If you haven’t got a copy of my new book, Gods of Water and Air, I’m offering a hefty discount. It’s a book with poetry, prose, and even This collection has prose a once-act play (about the afterlife of dogs). 135 pages of summer reading — a deal! This price is good through July 31! Email me (rachel@dacushome.com) to order one direct, for only $11.00 + shipping. (Amazon charges $2 more.) Here’s a taste. –>Life…
Lovely day here, the breezy and brilliant kind of spring day I imagined from Monet’s painting, after which I wrote my poem. The traveling exhibition “Monet in Normandy” visited the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco some years ago and it inspired me to write back to several of the paintings. Bought the book too, so I can keep talking back to Monet — or rather, asking questions, as in this poem. Do you ever talk…
Writing a Poem with Monet It’s April and I’m growing green, but bills cover my desk. The money in my check book dazzles like the mineral caves carved by the surf at Pourville, where Monet stood at his easel to paint thundering waves. I sign my check in the lower right as artists will, re-total the balance and turn up a new one. Diamonds a mile down in Monet’s sea crack, chip, and erode. A…
As a writer and occasional book reviewer, I’m so impressed by the close reading given my book Gods of Water and Air by poet Ann Wehrman. Her review in The Pedestal Magazine got deeply inside my subjects and even gave me perspective on the way I write. Wehrman took the trouble to put me into a context. Using info from my website’s bio — a reviewer who does research!– she contextualized me as a California-raised…
I’m thinking of doing a series of small video readings, just for fun, from my book Gods of Water and Air. And maybe I should put it to a vote: which poems would be best to read? Here’s one I’m considering.Thoughts? Advice? Life I had a beautiful bowl of cherries to paint, stems perfectly arranged, the jade bowl offsetting the pale red fruit. I ate them. Such is the fate of so much art. But…
I have poems forthcoming in Drunken Boat, Pirene’s Fountain (and four poems in the current issue), and The Same Poetry Magazine! Thanks to the editors of those journals. Stay tuned for links to the poems, and while you’re at it–it’s Send Out Your Work Saturday (a holiday I just made up). Fascinating discussion of submitting work in the Facebook Writing Conference today. Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.
I have too many purses. There, now you know too much about me. Character flaw: fashion hoarding. Too many scarves, too. And strings of pearls — that would need a whole other blog post. In celebration of flaws and how they can become houses, boats, toolkits, and other things, here is my poem. Coach Handbags should send me a freebie, don’t you think? –> Ode to My Purse The three French handbags came with lifetime…
GODS OF WATER AND AIR – A NEW DISCOUNT! A prose poem from the book, which I’m again discounting to $11.00 through February, for all of you who didn’t get one in December! Email me if you want one. Wild Ranunculas. This is how you mend, ounce by floating ounce. Each petal lights on the eye, and the five-fingered yellow flowers nod. A moving cloud scars the field in March wind’s bitter tea. Walking through…
I’m a huge fan of Cummings and his idiosyncratic experiments with feeling and language. Susan Cheever’s new bio of E. E. Cummings looks wonderful, including as it does the intimacy of a personal connection through her father’s friendship with him. Here’s an excerpt. Cummings won me when I first started reading him in high school, as so many did, given the accessibility of his poetry. How could I not be won by a poet who…
I received a great literary Christmas gift among many this year. This one was an offer to include in my daily writing practice an idea suggested by someone else, a launching pass (appropriate for a rocket kid). So today, having a minor stomach bug and needing to rest, I decided to try one and challenge a friend to join me. This is the prompt for December 26: You can see everything in the universe in…