#NationalPoetryMonth’16 Round-up (Day 4 )

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#NaPoWriMo, #NationalPoetryMonth, 30dpc, Adele Kenny, Adrienne Rich, Apparatus Magazine, Billy Collins, feminist poets, Found Poetry Review, Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Jane Hirshfield, Kate Foley, Kelly Tsai, Leanne Howe, Major Jackson, Mariah Wilson, Mary Carroll Hackett, Native American Poets, NotaLiteraryJournal, NPM16, Poem a Day, Poetic Asides, poetry collections, poetry prompts, Poetry School, QuillsEdge Press, Rachel Piercy, tweetspeakpoetry, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Walt Whitman, Winter Tangerine Review, women poets

DAY FOUR of the best prompts, poems and news from your  #NaPoWriMo/#NPM16/#NaPoMo /#NationalPoetryMonth/#poemaday hashtags.

Best of the Prompts

NaPoWriMo’s “Cruelest Month prompt”
NotaLiteraryJournal’s “Ode to Indulgences prompt”
Imaginary Garden’s “Nature Poems prompt”
Mary Carroll-Hackett’s “What We Love prompt”
Poetic Asides P-A-D “Distance poems prompt”
Adele Kenny’s “Peace of Mind prompt”
30dpc’s “Risks/Rewards prompt”
Apparatus Mag’s “Passion prompt”
Poetry School’s “Instagram prompt”
Mariah Wilson’s “Younger Self prompt”
QuillsEdge Press’ “Never Seen Such a Sky prompt”
Kate Foley’s “Places/People You Used to Know prompt”
Found Poetry’s “WordBlocks prompt”
Tweetspeakpoetry’s “Pirate’s Life prompt”
Winter Tangerine’s “First Thing You Kept From Your Parents prompt”

Poems I Have Loved (Tweeters’ Shares)

Walt Whitman “I Hear America Singing”
Rachel Piercy “Brief Encounter”
Jane Hirshfield “My Life Was the Size of My Life”
Billy Collins “Aristotle”
Leanne Howe “Indians Never Say Goodbye”
Kelly Tsai “Wai-Puo (For My Bad-ass Grandma)” (video)
Victor Hernández Cruz “Here is an Ear to Hear”
Major Jackson “Double View of the Adirondacks as Reflected Over Lake Champlain from Waterfront Park”

Miscellaneous

Adrienne Rich’s “Feminist Awakening” (New Republic)
Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute Hosts Three Native American Poets (Podcast)

**Poets, if you would like to be featured in 2sDay Poems, have your collection reviewed, guest post in the Poetry Lab or blog on any of the Thoughts on Poetry topics, including Foremother Friday or Small Press Interviews, drop me a line at  bonesparkblog@yahoo.com.

Not Just 2: A Plethora of Medusa Poems & a Giveaway

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#ReadWomen2014, 2sDay Poems, Academy of American Poets, Alice Friman, Body of this Death, British Poets, Carol Ann Duffy, Carvaggio, Chris Wauchop, feminist poets, finger tats, Frederick Sandys, giveaway, Louise Bogan, Medusa Poems, Melissa Dickson, Modern American Poetry, Negative Capability Press, Patricia Smith, Poetry magazine, slam poets, Sweet Aegis, Sylvia Plath, The World's Wife, women poets

Frederick Sandys (1829-1904)

 

 

One of my favorite finds from National Poetry Month is Negative Capability author Melissa Dickson’s  SweetAegis:Medusa Poems.  Enjoy Medusa’s Dilemma (and a bonus poem over on the Dead Mule blog. ) Here’s a link to an interview about the collection.

