Poets Are People Too

Imagine if Sylvia Plath had kept a blog or if Walt Whitman had posted pictures he took while walking around Manhattan. What would T.S. Eliot have tweeted about? How often would Emily Dickinson have updated her Facebook status?

One of the great things about living in the age of the internet and social networking is that we get the opportunity to be closer to our favorite writers and see them as whole people rather than just words on the page. If you are like me, you follow lots of writers on their blogs, you “like” writers and books on Facebook, and you generally cyber-stalk the writers you admire most. If I read a poem I love by a new writer, I am off to Google them immediately—their profiles, other publications, interviews, readings, and (hopefully) their blog are all at my fingertips.

Naturally, we all know that what we see online is not the “whole” picture and that online identities and personas are usually carefully constructed. Poetry blogs are varied in their scope  and focus. You can go to lots of sites for poetry news, prompts, and discussions of craft. They are the new essential reading. This list of the “50 Best Poetry Blogs” is a great place to start your online reading. But, here I want to focus on those poets who are generous enough to open themselves up on their blogs and allow us to see them as real people with regular lives who struggle with their writing just like the rest of us do. These poet/bloggers update often and allow us a glimpse into their personal and professional lives as writers. This is just a small sample, but I hope it leads you to other writers and blogs that you can learn from.

Poet Mom: January Gill O’Neil is the author of Underlife. I’ve been following January’s blog for several years now. She has documented the process of publishing and promoting her first book and becoming the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. She blogs about readings she has attended and new authors to watch for. She offers her own opinions and perspectives on issues in the poetry community. Along with all the poetry-related news, she has also shared her experiences of going through a divorce and becoming a single mother. She writes about her kids and baseball games, family vacations and redecorating her living room. By reading her blog, we begin to see how her poetry springs from her life, how putting a new front door on her house becomes a poem.

Book of Kells: Kelli Russell Agodon is the author of author of Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, Small Knots, and Geography as well as the editor of Crab Creek Review and the co-founder of Two Sylvias Press. Her blog is a quirky mix of poetry news, photographs, confessions, and links. Like January, she blogs about poetry events and issues, but also shows parts of her personal life that allow us to see how she negotiates being a wife, mother, professional, and poet. She allows us to see her triumphs, like her dream of publishing an e-book anthology of contemporary women poets Fire on Her Tongue, and her disasters, like spilling coffee on her laptop and ruining it. When you read about her haunted armoire, you see how the imagination of a poet functions in the regular world and how Kelli’s unique poetry is an extension of her unique personality and view of the world.

Modern Confessional: Colin Kelley is an award-winning poet, playwright, and novelist. His blog offers a fresh mix of writing news, interviews, and personal tidbits that show how busy the life of a writer can be. I like this blog because it shows how poetry intersects with other writing disciplines and because Colin is unfailingly honest and generous. His “Five Questions” series of interviews with writers and poets is addicting. I am always amazed at how I come away with some new insight about writing or another new poet to look up and read.

The great thing about reading a poet’s blog is how you begin to see how a writer’s life informs their work. You start to see connections between writers and how the internet can create a sense of community across vast distances. When something happens in the poetry world, like the recent “Beauty-gate” conversation, you get to see the opinions and perspectives of many writers who engage in a dialogue that is open to all of us.

Those of us old enough to remember the days before the internet appreciate the unprecedented access social networking allows us to have to the people whose work we admire. We get to see the person behind the poems on a regular basis in real time, something no other generation of readers has been able to do. So, I hope you enjoy these blogs, and please share new ones you come across! Happy reading!

Original Article

Working with Inspirations Part I: Don’t Take ‘em for Granted!

One of the most exciting things about working in a creative writing program is working with some of the greatest inspirations in my poetry career: my teachers and fellow poetry students. Since my undergrad work at Arizona State University, each poetry workshop or craft teacher I have had has brought me to a whole new level of poetry awareness. Each one seems to have their own style, inspirations, and niche they fold into.

In my undergrad, Terry Hummer made me realize the importance of syllables and syntax and how certain words collaborate with one another. As a huge jazz fan, he inspired me to open myself to the soothing effects of sounds.

I also remember the first day I walked into Sean Nevin’s workshop and had to write down 50 what-not-to-dos in poetry. I still keep that list as a guide for writing and critiquing, but the biggest rule that stuck out to me is: if it works, it works and every rule can therefore be broken.

Beckian Fritz Goldberg was by far my biggest inspiration because she taught me to take my writing to whole new levels and go “balls to the wall” when it came to subject matter and intense imagery. I discovered sides of me I didn’t even know existed and realized I wanted to be a writer of the grotesque, the beautiful, the dirty, and the innocent simultaneously and in compliment to one another.

