Clair de lune

Claude Debussy gets honoured with Google Doodle

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NewBorder Interview with Rigoberto Gonzalez

Yes, these snubs are frustrating and sometimes maddening, but I take great comfort in knowing that we have not stopped writing just because the Pulitzer prize committee hasn’t given us a bone. Because that’s not why we write. We are not here to please a mostly-white institution. If New York never notices, it’s New York’s loss, but it’s only a matter of time before it catches up to the cultural and demographic shifts of this country’s readership. All the rest of us have to do is to keep writing, build up the readership, and not allow New York—or anyone else—to tell us they discovered us or that our journeys began when they first took notice.

Black Rook in Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain-
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical
Yet politic, ignorant

Of whatever angel any choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur.
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance
Miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,

For that rare, random descent.

---Sylvia Plath 

Announcing the Winners of the 3rd Annual Terrain.org Contests

The editors of Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments are delighted to announce the winners of our 3rd Annual Contests in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction:

Poetry

Genevieve Leet

For her poem set “[when I died they found a nest of snakes in my intestines, their backs]” and “Somewhere beyond the curve of the earth, there is a ceremonial bamboo boat”

Judged by Suzanne Frischkorn, who writes:

“[when I died they found a nest of snakes in my intestines, their backs]” and  “Somewhere beyond the curve of the earth, there is a ceremonial bamboo boat” disarmed me with their terrible beauty. These poems appealed to me initially by sound, then by language, and finally with meaning. While the first may appear more abstract than the second both of these poems have many layers. Delving into a difficult poem and finding that the effort opens its secret compartments—and here the compartments are all fastened by spring hinge—is extremely rewarding. That there is beauty in the terrible ruin caused by marine debris, that there is usefulness in decay after death—those snakeskin boots!—is something that may cross our minds when cultivating soil, but not often when contemplating the death of “everything that ties its shoes”. The surprises in these devastating poems make the reader think, and then think again. Like the ghost images that linger in the second poem, these poems linger within the reader. It takes a deft hand to create art that works on multiple levels. I look forward to reading more of the poet’s work.

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Rigoberto Gonzalez on Eduardo C. Corral

"The sophistication of "Slow Lightning," however, is that its stunning imagery, its serious treatment of craft, as well as its homage to a Southwestern culture and landscape that predates its life as a U.S. territory, will endow the book with a timeless quality. This is indeed a classic in the making." 

Suburban Gothic

Have you picked up Claudine Moreau's Dark Machines yet? Go get yrs!

♥ & ♥

Two Poems from Slow Lightning, by Eduardo C. Corral at Poetry Daily today!

Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso is one of my many

& very favorites in the collection.

Swoon.

♥

Fire On Her Tongue

Fire On Her Tongue is now available--the first anthology of contemporary women’s poetry available exclusively for electronic platforms--featuring Kate Greenstreet, Jane Hirshfield, Alicia Ostriker, Patricia Smith, Yours Truly, and many others. Kudos to editors Kelli Russell Agodon & Annette Spaulding-Convy! Go get yrs.

♥ this poem from LOCUSPOINT: Seattle

Dream of the Unified Media: LOCUSPOINT: Seattle, 30 September 2006: Of her city, editor Rebecca Loudon wrote, "Seattle is a city known for its rain, its lush green beltways, its flourishing theater and music...

Shelley Memorial Award

Wonderful news and well deserved,

congratulations to Rigoberto González!

Great News!

Paul Guest, one of my favorite people as well as one of my favorite poets, is a 2011 Guggenhiem Fellow!

♥

♥

I know it’s not easy being an artist. I know the gulf between creation and commerce is so tremendously wide that it’s sometimes impossible not to feel annihilated by it. A lot of artists give up because it’s just too damn hard to go on making art in a culture that by and large does not support its artists. But the people who don’t give up are the people who find a way to believe in abundance rather than scarcity. They’ve taken into their hearts the idea that there is enough for all of us, that success will manifest itself in different ways for different sorts of artists, that keeping the faith is more important than cashing the check, that being genuinely happy for someone else who got something you hope to get makes you genuinely happier too.

Happy Valentine's Day~*

♥

Eduardo C. Corral is the first pick by Carl Philips for the Yale Younger Poets Series -- this news reaffirms my faith in poetry. I can't think of a more deserving poet. A poet who also happens to be charming, sweet, generous and let's not forget handsome. Congratulations, Eduardo, good on ya!

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Sweet

Teachers take note of my husband's new blog -- The Teacher-Coach. Check it out, pass it on!

Today

Lit Windowpane is Celebrating 90 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote.

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Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government - the ballot.

For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity.

To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation.

50/50: Words & Images for Didi Menendez

Edited by Grace Cavalieri, & April Carter Grant

This anthology contains poems, essays, and visual works from writers and poets who have been published by Didi Menendez in MiPOesias magazine, OCHO, Poets and Artists (O&S), or books. Each piece is about or dedicated to Didi in celebration of her long-standing commitment to advancing print and web standards for independent publishing of poetry and art. Full-color interior.

My poem, "Papaya," inspired by the fabulous Didi is included along with poems by Barbra Nightingale, Diego Quiros, Ivy Alvarez, Ron Androla, Nick Piombino, Holly Picano, Michael Parker, Meghan Punschke, Amy King, John Korn, Grady Harp, Jose Parra, David Lehman, Matthew Hittinger, Cheryl Townsend, Andrew Demcak, Bruce Covey, Luc Simonic, Diana Adams, Charles Jensen, Reb Livingston, Karen Hollingsworth, Melissa McEwen, Wiliam Stobb, Nick Carbo, Pris Campbell, Denise Duhamel, Edward Nudelman, Marie-Elizabeth Mali, Geoffrey Gatza, Emma Trelles, Miguel Murphy, Jeremy Baum, Kirk Curnutt, Michelle M. Buchanan, Evie Shockley, Dan Murano, LD Grant, April Carter Grant, Tony Trigilio

50/50 Words and Images for Didi Menendez

High Resolution PDF

Low Resolution PDF

Blondie - Dreaming (2004 Digital Remaster)