Poetry Tips: Blind Perspective

If you are able to read this then you are not blind, so for this week’s idea for poetry it is to write a poem as though you really are blind. What kind of poem would you dictate if you couldn’t see? How would it change the poems you typically write and could you recreate an existing poem from the “viewpoint” of being blind? I wish you luck to those of you who are up to the challenge.

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Gloom Cupboard Open Submissions

“Our guidelines are deliberately vague because we have nothing worthwhile to say. It’s up to you to take us beyond what has gone before.email: poetry/flashfiction/shortstories/articles to aprilmaymarch777@yahoo.co.ukSubmissions are now required for #70. Our last call of 2008”

Take a look at their site, http://www.gloomcupboard.com/ so you can get a better idea of what kind of work is published and good luck to all who submit!

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Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14218
Craig Arnolds’ “from A Place of First Permission”

http://www.versedaily.org/2008/spoke.shtml
Erin Malone’s “Spoke”

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Frank O'Hara's Meditations In An Emergency

I picked up Frank O’Hara’s book, Meditations In An Emergency at my local library and was very happy to read through it. Born June 27th, 1926 in Baltimore, Maryland, Frank O’Hara would move to Boston, Massachusetts to study piano and become a sonarman in World War II. Frank O’Hara’s first passion was music, which he majored in Harvard, but also began writing poetry for which he has become well-known, as well as his friendship with John Ashberry. He also became associated with painters such as Jackson Pollack and Jasper Johns to which he worked with collaboratively with his poetry.

In this collection of poems, published originally in 1957, it is obvious that he has a sense of rhythm in his lines without a need for rhyme and the structure of the lines can vary within a poem. There are countless enjoyable poems within the pages and of course I will only select two to mention.

The first one is very simple and almost childlike, but when you read it in context with all of his other poems the very reason I enjoy this one is because it has been stripped down to its childlike wonder. This poem is titled “Les Etiquettes juanes.” The poem is simply Frank O’Hara picking up a leaf and observing it. “Leaf! You are so big!/How can you change your/color, then just fall!” This stanza sounds exactly like how I thought as a child when playing in the leaves, and he accuses the leaf of being “too relaxed/to answer me.” I love the idea he places on personifying the leaf, another trait children have. He ends his poem with the lines “Leaf! don’t be neurotic/like the small chameleon.” Again, the personification of the leaf and the childlike view of it makes this poem just pure and simple pleasure to read. Also, it is a great poem for this time of year, since leaves are falling in beautiful showers of red, orange, and gold in different parts of the country.

Another poem I quite enjoyed is titled “On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday.” This poem showcases his passion for music as well as his admiration of Rachmaninoff, the composer. “Blue windows, blue rooftops/and the blue light of rain,/these contiguous phrases of Rachmaninoff/pouring into my enormous ears…” I like to think the word “blue” is used to explain O’Hara’s thoughts on the music and how it affects O’Hara’s view of his surroundings. Blue often can be used for seeming sad or somber but in this poem seems to connote more the idea of crisp and cool like water which is often described as blue in color. “…for without him I do not play, especially in the afternoon/on the day of his birthday.” O’Hara’s admiration being so great that he does not attempt to play Rachmaninoff’s music is a glimpse of O’Hara’s sentimental side and of his view of the importance of paying tribute to his favorite composer. “Only my eyes would be blue as I played/and you rapped my knuckles,/dearest father of all the Russias…” Again, O’Hara uses the word blue to explain his feelings toward his favorite composer, the desire to have been his pupil in the mention of rapped knuckles, and how their relationship would have been as well as the love mixed in with the pain of discipline when he says “dearest father,” all succinctly said in just a few lines. This is what I find remarkable about Frank O’Hara because he says so much with so few words and lines, even when it comes to his longer poems. His poetry is an ideal model for all poets.

I hope that you will find Frank O’Hara’s poems as beautiful and amazing as I do, and I hope you will pick up a copy of any of his collections and relish them all.

