My first poetry book, Earth Lessons, is now available for the Kindle! Very excited to have my first e-book, and planning lots more. I love reading on my phone or computer. Print may be alive and well, but it’s so heavy! Plus, it kills trees. I have plans to make book trailers and some other multimedia things involving poetry. Stay tuned! (Ideas welcome.) Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.
A great article by Erika Meitner on compiling a poetry book manuscript. She talks about project versus what she calls “mix-tape books”– a great term for the classical general poetry collection. She discusses the way a “project” related collection can suffer from weak poems forced into being and into the book to support the theme. It’s a concern I have, this rampant trend for themed poetry collections. While a themed collection that’s strong and can…
Here’s a short list of journals where your published poems (in books, anthologies, journals) can get a second life. I’m working on compiling such a list, as I don’t find one readily available. Reincarnate your poems! How can they be remembered if only seen once (in a journal) or twice (then in your book) or even three times (anthologized)? I’m for poems circulating widely! Borderline Poetry JournalQarrtsiluni Houseboathouse Another short list – journals that take…
First of all, I hopped to a new blog site, but got spammed out of existence. So here I am at Rocket Kids again! I hope you’re still here. Found some fun new places to publish poetry. Angle, editing from England and Australia, has a strong preference for poetry in received or nonce forms, but are open to considering any work which has a strong element of rhythm or ‘music’, however achieved. I like that…
I’ll be posting regularly on the new blog because it’s part of my new poet/writer site: https://racheldacus.net. I’m still a Rocket Kid over there, and comments are as always more than welcome. Latest topics I’ve blogged about: The Gift of a PoemInside ForeverSpiritual Intoxication a 12-Step Program?Po-Biz: Marketing Your Book And more. Come on by and let me know what you think, add ideas, links, your blog or website address. Thanks! Visit https://racheldacus.net for more…
I’m happy to pour the champagne and toss the balloons to announce that I’m blogging now (still a Rocket Kid!) over at my new author site. Here’s the blog. Come and talk to me. There will be all the same topics and any you’d like to start! Comments, as usual, are welcome and can well start a new topic. Today I blogged about writer’s routines, an endlessly fascinating topic. See you there! Visit https://racheldacus.net for…
In Northern California we have funny pseudo-seasons. Warm and bright November days that fool you into summer feelings, roses that act as if they’re going to make bouquets more, and this year winter will take a vacation. And then at nightfall, the temp falls, and suddenly you’re in wool and looking at stars like icicles and wondering whether you should just stay home until February. I find myself writing less and less as the season…
As the e-book has come barreling down the publishing highway, poets have been left mostly in the dust. Why haven’t poetry e-books emerged on Kindles, Nooks, et al? Several forces are at work, the small size of poetry book publishers being one factor, but perhaps the most troublesome is being the pesky technical problem of not being able to control line breaks in e-book formats. A thought-provoking article about it appeared a year ago or…
Have you ever stumbled on a vein of mineral wealth in your work, a place that has been compressing inside until you open up the seam and it bulges with images and sounds? I’ve rarely written series poems based on emotional content, though certainly like all poets, my work proceeds in tonal phases. But recently I found an image so striking that it opened up such a seam and I could only work it through…
I spent some hours yesterday writing an artistic biography of my father, who was a painter. I found myself writing that I learned about art standing near his easel and watching him paint. It was the silent choreography of creativity. He would stand back, leaning forward, hip thrust out, as he considered his next move, like a chess player. Then he’d move decisively forward, closing in on the canvas, brush scumbling furiously in a small…