Poet, Writer, Instructor
I was reading my Christmas present, The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956-1963, when I came across a mention of syllabic verse. Plath’s poem “Mussel-Hunter at Rock Harbor” is written in stanzas of seven lines, each line containing seven syllables. In a letter to her brother Warren, dated June 11, 1958, she writes about the… Continue reading Syllabic Verse
Two of the books I received for review consideration in 2018 came from poets who live and write in the Mojave Desert of southeastern California: Starshine Road by L.I. Henley, and Waking Life by Cynthia Anderson. Henley writes of growing up in the Mojave, of walking down dirt roads as a child past a house filled… Continue reading The Poetry of Place
A couple of times a year, I search my submission spreadsheets for poems with the dubious distinction of having collected the most rejections so far. If these poems are not currently under consideration for publication, they go into a special category: Most Rejected Poems.Then I print them out and spread them on the floor of… Continue reading Saving the Most-Rejected Poems
I’m an inveterate recycler. I have a compost pile and six chickens so I can turn food scraps into soil and eggs. I love repurposed items: quilts sewn from old clothes, wind chimes made of bent spoons, collages of torn magazine pages. Therefore, I was delighted to discover that poet Eileen R. Tabios has created a… Continue reading How to Create a Poetry Database
I found this list in a 2003 letter from my father. At the time, I was beginning my MFA degree in Creative Writing at San Jose State University. My father was worried that I would succumb to the "tricks of rhetoric, which are the opposite of poetry." In the same letter, he went on to… Continue reading Flowers of Rhetoric: A List of Obscure Literary Terms
Recently, I came across an article titled “An Anatomy of the Long Poem”. The author, Rachel Zucker, states “there are many short poems I admire and, of course, too many wonderful mid-length poems to name that I adore. But I have a special love for a good long poem.” This gave me pause. I admit… Continue reading The Long Poem Project
Definition: An abecedarian poem is one in which verses or words begin with the successive letters of the alphabet. I recently wrote my first abecedarian poem, and while I enjoyed the process, I nearly stalled out when I got to the letter X. Hardly any useful words begin with X. My crumbling, 1965 edition of… Continue reading What About X? Writing the Abecedarian
In this post, I share my method for reviewing books of poetry. My reviews appear once a month in my newsletter, Sticks & Stones, which is free to subscribers. I read the whole book several times. First, I read it as if I were not planning to review it. I just enjoy the book. I… Continue reading How I Review a Poetry Collection
I have a little game I play in bookstores. First I find the poetry section. Then I run my eyes along the shelf, head cocked to the right so I can read the books’ skinny spines. I’m looking for book I’ve never read by an author I’ve never heard of. I’m looking for something new… Continue reading The Bookstore Game
The following is reprinted from my book Vibrant Words: Ideas and Inspirations for Poets, PushPen Press 2014. Deep Images Years ago, I was a student in a drawing class trying to draw a tree. My teacher came by and said, “What you’ve drawn is your idea of a tree. This is what you’ve been told, all… Continue reading Deep Images