Interviews, videos, and more--

BRAND NEW INTERVIEW

There's a long new Charis in the World of Wonders interview, one with lots of pictures that Chris Rice Cooper has put together. Some are things she requested, some are things she quarried online. She asked lots of questions, and there's an excerpt as well.  If you're a nosey sort (who isn't curious?), you might like to take a look around, as there are glimpses of my bedroom, kitchen, dining room, writing room, etc. Hop here: http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2020/04/marly-youmans-charis-in-world-of.html.

CATHEDRAL ARTS BLOG 
WITH POETRY VIDEOS, etc.

Here's a piece by Brynna Carpenter-Nardone at the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, New York... It's about my poetry, mostly, but I expect all visibility helps at the moment... The piece is on the cathedral blog and goes out to subscribers as well. Today was supposed to be The Hidden Cathedral Poetry Conference (Cathedral Arts series from The Cathedral of All Saints, Albany, New York, and I was to be keynote speaker), but it has been postponed a  year: https://cathedralofallsaints.org/cathedral-arts

BOOKSHOP.ORG

I've turned my blog post, "Books for young boys who read at a high level," into a list at Bookshop.org. Some books were not available at the site and are missing, but I've added new ones as well. And I've made several other lists--one of my in-print books (missing The Book of the Red King, alas), one of some (maybe more when I feel energetic!) favorite rereads, and one of books by friends and acquaintances. These are but works in progress, and may grow. Bookshop does not have every book I think to add, but I expect it, too, will be growing.

https://bookshop.org/shop/Marly_Youmans

RECENTLY NOTED: interview, poems, video

INTERVIEW

"Q and A with Marly Youmans, Author of Charis In The World Of Wonders" - interview at Women Writer, Women's Books  11 April 2020

EXCERPT

Excerpt (the first appearance of Hortus) from Charis in the World of Wonders at Women Writers, Women's Books  3 April 2020

POEMS, text and video

* "Mystic Journey," "Jane Eyre in the Red Room," "The Plum Oak Pot," and "The Hand" (audio and text) at Pete Candler's pandemic project, A New Decameron. The first and last poems are blank verse; the other two are part of a sequence of poems influenced by Hebrew parallelism and Yoruban praise traditions: art has always been a Silk Road. Thanks to Pete for a request.

* "Plague-spell" and "Death of a Singer" at The Living Church (Episcopal/Anglican Communion) 19 April 2020 issue. Thanks to editor Fr. Mark Michael for his request. I'm afraid you have to have access to a print issue on this one.

* "The Homunculus" from The Book of the Red King (video) at The Ballsians on youtube: here.

Quarantine Holy Week, with interviews, excerpts, poems, and Charis

Charis in the World of Wonders 

and poems: updatery!

Anak Krakatoa erupted on Good Friday, locusts afflict Africa, the pandemic rages everywhere, Etobicoke Creek ran as red as blood: maybe you had better get started on your quarantine reading of Charis in the World of Wonders...

"Q and A with Marly Youmans, Author of Charis In The World Of Wonders" - interview at Women Writer, Women's Books  11 April 2020

Excerpt (the first appearance of Hortus) from Charis in the World of Wonders at Women Writers, Women's Books  3 April 2020

"Mystic Journey," "Jane Eyre in the Red Room," "The Plum Oak Pot," and "The Hand" (audio and text) at Pete Candler's pandemic project, A New Decameron. The first and last poems are blank verse; the other two are part of a sequence of poems influenced by Hebrew parallelism and Yoruban praise traditions: art has always been a Silk Road. Thanks to Pete for a request.

"Plague-spell" and "Death of a Singer" at The Living Church (Episcopal/Anglican Communion) 19 April 2020 issue. Thanks to editor Fr. Mark Michael for his request.

Upcoming

* * *

"The Homunculus" from The Book of the Red King (video) 

at The Ballsians on youtube.

Update: It is up! Go here.

Poetry videos and text from The Book of the Red King 

at the Cathedral Arts blog from Albany, New York

"Night Blooming Cereus" at A New Decameron, read by Paul Digby

Excerpt (audio/text) of Charis in the World of Wonders at A New Decameron

Podcast at NAA

and more

A bold 19th century #GoodFriday depiction:
"As Seen from the Cross," James Tissot, c. 1886-94,
public domain via Wikipedia.

