Another Bucketful of Stuff

It seems fitting in the time of the harvest moon to find so much plenty in the world of poetry. If you’ll hang with me through one more reaping from the blogs on my list, I think I’ll be back to reading and writing new drafts next week. For today’s trip to the grain elevator, I have three links about others and one horn-tooting for myself.

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I’ve written about Rachel Contreni Flynn’s work in the past, and linked most recently to her new work at The Collagist. The same journal posted an interview with RCF on Nov. 2nd. I was just able to read it today. If you have the time, I suggest following the link to the poems first. They are the kind of poems that feel like a punch in the solar plexus. All the air goes right out of me. I was surprised and humbled to find Blood Almanac listed in the last question. Thanks to Rachel for that!

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I’ve been a huge fan of Mary Biddinger’s blog The Word Cage for over a year. This week she has two “how to” posts about writing poems that are seriously wonderful in the highly imaginative way. I appreciate being able to look at the process in a new way. Check out How to defibrillate a poem (before it’s too late) and How to kill a poem (before it even starts).

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Thanks to the Hayden’s Ferry Review blog for mention of PoetrySpeaks. I hadn’t heard of this website before, a new addition to audio resources for poets and poetry. I plan to spend some time checking it out this weekend. I plan on using several of audio blogs/websites in my creative writing class in the spring.

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Finally, to toot my own horn. (If you are averse to poet’s spreading good news about themselves, please stop reading here.) I woke up today with emails from Jake Adam York, an editor at Copper Nickel, and Josh Robbins in my inbox alerting me to the fact that one of my poems from the most recent Copper Nickel is on Verse Daily today. Check out “The Interior Weather of Tree-Clinging Birds” and then consider subscribing to Copper Nickel if you like it. They are in the midst of a Great Internet Sale. (By the way, I couldn’t toot my own horn without the journals, editors, and publishers that make sharing poetry possible. THANKS!)

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Now, finally, I get to read a few of those books I mentioned buying a few posts ago. How will I decide where to start? Lou-Lou, cat #2, is currently chewing on the ribbon on Marie Gauthier’s Hunger All Inside, so maybe she’s trying to tell me something. (I love Finishing Line’s production of their chapbooks, but the ribbons are irresistible to the cats! They use the ribbons to pull the books from my shelves. Chapbook and cat toy all in one!)