Poetry Tips: Spread The Word

This is National Poetry Month, if you haven’t noticed, and quite a few people who love poetry are trying to share their love of it in any way possible.

Obviously, for me, I have this blog. I also have a Facebook page and I also share my love of poetry with family and friends.

So how about you? How do you spread the word?

One way is by sharing a poem you love with someone you love. Often you can just read a poem aloud to the one you love, or if it is long-distance, send the poem via e-mail or regular old-fashioned mail.

Another way is by promoting poetry using your local resources whether it’s starting a web-site or blog, forming a group or creating a project to share with schools or other groups in your community.

What I want to know is how you share poetry and I hope you’ll share the details with me either in the comments section or by e-mail. Either way, clue me in: How do YOU share POETRY?

Thanks always for dropping in, please drop in again next week…

Right Hand Pointing Open Submissions

I received an e-mail (I subscribe and you should too) announcing an upcoming themed issue: The United States
The poems you submit must have one of the states in the title of the poem and the poem itself can be no longer than 20 lines, shorter is preferred. You must also keep the poem to under 100 words.

The deadline is September 2011

Definitely check out the website and the guidelines page at:

https://sites.google.com/site/rhpissue99/


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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178296
“Boat” by Richard Brautigan


http://chicanopoet.blogspot.com/2011/04/joe-joe-turns-nine-my-grandson-loved.html
“Joe Joe Turns Nine” by Reyes Cardenas


Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

An Interview With Ed Galing About Puschcarts and Peddlers

After 93 years of living and writing, Mr. Galing now has a full-length book of poetry titled Pushcarts and Peddlers published by Poetica Publishing Company. With seventy chapbooks and numerous poems published throughout the small press world, it is my pleasure to interview Mr. Galing again about his most recent collection.


1.) Mr. Galing, how did this full length collection come into being?

The poems in the book were published in various magazines—a lot of them—I just wanted to make one book of them. A lot more poems didn’t get in but it’s ok. Most did.





2.) How did you come up with the title, “Pushcarts and Peddlers?” The cover art by Eugene Ivanov is fantastic, a man with a food cart is perched on the hat of a man looking out at us on the cover. Can you tell us more about the artist and the cover’s inspiration in addition to the title? Is it from your experiences in New York as a young boy?

I do not know the artist. It was chosen by the publisher. He is well known and did the cover for free. It’s fantastic! It was all done by him but [is a] true picture.





3.) I’ve marked too many poems to include them all in this interview so I will only ask about a few of them. The first one the introductory poem you wrote and included before the table of contents titled “the world” which I’ll post along with the question. I feel it is a poem that is very appropriate at any day or time, in any century. What was the inspiration behind this poem?

the world

we live in one world
we share each other’s pain

we must learn
to love and respect

one another’s heritage…

when it comes down
to the meaning of Judaism

it is that all of us
live in a world of

brotherhood

sharing and caring
living the good life…

The poem calls attention to all faiths, for respect. Each religion is important. I feel that way always. Sadly there are so many battles over religion and deaths, WW2 showed how it can be. The poem just wrote itself from the heart.





4.) “prayers on the rooftop” describes your father’s weekly ritual praying on the rooftop. Your collection is based on family and Judaism, can you explain what it meant to you to see your father pray each week this way? How did it affect your own beliefs in religion and devotion?

prayers on the rooftop

my father was a deeply
religious man,
short with a black beard,
and a moustache,
came from the old country
of Russia, with my mother
settled down on broome
street, on the lower east
side…
became a janitor of the
building,
went to synagogue religiously
without fail,
but when it came to friday
evening, he made a special
trip up the tenement stairs,
to the top landing, where
he opened the door, and
walked out on the tar roof,
opened up his prayer book, put
on his shawl, and began to
bob back and forth, intoning
hebrew prayers from the old
testament, until the sun
went down and the moon came up as it
always does, and the stars smiled
on him, and his words of prayer
rang out, all over the roof,
all over the street, and the wind
picked it up, and wafted it away,
out there in the air, and who
knows how many who were walking
the streets heard the sound of
reverence coming from the roof,
and looked up to see where,
and it was almost like the
second coming of the messiah…
if ever anyone needed that,
it was us.

I can still see him up on the roof. I have a photo of him up there. I thought he was very religious and respected him for it. A special man! The poem here has been published in other magazines in various forms. It is a very powerful poem and true. The truth is there. Where better to pray to GOD??