To find out more and to read poems by Frank O’Hara, visit the links below:
http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/164

http://www.frankohara.org/

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

Adirondack Review Book Sale

I received this via e-mail and hope some of you may find it interesting and perhaps useful for next year since it has come and gone already, but definitely check out the link:

“Dear Friends, Celebrate publishing's independent spirit with over 100 indie publishers from around the world, all under one roof, selling books you can't get at your big box bookstore. The Indie and Small Press Book is one of New York City's favorite annual literary events. It's free, open to all, and packed with an exciting line-up of public events. You can find more information here: http://www.nycip.org/bookfair
Where: 20 West 44th Street, New YorkWhen: December 6th and 7th (This weekend!)If you can make it, be sure to visit your friends at Black Lawrence Press and The Adirondack Review. We'll have a table on the third floor. Happy Holidays!Diane Goettel”

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Poetry Tips: The Poetry Journal

Most of us keep poems on our computer nowadays but I used to keep them in a spiral notebook—at least the “final” versions once they were finished. Why not find a beautiful journal or notebook to carefully hand-write your favorites in as they come along so that you can easily find poetic inspiration all in one place when you have your stumbling block moments? My mother-in-law bought me the most beautiful journal last year and I am slowly filling it with my favorite poems and treasure it immensely.

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Arsenic Lobster Open Submissions

The editors read year round so please make a note of that for future reference when most other publishers close their reading periods. You may e-mail 3 to 5 previously unpublished poems to lobster(at)magere(dot)com. In the subject heading of the e-mail be sure to title it using your “first initial, last name, date, and what you are submitting” for example: P. Hound 12/04/08 Poetry. Also note that they will take simultaneous submissions but be sure to notify them if your work is accepted elsewhere. Take a look at the link below to find out more:

http://arseniclobster.magere.com/1submission.html

Good luck to all of you who submit, thanks for dropping in and please stop by tomorrow…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.jwhagins.com/benca.html
“White Christmas” by Nick Benca

http://www.blossombones.com/summer08/cook_s08.html
“Stop Motion Lamb Figurine” by Juliet Cook

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Lynda Hull's Collected Poems

Lynda Hull was born December 5th, in 1954 in Newark, New Jersey. Although she passed away early in 1994 in a car accident, she has quite a collection of published poems that you can find in her collected volume, Lynda Hull Collected Poems as I have or in her smaller collections still available today. She has won several prizes for her poetry which were often influenced by her love of Jazz. You can learn more about her using the poets.org link below, there are many featured poems for you to peruse there as well.

One of the poems I enjoyed is titled “Night Waitress.” It is, quite simply, about a waitress taking in the scene before her while reminiscing about her own personal life and I am often fond of the simpler poems with clear meanings. As Lynda thinks of her mother, she writes “She washed the floor on hands and knees/below the Black Madonna, praying/…who’s not here tonight when I lay out the plates,/small planets, the cups and moons of saucers.” What I like about these lines is the imagery, you can picture a woman scrubbing the floor of a church under a Black Madonna, or a world of plates and cups. I love the insert of the words “small planets” because you could almost overlook them within the poem but instead they bring out so much more interest in an otherwise mundane idea or task. As Ms. Hull moves onto the description of the customers she admits she is invisible to them although “There’s the man/who leans over the jukebox nightly/pressing the combinations/of numbers. I would not stop him/if he touched me,…” The customers are factory workers who “grip lunch box handles,/belt buckles gleam,” while she prepares to go home after another night of work. “I think of my room as a calm arrival/each book and lamp in its place.” The poem is very simple, describing a single typical night of waitressing but the lines make it enjoyable to read and easy to take in and picture as is. Lynda Hull does write more complex poems and ideas but there are times I’m in the mood for simplicity and ease which is perfectly executed in this poem.