As an MFA student at Saint Mary’s College of California, I have also gotten to work with some really great poets who have inspired me to all ends of the poetic earth. I am sad to see Graham Foust leave SMC, but I will never forget some of the advice he gave me in our meetings. He showed me how to balance my subjectivity and objectivity, how to narrow down language, and not go overboard on my images. This last semester, I took a class on The Sentence with Foust and although the first half of pure grammar from good ole Tufte and Morenberg was rather daunting, the second half of diving into some truly wonderful writers of the sentence pushed me to new ends. Between imitating Emerson and Stein and writing a full Spicer serial poem, I realized how drastically my writing has changed. They also pushed me to do some very challenging things I was almost too afraid to do, like rhyme or repeat.

I also recently got to work with Shane Book, who told me if I am going to write weird poems, I need to maintain that “weirdness” and keep it consistent in my poems! He was one that also pushed me with images that literally melt into a steaming pot of guts and disemboweled things and tar and dirtiness and mind demons, and all the good things that make people cringe. Book’s brain also contains a library of poets and writers! I probably wrote down hundreds of authors and writers he recommended and although I still have not read any of them, some of them are currently on my Amazon wish list.

My point in listing out these wonderful poets I have had the pleasure to work with is not to name drop, but to share my epiphanic moment of true appreciation for these poets as teachers and how much they truly inspired me and changed my ways of thinking about poetry. And even if I didn’t agree with some of what they said, they challenged me to think differently about writing, editing, critiquing, and just baring through poetic theory.

I also get the great pleasure of working with Brenda Hillman and Michael Palmer next semester and I couldn’t be more excited! I just know that my writing, editing, and thinking of poetry will go even further then and hopefully, I just may end up becoming a “good poet” out of all of this. ;)

To be continued…

Original Article

***THREE exciting new SUMMER contests***

The Bruised Peach Press is currently holding THREE summer submission contests! Send all submissions to TheBruisedPeachPress.Editor@Gmail.com!

1. POETRY: Please send your poem (30 lines or less)

Deadline is June 20, 2o12. There is NO entry fee.

First place winner will receive a $10 Amazon gift card, second place winner will receive a $5 Amazon gift card, and both will be featured on TheBruisedPeachPress.com with their winning poems!

2. PHOTO:

Send us your best photo and win a $50 Amazon gift card, plus your photo will be featured on the homepage of The Bruised Peach Press website!!!

Rules:

The photo must be YOUR interpretation of a bruised peach in writing. You can include peaches, people, books, whatever you “see” when you think of The Bruised Peach Press.

You can send up to 3 photos.

The photos CANNOT contain nudity or explicit material. Send all photos to TheBruisedPeachPress.Editor@Gmail.com with YOUR FULL NAME and DESCRIPTION of your photo(s).

Deadline is July 1, 2012 and there is NO entry fee for this contest.

3. BLOG SITE: If you have a POETRY blog, please send your full name, picture, and link to TheBruisedPeachPress.Editor@Gmail.com! The deadline is July 1, 2012. The top FIVE blog sites will be chosen to be featured on The BPP’s Facebook page, and the one that receives the most “likes” will receive a $25 Amazon gift card and be featured on TheBruisedPeachPress.com!

Good luck peaches!

Original Article

Get Over Yourself

Dedicating yourself to your writing is challenging enough without getting in your own way.

I have just finished my first semester as an MFA student in Pacific University’s low-residency writing program. I feel very lucky to have worked with the great poet, Peter Sears, as my advisor this semester. He gave me lots of support and encouragement, suggestions and advice. In our very first exchange he told me exactly what I needed to hear, which basically boiled down to: Get Over Yourself.

One of the first books I read was Jane Hirshfield’s Nine Gates, which is wonderful and valuable for any reader or writer of poetry. But, for some reason, in my essay about the book, I fixated on one section where Hirshfield discusses the idea of originality, which (maybe) mirrored my own insecurities about starting a writing program and “getting serious” about being a poet. In my essay, I laid out these fears:

Do I have anything original to say? Who would want to read my poems? Who am I to write poetry? How will I ever write poems as good as those who have come before me? What if it’s all been felt, done, and said before? Is there any room for my voice? To write is to risk exposure, self-revelation, and judgment. Hirshfield reminds us that “leaving the refuge of silence demands the willingness to be seen, to be judged. It demands that we turn away from our desires to please, to fit in, to spare the feelings of those we love … Or more likely, risking failure more minor: boredom, triviality, confusion. Risking seeing that we are lesser beings than we had hoped.” This is perhaps the biggest fear of any writer: to dedicate our life to our work, to expose our emotions, to alienate others, only to fail; only to produce work that might not matter to anyone at all.