5.) Many people, including myself, are not very familiar with Judaism or its traditions. We are also not familiar with words and phrases in Yiddish and I thought this particular poem was an interesting and light-hearted one. I would call a “shadchen” a “match-maker.” You mention that this woman didn’t need a computer or a directory, a local woman who knew her neighborhood so well she knew who she might pair together. Can you talk more about the “shadchen” and how this poem, “what ever happened to the old fashioned shadchen…?” came into being?

what ever happened to the old fashioned shadchen…?

there was always
this woman who introduced
men and women
widows and widowers
old and older

and she needed no computer
or large directory

only a nose for news in the
neighborhood

who died… who got divorced…
who just came from the old
old country…

who was lonely and in despair…
who was looking for love and a companion…

she worked alone
the shadchen…

she invited couples to tea…
laughed with them, made them
feel good,

soon she had them laughing,
holding hands, making dates,

oh, shadchen, dear shadchen,
oh, dear mrs. Shadchen,

are you still somewhere around
these days?

oh shadchen my dear, oh shadchen.
Somewhere out there,
please appear.


Yes, the “Schadchen” was once an important part of getting together. No computers back then. Just a woman on a mission! She is gone forever, alas. Gone with the TIMES! A lot of women were “shadchens”—word of mouth! Part of the Jewish way of life back then.



6.) Your book begins with a dedication to your beloved wife, Esther, who passed away July 2006, and you have written poems in tribute to her. It is rare in this day and age to learn of couples who truly grow old together, who stay until “death do us part” which is also the titled of your poem: “’til death do us part.” In a marriage spanning sixty years, what are some things you can share with us about her personality and her character that you loved and adored in your years together?

‘til death do us part

when my wife died, i
stood there alone after
the mourners had left.
in the stillness of the graveyard,
i began to weep, for
i knew i would never see
my wife again.
we had been married
over sixty years.
i don’t believe in death,
never have,
so i put my hand in supplication,
and suddenly she came to me
as if from the dead,
took my hand, and
we both walked to our car.
and when i got in,
she slid in besides me,
looking as radiant as ever,
so young and pretty,
and she smiled and said,
“let’s get away from here.
i am not dead, i am with you.”
as i drove away,
my hand held hers,
and she hummed a tune,
and i looked out the window
at the trees and the lake,
and then suddenly,
just as quickly,
she was gone…
no where near me.
she had vanished,
and i was alone,
wondering what had happened,
still smelling her perfume,
thinking of how we both
were twenty years old again.
and i felt the tears coming so fast,
i could hardly see
the roadway.

She was beautiful, like a movie star! Also, gentle and smiled a lot! She was a wonderful wife, mother, friend, and everything I always needed! I miss her. She didn’t like “old age,” neither did I! I wrote a book about her when she died. Full of pictures young and old! Going out all over, everywhere—she loved to dance (we always did)—the book is a treasure—everyone has one in the family. Thanks for the interview.




Mr. Galing, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed and congratulations on the publication of your first full-length book of poetry, you more than deserve it. I look forward to seeing more poems and I wish you continued good health.

If you enjoyed this interview and the poems sampled here, you may purchase a copy of Pushcarts and Peddlers by Ed Galing for $18.00 at:
http://www.poeticapublishing.com/apps/webstore/products/show/2246275

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Razored Zen

Charles Gramlich muses about poetry readings, writing, and much more at his blog Razored Zen, check it out at:

http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for an interview with poet Ed Galing…

Poetry Tips: Chapbooks

The summer season is often a great time to submit a short collection of poems for chapbook contests and so I urge those of you who are interested to start gathering your poems together and forming a collection or two.

Poetry chapbook guidelines vary but a good range of poems to have on hand that are similar enough to make a sensible collection would be 15-37 poems.

As for outfitting a manuscript, you will want a title page, of course. Then an author’s contact information page followed by an acknowledgements page for any poems previously published elsewhere. Prepare a brief biography for those who request one, then begin setting up a table of contents and inserting one poem per page afterwards. This will give you a basic manuscript to work from until you can read the more specific guidelines of a particular press or journal.

Once June approaches you can check into this blog or do on-line searches for poetry chapbook open submissions and you’ll be well prepared to refine/adjust your manuscript for the press who you choose to send to.

Good luck to all who prepare poetry chapbooks, please drop in again next week…

Lilliput Review Open Submissions

Don Wentworth reads poems year round at Lilliput Review, your poems need to be ten lines or less, check out details at:
http://sites.google.com/site/lilliputreview/home


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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://magmapoetry.com/magma-49-reading/
“Errant” by W.N. Herbert, an audio poem


http://www.notellmotel.org/poem_single.php?id=860_0_1_0
“Ongoingnessness” by Eric Abbott


Thanks for clicking in, please stop in tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Arthur Sze's The Ginko Light

Arthur Sze was born in New York City and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from University of California at Berkeley. He has published nine books of poetry, he has conducted residencies at Bard College, Naropa University, and others. His poems have been translated into several languages including Albanian, Spanish, and Turkish. He was also the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he resides now with his family.