THIS NEW NOVEL is unlike anything I’ve ever read—
and the best novel I’ve read in ages. 
It’s set in Puritan New England In the late 17th century 
and uses gorgeous language to tell a gentle but riveting story. 
I stayed up until 3:30 this morning to finish it. 
If you’re tired of all the “The Girl Who—-“ novels 
floating out there, cleanse your palate with this.
--poet Jane Ullrich Greer, April 8

from A New Decameron

"Orcadian Painting (Good Friday)" by painter
and my occasional penpal/collaborator, Graham Ward. Acrylics, 2019.

Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century: In Siena, where more than half the inhabitants died of the plague, work was abandoned on the great cathedral, planned to be the largest in the world, and never resumed, owing to loss of workers and master masons and “the melancholy and grief” of the survivors. The cathedral’s truncated transept still stands in permanent witness to the sweep of death’s scythe. Agnolo di Tura, a chronicler of Siena, recorded the fear of contagion that froze every other instinct. 'Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another,' he wrote, 'for this plague seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And no one could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship.… And I, Angolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my five children with my own hands, and so did many others likewise.
[Siena Cathedral dome photograph by Livio Andronico 2013
Creative Commons license Wikipedia]

Palm Sunday in The Long Lent

About the Image

Pietro Lorenzetti, Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, 1320. Painted 27 years before the peak intensity of the Black Death began. 700 years after Lorenzetti painted this image, it is Palm Sunday in The Long Lent. The very Long Lent. Public domain image, Wikipedia.

* * *

Marly-words

(or, what I've been working on lately)

The Lorenzetti is pilfered from my own facebook site. I'm finding it hard to keep up with current requests for writings, videos (yes, I have finally made some videos of poems from The Book of the Red King, and will make a Charis excerpt as well), and poems--people are finding more time to make extended projects and to ask for contributions, I imagine. Lots of requests for poems, and even a commission to write a pandemic poem, a thing I had promised myself not to make because I disliked so many 9-11 poems. However, dear reader, I did it because I am fond on the editor who asked. Aiee! There's a notable increase in requests from Christian venues, and I find that curious and interesting. Meanwhile, I've been keeping up with a couple of my social media sites better than the blog--mainly because that's where the most interaction with readers happens, these days--and am pleased by some good attentions to Charis in the World of Wonders. In addition, I'm doing some radio interviews for the book launch, something I've never done before, and hoping not to appear as a doofus on the airwaves!

https://twitter.com/marlyyoumans

https://www.facebook.com/marly.youmans

https://www.anewdecameron.com/

Paul Candler's pandemic project--

lovely to be on the home page,

and so far four of my poems are up.

Forthcoming--a long poem

and the opening of Charis.

Charis in the World of Wonders excerpt at

http://booksbywomen.org/charis-in-the-world-of-wonders-excerpt/

Clive Hicks-Jenkins on The Art of the Cover,

with a good bit about our collaborations

https://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/the-art-of-the-cover/

* * *

ceccoop.net

The Word, and a Virtual Palm Sunday

Want to go to Palm Sunday services with me
in The Village of Cooperstown?
Christ Church Cooperstown
Easy to stay six feet apart...
Feel free to wear your pajamas!

ceccoop.net

And if you're bookish, which I assume you are (having landed here), you might like to know that novelist James Fenimore Cooper was warden of this church, and that it has had a remarkable number of writers as members--William Wilberforce Lord (the famous poet that Wordsworth praised but Poe derided, and with much vigor), Susan Fenimore Cooper (read Rural Hours! surely influenced Thoreau), Paul Fenimore Cooper, Fae Malania, Ralph Birdsall, and many more...There's also a memorial niche to Constance Fenimore Cooper, friend of Henry James and writer who has been getting a lot of attention lately. James Fenimore Cooper was the one responsible for turning a little village church into a Gothic bandbox after he returned home from Europe.

A sheep in green and flowering pasture for Palm Sunday.
Interior illumination by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
for Charis in the World of Wonders