In his response to this, Peter wrote, “All of that business about ‘who am I to write poetry’ is, I feel, beside the point because if you want to do it, if you are indeed drawn to doing it … then you don’t need any propping up. That business she carries on about, about ‘willing to be judged,’ I don’t see it… You want to write a poem, write it. Then write it over again. Then go do the wash. Then look at it again.”

I realized that this insecurity was a kind of paralysis. I was waiting for someone or something to give me permission to write. Instead, I got what I didn’t know I needed: someone telling me to get over myself and get to work.

My subsequent readings during the semester reinforced this idea. In Writing the Australian Crawl, William Stafford explains that a writer is “someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.” He stresses the importance of openness and receptivity, describing writing as “a reckless encounter with whatever comes along.” He says specifically, “A writer must write bad poems.” This, of course, takes the pressure off a beginning poet. I began to see how the process is the point. Sit down. Pen on paper. Write. Have low standards and trust that, eventually, the process will get you somewhere.

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes about “sh*tty first drafts.” She assures us that all good writers write them. She writes, “I know some very great writers, writers who you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much.” She reminds us to set reasonable expectations; we are probably not going to get it the first time or even the second or fifth time. But, we need to get through all those sh*tty first drafts to get to the good stuff.

Ultimately, the point is, I am not special, talented, or particularly deep and thoughtful. I am never going to find a special “zone” where poems effortlessly flow from my hand to the page. There are no tricks, no secret shortcuts, no blueprints for writing good poems. If I want to be a poet, I have to let go of my ambitions and intentions and fierce desire to write good poems. In The Art of Recklessness, Dean Young writes, “The imagination is that which will not be subservient to so-called reality, so-called duty, not to expectation, requirement, prerequisite, obligation. We are here to cultivate the marvelous, to woo the new from yourselves, to commune with otherness.”

I was allowing my insecurities, anxieties, and fear to block that necessary artery to my imagination. I was cultivating my own feelings of inadequacy rather than the marvelous. So, each morning when I sit down to write, I remind myself that the process is the point. If I am in the chair, pen in hand, I am halfway there. I remind myself to trust the process, to be open, reverent, receptive to whatever comes along. Every day, I Get Over It and write.

Original Article

First Place Winner for the April Contest: Tony Burnett

Tony Burnett

Bio:

A member of the Writer’s League of Texas and an award winning songwriter. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in national literary journals including most recently, Tidal Basin Review, Fringe, Fiction 365, Red Dirt Review, The Vein, Toucan Magazine, and Connotation Press. He lives in the middle of Nowhere, TX with his trophy wife where his hobbies include having philosophical conversations with melons, poking wasp nests with a short stick, and wandering aimlessly about.

Road Trip

What it is, is a three hundred fifty horsepower, Detroit steel, adrenaline injector
straddling the broken white laser line, splitting the night in two.
Your head in my lap, your feet out the window,
painted toes tickled by the dry desert wind,
you hold my tarnished Colt revolver between your legs and spin the cylinder.

What it is, is the taste of Four Roses on your tongue. Our hot breath
liquefies your candy apple lipstick, your pale eyes pierce the deep shadows
of yesterday’s mascara.
We wallow like spastic canines
in the pungent scent of ripened passion.

What it is, is neon lightning pulsing through motel room windows.
Cocooned in stiff cotton sheets, you are drifting, another life and time,
Your breath comes slow and rhythmic.
I smoke a cigarette by the window.
I hold my tarnished Colt revolver between my legs and spin the cylinder.

What it is, is circuitry, blue electric veins beneath your translucent skin.
You stand, fingertip deep, in the spring water pool,
fingers splashing, hair plastered against sunken cheeks.
You stare into the waterfall,
nipples erect and challenging, daring to submerge.

What it is, is what it was. A nocturnal remission, somnambulistic vision.

Original Article

Second Place Winners for the April Poetry Contest: John Grey and Matthew John Davies

John Grey

Bio:

Australian born poet, works as a financial systems analyst. Recently published in Poem, Caveat Lector, Prism International, and the horror anthology, “What Fears Become” with upcoming work in Potomac Review, Hurricane Review, and Pinyon.

You beside me

above a breast
add a sparkle
of ardent life
set here in arms
and it’s beautiful, vital…
body lies shining
beside me,
no border,
even in dark,
no echo of myself
but rather you,
come to perfection,
come to release my night.

Matthew John Davies

Bio:

Poet from Brisbane, Australia. He has been published in Page Seventeen, Skive Magazine, and Rabbit, as well as other journals online and off.

