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Odd Bits of a Creative Life (9/13)

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by BoneSpark Blog in Odd Bits from a Creative Life

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#readNDN, A Little Book of Form, acrylic paintings, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Alicia Ostriker, An Exaltation of Forms, Brenda Hillman, Copper Canyon, Death Tractates, Duppy Conqueror, Fish Psalms, grant applications, Kwame Dawes, Lit Hub, Lyn Hejinian, Matthew Zapruder, Native Arts&Cultures, Oceania, poetry readings, Robert Hass, Robin Houghton, short stories, Terrance Hayes, The Rumpus, Vievee Francis, Why Poetry, Wind in a Box

BOOKS, Books, books

WHYPOETRY
HASSFORM

I was happy to discover Matthew Zapruder’s Why Poetry at my local library, and have spent several happy weeks with it. The chronicle of how he evolved as a poet was interesting, but mostly I appreciated how he was able to articulate so much of what I’ve been thinking about poetry, but didn’t quite know how communicate.  Wow, that sounds very self-centered, but maybe it is. It is what it is. Here are a few of my favorite passages from the book:

There really was no such thing as ‘poetic language.’ The words in poems are for the most part the same as those we find everywhere else. The energy of poetry comes primarily from the reanimation and reactivation of the language that we recognize and know.”  (p.9)

“I began to discover why poems look the way they do on the page…A poem, literally, makes a space to move through. To read a poem is to move through that constructed space of ideas and thinking…As we think along, we start to make connections, and have experiences and feelings we might not have otherwise had without the poem.” (p.57)

“One of the greatest pleasures of reading poetry is to feel words mean what they usually do in every day life, and also start to move into a more charged, activated, even symbolic realm.” (p. 164)

“In a poem, language remains itself yet is also made to feel different, even sacred, like a spell. How this happens is the mystery of each poem, and maybe its deepest meaning.” (p. 166)

That last quote really made me think of Terrance Hayes’ collection Wind In a Box, and more specifically the poem “The Blue Seuss”.  You can find text and audio here. But also please buy the book. It’s one of my favorites.

More than once, he mentions Brenda Hillman’s Death Tractates, (as does Hass–not surprisingly– in A Little Book on Form).  I remember reading some sort of mini-review from him about this book several years ago, and wanted to pick it up then.  [Here’s the 2014 Rumpus “Last Book of Poems I Loved” article if you’re interested]. I know I had it in my Amazon cart at some point, but somehow didn’t get to the actual purchase.  Remedying that soon.

I tackled Hass’ Form book alongside the Zapruder one.  They make a fantastic  pair. First of all, Hass’ “little book” is not ‘little’ in any sense, not in length and not in intellectual weight. It is less textbooky than say  An Exaltation of Forms (which incidentally I was introduced to by a youtube video featuring Terrance Hayes.)

Hass’ book has wonderful sections on sonnets and odes, but the last few chapters–“Collage, Abstraction, Oulipo and Procedural Poetics”; “Mixed Forms”:  and “Prose Poem” were worth the price of the book.  Before I die, I will have to audit at least one of his Berkeley classes.

When I go, I will also crash Lyn Hejinian’s “Slow Seeing/Slow Reading (English 190) class, which Lit Hub teased recently in their “Classes 25 Famous Writers Teach” piece.

Via that post, I also found out that Vievee Francis, one of my poetry heroes, teaches “Engaging in Hybridity: Race, Gender, Genre” at Dartmouth.  I am at this very moment scooping up much of her reading list, especially Kwame Dawes’ Duppy Conqueror,  which how have I not read that already?

Also, I am hoping the ARC gods at Copper Canyon, will bestow a copy of Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s upcoming Oceania on me before I lose my mind waiting. Maybe if I send a muster of peacocks up to the author at Ole Miss, she will help smooth the way.

SCRIBBLINGS

This year, I am scheduling a few readings and really appreciated Robin Houghton’s timely post on Tackling Poetry Readings.

In other news, I applied for a Native Arts& Cultures grant. They were super helpful in the application process. Receiving the grant would help me launch a better funded #readNDN campaign, revive this blog and allow me to finish a WIP collection of poems that I’m calling Fish Psalms.

 

Why psalms?

Psalms as a form have always intrigued me. The Hebrew ones are essentially lyric poems set to music, in other words, a type of song language. The Tlingit word for ‘poetry’ is roughly translated “song language” (at shí yoo xh’atángi). Additionally, the Tlingit (other Native Americans, the Irish and Acadians) have much in common with the Hebrew people, down to the complicated clan system, a tight focus on landscape common to the displaced, and a reliance on the larger community in times of trial. These groups are all deeply spiritual, each in their own way, and are all groups that inform my work by heritage or adoption.