The Ginko Light is a collection inspired by a ginko tree that survived the bombing of Hiroshima, the poems within expose tragedy, fate, and survival. Arthur Sze links the beautiful moments of life to the everyday trials and tribulations that provide the richness, depth, and meaning to experiences. Below I will share with you one of the many poems I enjoyed:

Retrieval

A train passes through the Sonoran Desert
when a sudden sandstorm at night sweeps
through the windows: everyone gags
and curses—sand, eddying under the dim
ceiling lights, lodges on eyelashes, clothes,
hair. Memory is encounter: each incident,

a bee thrumming in a hive. You catch
the aroma of incense in a courtyard
but fret you have sleepwalked for hours.
Observing grasshopper legs in a nook,
you brood then exult that a bat roosts
under the eave, yet fail to notice

quince fattening on branches, ache
that your insights may be white smoke
to flame. Though you note toothpicks
at a cash register, an elk head with antlers
mounted to the back of a passing trailer,
you are given a penlight but, within

minutes, misplace it. Without premonition,
striding up a cobblestone street,
through a Patzcuaro doorway, you spot
a raised coffin with dissolving tapers
by each corner, and harbor a string
then tang, wax then honey on the tongue.

The first stanza captured my attention because I remembered the dust storms in El Paso when I lived there. The line “Memory is encounter” struck another chord as each memory that returns is a fresh encounter to the event. Arthur Sze’s descriptive language is rich and flavorful in this poem, especially at the end when he connects the reader to the simultaneous experiences of seeing the coffin and then tasting the tang and sweetness of death through the candles burning at each corner. It’s a beautiful, rich poem full of layers in which the reader can connect to through their own experiences or imagine the experience of the poet. Well done.




If you enjoyed this feature you may look for The Ginko Light by Arthur Sze in your local library, read other sample poems on-line and/or purchase a copy for yourself for $15.00 (not including shipping and handling) at:
https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/browse/book.asp?bg={6984537E-E403-4AB2-81E8-C4D0FC49EE4B}


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

Jeannie Lynne Paske's Obsolete World

These are not poems but the images and creatures Jeannie Lynn Paske creates are beautiful and imaginative and will inspire you, check it out at:


http://obsolete-world.blogspot.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please click in tomorrow for another featured poet…

Poetry Tips: The Definition of Prose

After reading the guidelines to White Knuckle Press I wondered how to explain to readers the difference between a poem and a prose poem. I often think of prose as poetry presented in paragraph form but that is not a real definition.

Below are definitions I have discovered that explain the definition of Prose:


From the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, Prose:
prose poem, a short composition employing the rhythmic cadences and other devices of free verse (such as poetic imagery and figures) but printed wholly or partly in the format of prose, i.e. with a right‐hand margin instead of regular line breaks. This genre emerged in France during the 19th century, notably in Charles Baudelaire's Spleen de Paris (1869) and Arthur Rimbaud's Les Illuminations (1886); a significant English sequence of prose poems is Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns (1971). A prose poem is a self contained work usually similar to a lyric, whereas poetic prose may occur intermittently within a longer prose work.
(I think this is the best definition I found)


My Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Prose:

The ordinary language people use in speaking or writing

(I think this is the worst definition I’ve found)



So there you have it, two definitions, one more helpful than the other.


Good luck to all of you who write prose, please drop by again next week…

White Knuckle Press Open Submissions

If you write prose poems, then this is the place for you! Submit a manuscript of 10-12 previously unpublished prose poems before May 30th to as a word (.doc) or .rtf file using the on-line submission manager on the website. Your manuscript should include a title page, table of contents, a bio, an artist’s statement, and one prose poem per page. You should look at the website and find the previous published prose manuscripts (all available on-line) before submitting to make sure your poems fit the guidelines.

