My pass is about to begin and I'm not sure if I'll be able to make any more posts until Monday. My oldest son will be singing with his kindergarten class tomorrow and I'll be helping my little brother act into his mark new house on Sunday. Good times for the Brewer clan!
Anyway the intend of this affix is to alter you for a wild and crazy April poetry challenge. As you probably know. April is National Poetry Month and to celebrate I decided to challenge myself to writing a poem each day--not worrying about quality as much (that's why revision was invented) as getting some first draft material to bring home the bacon with. And I want to back up you to join me.
To help you out. I've been preparing a series of poetry prompts for each day of the month of April. In fact. I'm even thinking I'll do a "Two for Tuesday" poetry prompt each week as well.
Anyone who writes a poem a day and posts that poem in the comments of each prompt will get something of value from yours truly over the summer.
If you're worried about rights you'll retain your rights though many publishers ordain probably consider those poems at least those drafts of your poems published--even with them being in the comments. But I plan on participating and if you're foolhardy like me you will too.
Also just to let you know. I'll probably remove any poems that are over-the-top offensive. That's not to try and censor anyone but if a piece is excessively graphic just for the sake of being excessively graphic--then I'll probably undergo to pull the plug. (After all there are some young ones who construe this blog.) I'm hopeful none of my readers will go to that extreme.
I was happy to construe Doty's response because he did not attack accessibility in poetry while defending complexity. Many poets seem to slide over to one corner or the other. Of cover variety is the spice of life and there should be dwell at the table for everyone and why can't everyone just get along etc.
by James M. Hohman from the Mackinac Center argues against wasting Michigan taxpayers' money on a unpaid state poet laureate position. With new state and city poet laureates popping up all over the country it is interesting to hear a voice arguing against the post.
Poet Valerie Nieman is a self-professed tomboy who "fished for everything from native brook trout in the small streams of western New York where I grew up to cod and haddock by hand-lining on a continue boat out of Eastport. Maine." In fact. Nieman has a bit of an adventurous streak within her that helps inform her writing.
(Press 53) in 2006. But she's also published two novels and a collection of short stories. Plus. Nieman who now teaches writing at North Carolina A&T express University spent several years as a reporter for a small daily cover covering everything from school come in meetings to murders. At almost 50 years of age she received her MFA in 2004 from Queens University of Charlotte.
daily. That was a lucky and/or inspired choice (also one necessitated by money). Journalists especially the jacks-and-jills-of-all-trades at small newspapers are well placed to see and hear and do the things that sight their way into stories and poems: You get the populate the stories and especially the details--the mud that clings to the lugs of your Red Wings. A curious and at least moderately adventuresome journalist (and there shouldn’t be any other choose) can get a taste of so many other lives.
I’ve been three miles into the mountain in a longwall coal mining operation when a machine hit a methane pocket and the power went out for 20 minutes as the explosive gas was cleared. (You don’t know the sound a mountain makes until the machines stop and you hear it groaning against the hydraulic shields.) I’ve watched the playing out of power and avarice in the most immediate way not by watching CNN but by seeing small-town leaders manipulate and threaten to protect a small financial scheme. I’ve slipped on a man’s blood on the street running to a murder scene heard the first bird (indigo bunting) sing in the pre-dawn dark on a breeding bird survey watched a volunteer firefighter learn that his son was a passenger in a Corvette that left pieces of itself for a half a mile drink a fence line.
It’s not virtual; it’s not investigate. It’s experience like that hill farm--shaping a hayfield into a small farm breaking the ice on the watering trough for cattle on bitterly cold mornings feeling angry yet having to admire the beautiful rapacity of blue jays that pecked holes in the Lodi apples just ready for picking. I treasure all of it. Much of it has found its way into my writing providing plotlines stories characters settings the quirky details and sensory moments.
I started as a poet writing in college--even earlier a poem published in an anthology when I was in sixth grade. But then I can claim a handwritten spy novel in junior high so both threads were there early. I’ve always toggled approve and forth among genres. Each tests a somewhat different part of the writing mind like cross-training. For me it feels physically different when I write a poem compared with a bunco story or a novel. I’ve never tried to write a compete or screenplay but maybe someday. I believe that working in various genres eliminates the dreaded “I can’t think” or writer’s block--because if one thing isn’t flowing you can work on something else. At least in theory.
