No, I’m not going to become THAT kind of site. And I eschew contests in general, but sometimes when a friend is running one to support a really good magazine and you get an actual subscription worth something for the entry fee, or the entry fee is less than I tip the waitress on an average lunch ticket, I take the plunge. As I will for these contests now running: Atlanta ReviewSmartish Pace – Erskine…
Do you ever google yourself? Aw, come on! Admit it. This is just to sayI am not that Rachel Dacus, the knife-throwing gal who lives at The Great Throwzini.I am the poet Puako Beached, at the 1000 Cranes Auto Repair,and otherwise under the Umbrella.I can only say in my own defense I once tradedballet lessons to a circus troupe in order to learnto juggle and balance on a bongo board.Well, at least I can juggle.…
As in quick, as in cue, as in inspire — All these meanings come to mind as I peruse a wonderful list of writing prompts that was posted on my poetry listserv today. Among the many good prompts, the following are my favorites. Hope they help you, if you’re writing a poem a day for the month of April. And if you have some prompts to add, please contribute! 1. Write a poem with an…
I made the promise to myself, and here I am breaking it. What kind of ethical dilemma is it that compels me to do the one literary thing I told myself I’d never do — compose poetry in public. But it’s NaPoWriMo, the versifier’s month of madness, and I have so much to do today that the only time I have this morning to myself has to shared with you. It’s what you do when…
So here it is again, the made-up holiday for poetry only American poets even know exists, and most of us find the festivities and publicity to be on a par with National Beetroot Day. The one thing I like about National Poetry Month is the NaPoWriMo challenge. I don’t know where it came from, but the idea of poets across America gearing up to begin on April 1 to aerobicize their muses and write a…
March 16, the day after tomorrow (at least in the Pacific time zone) will be the 76th anniversary of the first liquid fuel-launched rocket by Robert Goddard, father of American rocketry. I found myself thinking about the early days of rockets, and what it was like to grow up in a family involved with that field, after I talked to my father on the phone last night. He has Alzheimer’s and these days I’m the…
One of my new year’s resolutions is to clean up my online act. Included in that will be to update my blogroll more often. I was aghast (yes, aghast!) to find that a number of the links were obsolete, or that the most recent entries were around 12 months ago. With so much to read on the blogosphere, there’s no excuse for pointing people to dead-ends. This blog will endeavor to appear more often and…
Dart by English poet Alice Oswald is a book I’ve carried around in my purse for months. You can dip into it at any point, as you can approach a river, and find something fascinating. The text includes quotes from the hours and hours of people she audiotaped talking about their work on the River Dart, fishermen, people who canoe, mill workers and water engineers, poachers and town boys. She was commissioned to create a…
The new issue of Umbrella is out — open it up and enjoy the excellent work assembled by editor Kate Bernadette Benedict. Be sure not to miss Chris Mooney-Singh’s selections from his series, Bonehead Ghazals. I have a poem reading on Bob Marcacci’s show The Countdown at Miporadio. Program #20 includes a reading of my “Wine Under a Fig Tree.” Sadly, it’s not my reading, as I couldn’t figure out how to get a decent…
We all know the downside. And we think we know the upside. But I, for one, feel that shameless self-promotion of poets and poetry needs to be widened in its definition, expanded beyond the confines of publication credits, book awards and academic appointments and honors. It needs to drive toward the center of the culture, not just the noble fringes. For example, last night’s Oscars struck me as having some notes of class not commonly…