NEXT MOVE

Discipline
Indiscipline
Somewhere between these two
lies 60 novels
and a trip to a Greek island
One of the small ones will do just fine
but they’re all small

Thank you for the stark wooden possibilities
with them I am another pedestrian squared
by four walls

Disfavour
and a sense
of sorest silence

Original Article

**Photo Contest: Win a $50 Amazon gift card**

The Bruised Peach is currently holding a slightly different contest than what we’re used to! This time we are looking for original photography. Send us your best photo and win a $50 Amazon gift card, plus your photo will be featured on the homepage of The Bruised Peach Press website!!!

Rules:

The photo must be YOUR interpretation of a bruised peach in writing. You can include peaches, people, books, whatever you “see” when you think of The Bruised Peach Press.

You can send up to 3 photos.

The photos CANNOT contain nudity or explicit material. Send all photos to TheBruisedPeachPress.Editor@Gmail.com with YOUR FULL NAME and DESCRIPTION of your photo(s).

Deadline is July 1st and there is NO entry fee for this contest.

Good luck and happy picturing!!!

Original Article

Summer Submission Contest!

The Bruised Peach Press is currently holding a summer submission contest! Please send your poem (30 lines or less) to TheBruisedPeachPress.Editor@Gmail.com OR go to TheBruisedPeachPress.com and click on the Submit tab to submit your work!

Deadline is June 20, 2o12. There is NO entry fee.

First place winner will receive a $10 Amazon gift card, second place winner will receive a $5 Amazon gift card, and both will be featured on TheBruisedPeachPress.com with their winning poems!

Good luck and happy writing peaches!

Original Article

New Submission Contest!

Submit a poem (under 30 lines) for  chance to win either a $5 or $10 Amazon gift card! This contest will continue throughout the year, but the first deadline is April 10, 2012. Go to TheBruisedPeachPress.com to submit or simply email your work to TheBruisedPeachPress.Editor@Gmail.com for a chance to win! Winners will receive one of two $5 gift cards or one $10 gift card and be featured on the website with a short bio for National Poetry Month.

Good luck and happy writing peaches!

Original Article

Amazonaholic: Celebrating Life’s Irony with Sommer Browning

Either Way I’m Celebrating is Sommer Browning’s first book of poetry and is an entertaining and intriguing read. Her experimentation and wit is a thrill to read, I actually feel like I am sitting in the audience of one of her stand up comedy shows. It literally made me laugh out loud! Her poetry is much like her stand up comedy, as she writes and draws the ironic capabilities of the world. The comics are a hilarious break from some of her more serious poems and keep me interested throughout the entire book. She mixes the reality of the mundane world with a “surreal biting wit” that is reflected in her comic relief. The title also implies her recognition of life and the real world through a progression of adolescence into adulthood. She breaks the convention of most contemporary poetry by mixing lyrical poetry and prose with hand drawn comics, evoking a sense satire and beauty in the world.

 Sommer’s book is full of intense imagery, she reflects on the irony of the world through her eyes. She rebels against what society accepts and deems as normal by merely laughing at it. She has a witty tone toward it in her poem “Breed”, as she comments on the pressures put on her to settle down and have children because she’s aging. She says, “Nothing will happen/we tell the sun,/if it does,/watch me catch it.” This sense of humor is a large theme within her book. In “When Christopher Died and I Didn’t Believe It”, she lists off the people in her life who have died and how they all relate. She draws connections that are inspiring as they come to a whole or a larger meaning (although this one I did not grasp). Sommer also does this as she moves from scenes of adolescence to adulthood and the effect that aging has on her. In her series of “House” poems, she connects her childhood and growing up to the house she did it all in. The house is a representation for the people within it who change; while it, like the world, remains the same. She deconstructs the symbol of the house with poems like “In a Bedroom” and “The Housesitter”.

 It seems as though Sommer is trying to accept the meagerness of the world as she creates her own celebration around it, making it a more exciting and beautiful place of existence for herself. She has this carefree attitude of “why complain, when you can just laugh at it?” which is inspiring to me as a poet because there are many risks involved in this perspective that she transfers into poetry successfully. I trust in the speaker because she is open with the reader and doesn’t shy from her perspectives; rather she brings these perspectives to life with her various images. Either Way I’m Celebrating is a heterogeneous mixture of things, including comic relief in her drawings, the seriousness and ambiguity in some of her content, the variety of forms, ironic one liners, and also more clear and simple poems that are riddled with images. Her connections of these things are very clear in each section, as she continues it much like a narrative. The book is a celebration in itself because it rejects normative behavior in poetry.

Original Article