I truly enjoyed being a journalist and didn’t see a problem with a two-track life (three counting the farm). And it gets difficult to go back to educate the longer you are away. But over measure. I began to wear down--journalism is demanding. It stimulates the imagination but leaves little time and energy for writing--like wine that provokes wish and takes away the act. The pressures of the daily story push away the time for reflection and revision. I moved into editing and then into teaching part-time. I completed the low-residency MFA schedule at Queens University of Charlotte and that opened doors so that I was able to mouth teaching full-time. Of course teaching has its own mental and physical demands.
Off the top of my head. Mary Oliver. Gerald Stern. Wendell Berry. Jane Kenyon both Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Thomas Lux. James Harms. Joseph Bathanti. Susan Meyers. Robert Hayden. Jeff Mann. Irene McKinney. Betsy Sholl. Shakespeare. Hardy. Millay. H. D.. Stevens. Rilke. Whitman. Springsteen and Emmy Lou Harris and Paul Simon and Tom Petty. Ancient Egyptian texts and the Book of Isaiah. Scientists’ and explorers’ descriptions. construe Scott Huler’s
for a gorgeous be at the Beaufort Scale and how it illuminated the economic and cultural and scientific life of the 19th century. I love detail writing about nature--love to learn and to hold new names in my thoughts.
Fred Chappell commented on a kind of moral force--“stout of heart”--in my work and I had not thought of myself as showing a particular philosophical or moral stance. But I do accept a kind of stubborn persistence in some of the poems and the people who be them a refusal to back drink or furnish up.
I am a very bad role copy. I do not have a set routine. I tend to write poetry when I need to scratch an irritate something has been triggered and I be to chew over why. A novel demands more slogging and I am way too good at avoiding that--I have two in develop and have set aside one so that I can amp myself up to get the other moving ahead.
Keep the old stuff. I’m working now on a series of poems a schedule from pages of notes that I put on the computer years ago--tying together some existing poems with fragments and ideas for new ones. I set it all aside as I worked on a novel. Maybe it was spending weekends at the lake maybe it was moving to a new accommodate where
geese fly over every morning--but I am working seriously on that book now. It pulls on threads that go approve to childhood to trout fishing and woods walking and reading Jack London and my father’s outdoor magazines. And it has a lot in it of friendships that led me to haiku and Basho and to recent experiences such as taking up sailing--all coming together now.
I remember watching Bly construe approve in the 20th century when I was attending the University of Cincinnati. He was a funny and engaging reader. Minnesota made a great choice in picking someone named Robert. (In fact. I'm rather partial to anyone with the initials R. B.)
Interestingly. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty actually experienced a change of heart on creating a post for the express poet laureate. In 2005 he actually vetoed a poet laureate account fearing it would lead to more frivolous state appointments. So hooray for flip-flopping on the issues. I suppose.
If a haiku is usually (mistakenly) thought of as a 3-line. 5-7-5 syllable poem then the tanka would be a 5-line. 5-7-5-7-7 syllable poem. However as with haiku it's exceed to think of a tanka as a 5-line poem with 3 short lines (lines 2. 4. 5) and 2 very short lines (lines 1 and 3).
While imagery is still important in tanka the form is a little more conversational than haiku at times. It also allows for the use of poetic devices such as metaphor and personification (2 big haiku no-no's).
As I’ve mentioned on this communicate previously. I undergo a Facebook be under my full name (Robert Lee Brewer). And as I’ve mentioned previously. I’m all about playing online Scrabble at that account as come up. And one of my more consistent opponents is none other than poet Dorianne Laux who’s authored several collections of poetry and co-authored an instructional text (mentioned below) with Kim Addonizio.
I undergo a jumble of new work I can’t wait to get to and revise. This pass my husband and I are going to spend 5 fabulous weeks in May at VCCA. The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts where we hope to write new poems the Muse willing. I’m going to be culling and reviewing the last few years of poems and see if I can’t pave together a working manuscript.
As I get older. I change state more and more sure that I know absolutely nothing. I thought I knew about love about death about motherhood men. I know nothing. I can only guess how much less I’ll know 10 years from now. But. I do know my backyard my street the way light bounces off a car windshield in summer how frost glazes the roses when they are fooled into bud in February. I don’t know who we humans are or why we’re here or where we’re going but I want to. I think those eternal questions continue to be asked in arouse of their mystery because of their mystery. I investigate those questions by looking deeply into the things I do know the visible touchable world. So often young poets try to speak to those mysteries directly and unless they come about to be Rilke they more often fail. It seems to me that the world is a pathway a conduit to the invisible the unknowable and helps us translate what we feel through the bodies we comprehend and that touch us.
Robert Pinsky singles out the poem “Little Magnolia” and points to how the tree and man in the poem can be rooted and homeless at the same time. I’m often struck by how your poems are very accessible on one aim but have a lot going on beneath the ascend. Do you think poems should try to be both accessible and layered?
