#NationalPoetryMonth’16 Round-up (Day 5 )

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#NaPoWriMo, #NationalPoetryMonth, 30dpc, Adele Kenny, Anne Carson, Apparatus Magazine, BBC Travel, Carl Phillips, Carolyn Smart, Found Poetry Review, G.C. Waldrep, Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Kate Foley, Lagan Press, Mariah Wilson, Mary Carroll Hackett, Maya Angelou, Neruda, NotaLiteraryJournal, NPM16, Paula Cunningham, Permafrost, persona poems, Poem a Day, Poetic Asides, poetry collections, poetry prompts, Poetry School, QuillsEdge Press, Rita Dove, The South in Verse, Wendell Berry, Winter Tangerine, women poets, writing poems from film

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

Best of the Prompts

NaPoWriMo’s “Heirloom Seed Names prompt”
NotaLiteraryJournal’s “Road Signs prompt”
Imaginary Garden’s “Villanelle challenge”
Mary Carroll-Hackett’s “Singing Place prompt”
Poetic Asides P-A-D “Experienced/Inexperienced poems prompt”
Adele Kenny’s “Sound(s) prompt”
30dpc’s “Triolet Failures prompt”
Apparatus Mag’s “Vices prompt”
Poetry School’s “Instagram prompt”
Mariah Wilson’s “10 Lines prompt”
QuillsEdge Press’ “Hairbrushing Memory/Ode to Hair prompt”
Kate Foley’s “Guilty Pride prompt”
Found Poetry’s “Replicate the Movement of a Song prompt”
Lagan Press’ “Mind Connections prompt”
Winter Tangerine’s “The Sound of Silence prompt”

Poems I Have Loved (Tweeters’ Shares)

Carl Phillips “For Night to Fall”
Wendell Berry “Peace of Wild Things”
Paula Cunningham “Aubade”
Anne Carson “Short Talk on Trout”
Rita Dove “Transit”
Maya Angelou “On the Pulse of Morning” (video)

Miscellaneous

Chile Through Pablo Neruda’s Eyes (BBC Travel)
Interview with Poet G.C. Waldrep at Permafrost
The South in Verse: April Poetry Picks (NC’s Our State Mag)
Carolyn Smart on Careen, her Bonnie &Clyde inspired poetry collection (cbcradio)
Reflections on Writing Poems from Film w/ Youth (free guide)
Using Persona Poetry to “humanize the abstractions of poverty, war, racism” (free guide)

**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.

#NationalPoetryMonth Round-up (Day 3)

Tags

#napomo, #NaPoWriMo, #NationalPoetryMonth, #NPM15, Alisha Erin Hillam, Apparatus Magazine, artspeak, Dan Musset, Emilia Phillips, Epistolary Poems, Five 2 One Mag, floodmark poetry, Galway Kinnell, irish modernist poets, jewish poems, Jumping Into Form, Lorraine Mariner, Lucille Clifton, Marcela Shulak, May Swenson, Miss Rumphius Effect, Mslexia Challenge, Neruda, Nikki Giovanni, Po-Emotions, Poem a Day, Poeming, Poems I Have Loved, Poetic Asides, poetry challenges, Poetry in Motion, Poetry magazine, poetry prompts, poetry tumblr, Shape&Nature Press, Sharngrill Willy, Shel Silverstein, Storybird, visual poems, Wild Violet, women poets, Zedeka Poindexter

DAY THREE coming at ya! Best of prompts, poems and news #NaPoWriMo/#NPM15 /#NationalPoetryMonth

Best of the Prompts

ARTSPEAK #3: “Manet’s The Railway”
Mslexia “Page 37 Prompt”
Poetic Asides P-A-D “Machine Poems”
Apparatus Magazine’s “Dead Famous Prompt”
Kris Bigalk’s “Hodge-Podge prompt”
Storybird “Obsession”
30dpc “Goodbye, Winter Elegy”
Wild Violet “B is for Blues”
Po-Emotions “Surprise”
Five 2 One Mag’s “Dangling Picture Prompt”
NYPL “Epistolary Poems”
Poetry For All’s Video Prompts
Miss Rumphius Effect’s “Jumping Into Form-Raccontinos”
Shape&Nature Press’ “A Tree’s Ambitions”
Jarvis Subia’s “This Poem is a Life Jacket”
The Language Inside’s “Homage to a physical attribute a la Lucille Clifton”
Reading to the Core’s “Ode to Common Things in the vein of Neruda”
Floodmark Poetry’s “Bathroom Stall prompt”

Poems I Have Loved (Tweeters’ Shares)

