Thanks for stopping by, please come back tomorrow for more Poetry by Poet Hound.

Open Books Web-Site

This is a Poetry Book-store in Seattle, WA and while I do not live anywhere close and have never personally visited I did read an article months ago about them. Poetry Only book-stores are very rare and this is one of them. Even if you cannot visit in person you can find lists of their books available for order on-line and if you are looking for a particular poem or poet who you can’t quite put your finger on they will help you find the answer! I e-mailed them and asked if I had gotten my facts right that the book-store was part of the owners’ house and they responded to that and much more! Here they are quoted directly:

“The bookstore is not in our house, not yet. The store is street-level on a busy arterial in what was the garage and basement of a 100 year old bungalow. The upstairs part of the building was a restaurant for 7 years and has been vacant for 4 years. We are remodeling it back into a residence and will live there someday.We gain customers and lose customers as the years move along. We started in this neighborhood with a small general bookstore 20 years ago, moved it and turned it into poetry-only 12 1/2 years ago. We have watched the children of some of our customers grow up, and attended the funerals of some of our customers.We enjoy the store a great deal. There are headaches, of course, as with any business. We enjoy the art form and like many of the people who enjoy too.We changed to poetry-only as it became clear that owning a small general bookstore was becoming very difficult, what with Barnes & Noble, Borders,and Amazon (which was just beginning to make waves when we made the change).The mass market approach to literature was not for us. We each had studied poetry on the graduate level, knew and read poetry, and were able to talk about it to customers, something we couldn't do with science fiction, etc.When we closed the first bookstore most of our business there was in poetry and poetry-related books, so the move made sound business sense.Thanks for your interest,John”Open Books: A Poem Emporium2414 N. 45th Street Seattle, WA 98103(206) 633-0811www.openpoetrybooks.com


Please check them out by clicking the links and do feel free to drop them a line or an inquiry about a poet or a poetry book!

http://openpoetrybooks.com/index.html

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Poet that has Passed….

Blog: Avoiding the Muse

This blogger’s name is Dale Young who lives in San Francisco and practices medicine. All of this is in his profile. What I like about Dale is that he does not fit the description of what most people consider to be a poet. Growing up I was always given the impression that all poets were starving artists who lived in Starbucks. Obviously this is not true of pretty much ALL poets, and Mr. Young is refreshing in breaking up that idea for anyone else clinging to that view. After all, he practices medicine, not only that, but he also magically finds time to teach AND carves out time to write AND is an editor of New England Review. Trust me, he has plenty to talk about and plenty of interesting things going on in his life. Check him out at:
http://avoidmuse.blogspot.com/

Thanks again for reading my little blog, and please stop by tomorrow for another living poet…

Poetry Tips: An Outside Perspective

Many poets, myself included, tend to write poems from only one perspective: their own. They write about their lives, their view out the window, their own objects and family and friends. Sometimes it is good to take a look at things from someone else’s perspective, or even something. For example, if you were to write about the view from the window, why not write it from your pet’s perspective? How might an ant crawling across the carpet to your cabinet door view things?
Or, you can write about events outside of your immediate control. You could write about the wars in other countries, marketplaces in other countries, the sights and smells of a safari you’ve never been on. Perhaps you can write from the perspective of a person in office, a person with short term memory loss, someone with paralysis, someone with mental illness such as Schizophrenia. The idea is to literally set yourself in another pair of shoes and walk it for an entire length of a poem.

Good luck and may there be no writer’s block on your paths of writing…

Tampa Review Open Submissions

This journal ends it’s open submission period on December 1st. So you have some time to pick through your choicest poems before sending. Send between 3 to 5 poems, and include a line count for each one. The mailing address is:
Tampa Review
The University of Tampa
401 W. Kennedy Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33606

http://tampareview.ut.edu/guidelines.html

Good luck to those of you submitting! I’ll see you tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poem by Poet Hound

Cerulean

Skies whisper
secrets of Greek gods who
gild ears of listeners
and hold captive
the sound
of Ancient Rome’s chariot
race wheels which still spin.
Horses whine and whinny,
gladiators blue-faced in fear
fight tigers who grin fully.
Echoes ruminate
into nightmares
and story books whimper
after all these centuries.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my rough draft, check out Open Submissions Thursday….

Allen Ginsberg, Beat Poet

Allen Ginsberg is synonymous with Beat Poets, the generation that revolutionized Poetry in the 1940s and 1950s. Almost all poetry readers know Ginsberg because of his most famous poem “Howl.”

According to poets.org,
“Beat poetry evolved during the 1940s in both New York City and on the west coast, although San Francisco became the heart of the movement in the early 1950s. The end of World War II left poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso questioning mainstream politics and culture. These poets would become known as the Beat generation, a group of writers interested in changing consciousness and defying conventional writing.”