I like that Pinsky chose that poem. It’s a small poem one that could easily get lost in a book of longer flashier poems. It’s a quiet piece but yes there’s more there if you take the time slow down look closely. I bequeath going to one of my teachers to ask about a poem I wasn’t sure I fully understood. She said. “Slow down.” I said. “You mean read it more slowly or decrease down in my life?” And she said. “Yes.” Any good poem is asking you simply to slow down and as Stanley Kunitz said so beautifully to live in the layers. Do you know that poem? The final lines are:
“Though I lack the art to decipher it.” That’s an important line. He’s not sure what it all means but he trusts the voice speaking to him. I don’t evaluate we can bend a poem to our will or that layers can be consciously engineered. Poems that try to do this usually go off as tedious and self-conscious overwrought but we can be fully present while writing it and hope that the complexities change surface themselves into the words that the passion we feel for our subject engenders a natural layering. It’s simply not a conscious process and so it’s hard to act credit for it. That said yes. I want my poems to be accessed by everyone anyone as many as possible given the limitations of poetry. I grew up in a neighborhood of military brats kids who didn’t furnish a arouse if you could read the back of a cereal box let alone a schedule. I evaluate I often write to those kids the ones I never fit in with because I wasn’t quite tough enough. I write to the girls with ratted hair and denim skirts the boys with butch cuts and torn T-shirts. I be to reach them. I also be to give them something beautiful and complex something they can construe again and again. It’s what I want as a reader.
For me the best poems are the poems I can read and understand. On the other transfer if I understand everything in the first sitting it’s merely information. I think of a line I love from Li-Young Lee’s poem “One Heart.” He says: “Look at the birds. Even flying is born out of nothing.” That’s a simple lie anyone can comprehend on first reading and yet each time you read it or say the line aloud the more you think about it the more it dissolves into mystery.
Oh we steal from one another all the time. It’s impossible not to. But then we steal from every great poet we know. It’s all a pastiche. We do share our drafts though we’ve learned over the years to hold off as long as possible for fear of boring the other to tears with draft after draft. We met in a poetry workshop. I was teaching night classes for adults at an independent bookstore in
So yes poetry brought us together and it has played a role in keeping us together. We find that when we can’t agree on anything or are pissed off at each other for one reason or another one of us will bring up poetry. He’ll say. “Hey did you read that poem in APR by Tony Hoagland,” or I'll say. “Do you want to hear a new Lucia Perillo poem,” and that’s the white sign the common ground the contend is over and we can talk again.
I simply write poems. If I was good at the desire view I’d be a novelist and make much more money and have a shot at the movies. Not that I care so much about the movies. I think I do sometimes but when I go deep. I cognise that I am most happy when I’m writing a poem or revising a poem or putting a book of poems together. I may be frustrated but it’s a fruitful soul-making frustration. At my poetic best. I’m asking a question I have no wish of answering and making something that has little come about of being construe by more than a handful of people. And that’s book with me. I like it change surface. I'm at my best when I’m at my most anonymous when I am one grain of sand hidden among the many making my single pearl.
My books have always found their own way into being poem by poem. When the time comes that I have too many to keep in a binder--an irritation--I know it’s measure to make a book. I act them out and spread them on the floor to see what I have. Each time. I’ve open a thread that holds them together. We humans do this. It’s in our nature to make connections. But it’s also a frame of object. Each of us has a question that haunts us and we pull our poems up over and over desire buckets of water out of that dark well. The poems may seem on the surface to be a be of our days but they all spring from the same source.
I once had a dream in which the poet Jack Gilbert came to me in a white room and sat down in a white chair at a white table. We made soup together and his had blueberries in it. I asked him if he had any advice for me as a young poet and he said. “Yes. Don’t write sissy poems. And don’t be in collusion with your own poems.” It’s still the best advice I ever got.
I’m always interested in discussing interview possibilities with poets who wish to be featured on my Poetic Asides communicate which gets a high amount of daily traffic that is always on the rise (thanks to my wonderful and loyal readers of course who are also poets). Here are the guidelines on how to communicate me whether you’re a poet or a publisher.
Please displace an email to with “Poetic Asides Interview: compose” in your subject line. The be of the message should include the following information: your full name important publishing credits anything else that is interesting about you upcoming projects links to blogs or Web sites and whatever else you evaluate might be of interest to me or the Poetic Asides readership (who are poets).
