Writer-readers on The Book of the Red King

Illumination by Clive Hicks-Jenkins of Wales
Phoenicia Publishing, 2019

I continue to be grateful to novelist Scott G. F. Bailey for his ongoing and perceptive treatment of my work. As a reader, he always enters into a work with a free mind and writes engagingly of what he finds. Now he has written a long blog post about The Book of the Red King; you may read the whole thing HERE, at Six Words for a Hat. I include a few quotes below to entice you to visit.

* * *

"the coming night with its dying-deep 

but dazzling darkness"at Six Words for a Hat

...it is an explication of the life and work of the artist (and possibly in this sense, Yeats' spirit also hovers over the book). Youmans is always powerful when she writes about art and artists, and The Book of the Red King strikes me as her most forceful (and possibly most personal) statement about art (and the artist's purpose) yet. Creativity, rebirth and transfiguration are the threads that stitch The Book of the Red King together...many of its pleasures are easily enjoyed just through the inventiveness of Youmans' characters and the angular, beautiful chemistry of her language.

. . .

He also creates beauty, points to beauty, loves and points to love, grieves and points to grief, is angry and points to anger, etc, all of this being the work of the artist. The Fool, I am telling you, is Marly Youmans (and Yeats and Shakespeare and Milton and let's say Matthew as well, why not). That's my theory; see the first paragraph of this increasingly-staggering little essay. You'll have to draw your own conclusions about the identity of the Red King. Youmans has said of him, "He is all the things he is at once, it seems."

. . .

Because Youmans always writes on a number of levels at once, this essay can only seem to diminish Youmans' artistry by so poorly describing it. I know that poetry has, even at the best of times, a limited audience, but The Book of the Red King deserves readers, and plucky Phoenicia Publishing deserves a reward for being brave enough to market collections that require thoughtful readers. A good deal of current American poetry is merely angry, woke, political, and shallow; or else it's merely pretty, saccharine, and shallow. And while Youmans' book could serve as a text for a contemporary course on the uses of beauty and empathy, she writes for the ages, which I think is in the long run a better idea. I don't know why Marly Youmans isn't much better known, for both her poetry and her novels. She always taps into the substrata of art and life.

* * *

"Marly - salutations" at Tone Deaf

Likewise, I need to thank writer Roderick Robinson for a post about the book at Tone Deaf, in which he offers some favorite quotes and says:

However in my sere, yellow and almost-dropping-off years I write verse. Marly’s good at that except hers is poetry. Red King may emerge as a narrative but in the interim I’m treating her poems as separate entities. Looking for what races my motor. Plenty does. It’s not exactly news but Marly loves words...

* * *

My gratitude, my delight

I'm especially grateful to both Roderick Robinson and Scott Bailey because they have said what they have to say. I've been happy to receive letters of praise for this book from older, better-known writers, but I am deeply grateful to people who talk about my books in public. Because I care deeply about the good of my book, the life of my book in the world. Word of mouth and reviews are precious to a book of poems--and to the Fool.

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.

Phillips at Lady Word of Mouth

Anna Lena Phillips's little book of poetic forms, a letterpress work made during a stay at The Penland School and available in multiple colors and with the option of a slipcase, is now up at Lady Word of Mouth. Pink, blue, brown, or orange with gold foil!

And the great poetry giveaway is here.

Lady Word of Mouth

New at Lady Word of Mouth:

MaryAnn Corbett, Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter

poetry

Gary Dietz, Dads of Disability

essays, memoir, and a smattering of poetry

and a new edition of 

Scott G. F. Bailey's The Astrologer

novel

Lady Word of Mouth

announces Maryann Corbett's Breath Control. Go pay her a visit, will you?

In the realm of Updatery

LAUNCH DAY

Today is launch day for poet Rachel Barenblat's new book, and I am very pleased that Elizabeth Adams (Phoenicia Publishing) used a detail from a painted collage by my college friend Mary Bullington. Mary and I met when we were mere silly sprats in a workshop taught by the wonderfully amusing and insightful R. H. W. Dillard. May she have many more covers / jackets! When I consider Mary, I always think of Blake's proverb, "Exuberance is beauty." I am going to get a copy of Rachel's book, and I hope you do as well. You might just want to read a piece by publisher Beth Adams celebrating the launch day for Waiting to Unfold. Find out more about the book at Phoenicia Publishing.


SCRIBD

I've added an excerpt from another book to my Scribd page. You may now find samples of four very recent books published in the US, UK, and Canada: a novel, A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage (The Ferrol Sams Award, and currently a ForeWord finalist); my newest book, an epic adventure in verse, Thaliad; a collection of poems, The Foliate Head; and another collection, The Throne of Psyche.

