Category: poetry
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Squared
Holy smokes, it’s November. This is when I really began to panic. Not because of the holidays or shopping — we simply don’t participate that way — but because of what it all represents: the end of another year, the lightning passage of time. If you haven’t noticed, it’s speeding up. Someone needs to look…
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Intimations of Mortality
Lately I’m expending a lot of effort feeling frustrated by the lagging response times of most of the journals I’ve submitted to, fighting the urge to dash off mild yet curious emails regarding my poems. I feel stymied, depressed. Lately I’m frustrated by my failure to stabilize Aidan’s ever-erratic sleep schedule, my attempts at weaning,…
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Confession Tuesday, my occasional contribution:
Kelli, January, and others have fuller line-ups of participating confessors, so travel yonder for directions. I’m so far behind I’m still mired in September. My bottom’s still broken, but the pain is becoming more manageable/tolerable; also, my husband took a buzz saw to the stairs — the top stair hung over the second by a…
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“A body falls like a story: / beginning, middle, end.” — Amy Newman
Except in my case — my falling came to an abrupt halt. The back staircase was slick with rain, and I slipped on my first step, holding Aidan — who was entirely unhurt — (I sprained an ankle once falling down our front staircase holding Vincent, and he too was unhurt — I’m very good…
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Sub·mit (səb mit′) — origin: ME submitten < L submittere < sub-, under, down + mittere, to send
It’s September, the first days of autumn — officially here in two days — beginning of migration season — birds & leaves — colder temps and colds. Naturally, my children are celebrating by both of them coming down with whoppers of colds. I’m not the nervous type, but Aidan’s breathing so concerned me last night…
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On Revision
I don’t mean the sort of revising that is part of the usual process of writing a poem. I’m thinking more about the revising of poems that have already appeared in print. If you’ve ever seen Galway Kinnell read, you might have noticed the margins of the book he’s reading from filled with pencil scrawls.…
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Gentle Reminders of What Makes the Poetry Blogosphere Such a Great Place to Be:
I was lucky enough to take Jeannine Hall Gailey‘s online manuscript workshop this summer, and I can’t begin to tell you what a rich experience it was. There are plenty of resources, both online & in print, that give you advice on how to sequence a manuscript, but there’s nothing like having a close &…
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W.S. Merwin on Linebreaks
“I think of stopping at a given point as a rhythmical gesture, and also as a gesture of meaning — because where you stop, if the rhythm is working, is going to have an effect on the meaning, particularly if you’re not punctuating. But it’s important to stop in such a way that the stop…
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Chain Chain Chain
The poetry world seems both impossibly small and strangely crowded, it can be difficult to get noticed. A few things I must tell you: Rain Taxi has a rave review of the wonderful Andrea Cohen’s book, Long Division (Salmon Poetry). Warren Woessner, who wrote the review, has a fine appreciation for Cohen’s many many gifts as a…
Marie Gauthier 