Interesting idea: an arts Wikipedia. Artist Muses has started up such a site. They have a Poets category. Take a look, get listed, let’s watch the network grow. Billed as “the online community for intelligent optimists,” Ode Magazine is a resource for all of us who are tired of getting only the negative news — and the endless campaigning. You can find uplifting human interest stories about people like the successful cardiologist who started a…
New year, new template. As long as it’s free. I thought a harbor motif would suit my upbringing in a seaport on the California coast. In other news: I recently got word that a poem from my book Femme au chapeau will be included in the anthology Women. Period. The book will be published by Spinsters Ink in August 2008. The poem is “Blood-Cycle Brooding.” Barbara Crooker’s Line Dance once again delighted me today with…
For a total trip in a poetry-land you’ve never imagined could exist — a sort of Rabbithole Poetry Land, with animation and great readings — check out Blue’s Cruzio Cafe. This is what the Internet can do to change the way you think of poetry forever. A fusion of spoken word, anime, evolving anthology and zine, Blue’s Cafe is an experience it’s hard to write about. My very favorite is the new animation of Robert…
I’m very proud to be part of a unique Internet-poetry project, the publishing of an anthology by the members of WomPo, a women in poetry listserv started by Annie Finch. LETTERS TO THE WORLD has just been released by Red Hen Press and is already creating a splash for being one of the first anthologies that is the result of an Internet poetry collaboration. (Yes, this is an unabashed advertisement! I have a poem in…
I’m always looking for new sites on which to book-browse, as my once-favorite bookstores are letting me down these days, with the same-old bestsellers face out on shelves. Barnes and Noble continues its slow creep over the literary landscape, nullifying the small press world, forcing even small, innovative literary retailers to compete in kind. So I look more and more online for unusual reading fare. I seem to have eclectic tastes that the bestseller lists…
Interested in reviewing? Like free books? As Tim Green’s blog title puts it, “Write a Review, Save a Book or Two.” Cool idea, saving books by appreciating/analyzing them. Am I the only one who hates those “Best Books of the Year” lists that appear at holiday time? They all read like ads from the publishing establishment. In other blogs, the ever excellent Fringe has a new issue up, and also a list of alternative Best…
Poet and novelist Cheryl Snell invited me to meditate on this process at her blog, Shiva’s Arms. Today my essay “Soft Landing” went up. As I reread it, it occurred to me (a) how kind it was of Cheryl to invite me to guest-blog and (b) what a tough subject so little written about this is. I have one book on the topic, Ordering the Storm. I recommend it, although I find its essays uneven…
Thank you, Cindy Reynolds, Editor of Kaleidowhirl, for nominating my poem “A Raft” for a Pushcart Prize! I’m delighted, and especially happy that it came from this excellent zine, one which I have had the pleasure of guest-editing for an issue, and of reading for every issue. Smart choices of work, paired with beautiful images make this a zine you should bookmark. And not just because Cindy was so kind to me. So I have…
A funny thing: I started this blog to promote what my agent hoped would soon be my forthcoming memoir, Rocket Lessons. On the way to the publishers (many), I discovered I am primarily a poet with a bad fiction habit. Like any addict, I don’t know how I found myself again working on a novel that’s been hidden in my trunk for a few sober years. I suppose it was the Austen Influence — perhaps…
With the American day of declared thanks approaching, I find myself thinking about poetry of praise and thanksgiving. Contemporary poems on such topics are increasingly rare. I’ve been looking and collecting, and here, in no particular order, are poets I’ve found to be writing on these themes fairly consistently from book to book: Mary OliverFrom the blurb on this website:“IN AN INTERVIEW with poet Mary Oliver published a few years ago in Giving Their Word…