New Foxtrot Video Sound Mix

Marie Craven has created a wonderful mix of video, 
Nic Sebastian's voice and my words. You can see it here.

Slipped Out Of Her Jeans - Liquid Imagination

LIQUID IMAGINATION Issue 18 is live and I am fortunate to have one of my poems with so many other really outstanding works.

You can catch Slipped Out of Her Jeans HERE and an additional treat is that there is an audio read of the poem by the vary talented Nic Sebastian. Here voice gives depth to the poem and I was thrilled to have her share in this publication with me.

Recomended - 4 for Sunday

It's Sunday and I've realized that I have not been posting nearly as often as I used to. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you really don't have anything interesting to say, or you do but haven't the time to get it said right. It's often been one or the other. I have however seen a lot of interesting stuff this week that I thought I'd share case you may have missed any of it.

Martha Silano at Blue Positive posted her Ten Poetry Rules and while there is a slice of humor in them there seems to me to be a heap of wisdom in there too. Martha is the author of The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, winner of the 2010 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize and one of my favorite reads this year.

Then there is Jeannine Hall Gailey the Poet Laureate of Redmond, WA who writes Feeling Discouraged about Poetryworld?  First let me say that I like hearing a Poet Laureate talk about discouragement and poetry together. It's comforting to know that even a laureate can feel the pain of discouragement. I also like that she used the word poetryworld as I do feel like I live in that world.
Jeannine is the author of several books the latest of which is Unexplained Feavors which came out this spring and while it's on my list to read I have read earlier books and enjoyed her work.

In interesting read I found this week was Wolf Girl by Nic Sebastain. I love the second stanza.

And finally, a poem by the late Denise Levertov titled The Secret. What I lovr about this poem is the amount of depth she achieves in relatively simple verse.

If you missed any of this, not you have no excuse not the check it out. 

Confession Tuesday... I have a Whale of a Confession!

I confess that I sometimes see things not as they are. There was the Public Service Announcement on a billboard with a woman hands on each of her cheeks (facial just to clarify) pushing them together with the heading that I thought said "Walk-in Screaming Mammograms!" Upon second look I realized it said "Wali-in Screening Mammograms."

So today I was looking at the sidebar on my blog to see who among those I regularly read might have a post new to me that I needed to check out. Two of my favorite blogs are Whale Sound and Very Like A Whale. These are both creations of Nic Sebastian. I read the following: I meant 'closed' not 'on hiatus' and it sounded like a fascinating name for a poem - already I'm thinking where I might take such a poem. Then the shock! I realized this was not a poem read aloud by the incredibly talented Nic Sebastian but rather a blog post on Very Like a Whale announcing the closure of Whale Sound.

This was a more serious laps in my understanding then the screaming mammograms because over the past year or so Nic has assembled a remarkable collection of poems in which she graced with her own voice by reading them. There are quite a few blogs that truly would miss if they disappeared of cyber space. I recently experienced the disappearance that left a big void in stimulating creative thoughts. This too is big! Fortunately, Nic has left us a marvelous archive of both spoken and written word. That we still have.

My Whale of a Confession is that Nic's reading of poems aloud is such a turn on. I don't mean sexually or anything like that, I just mean it has a quality that transcends any other voice reading poetry I've experianced. Oh there are others that can read exceptionally well. And often do their own work better than anyone else can... but Nic's transcendence carries over to other people's poetry.

What I like about it is the uniquely soft yet succinct diction. The tone is unmatched by most others. There is something about it that is so genuine. Even in soft volume it is so powerful and I believe the turn on is that she can deliver you right into the poem making you one with it.

When Nic asked if she could do one of my own poems and I agreed, I was less then enthusiastic  about the one selected. It was one that had been published a couple years back and you kind of move on from these things. After hearing Nic's read, it brought back all the excitement I  originally had with this poem.

I've subjected others in my household to Nic's recordings. My wife remarked how much better she liked Nic's rendition of my poem. My daughter Shannon likes to tease me reading poems in her best Nic Sebastian impersonation. She knows she can get a laugh out of me, but don't worry Nic, you are way safe.

There are particular poems that Nic's voice is especially well suited for. I would love to hear her read aloud many of Sylvia Plath's poem or Sharon Olds' work. But I digress. The point of this confession is simply to acknowledge what I saw as a very successful poetry project. One in which I'm sure her time spent was a personal sacrifice and had to have a labor of love aspect to it for her to do so many. And to acknowledge how much is lost with it's end. I don't think I'm along is feeling the loss.

The Whole Poem Experiance or the Poetics of Location

Some recent chatter about the "multi delivery system" of poetry has me thinking not only about the topic but broadening the spectrum even more. I mean I guess I never thought a lot about the idea of the poetic experience very much until the conversation.  I mean even before the advent of a multi delivery approach to poetry there were varying delivery systems.


Of course newer on the scene is the e-reader but we sometimes read individual poems in a journal and later find them in a published manuscript by the author. Or we may find them published in an anthology. How do I feel about the impact on the source of the poem I'm reading? 


Another question that could be asked is how much credibility, artistry, etc. can be transferred to a poem by where it is found. What can such transfer if any add or detract from the overall experience of the poem. 


Examples could be  Filter Literary Journal - see here and here.  Such craftsmanship and individual artistry are something a traditional publisher doesn't match.  Then of course there is the difference between a very well established Journal like Paris Review, Missouri Review, Rattle as opposed to say a new Journal or one one to three years old.  Who else in in that same Journal, can that make a difference? Reading a poem in Norton's Anthology surely must seem antiseptic compared a Journal or The New Yorker. Then there is a well strung together manuscript or one of those same poems in a book of the author's collected works 1972-1998 surely this experiance is different.


I'm guessing that in reading a poem as well as my observation of many thhings, I am enfluenced by the sideshows more then I think. With this in mind, the whole discussion that Nic Sebastian has sparked is not a new issue, just a different version of the one above. One that I've never really explored till now.

A Place to Kill Some Time. You Won't Regret It!

If you are looking for some awesome poetry to read / listen to - I have just the recommendation. Today I settled in and took in Nic Sebastian's Forever Will End on Thursday .  Just as Nic had done with the audio of poems by many others, she delighted me with her readings.  The writing is strong, the reading is captivating. I've heard so few people even come close to adding such a positive dimension to any one's work orally. Some people are more into spoken word poetry. I don't considered myself one of them. While I personally do enjoy giving readings and going to readings-- if I had to choose between the written word and spoken word I would choose written hands down. I'm pretty visual about poetry in that I like to see how it fills the page. That said, Nic has the ability to make the words on a page mystical.

By the way, one of my favorites among her poems as part of the link above is Oboe. In the Poems II section there are three poems that are titled  Places of Happiness (followed by three different places) each of these have such a bright lyrical quality.  I can't really do any of these poems justice here... go and listen for yourself!  Which ones speak to you?