Tag Archives: poem

April is National Poetry Month

While the last week of 2013 winds down, I’m looking ahead to April – which is National Poetry Month. During the month of April, I’ll be highlighting different poets on the site. Visit often to discover a poet or find out more about one you love to read. Discover what poem the poet has written that is their favorite and why. All through April – a different poet every few days. Find out more about National Poetry Month from the Academy of American Poets.

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Breadcrumbs to Blogs

There is so much to read on the web! Think of these as breadcrumbs, leading to a banquet of selections for your plate of experiences here in the wild internet.

First up – Molly Greene: Writer.

Molly has two previous books  and launching now, her latest mystery novel Rapunzel. Find out more about her books on her site. She blogs on writing and the writing life several times a week. Check out her post Self-Publishing: 6 Valuable Lessons I Learned Between Book #1 & #2 for some helpful hints post publishing that first book. The one that really stood out for me? Number 3 – “Confidence and experience strengthened my personal filter.” The key take away: There is a great deal of information out there, use other opinions on what to do as a guide but do what is best for you as long as you cover the basics – “You must have a well-written, well-edited, well-proofed and well-formatted book with a professional-looking cover.”

Second – O-Dark-Thirty.

O-Dark-Thirty is the literary journal for the Veterans Writing Project. The Veterans Writing Project provides no cost writing workshops and conferences for veterans, service members and military family members. Combining both print (O Dark Thirty) and online (The Report), the site offers opportunity for members of the military community to publish their work and for those without military experience to gain insight and perspective on what our service members and their families go through. The print journal publishes 4 times a year. The Report updates often with new work. Make this one of your must read stops when surfing the net and order a print subscription. For a sample read, Kevin Neirbo’s Later explores a Marine’s coming of age.

Third – Beyond The Margins.

Truly a smorgasbord of writerly edification options. “Think literary magazine run amok,” is how the site describes itself. A dozen contributing writers plus guest posters present diverse voices and experiences on the craft of writing and business of publishing. A recent post by Randy Sue Myers entitled Manners for Writers has some useful hints about writer behavior in the literary community. A key point not enough bloggers and tweeters understand – “Most readers…don’t want to hear complaints about how tired you are, how much you hate writing, and what a grind it is to revise. It’s better not to show how the sausage is made.” Yep,  and I’ve done this too, it’s easy when it’s time to log on and make a new post to fall back to what isn’t working. I see more than a few updates that are complaints and there is nothing in a complaint that encourages me to keep writing. If you can take that complaint and turn it into a useful piece of reflection, well, that’s another story.

Three breadcrumbs to follow, and each will lead you to other resources and readings. Enjoy.

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New Work Published at Ditch

Recently while perusing markets via Duotrope, I found the Canadian journal Ditch. I’m happy to report that they selected two of the poems I submitted and have published them today. Ditch also is promoting women poets with a section called Girls Night Out. I hope you’ll take a look around Ditch, the poetry that matters site.

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Napa Valley Writers Conference – Reading

Towards the end of the conference, the participants read. Interestingly, twice the number of poets read than fiction writers. We each had two minutes and the time keepers were brutal with enforcement with quite a few readers out of time mid word. I read a poem written during the conference. All the work written during the conference I focused towards the Other Mommy collection I’m working on which is about my experience, thoughts, and poetic reflection as the non-biological mom in a same gender family. The poem is Nature Nurture, Genetic Code. (Turn up the sound, as it didn’t record well.)

 

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Pulitzer Remix Day Thirty and Final Remix for National Poetry Month

1970-The-Collected-Stories-of-Jean-Stafford-Featured

For the final poem of the Pulitzer Remix project, number 30, I turned to the final page of the book. There, I found the story An Influx of Poets. Fitting, perhaps, as 85 poets took part in the project. The final poem from page 488, entitled Pages of a Book

Pulitzer Remix is a project of the Found Poetry Review.

Pulitzer Remix and National Poetry Month is done. What have been your favorite entries?

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Pulitzer Remix Day Fourteen

Winter always leads to spring. This found poem entitled Winter Seed Spring is sourced from pages 174-175, and from the story The Lippia Lawn1970-The-Collected-Stories-of-Jean-Stafford-Featured

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Pulitzer Remix Day Eight

1970-The-Collected-Stories-of-Jean-Stafford-FeaturedToday’s installment of Found Poetry for the Pulitzer Remix project is entitled Playtime. The source story for this poem was The Hope Chest, pages 116-117 of the The Collected Stores of Jean Stafford. 

Just to recap – found poems look at existing text and then remix the words, producing an entirely new work. Consider the source text as a finite pool or bucket of words (resource) and the poet crafting the poem has the task to create something from only the resources at hand.

For my found poems in this project, all words come from the source. The only occasional exception is the title, which sometimes is also drawn from the source text but sometimes, like the poem itself, is a new reflection of the piece.

Pulitzer Remix is a project of the Found Poetry Review.

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Pulitzer Remix Day Seven

Today’s poem entitled Confession reminds us that destiny is not ours alone. Also sourced from the story Life is No Abyss, pages 106-107. 1970-The-Collected-Stories-of-Jean-Stafford-Featured

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Pulitzer Remix Day Six

The found Poem Unyielding explores mortality, sourced from pages 94-95 and the story Life is No Abyss1970-The-Collected-Stories-of-Jean-Stafford-Featured

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Pulitzer Remix Day Five

Today’s found poem is entitled Dinner. The story Caveat Emptor is the source text, pages 82-83. Food is such an intimacy when shared. 1970-The-Collected-Stories-of-Jean-Stafford-Featured

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