If you are looking for a real treat this Friday...

I recommend going to qarrtsiluni online literary magazine for the poem by Dana Guthrie Martin - titled: And the Crickets Outside the Window. Click here

A poet & his companion...

It's cold here tonight. Snow came to the Kansas City area today. Driving home tonight was treacherous.

To the left you see my little tuckered out buddy that was banished to the room with the poet at work for tormenting one of the cats. Sort of like sending him to Siberia I guess.

He's a good boy most of the time... but he has his weak moments. But don't we all?

Worked on some rewrites tonight and also sent off three poems in search of homes. I feel compelled to find these orphans homes for the holiday.

Check out Picture Poetry

See the full Piclit at Poetry Picture

Poets and Evolution of Language

For me, poetry, more than any other form of literature has brought to the forefront a greater awareness of the dependence of language upon external factors. This underscores a dynamic of human communications that surprisingly make language subservient to both pictorial and emotional whims, and adds a layer of complexity that amazingly is evolutionary in nature.

Since poetry is generally regarded as the best words in the best order, such focus on word economy greater exposes each word to scrutiny, thus providing greater focus upon meaning. Individual words stand out far more in poetry than say fiction or essay or any other written communication endeavor.

It is amazing to me how the centenaries of language evolution must have progressed as man sought to find common quotients in expression. The transference from cryptic drawings to word sounds and the vastness of vocabulary expansion seems to me nothing short of phenomenal. There can be no mistaking this was an evolutionary process and it seems to me somewhat odd to think that even today this evolution is still in process right under our noses.

Is not the very articulation of metaphorical usage pushing the envelope of language? It seems to me the answer is yes, and in that context poets have a significant role to play in moving and shaking the language of our culture. The question I have, is which side of the curve are poets more often on? Are we ahead of the curve pulling language, or are we behind the curve pushing the cultural change of language as the read them in society today?

The past twelve months....

Three rejections today... Que Sera, Sera.

On that note, a survey of my past 12 month activity....

• Pending responses: 11
• Submissions sent last 12 months: 40
• Submissions sent this month: 2
• Acceptance ratio: 15.79 %

Affirmation: I will do more over the next 12 months!

Monday Rat Race Starts

Saw this on Ivy's blog.... cool huh? Poetry Library


Quote for today....

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. ~ T.S. Eliot

Poetry in the News - Sunday Night

A few stories of interest -

• Letters of Ted Hughes reveals a fascinatingly honest man (click)
• Poetry of Protest - a story from Iran (click)
• John Ashbery & Robert Lowell - Two great American poets but very different (click)
• Robert Pinsky has perfected a kind of multicultural poetic shorthand (click)