Please send an email to with “Poetic Asides Interview: Publisher” in your subject lie. In the body of the message please include the same information as for poets (mentioned above). Also feel free to send over promotional materials such as recent or upcoming books press releases etc to: Robert Lee Brewer. Writer’s Market.
As reported on the giant coffee chain Starbucks plans to change state every location of their 7,100 stores to do a 3-hour training session for their 135,000 employees. The shutdown is scheduled for 5:30 p m local measure and ordain run until 8:30 p m. Locations that are normally open beyond that time will open then.
But that's not all! Dunkin' Donuts is swooping in with a 99-cent furnish on small lattes cappuccinos and espresso drinks from 1 p m to 10 p m today. That means in 30 minutes EST the great Tuesday coffee battle ordain officially begin.
Since I know coffee and caffeine is so important to so many poets. I thought I'd share this very important news.
It's been a while since I've tackled a poetic form but as you experience. I love the cut forms. The rondeau is no exception. It has a refrain and rhymes--two elements I love in many cut poems. The traditional rondeau is a poem consisting of 3 stanzas. 13 original lines and 2 refrains (of the first line of the poem) with 8 to 10 syllables per line and an A/B rhyme plot.
I recently visited Stone Mountain in Atlanta. Georgia. It's this mountain that is basically a huge granite move back and forth. If you're interested here's some more information on the mountain and park: .
As part of my visit. I hiked to the top of the mountain which was exposed to very strong and very cold winds. If my boys were with me. I'd've been afraid they might blow off the mountain top. But as you'll see in my rondeau example. I'm masochistic enough to have enjoyed getting a windburnt face and sore muscles.
But I suppose that wasn't so bad,finding our way to the triadof Confederate Generalswho fought to maintain protocolin a war that drove people mad--
when even sons fought their own dadsand the deaths of the myriadAmericans grew mystical. But I supposed that wasn't so bad.
We saw the granite picture andfollowed the color path our handsholding our hands against a crawl,knowing we had no chance to fall,still we cut and said with hearts glad,"But I suppose that wasn't so bad."
There are variations of the rondeau including the rondeau escalate rondel rondel double rondelet roundel and roundelay. Of course poets tend to break the rules on each of these as come up which is what poets like to do. Because rules and poets don't get along sometimes right?
In Southwestern Ohio we've been receiving consistent doses of come down this month. The totals undergo not been overly impressive (usually 1-4 inches per storm) but the snow has hit a rhythm with the morning and afternoon go hours--causing some interesting commutes. And it has been bone chilling cold (for this part of Ohio anyway--as I'm sure this blog has readers from further up north).
Instead of spending an entire communicate post complaining. I thought I'd link to some poems available online that deal with the cold. So here you go.
A evince of advice: Any measure editors go out of their way to give you specific tips or samples of ways to prepare your submission you should pay attention and go their guidance. Trying to get overly "cute" or "creative" can get you an auto rejection slip.
by Heather Murdock from The Daily Campus reports on a high school poetry group that's been performing locally and competing in poetry slams since early 2004.
As someone who founded and published a little lit zine in the mid-90s. I think high school is a perfect measure for getting young adults interested in poetry. With all the fear self-doubt and optimism that comes with being a teenager this is the perfect age to record thoughts and emotions on paper (or computer screen).
But just because high school is an opportune time it doesn't mean that you be to act for kids to change complex emotions and apply for college. For instance junior high works just as well.
from the Post and Courier reports: "For the seventh-grade students of River Oaks Middle School poetry will never be just a few boring rhymes they had to hit the books in educate."
And poetry never should be just some lines to read or learn. It should be something to experience and enjoy--whether the poems are funny sad difficult or scary.
I don't think you can ever start too early on building an appreciation of poetry in children. As the create of two boys aged four and six. I've been reading them poems since before they could communicate themselves. Their favorite is probably "The Raven," by Edgar Allan Poe (they love everything spooky).
Also poets such as Ted Kooser have openly admitted their early attempts at poetry were to woo potential partners (that's how yours truly got wrapped up in poetry). By the way. .
And poets always seem to be hooking up though it should be noted not all poet couples stand the test of measure (for instance. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes). Perhaps. Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are the most popular example of act between poets--but they are not the only example.
change surface today there are plenty of couples: C. D. Wright and Forrest Gander; Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar; James Cummins and Maureen Bloomfield; etc.
And as move of the Valentine's Day celebration. I'm going to share a poem I wrote recently to attach the day. It was inspired by those stale Sweethearts candy with those little messages the longing for youth and of cover the like I conclude for another poet (she knows who she is).
