Thursday, October 22, 2015

Out of the Fall

Image of the Day:  Sleek dark heads of three mink poking out of the fall river.

I got to see that yesterday while walking my dog.  At first I was like, "Seals!" cause that's how seals always pop up in the ocean in Maine, but then my brain registered the river and I realized these were mink. 

Also, I got to see a huge fat raccoon out on my run on Tuesday.  It was so big I wasn't quite sure if it was a small bear or something.  But it turned around to look at me and I could see its tail as well.  I wanted to take a picture but it lost itself in the river weeds. 

I have two poems here in the recent issue of Pith.  I love the found poem that Meg Cowen made with lines from all the poets' poems.  I really love it when editors do that kind of thing.

Hamlet

It's quiet here. A stoic rectitude
Props up the weather-pummeled citizens,
Craggy yet almost cheerful. Uniform
Gray granite cottages, precipitous
And sturdy, make the most of things. The wind
Does all the talking hereabouts, and who
Would think to think about the universe?
Their certainties define them, not their doubts.
 


Joseph Harrison


Thursday, October 15, 2015

New Chapbook: Small Portraits

I am so pleased that my chapbook, "Small Portraits" is to be part of Ides:  A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks.  You can read the press release here at the Silver Birch Blog.  There are fifteen chapbooks collected in this selection, so you definitely want to buy it and check out all the poetry.  You can purchase a copy here at amazon.
 
 

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Permanently Change

Image of the Day:  Bluejays and tufted titmice squawking at something (I'm assuming a hawk) on my way to the cafĂ© here on campus; on the way back, total silence, the birds gone.

So I have a poem here at Amethyst Arsenic you can read.  Funny story:  The title for this poem is actually the title to a different poem.  I emailed the editors if they could change it, totally panicked at the mistake--and they said they would, but I know life gets busy and they haven't yet.  And now I kind of like this title better than the original title.  I may permanently change it.
Update:  So they changed the poem to the correct poem and have nominated it for a Pushcart Prize!!  That sure makes things better!



From Anne Truitt, in her memoir Prospect:  "We can understand what it is to be human only to the degree that we are willing to endure all that it is to be human" (64). 

"Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself" --I had misread that as empathy is finding echoes of yourself in another person when I first read this.  (Mohsin Hamid in Poets and Writers Sept/Oct 2015 in "The Time Is Now" column.)


Autogeography
       

Finally, the body is littered with landscapes,
the brain all map and diligent chart.

The three-story row houses line up like memories
over the barbershops and the gas station
along a street grooved with trolley tracks.

A town at the center of a stubbled cornfield
blinks under an unnecessary stoplight,
waits in bone for the winds to come at dark.

There are two lakes breathing in the chest,
one north and large, the other south and smaller,
freezing over each year, but still breathing,

the avenues rough with fleets of gypsy cabs,
the bus idling in front of the YMCA,
the national road with its angry pickup trucks.

There is so much soil in the creases of the skin,
feet black with asphalt, toughened by brown glass.

Finally, the wanderer will settle into one place,
laying the back's weight on the pavement.

The world will take root—
the world will be buried in that place.


Memorize More!

 Image of the Day: Birds in my backyard, scrambling in the rain for seed.  Happy Holidays! I have a poem here at One Art, Hiking Cadillac Mo...