P isn't for pessimism

I filled up my gas tank yesterday. I didn’t like it, but we are a mobile society and I do have to get to and from work. I heard the cost of petrol on the exchange flirted with 100 a barrel and I saw this morning it was up there again.

No one I know has recently accused me of being a Pollyanna, but I’m not the grim reaper either. Reading Dale Smith’s 2008 poetry forecast makes me wonder if I should buy stock in Pfizer. Surely any poet who is not already on Zoloft will require it before long if Dale’s State of the Poetry Union Forecast were to be on the mark.

I’m not suggesting that there are sweet days ahead for the American Economy. I don’t care what the other economic indicators are, you spend $8.25 billion a month that is not factored anywhere in your budget for a war, over an extended period and there are going to be serious economic repercussions. That goes without the housing market sagging or the price of fuel. I’ll give Dale credit, we are in a mess and he’s called that right. But what Dale has described is a total financial collapse of the economy and linked to it a very disparaging result for the state of poetry.

Much of, no, nearly all of poetry written today is free from connection to our economy.
A good number of poets I know – many of which are quite accomplished writers don’t see economic rewards from their work and will write no less in 2008 irrespective of the price of fuel oil.

This past year was a pretty nasty year and I’d say that as divided as this nation is politically, we have right now about a 50% shot that the next president will move this nation in the right direction. It’s a crap shoot, and I’m being honest. Even if we are fortunate, the present state of affairs is so bad; I can almost guarantee we won’t even be halfway out of the sorry state of this nation by the time 2008 is over. Even so, poetry can and likely will flourish.

Most poetry readings are generally a local event. I see little chance of these becoming a thing of the past. The state of small presses has been changing for some time and likely will continue. Already we are seeing a shift in the print industry to print on demand for a number of reasons… inventory costs, environmental considerations to name a couple. As for the Internet, it's even far more cost effective as a means of commerce and would likely flourish in time of critical fuel costs/supply.

The year 2008 can go to hell in a hand basket and poetry will likely continue. It's in tough times that poetry seems to crawl out of the cracks of inspiration from nowhere and spring up everywhere.

Annual New Years Day Poetry Reading

Today was the Annual New Years Day Poetry marathon at the
Writers Place in Kansas City. I believe this is like the third year if my memory serves me correct. Started mid day today and runs till midnight or until the poets and crowd otherwise disbands.

Pictured right is Will Leathem, Writers Place director with the opening reading. I read five pieces of work this year. I haven't read nearly as much this year as in the past couple of years. Perhaps I should plan to do a little more of it in 2008. We'll see.

Welcome to the new year...

A little poetry news from around the world...

• More than 70 years after García Lorca’s death by a fascist firing squad at the start of the Spanish Civil War, the shadowy elf apparently inhabits García Lorca’s country me. Click
• Thousands of dissidents silenced under Argentina's military dictatorship - tortured, executed and made to "disappear" in the so-called Dirty War against dissent - are gaining new voice through poetry. Click
• For Ferlinghetti, poetry's "use" extends far beyond the personal into the political. "Poetry can save the world by transforming consciousness," he argues in "Poetry as Insurgent Art," a slim hardback pocketbook manifesto of prose epigrams, seemingly addressed to poets and those who might be. Click
• Ashbery's poetry makes you wonder what the wish to understand may protect you from; what the pleasures are of not understanding. Click
• Letters to the World, a poetry collection by the world's female poets, including an Iranian, is to be released early in the New Year. Click

Final 12 month review of the year

Statistics totals reflect last 12 months from this date: 12-31-07

Pending responses: 18
Submissions sent last 12 months: 43
Submissions sent this month: 10
Acceptance ratio: 15.38 %

Happy New Year Everyone!

May 2008 be filled with much inspiration ~ writing ~ and publication to you all!

"The Present is a Point just passed." ~ David Russell

In one way or another, time seems to find a way into a good deal of poetry. I suppose, because it often becomes another "place" and in so many ways poetry relies upon place. A place in the past... a birthday, a death, a walk in the park on one certain day in May, or it's about where someone is this very moment in their life. Still, it can present itself in the fears, dreams, hopes of the future.

There are periods when I write a lot about time myself, in one way or the other. It is an easy place to go for a poet because it can be anywhere s/he wants it to be and it can help distance the writing from the moment we are in and, it seems easier to write in another time than another persona.

Why am I blogging on time today? I suppose because New Years Eve is one of those dividers of time, just as time zones are or the International date line (not a reference to a singles phone service). We catalogue things by points of time and so one of those great separators of then and now, or past and future seems as good as any to think about the relativity of time.

12 days left to Vote on Poetry & Academia

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7 Things You Should Know About Writing Poetry:

Deborah Ager posted a list of 7 things you should know about writing poetry. She challenged others to make their own list. I saw Kelli's list & below you will find mine.

7 Things You Should Know About Writing Poetry:

1. Writing poetry can be solitary even amongst other people.
2. There will be days you question what you are doing and swear you’ll never write again. This will pass. Often later the same day.
3. People will think you are moody because you are a poet. This is not so. Even people who cannot write a single line of poetry can be moody anytime prior to their death.
4. You will add years to your life if you can learn to resist trying to explain the meaning of your poetry when people ask.
5. It is not mandatory that you be narcissistic to be a poet, but on the other hand it won’t hurt.
6. Not everything we write has happened to us. If so, we would all be a little too weird.
7. It’s not that our parent(s) didn’t teach us to share; we just tend to get fussy about our writing instruments, journals, and the table at Starbucks we sit at, etc.