I have picked up Allen Ginsberg’s book Death and Fame Last Poems 1993-1997. His poem “Nostalgia” was written six days before he passed away. The poems reflect his life’s journey, political views, perspective on fame (as he was very famous and dealt with the celebrity world) and his final thoughts.

Here is an excerpt from Ginsberg’s poem:

Don’t Get Angry with Me

Don’t get angry with me
You might die tomorrow
I’m an empty hungry ghost
Any spare change I can borrow?
….

Don’t get angry with me
Hell’s hot tomorrow
If we’re burned up now inflamed
Could pass eons in horror

Don’t get angry with me
We’ll be worms tomorrow
Both wriggling in the mud
cut in two by the ploughman’s harrow
…..

(again, “…..”means the poem is excerpted. Since I am acquiring more readers and realizing I need permission to reprint I excerpt for educational purposes so people viewing the blog get an idea of the poet and I also don’t have to spend ample time hunting down who to get permission from.)
Thanks for dropping in, please stop in tomorrow for more rough drafts by Poet Hound.

Forklift Ohio

Forklift Ohio is not your ordinary literary journal. It is not based out of Acadamia and it does not produce journals in a typical fashion. Check out their Operations tab to find out just how unusual they are. Anyone this interesting deserves a nod. I have been dying to get my hands on one of their journals but I keep spending my money on poetry books instead. They feature poets from around the world and I love exploring their web-site pining for the day that I buy a copy of their journal before heading out to a book-store. Check them out at:
http://www.hubcapart.com/ink/index.php

Thanks for tuning in, see you tomorrow for a poet who has passed but his words carry the howl that is Poetry…

Laurel Snyder and her First Book of Poems

I happened upon PRESS PRESS PRESS blog one day and have to say that the cover art of her book was the first thing to catch my eye. I had never heard of Mrs. Snyder before and searched out some sample poems and found that I thoroughly enjoyed them so I ordered a copy from http://www.lulu.com/content/1139098 and must say I am very pleased. So pleased, in fact, that I sought her out for an interview and here are the results:
In regards to posting the poem featured at the end of this interview, “What the Dock Saw,” Laurel Snyder replied:

“Sure, of course, yes! Please post anything you like. Now that the book is out I think it's my call, though I'll check with the publisher... it was first published at American Letter & Commentary, so they get the credit I think.”

Here is the interview about her new book The Myth of the Simple Machines:

1. I can see that you write in several genres such as essays, children's books and poetry. Do you have a favorite genre and if so, why?

God, what a question to start with! It's a really hard issue for me right now. Because although poetry will always be my first genre, when I'm being honest I have to admit that I feel its limitations strongly. Poetry is (for me) the most important kind of writing. Condensed, reduced, perfect. It serves my need to tinker with language, with my own thoughts. But as a way of communicating with a larger world, a wider audience, it sucks. People can argue about this all day long, but at the end of the day, an essay or a radio commentary or a novel is usually a better way of "telling" someone something. And since I'm a yammery kind of girl, and I love to communicate with people, this is a good thing. Since I've begun to work in prose, especially to write for kids, I feel freed up. But poetry will always be the way I think. It's nice to have both.
2. How has the road to publication been since you decided to try and when did you start?

Oh, lordy... The truth? I wrote my first poem in 4th grade. I took my first workshop in 10th grade, and published my first poem in the high school literary magazine that year. Does that count? I only ever wanted to be a writer, and on some level, what I meant by that always included publishing. But I didn't really start sending my poems out in a serious way until a few years after I finished my MFA. I was feeling really lazy until then. Boycrazy and drunk, too distracted to focus. When I finally got into gear, I found the contest circuit to be awful. Really daunting and dumb. This book was a finalist or semi-finalist too many times to count-- for the Whitman and the Beatrice Hawley, and the Brittingham and Pollack and so on. It made me feel crappy and second rate, over and over. When No Tell Books asked to see a manuscript, I was over the moon. They've been amazing.
http://notellmotel.org/


3. In your first book of poems The Myth of the Simple Machines how did you decide which poems to put together?

I tend to write in cycles, series. So that made the first and last sections easy. The poems in the second section of the book all speak in first person, and the poems in the third section all address (to my way of thinking) language directly in some way. I don't want to get into this too far-- since I want to believe that if it matters, readers will notice-- but essentially the book moves from the bones of narrative, through an accretion of personal/confessional detail, into an examination of language, and then out again. Into prose. It mimics my own process as a student.


4. How did you decide on the title?

I like that its unclear whether the term "myth" applies to the machines themselves, or just to the idea of their simplicity. I'm not sure that I know the answer myself. I love myth. I believe strongly in myth and all that the term implies. The falseness underlying a myth, and our need for it. Religion is a mindf**k, no?


5. I love the cover art and I must admit that's how I first stopped to look at the sample poems. Once I saw those, I fell in love. Did you have any say on the cover art?