For more details and to use the on-line submission manager go to:

https://sites.google.com/site/whiteknucklepresscom/

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3misNs3VCcs
“He-Man You Smarmy Bastard” by Daniel Crocker from Trailer Park Quarterly
*Plenty of foul language but very funny, you’ve been forewarned



http://www.poolpoetry.com/poeteight.html
“Waves” by Ellen Kaufman

Thanks for clicking in, please check in tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Henry Denander's The Loulaki Bar

Henry Denander’s collection of poems about Hydra, Greece is titled The Loulaki Bar and they do a fine job of making me want to vacation there. Published by Miskwabik Press Calumet Michigan USA, this book is also filled with beautiful illustrations by Mr. Denander himself showcasing the people, animals, and buildings of this little island. Below I am happy to share a small sample to entice you to visit this little island as well:

Cipporo

I wanted to pay Barba Yannis for his work
taking out the old lemon tree in our garden
and planting a new mandarin tree.
He took some money to pay for Nikos’ digging
and for the tree but he didn’t want anything for himself.

Yannis is 80 years old and one of the island’s
few experts on trees, he helps us every year.

But I will buy you a beer next time at
Taverna Kristina, I said.
He shook his head. No beer.
Only Cipporo, he said.

When he passed the taverna later that week
we offered him a glass of that clear white spirit.
It was stronger than Ouzo and too foul for me to drink.

Yannis told us how it made his leg better,
how it helped get rid of his kidney stones.
In the winter he had it with honey and never caught a cold.
Barba Yannis seems like a young boy, his eyes are
full of energy and mischief and he moves around like
he was 50 years younger.
He climbs our trees like a squirrel
and he has no trouble jumping up
on the roof from the ladder.

I may have to give the Cipporo
another try.

This poem is a great little story about a local man and I love that it’s a spry older gentleman who can take on stouter activities and drink than the poet is able to take on himself. Yannis reminds me of the people who turn 100 and are asked how they lived so long and the answer always seems to surprising “bacon,” or “raw eggs,” or “100 sit-ups every morning.” For Yannis, it is Cipporo.



The flood

We had a late lunch at Lulus’. They have
a really good new cook now and all
the local people have returned to the taverna.

But now, this rainy Thursday in early
November, we are the only guests and
the owner interrupts his game of Tavli
to serve us lunch.

Suddenly there is lightning and loud
thunder and the drizzling turns
to very heavy rain.

We know where there is a lot of rain,
the narrow streets leading down to the
harbor can turn into small channels,
flooded with water.

Five minutes later the water comes
gushing down the stone paved street
and the owner rushes out
to save his tables and chairs.

The water takes one of the tables and it swivels
down the street in the high stream of water;
fifty meters down we see an arm
coming out of the doorway of Spiros’ tavern
and he grabs the table before it makes it
down to the harbor and the sea.

Ten minutes later a small metal café table
takes off in the strong stream and the same arm
grabs it further down the street.

It looks like Spiros has done this before,
but of course,
he is used to waiting on tables.

This is another vivid story by Mr. Denander of local life. It’s funny and charming, just as I imagine the town of Hydra to be. I am ready to applaud Spiros for saving the day more than once for the tavern owner and I thoroughly enjoy such poems as these.



Basic Philosophy

People funding their children’s marriage, college,
university – living almost poorly themselves,
working five more years after retirement to bring
their children through college. Not allowing themselves
to do the things they always wanted to do…

There is something wrong here.

And their children will do the same,
live poorly, work all their life (or longer),
give money to their kids. Never retiring.

Our electrician here in Greece, Mr. Lameras,
says he has to work so hard because
his two daughters got married last year and
now one of them is at the university and
the other just had a baby.

Isn’t this a bit the same system as at McDonald’s,
when people are reserving seats before
standing in line for the food
and all the people waiting to sit down and eat
can’t find a free table because all is reserved.

I may be wrong but isn’t there
a conclusion to make out of this?

Maybe I will never eat at McDonald’s again.


This poem hits home for me because I already have made mental notes similar to the poets about older people working longer to help their adult children who in turn help their own children in an endless cycle of trying to help others without helping themselves first and all end up living poorly. What’s interesting is the comparison to standing in line at McDonald’s. Mr. Denander takes two groups of behaviors and finds them strikingly similar which I hadn’t thought of before. It’s an interesting poem and an even more interesting commentary on current social norms, don’t you think?



If you enjoyed these poems as I did, you may order a copy of The Loulaki Bar by Henry Denander for yourself for $18.00 (postage included no matter where you are in the world) at:
http://henrydenander.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=364&Itemid=1

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

Karen The Small Press Librarian

How can you not be intrigued by the title alone? Don Wentworth linked the interview which I have linked here, but do take time to peruse the other posts. It’s a wonderful blog by Karen Lillis:

http://karenslibraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/interview-with-pop-up-bookseller.html

Thanks for clicking in, please stop in tomorrow for another featured poet…