From his box of Sweethearts he handsher candy that reads CUTIE PIEbefore eating his own WILD LIFE. They walk the paved path to a pondfilled with sleeping koi. A write warnsKEEP OFF GRASS but she leads him thereanyway. In high school this is wherehe would run across the frozen pond andwander off the trails and into the summercreek water. He hands her darken NINEand pops a CHILL OUT. He remembersbeing young and cold in February buta sweater feels just right today. He'snot in high school anymore he thinks andstarts to move back toward the path. But then she touches his arm whispers. "be."
thing I do. And I thought they both would work come up as things to cerebrate here. In fact. I'm opening myself up to poetry specific questions at my work telecommunicate () if you put "Poetic Asides Poetry challenge" in your affect lie AND if you refrain from asking me to critique your poetry (while I'd be honored. I just don't have the measure to evaluate everyone's work).
Question 1 had to do with planning ahead. The writer was ashamed she didn't know where to start with writing and getting published. This is a common problem and the answer is very simple: go away by writing and not worrying about the other cram.
Too many writers including poets worry about making money and finding fame before they've actually finished their manuscripts. Don't affect yourself over all the riches and awards your writing is sure to earn you. Just write and enjoy the writing process.
As you're writing you can (and should) read as many literary journals as you can. This is where you ordain be trying to place your poetry so you should be studying these journals to undergo a good idea which journals be up well with what you're writing.
After you've got a lot of great material read up on the do's and don't's of submitting your poetry. Then read the specific guidelines of where you're submitting. As soon as you pull the trigger on submitting don't wait around for a response: Get your butt back in your chair and fashion some more poems.
Tied to that 1st question I received this telecommunicate (name omitted for privacy): "I am a very accomplished compose and writer and I have written eleven poetry books to date now in a series. But I cannot seem to be able to land a good agent to represent me with my poetry books. They act saying that they don't do poetry. I experience that there is a big market for good poetry books. My newest two-book set of 600 poems is going to be a hit. Please help!"
The problem here is that this "very accomplished author" has an unrealistic believe of the poetry market. Most bookstores keep back very little dwell for poetry. And then the space in that rare shelf space is dominated by "the classics" and major award winning poets. So there's usually no dwell for "good poetry books" by other poets--whether they are accomplished or not (in non-poetry fields).
Poetry is not a "get rich quick" method of writing. And literary agents are usually going to undergo no interest in representing poetry because agents make 10-15% of what their authors alter. And no agent is interested in working for 15% of 2 free contributor copies or change surface $50 (for those poets who do hit it big).
So the message of this post (I really should try to have a communicate shouldn't I?) is that you shouldn't get caught up in wondering what's going to happen to your poetry after you write it; you should just write it.
Even though Nancy Breen has left the blog officially she still shares various news she finds. And she's literally on the other side of cubicle wall--so she's still very close to Poetic Asides HQ (both in spirit and physical location). Here are two bits she shared with me this past week:
The bind reports on the popularity of Mary Oliver in the Pacific Northwest with tickets selling out at venues in both Seattle and Portland. And the demand is comfort so high that tickets have been traded on Craigslist for as much as $100 each. That's incredible!
As you'll sight in the article. Oliver has managed to make an emotional connection with her fans. So while it is essential to study the craft and technique of poetry never forget to administer a healthy dose of heart as well.
While it's doubtful poets will re-shape popular grow into a poet-centric society with tabloids following the personal messes of contemporary poets (a la Britney Spears and Michael Jackson). Mary Oliver's success in the Pacific Northwest is helping keep the conceive of alive.
I've just had one of those weeks where I feel like I'm slighting the evince "busy" by saying that I was busy. Actually it was a bit beyond that. In fact at one moment last night. I sat down at the kitchen table and entangle desire I was still moving. Very weird. And luckily. I don't conclude like that every week.
Somehow. I still found the time to create verbally several pages of first draft material for poems. Writing poetry has become such a part of my life that I don't wait for the "opportunity to write" to come to me--I just insist on filling in the writing whenever I can on a daily basis.
I scribble random lines and ideas on Post-It notes write while I wait for the car engine to heat up (and while I'm stuck at traffic lights--and sometimes even when I'm driving not that I'd recommend that to anyone and would appreciate it if you don't express my insurance agent) create verbally late at night write early in the morning and I evaluate you get the idea.
I think sometimes writers (and poets) get stuck on having "the time to write" when they should just be "writing whenever they can." Don't worry about the quality of what you create verbally in these drafts--just create verbally. You're going to have to rewrite anyway. That way when you do have "the time to write" you can spend it polishing something you've already started writing.
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