The Writing Path Blog

I heard a reading of this poem the other night and was struck with the way Emily Dickinson uses concrete images to evoke evanescent experiences, and her unexpected turns of image and thought: 508I’m ceded—I’ve stopped being Theirs—The name They dropped upon my faceWith water, in the country churchIs finished using, now,And They can put it with my Dolls,My childhood, and the string of spools,I’ve finished threading—too—Baptized, before, without the choice,But this time, consciously, of…

Continue reading

Life online and life as a poet are often at odds. Time spent here is time away from there, to a larger degree than we might care to admit. That’s why I blog only every other week (or month in some cases.) I don’t find poems hiding in my keyboard or computer screen. I do find them hiding in the soles of my shoes (thank you for that prompt to walk into poetry, Naomi!). I…

Continue reading

The new issue of Umbrella is out. Check out “The Torrid Zone.” (Disclaimer: I’m a contributing editor of this magazine.) New issue of Wicked Alice has a poem by a Rocket Kid. Hobble Creek Review has one of mine in the archives and an interesting short poem by Corey Mesler in the current issue. Smartish Pace has started a new Erskine J Poetry Prize competition. You can enter online using Paypal. Of course, I placed…

Continue reading

What do you take for that? For sprained ankles I always used to alternate hot and cold packs after rubbing in a good liniment. But sprained imagination … I really have no idea. All I know is I’ve been using too many nouns lately and paragraphs as well. I’m completely off my sense of linebreak. Help! Ideas for rapid recovery? Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.

Continue reading

I discovered the ultimate social networking site for the literarily inclined: GoodReads. Forget poking, grouping, and writing on walls — now you can send your friends all your favorite books with your reviews and get their comments and favorite books with reviews. A lifetime is too short to read all the stuff you can find this way! It’s the ultimate virtual book club, except for the tea and cookies part. The only thing missing on…

Continue reading

A month after completing the exhausting-exhilarating Poem-A-Day exercise for National Poetry Month, I find my muse fast asleep. I must have written a sum total of one poem in May. So I am turning back to poetry exercises to stimulate the juices, as well as reading. My favorite jumpstart is to open a favorite poetry book at random and read a few pages. My current no-fail book is Dart by the mellifluent poet Alice Oswald.…

Continue reading

Questia has a link to an interesting article on the practice of journal-writing and its importance to writers. There’s a link to Arthur Ponsonby’s 1923 book on journals by writers through the centuries. The point that interested me is that journal-writing is different from any other kind of writing — and that applies to blog-writing as well. The development of new literary forms follows the need for capturing different kinds of awareness. Nothing is as…

Continue reading

David Alpaugh has been nominated by the Ina Coolbrith Circle as Poet Laureate. What does a Poet Laureate in California do? Ask the California Arts Council. Why would David make a good P.L.? For one thing, California desperately needs a Poet Laureate with a deep sense of ironic humor, especially one who’s willing to undertake this monumental job with virtually no budget at a time when the State is cutting back on funding even for…

Continue reading

It was a wild month of poetry intensives for me — readings, daily poems posted to a workshop group, critiquing other people’s daily poems, submitting my new manuscript … am I out of -ings yet? Poetry in the news, award ceremonies, people actually having recently read a poem, read something about poetry, heard of a poet. The world as if poetry had a real place. A good world! Don’t wait until next April. Find a…

Continue reading

Came across Pilgrimage magazine recently. I like what I see, intially intrigued by the ee cumming quote on their front page: ”…For Everything Which Is Natural Which Is Infinite Which Is Yes…” ~e.e.cummings But I couldn’t find samples of their poetry. I wish they’d post more excerpts online. How else can you figure out if you want to buy or even subscribe to a print magazine? I was having a discussion about this recently. People…

Continue reading