 

 

 

 

Alice Pike Barney, 1892

 

 

 

Louise Bogan’s darker Medusa is from Poetry’s archives.  The full collection  Body of this Death (1923) is available as a FREE download in several formats at archive.org. Find out more about Bogan’s life and career at Modern American Poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

Caravaggio, 1597

 

Carol Ann Duffy’s Medusa is part of The World’s Wife collection and is widely studied in Secondary Schools in the UK. A brief bio from the British Council.  Hear her speak on her fairytale/mythological characters in an hour-long Reflections Of The Poet Laureate lecture.

 

 

 

 

model by Chris Wauchop

 

 

 

Slam poet Patricia Smith’s Medusa is even more dazzling in person.  Get your performance fix from this Hampshire Slam Collective video. 

 

 

 

 

 

Finger Tat by Bang Bang

 

 

The great Sylvia Plath reads her Medusa in a vintage video find. Astute listeners will note that the spoken version differs slightly from that in The Collected Poems.

 

 

 

 

 

***Have a Medusa poem of your own or admire that of another poet? Post in the comments for a chance to win a set of handmade bookmarks with fairytale/mythological themes.

 

 

2sDay Poems: Hot Out of Chicago with Highlights from Dancing Girl

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2sDay Poems, Call for work, Chicago poetry, Christine Rau, Dancing Girl Press, feminist poets, For the Girls I, In the Yellowed House, Kristy Bowen, Naming the WIfe of Sisyphus, poetry chapbooks, Release, small presses, submissions, The Poetry Storehouse, wicked alice, women poets, women-centric press

Ok peeps, today you get a double shot from one my all-time favorite small poetry presses, the women-centric Dancing Girl Press & studio.

This artsy shop is run out of downtown Chciago by poet/artist Kristy Bowen, a talented gal with impeccable taste.

In addition to overseeing the publication of its annual chapbook series, Bowen also has on offer a quirky collection of paper goods/vintage ephemera and produces the feminist online mag wicked alice.

Two of Dancing Girl’s newest chaps are featured below with selections.  Click italicized title to order.

 

from In the Yellowed House

by Janeen Pergrin Rastall

RELEASE

The surf lays out featherless wings
and sanded birch limbs,
pieces once bound by ice.
Does a wave batter debris into something better?
A woman goes to the lake.
shorts and t-shirt taunt early May,
faded welts dapple wintered flesh.
She carves the sand with a stick,
draws two names inside a heart.
In an hour the beach will be blank.
She has predicted this end,
tasted it on his menthol tongue,
felt it in each whorl and callus,
every knuckles’ edge.
When waves encroach, she snaps
a photo with her phone.
She will not stay
to see her name sucked back with the sand.

The audio for this poem is at The Poetry Storehouse.

 

 

from For the Girls, I

by Christina M. Rau

NAMING THE WIFE OF SISYPHUS

Cathy—it’s a sweet name,
one who loves her husband
but since she’s got a bit
of resistance in her, maybe
it’s Kathy, with a K,
or Kat since she’s got some
sass, too, or Katerina,
a strong, sexy name,
but that would make her too skinny.
No one has ever seen a fat Katerina;
Fat Katerinas simply do not exist.
She needs to have some weight
so she can throw it around
when she stands her ground.
Georgina—slender with a slight belly,
a woman who can bellow at the Gods,
but that’s not old enough;
it needs to be antiquated,
like Antigone, but not as depressed,
like Aphrodite, but not as beautiful,
like Angelika, but less cinematic.
Frannie, Francine, that must
be her name—no, Francesca,
a woman with looks, older but not
too old a soul, one strong enough
to love a man whose heart attacks him
and then kills him
though he refuses to die.
Perhaps that’s too pretty still;
even a slightly average woman
would move on.
Laura, Maria, Betsy, Daphne,
Portia, Sally, Vesta, Wanda,
Yolanda, Zelda, Helen—
nothing quite fits.
They are all slightly off.
Nothing safely and soundly
encompasses all that is the woman
who stands by her man
in the face of his false immortality
and the consequences of his
undeadly denial.

 

DGP: Chapbook manuscripts currently being accepted from women poets through August 31. Guidelines.