July Reading - I Finished Reading The All-Night Sun by Diane Zinna

  

During July I read the first novel by Diane Zinna.

You can read my review here

A Collision of Past and Future

I read Victoria Chang's second book before I read Circle which gave me reason for pleasant surprise. You could easily be fooled into believing this work is anything but a first book. There is cohesiveness in Circle that many poets have not mastered in their second or third publication.

In Circle Chang embraces an exposition of culture and gender in ways that are not worn or over worked. She demonstrates the spiral collision of past and future. She is often edgy but her word skills have a well controlled precision that can slip a point past you like smooth butter.

I especially enjoyed the following poems: Lantern Festival, Seven Changs, To Want, Kitchen Aid Epicurean Stand Mixer and On Quitting.

Circle was a winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition Award and was published by Southern Illinois University Press.

Review - Forms of Intercession

“Today I am medium rare. Don’t touch me.” So begins the first line if the poem Forms of Intercession, the title poem in Jayne Pupek’s book published by Mayapple Press. Throughout the book, Pupek pokes around at medium rare subject matter. It seems there are few things that inhibit her writing which can be both disturbing and refreshing.

Each new page seems to contain a poem that is scarcely able to clutch the edge of its page and as the reader, you find yourself hanging onto each line, each raw emotion in a desperate attempt to intercede and keep it from falling into the darkness of nowhere. I had to check my own hands for blood stains when finished.

For all the dispare, Forms of Intercession isn’t all that fatalistic. No it touches a core reality of life… that it is “full of broken combs and blisters. Still we go on, / because it is in us, the need for continuance, / that sliver of persistence inside every cell.” I found it a very artistically mature and straightforward read.

Forms of Intercession

Dinner with Kim

Those who savor the verse of poets had some tasty morsels served up last night at the Midwest Poets Series at Rockhurst University. Our hostess was Kim Addonizio from Oakland, California. She presented her reading as though it was a meal starting with cocktails moving to appetizers and a three course entrée topped off with a cordial.

Addonizio is a talented writer that has carved out successes in both poetry and fiction but admittedly prefers poetry. So you see, she already has me like putty in her hands; but honestly there is something about the edginess in her writing that is real. As she reads you seem to lose yourself in the words and find at the end you’ve awaken in your bed in cold sweats with the whole scenario next to you.

The crowd in the theater last night was attentive hanging to her words. There is no doubt in my mind that others too found themselves lost in her poetry. It is rich, it is real and if we were counting calories it is over the top.

She finished all this off… the poetry, a few pages from her latest novel, with a sign that her talents do not end with a pen. She treated us to a song on her harmonica. It was as song! It had distinguishable notes- not that wha-wha- whaa- wha you traditionally think of with a harmonica.

You won’t get the music if you buy the book, but her poetry is still very much worth the read. There are a few individual poems of hers out there on the Internet to discover, but her poetry is worth having in your library. And if you ever get lucky enough to hear her live, don’t pass it up!

Some audio of Kim:

What Do Women Want?

Salmon

Lush Life

Galatea Resurrects - Eighth Issue

Eileen Tabios - GR Editor & Animal Lover - Wine expert, poet, etc. asked that we spread the word:

GALATEA RESURRECTS (A POETRY ENGAGEMENT) is pleased to release its Eighth Issue with 64 new reviews/engagements!We are always looking for reviewers; next review deadline is March 5, 2008. For GR's submission and review copy information, please go to http://grarchives.blogspot.com

Friday Links of Interest

• Pulling Paper Towel Poetry - What a great Idea!!! I love it! Thanks Jilly for the link
• One poet of the past - speaks to 10 artists today link
• Bob Dylan was not on Pope Benedict's radar in 1997 when he sang at a youth concert with the late Pope John Paul link
• "A Wordly Country" by John Ashbery gets rave review in the New Your Sun link