Poetry Tips: The Frequent Word

For those of you who write poems frequently you may have noticed that a particular word, or words, sneaks in to the majority of your poems. For me, it is the word “surely” and it is so frequent that I hardly notice it when I’m writing or typing up a new poem and when I go back to read it I become angry with myself and think “there it is again!” It also brings to mind the standard joke from the Naked Gun movies in which Leslie Nielsen replies “And don’t call me Shirley” to anyone who uses “surely” in a sentence. So for those of you in the same dilemma I propose that you write a poem which revolves around your frequent word choice. It can be a tribute to the word, a whine about the word, or you can make your word become a living, breathing entity. Have fun, and surely you have a more fascinating word to work with than I do.

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Up the Staircase Open Submissions

You have until September 25th deadline to three to five poems via e-mail to upthestaircaseATgmailDOTcom with “Poetry Submission” in the subject line, please explore the site to get a feel for the poems they publish and to learn more about their guidelines please click the link below:

http://www.upthestaircase.org/subguidess08.htm

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://caffeinedestiny.com/poetry/FALL2008/ang.html
Arlene Ang’s poems “flashlight solo” and “The Model Particular”

http://www.upthestaircase.org/dawson.htm
Mercedes Dawson’s “Ink Stained”

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Poetry's September Issue

This issue has a wonderful gift for all poetry readers: A section devoted to Philip Larkin—not his poems—but his drawings. My absolute favorite is one he titled “Tea Time” that he had made for his mother. I am often jealous of poets who can paint, but I am also jealous of poets who can draw. Larkin is no exception. While some of the depictions are more like doodles, the one mentioned above is well done and full of detail, right down to the shadows of a toast on a toasting stick. I hope you get a chance to take a look at it because it is so endearing. You can sample one of his drawings at the following link:
http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0908/comment_182121.html

Interestingly, every single poem I “ear-marked” is available on the poetrymagazine.org. The first one, "Ten Moons" by Sasha Dugdale is a beautiful poem dedicated to night-time as opposed to garish day-time sun.

The second is "Rest Before You Sleep" by Dionisio D. Martinez which grabbed the attention of a non-poetry reader in my household. What strikes me about this poem besides the smoothness of the language and the romanticism of weary feet is the way the lines are broken up in each stanza yet they don’t deter from the rhythm of the poem. The spaces seem to take the place of regular punctuation. Instead of periods, commas or semi-colons you encounter the spaces which provide just the right amount of pause for each point. It may not be a new idea but it is done so well that it seems novel anyway. The poem itself is easy enough to understand, so I thought I would share my thoughts on its structure this time around.

Finally, the third poem I ear-marked is "Dressing Down, 1962" by Lesley Wheeler. Really, the attitude is what I enjoy most in the poem. Ms. Wheeler sounds tired and irritable on an international flight, perhaps with a head-ache, and it is endlessly entertaining as a result. The poem leaves you wondering why she left England to come to America, the clues few in all of three lines:“I would do what I said and leave/England. I would ride that El Al jet, mystery/novel in hand and never grieve.” Regardless of her reasons, her first impression of Americans is humorous and will hopefully leave you grinning as it did for me.

Thanks always for reading, please drop in tomorrow for more found poems…

C & R Press Site

This looks like a relatively young press looking to publish emerging poets. They have one published book so far, as I said, a young press, so check in to see when their next Open Submissions are and to learn more about the creators at:

http://www.crpress.org/

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Poetry Tips: Did You Get the Memo?

September doesn’t have much to look forward to, Labor Day is at the beginning of the month and therefore all you have left to think about is work related items since all the holidays also seem far away, even Halloween. So why not pay tribute to your office by creating a poetic memo? Format the poem to look like a standard memo and create a poem about any topic you want, so long as it looks like it was supposed to be received in everyone’s in-boxes or office e-mail. Have fun fighting the work-a-day doldrums!

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Haiku Competition Open Submissions

Did you notice Don Wentworth’s call for Haiku Poems at…
http://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/?

