My poem Lost has just been accepted for the summer edition of the Hawk and Whippoorwill, put out by the Pen and Anvil Press, Boston . It is the first issue in the restart of a journal that was originally in print from 1960 until 1963. Man and Nature was and is the journal’s theme.
I have noticed from reading some the NaPoRiMo, at PFFA, reviews and in poetry discussions in general how often the enjoyment of a poem is enhanced by knowing something of the background of the author. I would imagine it has to do with that knowledge piquing the expectation and acceptance of certain nuance of perspective. Well it is certainly true that a poem should stand alone on the page, it also true that poems are neither created nor read in vacuum. Author anonymity is great for judging a poetry contest or selecting poems for publication but a familiarity with the author and his background also has it place in enjoying good poetry. Knowing Poe’s pharmacological history certainly adds perspective to many of his pieces. I think that one of the reason poets (or any artist for that matter) often gains momentum and acceptance after they are dead is that work is seen and weighed in the light of their particular historical and biographical context.
Just some thoughts
My blog here has been sadly neglected as of late, along with most other of my writing endeavors. I am hoping the remedy for that situation lies in the regimen of oral and inhaled steroids that kind ER Doctor as started me back on. Having lost my medical insurance in December of last year it has been a downhill slide till now. I will qualify for Medicare on the first of August so the supply given to me at The ER should get me through. Anyways with a little chemical push hopefully I can decorate these pages with a few lucid thoughts in the days ahead.
Check out this New Yorker article about Barack Obama’s two poetry publishing credits.
Here is a short article I found in the Concord Monitor taken from from the Washington Post:
There is no single “right” way to compose a poem, but here are tips from U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic:
• Don’t tell the readers what they already know about life.
• Don’t assume you’re the only one in the world who suffers.
• Some of the greatest poems in the language are sonnets and poems not many lines longer than that, so don’t overwrite.
• The use of images, similes and metaphors make poems concise. Close your eyes, and let your imagination tell you what to do.
• Say the words you are writing aloud and let your ear decide what word comes next.
• Remember that what you are writing is a draft that will need additional tinkering - perhaps many months, even years, of tinkering.
Source: Library of Congress
The Washington Post
Why are terms like barbed, relevant, incisive, socially significant, foreign to poetry. Instead we have terms like polemic, didactic, narrator intrusive. Is there a valid reason that poetry must always be objective in order to be deemed good. In other writing genres the subjective, opinionated and downright preachy are lauded for there social involvement. Where as a poem that expresses an opinion or even a slight slant is quickly dismissed. I often hear poets lament that that the only people you read poetry are other poets. Could the fact that the vast reading public considers poetry to be too insignificant to bother buying or reading have any thing to do with poets, striving for pure narrative objectivity, that more often than not manifests as irrelevance and insignificance?
My poem Blessed as just been accepted for the May issue of the Shit Creek Review, which really pleases me, since I wrote it with submitting to their mask themed issue in mind.
She sang in tonal increments,
notes cooed
and out of tune.
Her voice an instrument
she played
but could not hear.
Lullabies
were birdsongs
so familiar
in my youth,
matted grass and a gravestone
haven’t dampened
the comfort that echoes
though the years.
