It was such a pleasure to write about Yahya Frederickson and his prize-winning book of poetry. I hope you will take some pleasure from reading it.
Many thanks to Sonya Chung, a kind and astute editor!
In a day or so a Q & A will go live at Bloom — so look back to hear Yahya voice (in print, that is).
KAXE, the independent radio station out of Grand Rapids, MN, features poets reading their work every weekday.
Support them by listening here to one of my love poems, from Cloves & Honey, but don’t stop there . . . so many riches to be found!
Matisse exhibit is long gone, I’m sorry to say.
I’m so happy to welcome a new poetry journal — and not just because it features three of my poems. One of the editors says, ” I wanted to start Tinderbox because I felt something kind of greedy in me–is that OK to admit?–I wanted to be host to some of those gorgeous poems.” Tinderbox satisfies that greed in me — what poetry riches here!
May I introduce you to a remarkable poet you’ve maybe never heard of? Ruth Stone is a poet beloved by many poets, which could mean her poetry is difficult, allusive, fussy, but it doesn’t mean that at all. Ruth Stone writes with great humor, an irony that looks up rather than down, and with an eye for the ripe image. I just read some of her poems to a UU group and they laughed and cried right along with Stone.
And please take awhile to enjoy Bloom — lots of beauties there!
Welcome on board the Blog Tour. Thanks to Zara Raab, a new friend and wonderful poet from Berkeley, California, for inviting me to participate! Zara’s blog is here. You can work your way from Zara’s blog backwards to the tour segments of other writers. Or hang on for where the tour goes next . . .
And that is to the blogs of Iris Jamahl Dunkle and Molly Sutton Kiefer. Iris, too, is a Californian. And Molly lives in southeast Minnesota. You can read more about them below.
I’m working on admiring snirt – for those of you below the Mason-Dixon line, that means snow + dirt. It appears this time of year when the snow begins melting and leaves behind a veil of dirt on the surface. Some of this dirt, at least around here, is topsoil. So I’m really working on coming to terms with the fact that, where I live, what used to be prairie is now monoculture (beans this year corn next).
I want to love where I am, in short, but I have to work at it. So, I’m working on balancing rage that can find expression through political language with faith in beauty.
I don’t know. What is my work? What is its genre? Easier to say what it isn’t – it isn’t formal or lyric or pomo-collage-irony. It could be translated. What I can say for certain is that what I’m working on now—a series of poems about imaginary saints—is trying its damnedest not to be like what I wrote before. And that’s scary and exciting.
I bought a beautiful blue notebook with pale green lined pages. I paid $8.25 for it, not including tax. I know this because a sticker on the back says it. The pages are numbered and I’m on page 63. When I reach the last page I won’t write “The End.” I’ll put this notebook up on the shelf next to the others. The only time I’ve never written “The End” was on a play I wrote in fourth grade with my friend Mark, called Skunk Cabbage Romance.
Iris Jamahl Dunkle‘s debut poetry collection, Gold Passage, won the Trio Award and was published by Trio House Press in 2013. her chapbooks Inheritance and The Flying Trolley were published by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry, essay s and creative non-fiction have been published widely. Dunkle teaches writing and literature at Napa Valley College. She received her B.A. from the George Washington University, her M.F.A. in Poetry from New York University, and her Ph.D. in American Literature from Case Western Reserve University. She is on the staff of the Napa Valley Writers conference and is the managing editor for Volt.
Molly Sutton Kie fer is the author of the hybrid essay Nestuary (Richocet Editions. 2014) and the poetry chapbooks The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake (Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press, 2010) and City of Bears (dancing girl press, 2013). Her work has appeared in The Collagist, Harpur Palate, Women’s Studies Quarterly, WomenArts Quarterly, Berkeley Poetry Review, you are here, Gulf Stream, Cold Mountain Review, Southampton Review, and Permafrost, among others. She is a member of the Caldera Poetry Collective, is a founding editor of Tinderbox Poetry Journal, serves as poetry editor to Midway Journal, and runs Balancing the Tide: Motherhood and the Arts / An Interview Project.
I had a lot of fun writing this blog post for the Lake Region Writers Network. I hope you’ll have fun reading it!
Here‘s a little essay about the opening sentence of a story. The Lake Region Writers Network is a non-profit volunteer group committed to the writing life in western Minnesota. Check it out!
How lucky . . .
to have received this gorgeous and thoughtful review by James Naiden. And thanks to Rain Taxi for sharing the news!