I actually commissioned that piece, from my amazing illustrator for a picture book I have coming out in 2008. (http://www.jaimezollars.com/) I liked the idea of creating continuity among my genres. A connection between my poetry and my kidlit. Isn't she great? I think I said, "make it lonely, with a bird, and something that's almost a machine."


6. What was your inspiration for "the girl poems" as you and I call them in the first section of the book?

In the beginning I thought of them as arithmetic. I wondered what would happen if you had a very few number of variables in a series of poems. And you just sort of added and subtracted the variables from one another. I liked the idea of a closed system. I love narrative.


7. I am quite taken with the poem "What the Dock Saw" and would like to post it for everyone to see. So long as I have permission I will do so and would you tell me more about how this poem came about?

Well, so that's the arithmetic I'm talking about... I took the girl, and put her on a beach, and gave her a bottle. I wanted to see what the bird would do. What the girl would do? What the beach would do? I think these poems are very invested in how the inanimate world can become animate. Not unlike kidlit, now that I think about it... Hmmmm....


8. Any advice for those seeking to publish their own poems or stories?

Absolutely. My advice is to be insanely persistent. INSANELY! Publishing does matter. Being read does matter, and feeling like you've taken steps forward is critical if you want to keep on going. But so often people start "at the top" and send to the New Yorker or the Paris Review. Then they get frustrated. My best advice is to find online magazines publishing really good work. So much of the best poetry today is online, because with no overhead, online media can publish more, and they tend to be a little riskier in what they accept...


This is the longest post I’ve ever done and I’m thrilled, actually. But wait! There’s More! Here is her poem, first seen in American Letter and Commentary, mentioned earlier:

What the Dock Saw

1
The moon shone on the bottle, girl inside.
At rest, it was resting. It was still
where the girl slept, cheek to glass. Hushed.

She was done with the water, but first
the water had done with her—nearly
finished her with one clever wave.

And how the bottle escaped the wave
was a miracle of division. It was a strong bottle.
The girl was fine, if held. They were two vessels.

So if a gull, white rustling in darkness,
found himself less white in that darkness,
less lit from above—he could hardly blame

the moon its grudging love.
The gull cried hollow, outside the moment.
The girl slept on. The bottle was full.

The moon felt sad, but when he turned
to them, he turned on them. The girl turned
in her sleep, and the bottle shivered.

2
The girl crawled out, and into morning.
All pale and simple, she found: Herself,
with sand on scrambling knees; Water,

held by the waterline, now inching an apology;
Bottle, empty object; Moon, gone.

Instead, the sun. A sure sun and almost
where she looked, almost everywhere.


Thanks so much for checking out Laurel Snyder’s interview. Please check out her book of poems, they are reported to be out in Barnes and Noble soon if you don’t want to order through lulu.com or Amazon. You can also check her out at: http://www.jewishyirishy.com/
Always support living writers for they are generally unable to make a living off writing alone.

Check in tomorrow for another great web-site!

What You Want, You Know I've Got It

Well, I messed up. I accidentally posted Saturday’s post on Friday, a whole day early.
So, since I did that, I’m going to ask you to let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see in particular in this blog. I started it because I couldn’t find what I wanted, or if I did find it, it was terribly inconsistent. As noted on the profile, my aim is to provide resources to poets and poetry readers, and to keep in concise and understandable. But this blog is nothing without readers, so if there’s a feature you’d like to see more of, less of, or a different feature altogether, let me know. So far there are features on poets live and writing, poets who have passed on, cool web-sites, featured blogs, open submissions for various presses and journals, tips for writing, and my own little rough drafts. If you've got anything to say you can post it in the comments or e-mail me at poethoundblogspotATyahooDOTcom.

Tomorrow I will post my e-mail interview with Laurel Snyder on her first book of published poems titled The Myth of the Simple Machines. Please stop by tomorrow and check it out!

Poetry Tips: Mix and Match

It may be that you have enough poems under your belt that there are similar themes, subjects, words, etc. Many poets have taken two poems and place them together in many shapes and forms. Some have two separate poems side by side on the page so that it is easier to decipher that they are different. Others use spacing and indents while alternating stanzas of two similar poems so that you may not realize two separate poems are co-existing peacefully on the same page. Either way, it is a great exercise in creativity and can be quite fruitful in producing new poems. Good luck, and may the Muse whisper often in your ear.

Drop by tomorrow for another noteworthy blog…


Saturday:

PRESS PRESS PRESS

Now that I’ve gone deep down the “rabbit hole” that is the World of Poetry I was ecstatic to stumble onto this site. PRESS PRESS PRESS features nothing but the newest poetry books out from small presses. Please by all means support these little presses and their poets by checking them out at:

http://presspresspress.blogspot.com/

Thanks for glancing in and please come by tomorrow for a fantastic interview with Laurel Snyder who has her very first book of poems out from PRESS PRESS PRESS.