Poetry news--

One of many Clive Hicks-Jenkins decorations for Thaliad.
Phoenicia Publishing, 2012.

So grateful for Jeff Sypeck and his insightful review of Thaliad, now included in the Prairie Schooner Poetry News in Review for April 2nd. In part, I"m grateful because I never knew such a thing existed, and it's handy and full of things I like. And I hope that some of the people who did know will read Jeff's insightful review and want to possess a copy of the beautiful Clive-decked, Beth-designed Thaliad!

Morning after foolishness

Clive Hicks-Jenkins decoration for Thaliad

It's the day after April Fool's Day, and I am just the same size of fool as I was yesterday! I may even be a little bigger, given all those Easter basket chocolates. I find these things slightly disappointing but no surprise... Quite impossible to pack all one's foolishness into a single day, after all.

The foolishness of April 1st is compounded by the thought that the date marks the beginning of the absurd, hopeful thing, Poetry Month. I have been writing a lot of poems lately, but I almost feeling like not writing any at all in April because of this terrible bone of charity, the once-yearly reminder of an art most people think already dead. Never mind. Art is the phoenix that returns burning from the grave, whether anybody notices or not.

In fact, art is that strange creature that is always re-inventing itself, starting from nothingness. Every book of energy, every painting of life has to be started by somebody who does not know how to make what needs to be made.

In the realm of absurdity, the sky snowed on the snowdrops yesterday, and it is snowing on them today, though the sparrows and juncos and mourning doves are hunched on the ground under the feeder or combing the air from rose canes to hemlocks. One dove chases another on foot under the roses, heads bobbing, but it's far too bitter for springing love on one's mate.

I must hie me to taxes once again (alas!), so I just shrug and wave and go on.

Meeting me elsewhere: excerpts from 2012 books (A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, Thaliad, The Foliate Head) at Scribd. Thaliad at Phoenicia Publishing. See page tabs above for review clips and information on those brand new books plus The Throne of Psyche from 2011, and more.

April Fool's Day

If you're a frequent visitor, you may know that I have a long sequence involving a king, a fool, and many minor characters. Many of the nigh-150 poems have appeared online, and they will eventually be a book called The Book of the Red King. Here's one from Mezzo Cammin:

 The Grail

 The Fool knows better. He knows all the things
 The world says. He knows every rippling field
 And every shower of orchard petals
 Is no less, no more than a passing bell.
 He knows. And yet, and yet, there is the grail,
 Solid in his hand and chased with golden
 Mysteries, from which he drinks. It's more than
 Alchemy, more than mere gold, more than
 Essence of the rose, more than tidal spring.
 And as he drinks, the fount, the sluice, the spill
 That he knows more than anything though less
 Often, possesses him and pours through flesh
 In secrecy, with breaking, making power.
 And while it falls, and afterward when he
 Is dreaming still and stilled by after-shock,
 There's nothing that he knows that matters more.

Happy April Fool's Day. I started my foolery after midnight when I convinced my youngest that his unused snow day (and hence vacation day) for today had been cancelled. Woe! Of course, it is snowing again...

Meeting me elsewhere: excerpts from 2012 books (A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, Thaliad, The Foliate Head) at Scribd. Thaliad at Phoenicia Publishing. See page tabs above for review clips and information on those brand new books plus The Throne of Psyche from 2011, and more.

"Thaliad" bookplate update

The Clive Hicks-Jenkins bookplates have arrived here
and will be going out this week--need to get stamps
and envelopes and stiffener! Thanks to all of you
who put in the first orders. Canadian and UK
Thaliad plates have already gone out.