Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Poetry month news
Check out the blogs of my friends Lauren Gordon and Annmarie O'Connell, who totally killed it during NaPoWriMo.
Also, poetry will continue after April. This Stain of Poetry reading on May 31st featuring Lee Ann Roripaugh, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Kathleen Rooney, and Lynn Melnick stands to be amazing! It will be my first time back hosting (with co-hosts J. Hope Stein and Jenny Zhang) since the baby was born.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Friday, April 26, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Cathlamet Prize
I'm pleased to announce that I've won the Cathlamet Prize from Ravenna Press, and my chapbook Crown will be published as part of their Pocket Books series. I'll keep you posted on when the chapbook will be out. I'm really happy that this manuscript has found a home with Ravenna Press!
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Elizabeth Bishop
 |
| Elizabeth Bishop House, Great Village, Nova Scotia |
The blog of the Elizabeth Bishop Centenary has linked to my April 11th piece about staying at the Bishop House. What an honor. Check out the blog for interesting posts about Bishop and Bishop scholarship, like the Wonder Questions, posts exploring the connections between the work of Elizabeth Bishop and other writers, artists, and musicians, including people like Orwell! and Nabokov!
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
April 11th poem
While
the Baby Sleeps
I read an Anne Carson poem about walking before dawn in Iceland. I'm envious of Anne Carson then. I want to be in Iceland doing things like that, seeing crows as big as chairs. Ravens. Or in another place, Nova Scotia, maybe, where I went once to stay at Elizabeth Bishop's childhood home and write because one of the house's owners told me I should. Or could. I did more revision than writing there. I read a book of prose poems by Anne Carson there that I liked. I also read the beginning of Anne of Green Gables, a couple of books by Canadian authors I hadn't heard of, some old National Geographics in the sitting room that was lonely to go into, some files of photocopied archival materials about Bishop. I got my feet stuck in the red-purplish mud of the Bay of Fundy. I walked down the middle of the road with my friend Douglas at around midnight. There were so many stars I didn't know what to do. I thought of Bishop's poem about Robinson Crusoe, and I kept telling Douglas that we should move over to the side of the road in case a Canadian redneck came peeling through the village in a pickup truck in the dark. Every night we would meet in the kitchen and ask each other if we thought the house was haunted. Neither of us would stay in the largest bedroom. I think that's where Bishop's mother screamed that time before she went back to the sanatorium for good. The house got very sad around dusk and stayed that way for a while, but I loved it.
I read an Anne Carson poem about walking before dawn in Iceland. I'm envious of Anne Carson then. I want to be in Iceland doing things like that, seeing crows as big as chairs. Ravens. Or in another place, Nova Scotia, maybe, where I went once to stay at Elizabeth Bishop's childhood home and write because one of the house's owners told me I should. Or could. I did more revision than writing there. I read a book of prose poems by Anne Carson there that I liked. I also read the beginning of Anne of Green Gables, a couple of books by Canadian authors I hadn't heard of, some old National Geographics in the sitting room that was lonely to go into, some files of photocopied archival materials about Bishop. I got my feet stuck in the red-purplish mud of the Bay of Fundy. I walked down the middle of the road with my friend Douglas at around midnight. There were so many stars I didn't know what to do. I thought of Bishop's poem about Robinson Crusoe, and I kept telling Douglas that we should move over to the side of the road in case a Canadian redneck came peeling through the village in a pickup truck in the dark. Every night we would meet in the kitchen and ask each other if we thought the house was haunted. Neither of us would stay in the largest bedroom. I think that's where Bishop's mother screamed that time before she went back to the sanatorium for good. The house got very sad around dusk and stayed that way for a while, but I loved it.