I am also drawn to psalms for another reason. Poet Alicia Ostriker put it best when she stated that “the emotions of Psalms surge and collapse like breaking waves”. I want FISH PSALMS to tap the full range of human emotion and to mimick natural cycles of water, evening to morning, creation to death, etc., as the Hebrew ones do.

By the end of the week, I hope to finish a short story that is on the surface about a lost dog, but underneath about the ever-present class struggles in the Deep South. I am 2 scenes away from being done. Currently calling it “Denny Albers’ Dog.

ART

Besides taking new photos for the blog, twitter and the grant application (see a few below),

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LaRue2
LaRue3
LaRue4

I tried to translate the success of my oil pastel portraits to acrylics by trying out sheets of 10x 12 canvas paper and reinterpreting photos from the historic New Orleans collection.  This seems to be the right mix of materials and subjects. FINALLY.

 

 

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#NationalPoetryMonth Round-up (Day 13)

13 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by BoneSpark Blog in National Poetry Month '15

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#NaPoWriMo, #NationalPoetryMonth, #NPM15, 30dpc, Apparatus Magazine, Art Critical, artspeak, battle rap poems, Codex Journal, craft talks, Gloria Anzaldua, Hoa Nguyen, Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Jane Kenyon, Joan Didion, journals that pay for poems, Kantan Chamorrita, Kathleen Jamie, Katie Manning, Kim Addonizio, Latino Poets Video Project, Louise Gluck, Miss Rumphius Effect, mslexia, Osma Alomar, Ploughshares, Poem a Day, poetic wandering, Poetically Speaking, Poetry Daily, Poetry Foundation, Poetry Has Value, poetry prompts, Robert Hass, science and poetry, Scottish Book Trust, stripped poems, Terrance Hayes, Tessa Gratton, The Daily Post, the language inside, Theodore Roethke, Upper Rubber Boot, Wild Violet, women poets

13

DAY THIRTEEN has arrived with a blanket of rain in NOLA. Wishing you sunny skies!! Here is the  best of today’s prompts, poems and news from #NaPoWriMo/#NPM15 /#NationalPoetryMonth>

Best of the Prompts

Imaginary Garden w/ Real Toads’ “Joan Didion springboard prompt”
Mslexia “Stripped Poems (minus descriptors)”
Poetic Asides P-A-D “Confession Poems”
30dpc “Meta Poems”
NaPoWriMo’s “Riddle Poems w/ Plath”
The Language Inside’s “Turning Points (in present tense) prompt”
REWIND The Daily Post’s “Ode to Things in Drawers w/ Apostrophes prompt”
Apparatus Magazine’s “Exploring Deepest Fears prompt”
Miss Rumphius Effect’s Jumping Into Form: The Ekphrastic Poem
ARTSPEAK #13 picture prompt: A Monday Washing, NYC (artist unknown)
Wild Violet’s “K is for Kantan Chamorrita (form from Mariana Islands similar to battle rap)”

Poems I Have Loved (Tweeters’ Shares)

Kim Addonizio| “What Do Women Want?”
Jane Kenyon| “Let Evening Come”
Theodore Roethke| “Orchids”
Terannce Hayes| “The Deer”
Kathleen McGookey| “Monkey Island”
Louise Gluck| “The Evening Star”
Osma Alomar| 2Poems/Fables

Miscellaneous

On Building a Word-Hoard at Ploughshares
Tessa Gratton on Gloria Anzaldua at Poetically Speaking
Featured Poet: Katie Manning at Negative Capability Press
Poetry and Pho: Hoa Nguyen Shares Lyricism and a Recipe at ArtCritical
10 Books of Scottish Nature Poetry (including Kathleen Jamie’s newest)
Journals that Pay for Poems at PoetryHasValue
Latino Poets Video Project at Codex Journal
Poetic Wandering: Walking Tour Highlights Literary Harvard
The Poetic Species: Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson in Conversation w/ Robert Hass on Science& Poetry

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#NationalPoetryMonth Round-up (Day 8)

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by BoneSpark Blog in National Poetry Month '15

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#NaPoWriMo, #NationalPoetryMonth, #NPM15, A Piece of the Pie, a.e. stallings, Adrian Blevins, Apparatus Magazine, artspeak, doireann ni ghriofa, ellen bass, joel dias-porter, Kris bigalk, lorine niedecker, mary ruefle, Miss Rumphius Effect, mslexia, peter coghill, pink ink press, Poem a Day, Poetic Asides, poetry and film, poetry prompts, Robert Hass, the doubling of self, the language inside, Wild Violet, women poets

number8

Your one-stop source for the best of the prompts, poems and news from DAY EIGHT of #NaPoWriMo/#NPM15 /#NationalPoetryMonth.