THE GREAT LADY

If you missed the latest installments (surprise--a debut!) from Lady Word of Mouth, please take a peek here. 

Lady Word of Mouth

Up on Lady Word of Mouth:
Melanie McCabe and her new
poetry book, History of the Body.

Please take a look!

the Lady

The second feature at Lady Word of Mouth is here. And this time it's a novel, just out...

Lady, lunar, etcetera--

The Lady has visitors

Lady Word of Mouth progresses... Glad to say we are getting lots and lots of visitors on the first post to feature a writer's new books. Please take a look, as it's meant for readers or writers, and if you are here you must be one or the other or both at once. (If not, you are a Spam Bot and will be eaten by roaming Balrogs.) I am contemplating Lady Word of Mouth as a twice-weekly activity but am still unsure about many things.

Lunar book madness

I've agreed to judge another contest. You'd think that being on an NBA panel last year and reading 316 books (plus the rereads) would have done me for life, but evidently not. I must have looked at the moon over my left shoulder some time in the past month. This one will be a poetry contest, and I'll only judge the finalists, so I'll only see a few books. More about that later.

What I am writing

A number of people have written to ask what I am doing at this juncture. I'm a bit stretched right now with a very active teen at home (ferrying, sports, etc.) plus my adult children returning to the nest for a year. After they fly, I'll start a new novel. At the moment I'm writing a poem (or sometimes more) each day. All day I'm fishing for poems while drudging or gather taxes or helping children, etc. I do have some prose work to revise, if I ever get the time--if unexpected minions rush in and relieve me of all drudgery! As I am dubious that minions will appear, that's all the writing I'm doing at the moment. Fiction in fall, I imagine.

Elsewhere, in related work

I am trying to help my 2012 books--the wild adventure of Thaliad, the novel A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, and the collection A Foliate Head. All three are from small press or university presses, and I am finding it somewhat a challenge to get the world out about so much at once. I'll be doing more events later in the year but right now am more dependent on the internet and word of mouth. Here's one of the innumerable how-to-be-a-book-minion lists available on the web for those of you who like assisting Lady Word of Mouth.

I like transformation...

“And the walls became the world all around.”
        ― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

The why of Lady Word of Mouth

The first featured writer is up on www.ladywordofmouth.blogspot.com: North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam. He is much published, but as he is a poet, he could use some more visibility. Please go take a look and enjoy--lots of links. Jeffery is a real-life friend of mine, a poet who combines the spiritual and the earthy in lovely, spare poems.

Why do I like the whole Lady Word of Mouth project? I do like it, and I hope it works. And I'm pretty clear on why I like it.

First, it's a little tiny disrupter of the way things are normally done. The status quo does not work all that well for most writers, so I tend to like that idea. Interrupting the way things are done is often a good, and even if it fails, it's a positive good.

Second, I like the idea of making a little community. Here it's a community of people I know and e-know who write. Some of them write poetry, some literary novels, some fantasy or science fiction or horror, some nonfiction, and so on. Some high fences segment those areas. But in my little world of Lady Word of Mouth, they can all meet without judgment being passed.

Third, it's fast. You have a new book of poetry out, and there's nothing on the web to signal that aside from its presence in e-shops and your own website? Here's one more place to put up your signposts and information and increase the book's presence on the web.

Fourth, much of the labor of the website is shared, a thing that is good in my busy life.

Fifth, it adds to the sum of beautiful information in the world, setting up signposts to what is of value in the culture.

Sixth, it's just a good thing to do for friends. There's little enough one writer can do for another, and I've always liked the idea of helping other writers. It does not hurt me to help you; in fact, it makes me feel a little less lonely in my corner as I write. And it's not intended as a site for judgment or reviews, though I've asked people who are featured to come back and leave a comment about another book some time.

Seventh, as I'm drawing from my friends and e-friends, many of whom are now friends with one another, there's already a built-in audience.

the great Lady

Here's an experiment--Lady Word of Mouth--that I shall continue if people like it, or drop if it does not seem to work. It started with a facebook post asking friends to post information about new books, and that seemed interesting to writers and also to readers.

Right now there's an explanatory post and another that copies that original facebook thread.

I'd like to help friends with new books more and not sit around waiting for "somebody" to do "something." I'd like to be a somebody who does something, and although I don't have reams of time to donate to the cause (having three children at home, my own writing, many commitments--the usual!), I could do this.

If the site functions as intended, it will have posts about new books with links, and jackets will appear in the sidebar. It can work as a place to collect review clips, jacket images, summary information, and so on--a place that has an independent life from the author's sites, that adds to information on the web, and that draws readers to a central spot.

If it does not, well, it'll be another one of those little internet experiments that sprang up, flourished for an instant and then vanished--something ventured, and little lost.