I have copy and pasted from his blog about the contest here (There’s a prize!):

“So, here's the deal: for the next four weeks, send along up to 5 haiku to lilliput review at gmail dot com (spelled out to fend off pesky bots) and the best haiku wins the review copy of Basho: The Complete Haiku. Minimally, I will need your name and email to contact you with the results. In the subject line of your email, please put "Basho Haiku Challenge" so I can easily differentiate it from the scads of other things that come my way. The final date for submissions will be October 2nd and the winner will be announced in either the October 9th or October 16th posting. My definition of haiku is about as liberal as you can get: I follow no one particular method, school or theory and there is no seasonal requirement. Your haiku can be 1, 2, or 3 lines (over 5 would be a bit much, folks, but I will keep an open mind for experimenters). The one restriction would be that it be in the spirit of haiku (I've always liked the definition of English haiku as lasting the length of one breath, in and out and pause, but that's just me - and, oh yeah, I'm the judge, but, again, it's the spirit of the thing that counts) and that the haiku be previously unpublished in either paper or electronic form (ok, that's two requirements).If I get only one haiku, we have a winner, so, what the hell, give it a go. I reserve the right to publish the haiku on the blog (or not), with possible publication in Lilliput Review.And, oh, yeah, spread the word ...To entice you a bit further here's a little something about Basho: The Complete Haiku. Like it says in the title, it's complete, which is significant in itself as all previous translations are just selections (according to the press release, this is the first complete Basho translation in English). That's 1012 haiku by the master. There are 164 pages of notes, one for each poem, which variously treat a haiku's origin, allusions, variations, and grammatical anomalies, the later being quite important and virtually untranslatable. Reichhold has provided an introduction and a short biography, with appendices on "Haiku Techniques", "A Selected Chronology", "A Glossary of Literary Terms", and a bibliography. I've just begun it and it is formidable; I'll be looking at it in more depth in a future post, probably sometime after the contest is over.”

Good luck to all of you who submit, and thanks for dropping by, please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips….

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.octopusmagazine.com/issue10/main.html
“The Legend of Good John Henry” by Dorothea Lasky

http://sixthfinch.com/orgera2.html
“Following An Electric Arc Between Two Luminous Points” by Alexis Orgera

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Kristy Odelius' Bee Spit

I found Kristy Odelius’ chapbook Bee Spit at Dancing Girl Press and thoroughly enjoyed the read. This was published in 2007 and Kristy Odelius has her own web-site that conveniently features one of the poems I had “dog-eared.” Ms. Odelius is an Assistant Professor of English at North Park University in Chicago, Illinois and will soon have published a full length collection of poems at Shearsman Books titled Strange Trades in addition to being nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her poem “Vertigo to Eros.”

Now before I begin reviewing her poem “Third Grade,” please take a moment to read it using the link below:
http://www.kristyodelius.com/pthirdgrade.html
I love this poem because it takes quite a few ideas that were still voiced when I was a small child, such as “sit stare drop/(don’t talk) your eyes/under the table” and pieces it all together into a girl’s life. Then of course, I love the odds and ends Ms. Odelius pulls together for the way girls play: “Learn to mix paint/from spit and berries, write/your name on the sidewalk…” for these are things most kids do growing up. What is interesting is that she goes from a sense of innocence and moves towards the end to darker notions for women’s lives and uses contradictory comparisons. In the beginning there is the vague comparison of “birthday parties and funerals” which piques your interest but is easily passed over to the next few lines. Then it becomes more abrupt, especially in the third stanza “Acquaint yourself with death’s low/whistle, know it better than the rules/of Chinese jump rope.” That line had me thinking for quite a while and I’m still not sure what to make of it. I love that the title of the poem increases the discomfort of the final ending. How can a girl in the third grade have a life described in such a way? From starting out young and told to be quiet, listen, observe, to experimenting with odds and ends in a girl’s while growing up and then finally ending with a sinister sound. The very last line concludes with a somber tone but also hopeful with the words “glory, glory.” What do you think of a poem like this? I think of a girl who loses her innocence but it is hard to pinpoint exactly how. This poem got me thinking, and I hope it does the same for you.