Best of the Prompts

ARTSPEAK #: “Renoir’s Head of a Dog“
Mslexia “Coffee Shop First Lines”
Poetic Asides P-A-D “Dare Poems”
Apparatus Magazine’s “Can’t Live Without You poems”
30dpc “Syntactic Ambiguity”
Wild Violet “G is for Ghazal”
Miss Rumphius Effect’s “Jumping Into Form–Animal Haiku”
The Language Inside’s “News Mine”
Pink Ink Press’ “The Sea Speaks”
NaPoWriMo’s “Palinodes”
Kris Bigalk’s “Dream prompt”

Poems I Have Loved (Tweeters’ Shares)

Robert Hass| “The Problem of Describing Color”
Mary Ruefle| “The Hand”
Joel Dias-Porter| “Turning the Tables”
Doireann Ní Ghríofa| “The Headless Woman”
Peter Coghill| “Piet Mondrian and the Fixed Point Theorem”
Ellen Bass| “Ode to the Pork Chop”
Adrian Blevins| “Watching the News Hour”

Miscellaneous

Poetry and Film (at The Pig’s Wings blog)
The Doubling of Self: An Interview w/ Richard Siken
A.E. Stallings: Writing Poetry (Messenger Lecture)
Lorine Niedecker and the Obstinacy of the Particular

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#NationalPoetryMonth Round-up (Day 7)

07 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by BoneSpark Blog in National Poetry Month '15

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#napomo, #NaPoWriMo, #NationalPoetryMonth, #NPM15, 30dpc, Apparatus Magazine, arthurian legends, artspeak, atlas obscura, Emily Skaja, Gary Soto, George Washington, hatbooks, Jane Hirshfield, John Ashberry, Kimberly Blaeser, Kristin Naca, Martha Silano, Mary Biddinger, Miss Rumphius Effect, mslexia, National Museum of the American Indian, O Magazine, PBS, picture prompts, pink ink press, Poem a Day, poet laureates, Poetic Asides, Poetically Speaking, poetry prompts, poets on twitter, Robert Hass, Sarah Heller, Storybird, Terri Witek, Wild Violet, women poets, Yusef Komunyakaa

luckyseven

Your one-stop source for the best of the prompts, poems and news from DAY SEVEN of #NaPoWriMo/#NPM15 /#NationalPoetryMonth.

Best of the Prompts

ARTSPEAK #7: “Elizabeth Moutal’s Mortars and Pestles”
Mslexia “Childhood Utterings Prompt”
Poetic Asides P-A-D “Love Poems & Anti-Love poems”
Apparatus Magazine’s “Sex? poems”
30dpc “Looking Ahead prompt”
Wild Violet “F is for Figure of Speech”
Miss Rumphius Effect’s “Jumping Into Form–Senryu”
The Language Inside’s “Everyday Images w/ Repeated Lines”
Pink Ink Press’ “Romance &Affectionate Moments prompt”
PBS’ El Velador (The Nighwatchman): Place-based Poems
National Museum of the American Indian “Strawberry and Chocolate” picture prompt
Atlas Obscura “Natural Wonders: Grand Prismatic Spring” factoid prompt
Storybird “Poetry Roulette”
NaPoWriMo’s “Money poems”

Poems I Have Loved (Tweeters’ Shares)

Thuli Zuma| “90trilliion” (video)
Shakespeare| “Sonnet 126” (read by David Tennant)
Yusef Komunyakaa| “The Shortest Night”
Martha Silano| “Peach Glosa”
Gary Soto| “Oranges”
Sarah Heller| “Leaving Egypt”
Emily Skaja| “Self-Portrait with Hawk & Armada”
Jane Hirshfield| “Tolstoy and the Spider”

Miscellaneous

Ashberry on Poetry & Visual Art
Interview w/ Poet Terri Witek
Uplifting Verses from 11 Strong Female Poets
Eating Lorca: Nouns You Can Smell (Kristin Naca at Poetry)
George Washington as Poet
Poetically Speaking: The Surprises of Poetry
38 Gifted Poets on Twitter
Kimberly Blaeser and the Revelatory Power of Poetry
O Magazine’s 12 Books of Poetry to Savor
Interview: Mary Biddinger
Bankhead Visiting Writers: Robert Hass

 

 

 

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