Paul Hoover's Blog

Paul Hoover posts reviews, poems, ideas, the works! I really liked his “Poetry Ladder” back in January 25th so if you get the chance to dig through the archives, please take a look. I think the subtle changes as you go down and down is very interesting.
Please take a gander by clicking the link below:

http://www.paulhooverpoetry.blogspot.com/

As always, thanks for stopping in. Tomorrow will be another living poet…

Poetry Tips: I ask you...

I am asking you, poets and poetry readers, to help come up with some tips! I’m looking for answers to these particular questions:

1. How can you support living poets?

2. What are some tips for reading poetry?

3. How do you seek out inspiration?

4. What are the appropriate steps to take when submitting poems?

5. How do you keep submitting after many rejections?

I am hoping to do a series including these above questions as subject lines and I am hoping my regulars and new visitors will be so kind as to e-mail an answer to any of these questions. I will quote you directly, please use one of these questions in your subject line and I hopefully will get enough responses to warrant posting the tips you provide about a month from now. This way you have time to come up with some answers. Thanks so much! Remember to e-mail any answers to poethoundblogspotATyahooDOTcom…

Colorado Review Open Submissions

Submissions of up to 5 poems are accepted from September through April 30th. You have plenty of time to submit some of your more polished work. Don’t forget to include a cover letter, a self-addressed stamped envelope, and for additional guidelines see the link below. Colorado Review suggests that you become familiar with their magazine and they have sample copies for $10.00. If you are familiar with submitting poems and have gotten into the practice of reviewing sample copies you know how important it is to send poems that “jive” with a particular journal’s tastes. Do your research and good luck on your submissions!

http://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/cr/guidelines.html

Happy Valentine’s Day and thanks for checking in, tomorrow’s Friday Poetry Tips have a twist so I hope you will stop by and respond…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176832
“Arms and the Boy” by Wilfred Owens, this one’s for the soldiers and their families…

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19514
“The Rain Poured Down” by Dan Gerber, makes you wonder the circumstances of his mother’s weeping… What do you think caused her to cry?


Thanks for dropping in, please stop by for another open submissions!

Mary Sarton

Mary Sarton was born in 1912 and publishes novels as well as poetry during her long career. Even a stroke in 1986 did not keep her from continuing to write. Sadly, however, she died of breash cancer in July of 1995. I happened to pick up her book, Coming Into Eighty published by W.W. Norton & Company, in the library. This was written after her stroke and explores the process of aging. I have a career that aids those in Nursing Homes and Assisted Living so it was wonderful to stumble upon a poet that explores this topic giving me further insight into the kinds of people I meet daily. I will also note that Mary Sarton was awarded the Levinson Prize for this particular book of Poetry.
Her preface describes a “magical year” in which poems came to her easily at night and she wrote often and well like never before. The poems in this book are as a result of that year and they are all fluid, rhythmic, and beautiful. There are also poems with clever rhyme matched perfectly with rhythm so that they could almost be songs…
“The O’s of November” is one such example, with lines: “Like the trees we are bare/And the chill on the air/Speaks of death.” The ending,also, is strong and clear and crisp just like the month of November itself.
I also love her short poem “A Thought” which is short enough that it is difficult to quote. I leave you the last lines: “Brute power/Is not superior/To a flower.”
If you happen upon this book, please read it. It holds so much more than a woman describing her life in her eighties. It speaks of universal truths and illuminated moments, it is quite worth the reading. If you are able to sit by a sunny window and sip your favorite drink, then you have set up the perfect way to read her book.
For more information about her I have included the link below…

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=6015

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more finds around the world wide web…

Writer's Resource Site

I was trying to find some poetry articles/tips and found this site. There are some ideas for poems, reasons for writing poems, and how to write certain types of poems. All in all, not a bad resource… I have written about some of these already in past Poetry Tips for Fridays but there is plenty in the list of items to look through. Check it out at:

http://www.poewar.com/poetry-articles/

See you tomorrow for another poet who has passed…

Arupa Chiarini

Arupa Chiarini is a poet and playwright in Gainesville, Florida. I found her book, The Ancestors Are Calling Down the Rainbow, published by Carl Mautz Publishing, in my local library. This collection focuses on her ancestry by giving voices of past generations of relatives their voice through poems. The voices are intriguing, relatives speak of their life and what their souls feel like after death.
In one of the beginning poems, “Lucina Hartsorne Whitaker Teft” the lines describe a unique feeling of aging: “I got so old I felt like/a piece of dandelion fluff that might/blow away in the wind.”
The poems bring forth family dysfunction and the individuals’ voices of the bullies and the victims, the poems a process of healing over a century of wounds.
“Linton Teft” was a young man who died on his way home after war in France and had a difficult relationship with his father as described in the poem. I particularly like the lines “My father said I was going to hell,/I hoped hell would be a little like/October and the hard cider would be sweet and cold.”
I enjoyed reading this collection of poems about family and skeletons released from their closets. The idea that you can envision the minds of relatives gone so long ago is not an easy one to approach in any medium so I consider Ms. Chiarini to have strong guts to take on such a project.
I could not find much on the web about her, however. You can purchase this book by Amazon.com through the link I’ve provided if you are interested, however.

http://www.amazon.com/Ancestors-are-Calling-Down-Rainbow/dp/1887694099

In the meantime, thanks for stopping by and reading. Tomorrow is another poetry web-site.

P.S. Thanks for those of you who took the time to answer how many places you’ve sent poems. I wish you luck on all your submissions, may they receive rave reviews and acceptances!