Another poem I enjoyed was “I Called You Darling 7 Ways.” It is the winding down of a relationship told from the perspective of the woman who doesn’t want to let go. I love the odd imagery used for describing the relationship in lines like “You bent the lost skyscraper over my knee./With a lap of glass, I called you darling.” I especially love the lines “I called you, on the phone./I called you darling./The phone warned me.” How many people in relationships that you know who regret the phone calls they make as a relationship is ending? I know I’m in that boat, along with many others who have made the mistake of calling the one they love and realizing that the one they love may not feel that way anymore. There are lots of snapshot-like images in this poem that bring about the feel of the relationship without many words based on human emotion. “I harbored paint-smudge behind my knee./You called me “sad.”/” The word “sad” is one of the only words that names an emotion. The rest of the poem focuses on moments between the two people. At the end, the woman tries to hold on and earns the response of “baby, don’t make it harder than it is.” A trite remark. To which she responds with “I mocked you a little.” Then finally it ends with the man leaving for good, and her last line ends with “I called you darling.” The ending line clinches the whole poem for me because break-ups often feel one-side. One person is done and leaves, the other is still holding on, holding out hope and still in love. This poem is a refreshing change to the majority of break-up poems out there and if you have a chance to read it in this chapbook then you absolutely should find a copy or buy one.

As always, there are many fine poems in the collection, I am only providing a small taste. I hope you enjoy Kristy Odelius’ poems at her web-site (just poke around using the link above) and will pick up a collection of her poems when you stumble upon them.

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Dream Horse Press

Find full-length poetry collections and even their guidelines and open submissions dates at the site below:

http://home.comcast.net/~jpdancingbear/dhp.html

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Sunday Edition 4 Answers

4th Edition answers:

1. Emily Dickinson
2. Rudyard Kipling
3. Li-Young Lee
4. Jubilat
5. Laurel Snyder


I’m not sure how many people were participating in the Sunday Search puzzles but I am going to call an end to it for now since I still have rather busy weekends. If you did enjoy it, let me know, and in the future I may try it again.

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for another featured site.

Non-Holiday Poetry Card

This idea stems from Disney’s Alice In Wonderland in which they sing the “Very Merry Un-Birthday” song. My best friend and I will occasionally belt out this song to each other on the phone for fun and why not create a poem based on a Very Merry Un-Birthday theme or any non-holiday? You could create a poem based on the holiday-void month of August, you could wish someone a Merry Tax Season, Fiscal Year, something others would find strange or perhaps they think you are strange already? Or create a nonsensical holiday as they so often have on Activity Calendars for children or in nursing homes such as Happy Ice Cream Day, Happy Bingo Day, etc. May the creative muse and goddess of humor be with you for those who give it a try.

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by Sunday for the answers to Sunday Search Edition 4, I am canceling this feature to afford myself more free time on weekends…

Albatross Open Submissions

Hallelujah, you can submit via e-mail! Save some postage and send 3-5 poems (less than 200 lines each) to rsmyth@anabiaosispress.org. Copy and paste poems into the body of the e-mail, include your personal contact information and a brief biographical note. To get an idea of what they publish and any other details, use the link provided below and good luck on your submissions!

http://www.anabiosispress.org/guides.html

PS If you plan to mail the poems, be sure to include your Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope and send to:
Albatross Richard Smyth, Editor 2 South New Street Bradford, MA 01835

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=181404
“Advertisement” by Wislawa Szymborska

http://www.jwhagins.com/HuffHickory.html
“Hickory Street Breakfast Blues” by Albert Huffstickler

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Mark Doty's Fire to Fire

Mark Doty was born in 1953 and has received numerous awards for his work including the Ambassador Book Award, Whiting Writers Award, and National Book Critics Award. He also has published several collections and nonfiction—Dog Years was a New York Times bestseller, and he is also a professor at the University of Houston, Texas and lives in New York City.

