Rounding up poetry--

Today 

Lady Word of Mouth 

features 

Robbi Nester's anthology 

from Nine Toes Press,
an imprint of
Lummox Press,

The Liberal Media Made Me Do It: 

Poetic Responses to NPR and PBS Stories.

National Poetry Month,
2014.
Brand new news!

from David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art and Fear

The artwork's potential is never higher than in that magic moment when the first brushstroke is applied, the first chord struck. But as the piece grows, technique and craft take over, and imagination becomes a less useful tool. A piece grows by becoming specific. The moment Herman Melville penned the opening line, "Call me Ishmael," one actual story--Moby Dick--began to separate itself from a multitude of imaginable others.

Last chances

to benefit Phoenicia Publishing and buy a new book at 20% off--including books by me (Thaliad in hardcover and softcover, with lots of wonderful art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins), Dave Bonta, Rachel Barenblat, Dick Jones, and more. Available to the end of this month, national poetry month. Phoenicia is helmed by the discerning Elizabeth Adams, who is one of those rare multi-talented people; among other things, she is a wonderful designer. 

to sign up for my national poetry month giveaway

to sign up for my patreon account before I give up and ditch it, as I've discovered that I simply can't promote it--I'm so dratted polite that I can't ask anybody for anything!

to nab a hardcover edition of A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage--I thought they were all out everywhere, but evidently Amazon had a final shipment. A very few remain there and elsewhere, but used copies are fairly rare.

Duende again! And poetry--

Gerry Cambridge and David Mason,
reading and talking in the Transatlantic Poetry on Air series
hosted by Robert Peake in London
and Jennifer Williams of the Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh.
(The duende discussion is at 59.10 if you haven't had enough of that subject
and want to hear that discussion before you listen to the poems.)
Hat tip to Patricia Wallace Jones and Paul Digby.

Creative Joy / West Chester

Poet Jennifer Reeser and West Chester Poetry Conference
Director Kim Bridgford at a 90th birthday party for Richard Wilbur.
As he told me that his birthday was March 1, I hope he has had a long
Mad Hatter's tea party sort of celebration.  June 10, 2011, West Chester.

How does poetry delight us? To begin with the most inclusive reason, poetry delights us as a manifestation of energy. A poem is an act, and should give us the certainty, the reflected pleasure, that comes from participating in a successful accomplishment.  --Donald A. Stauffer, The Golden Nightingale, 1949

Several attendees wishing for a signature from Richard Wilbur.
Poet Rhina Espaillat at left.  June 10, 2011.

If you would like to see me with a brilliantly lit nose (stage lights, not alcohol) and hear me read some poems, you may wander over to youtube, where poet Annabelle Moseley has posted videos of the Mezzo Cammin 5th anniversary reading:  Kim Bridgford and moderator, Rhina Espaillat, Julie Kane, Leslie Monsour, Annabelle herself, and me. A video of the conversation at the close is also up. Individual readings by each of the participants have been posted as well. 

Three poets at a birthday party:
Jennifer Reeser, Kim Bridgford, and me.

The final joy of the artist is creation, and the greatness of his creation will depend upon the completeness with which he embraces and accepts all materials.  --Donald A. Stauffer, The Golden Nightingale, 1949

The laughers are poets Leslie Monsour and David Mason.
You can catch the birthday boy at right, next to Rhina Espaillat.

There is in the creative joy an acceptance of what life brings, because we have understood the beauty of what it brings, or a hatred of death for what it takes away, which arouses within us, through some sympathy perhaps with other men, an energy so noble, so powerful, that we laugh aloud and mock, in the terror or the sweetness of our exaltation, at death and oblivion.  --W. B. Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil, 1922.