Dan Musset| “Eggs”
May Swenson| “Strawberrying”
Shangrilla Willy| “Hunger” (with sound)
Alisha Erin Hillam| “If I Had Twitter in 1998”
Nikki Giovanni| “kidnap poem”
Marcela Shulak| “Ecclesiastes”
Morgan Parker| “99 Problems”
Zedeka Poindexter| “Peach Cobbler” (video)
Galway Kinnell| “Saint Francis and the Sow” (Souncloud)
Emilia Phillips| “Supine Body in Full-Length Mirror, Hotel Room, Upper West Side
Lorraine Mariner| “Poem in Which I Turn 40& Still Admit to Fantasizing about Being In a Band “
Shel Silverstein| “Where the Sidewalk Ends”

Miscellaneous

How to Make a Visual Poem (video)
Conversation w/ Gwendolyn Brooks (Lib. of Congress video)
On Irish Modernist Poet Freda Laughton
Mariana Ruiz Firmat on Dawn Lundy Martin at the operating system
Poems of Jewish Faith and Culture Sampler
Free Download of Poetry Magazine April Issue

 

 

 

Me as Levar

Tags

@BoneSparkBlog, Aimee Bender, Barry Hannah, Brock Adams, Levar Burton, Lucia Perillo, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Neruda, Reading Rainbow, Sherman Alexie, Short story lovers, Tania James

In honor of Reading Rainbow‘s 30th anniversary (yes, that was this summer), I am playing Levar and dishing out a list of good reads for short story lovers.

If you follow me on Twitter (and you should be following me on Twitter @bonesparkblog), then you already know that my library recently brought in a whooping stack of short story collections.

There were well over a dozen. Some were older, some newer, most were (surprisingly) by females. I diligently waded through this stack to bring you the best of the best. So without further ado, my selections:

“The Devourings”–from Aimee Bender’s The Color Master.

This story tells the tale of a homely woman who finds love with an ogre. After he accidentally devours their children, grief forces her out of their home for a time, but ultimately she returns. Bender has a way of weaving real pain with fairytale settings.  Did I mention that there’s a magical cake involved?

“Bad Boy Number 17”–from Lucia Perillo’s Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain

This story is part of a three-story arc featuring two sisters, one of which suffers from Down’s syndrome. It stands alone as well as a linked narrative. With its Pacific NW setting and the dark edge Perillo brings to it, I am reminded of Sherman Alexie, but without some of the pathos. Interestingly, both Alexie and Perillo are poets.  I think that the lyricism in the prose is what draws me to her work. This is a great new find for me, and I look forward to more from this author.

“Saving Face”–from Megan Mayhew Bergman’s Birds of a Lesser Paradise

This is another writer I was happy to discover. I liked most of the stories in the collection, but I really loved the tension in this one. Here we encounter a women struggling within herself to regain her confidence. She has lost part of her lip to an animal that she had been treating in her vet practice. That pulling, that inner wrestling, is something that every woman experiences at some point in her life. Interesting to see her try to work out what part of her self is tied to her appearance. This one will stay with me.

“Audacious”–from Brock Adams’ Gulf

Reading through this collection, I am reminded of Michael Knight’s Dogfight, which is set roughly in the same region. Adams, of course, gives this space a whole different slant. His work has a noir element that is intriguing. Surprisingly, my favorite story from the book is set in an unnamed Northern town with a frozen lake and cold subway platforms. It’s the story of a pick-pocket and a widower each longing for a deeper relationship.  This was released in 2010. Hopefully, Adams’ will have some new work coming soon.

“What to Do with Henry”–from Tania James’ Aerogrammes

Wow! This one really gripped me. There were so many things going on it in, but it all was woven together so perfectly. Henry, a chimp, comes to Ohio from Sierra Leone along with the newly adopted Neneh, who is the illegitimate daughter of Pearl’s husband.  The three form a strange alliance that is deeply affecting even after Pearl’s death. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but be ready for tears. Haunting.

“Love too Long”–from Barry Hannah’s Long, Last, Happy

Well, what can I say about Hannah? I’d call myself a feminist, but I have to say that I have a soft spot for his overwrought fiction. His work oozes testosterone and not always with a good outcome for him or his protagonists. There is just something about his ballsy-ness that speaks to me. I have been in love with it ever since I first read this story while studying at Hollins (it was originally included in Airships). I would liken it to Neruda, if Neruda wrote fiction and was from the South. It makes me feel what the narrator does when he says, “my head’s burning off and I got a heart about to bust out of my ribs.”  I’m going to want my own copy of this one.

Now if only I can talk those librarians into ordering more poetry.