12 or 20 Questions Blog

I have returned safely and somewhat frazzled thanks to the usual muck-ups at airports and I am so glad to be home! Now life can get back to "normal."

Check this out: I found a link to this blog via Ron Silliman’s site and I have been trying to read the interviews off and on, all of them are awesome! Also, Mr. McLennan, the creator of this site, responded to some questions I had and said that due to the nature of his work he knew each and every one of these people personally, so that of course makes for some great interview questions since you can really dive in knowing your subject. I urge you to check them out at:

http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/

Thanks for returning to my blog after my brief absence. Tomorrow will be another living
poet…

Away for a Week

Hello all, I am sorry to say I will be away on a business trip for a full week and will have to get back to our regularly scheduled program on February 9th. Until then, feel free to peruse my blog, the links on the side, or check back in on February 9th.

For new visitors, the typical agenda is as such:

Sundays: Living Poets
Mondays: Poetry web-sites
Tuesdays: Poets that have passed away
Wednesdays: Links to great poems around the web
Thursdays: Journals/web-sites open to submissions of poems
Fridays: Poetry Tips
Saturdays: A poetry blogger is featured

Thanks for dropping in, I will see you again February 9th!

Poetry Tips: Journals with Customer Service

Now for those of you who are rather new to submitting, like myself, I thought you might like to be let in on those journals/sites that provide more personal service when it comes to acceptance/rejection slips.
There are more places to submit poems than I can ever count, but for the ones I have submitted to, there are several who are very kind and if you are looking for someone who actually pays attention and acknowledges you personally, I suggest submitting to these:

Nerve Cowboy
Right Hand Pointing
Lilliput Review

So far, these three take the time to address you as an individual, not just a formatted response. I am sure there are other journals out there like them, I just haven’t found them all yet. The above mentioned all have links on my sidebar so you can check them out to your heart’s content!
Also, once I decided to subscribe to Nerve Cowboy I have received a short, hand-written note from the Editor expressing his desire that he hopes I enjoy the issue. Now how many journals have ever done that for you? This one is a first for me!

Thanks for stopping in, I will see you tomorrow…

Borders Open Submissions

Here is an unusual one for you! Click on the link and find out how to submit your poems to Mark Strand, the judge for Borders Bookstores’ Poetry Contest. This was featured on Ron Silliman’s site a couple weeks ago but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to include it for anyone who might have missed this. You have until March to submit up to five poems for publication in a “Best of” book, and the entries can by audio or test. Good luck!

http://www.bordersmedia.com/odp/contest.asp

Thanks for dropping in, check in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips!

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.righthandpointing.com/Issue18/1chriscunningham.html
“waiting on the sun” by Chris Cunningham pretty much sums it up…

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180096
“The Lonesome Death of Hattie Caroll” by Bob Dylan. Why? Because it’s Bob Dylan..

Ogden Nash the Legendary

Ogden Nash is well known in the world of literature, especially since he worked for The New Yorker for some time. Mr. Nash was born in 1902 in Rye, New York. According to poets.org his first book of published poems had seven print runs in its first year alone. Aren’t you just jealous? I know I am. Mr. Nash also appeared on radio and television therefore drawing quite an audience. Again, aren’t you just jealous? I picked up The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash published by Washington Square Press at the local library. The titles of his poems alone were enough to have me snatching it off the shelf. Ogden Nash passed away in 1971, sadly, but his words are still a fantastic read. He is witty and humorous, his poems often rhyme, and again, his titles alone are enough entertainment! Some examples of great titles are “Curl Up and Diet,” “Kindly Unhitch That Star, Buddy,” and “Polterguest, My Polterguest…” Wouldn’t you just love to find out what these poems say based on the titles alone? “Poltergues, My Poltergues” is about a most undesirable guest, of course, whom Mr. Nash admits that if he had to deal with her again would be much more likely to throw her under the train than help her onto it. Lines such as “She clogged the pipes and she blew the fuses,/she broke the rocker that grandma uses/… give you just a taste of what the detestable Ms. Hopper wrought upon Nash’s household. There are countless poems that will bring no less than a wide grin to your face so if you haven’t already done so, I suggest you read up on Ogden Nash.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/673

Thank you for reading and please come by tomorrow for poems found around the world wide web…

Sunny Outside Press

This site publishes wonderful poetry and is not open for submissions often so if you are looking for when to submit, check their “news” tab often. There is plenty to look at, chapbooks, books, broadsides, and mini chapbooks. Depending on what you want, prices range from a mere $1.00 to $12.00. They have links for their authors, they also host events and have many of their publications archived at Poet’s House. Check them out at:

http://www.sunnyoutside.com/

As always, thank you for dropping in. I’ll see you tomorrow for another passed poet…

Dana Gioia’s Daily Horoscope

Mr. Gioia was born in 1950 in L.A. and pursued a career in business while having studied Literature in college. He also met and studied with Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Fitzgerald as mentioned in the poets.org biography. I picked up his book, Daily Horoscopes, published by Graywolf Press. It happened to be a rainy day when I sat down to read it, and turns out this book has quite a few poems that are just perfect for a rainy day. “Today will be…” is a great poem for a rainy day with lines such as “And lying in the warm half-darkness, wish/ for any of the dreams you left, convinced/ that any change would be an argosy-…” I also enjoy “4. Beware of Things in Duplicate…” which describes things in pairs to be a sort of bad omen. Conveniently, Mr. Gioia has his own website that I have provided a link to below and features poems from his published books for you to look through at your leisure. As always, I hope you find him on the book shelves and pick up his words.

http://www.danagioia.net/
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/423

Thanks for reading and supporting living poets, please stop by tomorrow for another poetry web-site…