Another poem I enjoy is “The Floating Wedding” where the bride is awake on her wedding night next to her exhausted new husband while looking about the cabin on the lake and out the window at the nightlife. For the aftermath of the party, “artifacts of marriage remain, heavy knives,/ the wedding cake sodden and littered/with the confetti of good cheer./She watches on shore a single headlamp./It’s the drunk. She knows him, has seen him…” The bride contemplates this man who “Nightly/he struggles with the bicycle through the sand/past floating piers and houses with their freight/of sleep.” I love the words “freight of sleep.” She finds another way of saying heavy eyelids, which is a wonderful way to change up the wording of a typical analogy. As the husband sleeps through all of this, “she lowers her veil to the sea,/its crown of flowers floating/like a doll’s small funeral barge.” This is an unexpected comparison to me, flowers from a wedding and then the mention of a funeral barge. It takes a joyous occasion and turns it to a somber event. Juxtaposition is another favorite idea of mine. “When she wraps her arms around herself/she is wrapped in blue fire. She touches/her husband’s whitening shoulder.” To me, these lines indicate that she is alive with passion in her wakeful state while her husband is sleeping, pale through the chill night air during the events taking place in their surroundings. I think this poem is beautiful and I cannot do it justice by presenting some lines in this paragraph. You will have to read it yourself if you can find a copy of her collected poems.


In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Lynda Hull, please click the link below and be sure to read some of her poems that are linked:
http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/726

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Songs To A Midnight Sky Blog

This blog is by a woman living in Florida, much like myself, who blogs about her poetic finds and endeavors along with many other interesting tidbits and information. I find her blog very interesting and hope you will too, please check out the link below:

http://poeticinspire.blogspot.com/

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Poetry Tips: Commercialized Poems

Many people think the holidays bring out the worst in business through crass commercialism and overdone decorations in the stores, not to mention the never ending holiday music streaming through every speaker. Why not use the words you find in commercials, ads, and in holiday songs to create the ultimate commercialized poem? See if you can even shape it to look like a holiday symbol such as an ornament, candle, tree, wreath, Chanukah star, anything that comes to mind. Good luck to those of you who try it, and let me know how it turns out!

Thanks always for reading, please drop by on Monday for another featured site…

Crazy Horse Open Submissions

Happy Thanksgiving! If you’ve got some time over your holiday weekend, try submitting poems to Crazy Horse.

This is one of the few places that accepts simultaneous submissions so I suggest you take advantage of this if you’ve got several gems out there already. You may submit 3 to 5 poems with a cover letter before January 2009 and mail to:
CrazyhorseDepartment of EnglishCollege of Charleston66 George St.Charleston, SC 29424

Or you can use the link below to submit your poems on-line instead and save yourself the postage while finding out more about Crazy Horse.

http://crazyhorse.cofc.edu/

Good luck to all of you and have a wonderful weekend, please drop in again on Monday…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://juked.com/2008/11/badtoothbrushes.asp
“Bad Toothbrushes” by Sarah Sloat

http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14207
“Our Lady of Peace High School” by Carol Muske-Dukes

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Lemon Hound Featured Site

When I first started blogging, this was one of the sites I stumbled on. Here you can find guest bloggers, full length featured poems, information on poetry, really all kinds of wonderful things. Please check it out at the link below:

http://lemonhound.blogspot.com/

Please drop in on Wednesday, I promise I will get the Tuesday’s Featured Poet back up and running once all the craziness in my life calms down a little more, just need one more week or two…

Indiana Review Open Submissions

You may send 3 to 6 poems (translations welcome) with a short bio (with pertinent info. including name, address, etc.) to:
Indiana ReviewBallantine Hall 465Indiana UniversityBloomington, IN 47405-7103
Don’t forget a Self-Address Stamped Envelope and check out the link below for further information. Please note that Indiana Review publishes twice a year in November and May so your submission will be considered for the May issue.

http://indianareview.org/general/guidelines.html

Good luck to all of you who submit and thanks for dropping in, please stop by Monday…