As always, I picked up his most recent volume Fire to Fire new and selected poems in my local library, published 2008 by way of HarperCollins Publishers. It is a thick volume of poems in which I will stick to my usual mention of just a couple of poems but let me assure you that it is a worthwhile volume to read. The newest poems are towards the front of the book and these are the ones I’ll focus on.

“Citizens” is a poem about a near-miss with a demolition truck as Mr. Doty is about to cross the street and jumps back and finds himself stewing over the whole scenario. How often do we find ourselves doing the same exact thing daily? How often have any of us turned the scenario into a poem? Mark Doty describes the incident in detail and I just love his vengeful lines: “If I carried a sharp instrument/I could scrape a long howl on his flaming paint job/(just under the gold and looming log: DEMOLITION)” after noticing that the driver seemed to enjoy nearly running him over. As Mr. Doty carries his burden of wrath he thinks of how he just needs to let go of the incident, but cannot. “and I’m carrying the devil/in his carbon chariot all the way to 23rd,…” until finally Mr. Doty gets to the bottom of why he is so upset: “but because he’s made me erasable,/a slip of a self, subject to.” Isn’t that the entirety of an experience such as this one? To know you came so very close to losing life and limb but no one seemed to notice or care? Finally, Mr. Doty rationalizes the experience with words we all use “I don’t care./If he’s one of those people miserable for lack/of what is found in poetry, fine.” I know we all use “I don’t care” once we finally get over an incident such as this one. I like the fact that Mr. Doty decides he is one of those “miserable” people and must be lacking something in life, and he names it poetry. Isn’t that just like a poet? Of course I present this poem to you because it’s a universal experience to have a near-miss accident but also because he goes through all the emotions you can go through when you are frightened. You have fear, vengeance, anger, rationalizing, then finally you feel calmer and can move on. These emotions are lived every day in various intensities and I am glad that I found a poem like this one which touches them all in a fleeting moment on a crosswalk. I hope you enjoy it, too, when you find this book on the shelf.

Then there is the poem “Theory of Multiplicity” which is about the idea of noticing someone else’s life. It starts out in a Laundromat in which Mark Doty does his laundry and he is recalling a garden someone had started. “look into the garden someone made next door/on the edge of the sidewalk, spilling onto the pavement,/surprisingly wild, with prairie grasses, a shrubby coneflower, strapping and frowsy black-eyed Susan, even a few bees” Mr. Doty describes sitting outside observing the passerby and the idea of others who may have noticed the same garden “What was/the garden but the sum of all that, studied or casual?/Perception carried, loved, considered, dis- or regarded.” I love that last line because there are so many ways to perceive something and think of all the passerby on the street who may have noticed the garden but either didn’t think much of it, or enjoyed seeing it every day on their way about their business. I think this is a romantic idea, something simple and possibly overlooked being seen daily the a large amount of people and who knows if the person who tended this garden even knew or cared what the passerby thought of it. “it took all of us/to make the garden known./No one could assemble/the entire vantage we made together.” These lines bring out a wonderful sense of community out of something so ordinary and doesn’t that make daily living extraordinary when you think about it? “The next summer the garden would be sparse,/not well tended, and offer no consolation…” Then we hear Mr. Doty’s lament of that magical garden not having the same quality the next year and remarks “though even its diminishment might be said/to be one of its nearly endless dimensions.” So even though we may lament change in our daily lives, even in something simple, it is still just another way of looking at the world, not the end of it. That’s what I take away from this poem, the idea that no matter how small, someone notices and that when something changes it is noticed and altered in our perception. Think of your neighbor letting their grass grow a little longer as they age and don’t have the ability to mow as often, or a child tending a wild garden of her own then making it cleaner and neater as she grows up. Or how about when a neighbor paints their house after a long period of time and how wonderful it looks. Think of the things you do in your daily life that you wonder if anyone notices and realize that someone might actually notice it after all. Maybe your co-workers know you’re the one washing up everyone’s coffee mugs or straightening up the conference room but haven’t thought to say “thank you.” Just imagine all the little things you and your neighbors, co-workers do daily that are noticed after all.

To find out more about Mark Doty and to read some of his poems available on-line, please click the link below:
http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/91

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