In October of this year, my almost-brand-new Instagram account was hacked, starting a long chain of unpleasant events that included stolen passwords, barrages of phishing emails, my inadvertent deleting of my entire hard drive (I got it back, thanks to the Cloud) and weeks of stress and paranoia. At the end of this awful experience, … Continue reading Haiku Book Leads to Hack
Politics, Theme and Poetry
In October, I was happily writing a poem about gardening, when it took a sudden turn and revealed its true topic: the calamity of immigrant children held in cages at the US/Mexico Border. That day, I posted “For some reason my nature poems keep turning into political poems” to my Facebook page. In her essay … Continue reading Politics, Theme and Poetry
Storyboards for Creative Writing
I recently picked up a copy of Pages, the Creative Guide for Art Journaling & Bookmaking. Illustrated journaling is one of my hobbies, and I was drawn to the project on the magazine’s cover (“mini ZINES create your own!”) At the end of the magazine, I found the article “Gathering Your Story Elements,” by Jeanne … Continue reading Storyboards for Creative Writing
The 2018 Oregon Poetry Association Annual Conference, September 29-30, Eugene, OR
After attending the Oregon Poetry Association’s 2018 conference, I’ve been thinking about what makes a good conference. I’ve attended many, from small events put on by a few dedicated volunteers to big noisy affairs (AWP comes to mind). What struck me most about the OPA conference was its collegial, non-competitive atmosphere. It was a pleasure … Continue reading The 2018 Oregon Poetry Association Annual Conference, September 29-30, Eugene, OR
STONE, empty chair: Erica’s new haiku collection
I just received the proof from Lulu of my first self-published book, titled STONE empty chair. It's a collection of my best haiku, starting about ten years ago and ending in August, 2018. It's a little book full of little poems - just 6.5 x 4.5, with 50-odd haiku, in four chapters: Winter, Spring, Summer … Continue reading STONE, empty chair: Erica’s new haiku collection
Saving the Most-Rejected Poems
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
Fire Season
Right now, hundreds of fires are burning in the Western United States. The air in Washington and Oregon is the worst in the nation. Every morning, the sun shines an eerie bronze light over the land. The sky over Eugene, Oregon, where I live, reminds me of the smog-choked summers of my youth in Southern … Continue reading Fire Season
13 Ways to Support Poetry – guest blog post by Dick Allen
Thanks to Trish Hopkinson and Dick Allen for this wonderful list! I especially like 2, 3, 4, 12, and 13.
Great guest blog post rewind up today from Dick Allen… the 13 ways to support poetry below include what to ask your local library, how to support the poetry community, and quotes from others in the lit mag industry.
“It is difficult to get the news from poems yet [humans] die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”—William Carlos Williams
1. Ask your local public libraries and college and university libraries and even perhaps public school libraries to regularly order and display books of contemporary poetry. A first guideline to encourage them might be to ask these libraries to make sure they have available the current year’s Pulitzer Prize winning book of poems, and probably the current year’s National Book Award book of poems, the current year’s National Book Critics Circle Award book of poems, the current year’s Poets Prize book of poems, the current National…
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How to Create a Poetry Database
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
Organizing the Field
I’ve been so excited about my new poetry project, Field Notes, that I forgot how difficult it is to organize a poetry collection. So far, the 40-odd poems I've assembled fall into the following themes: Tree, Plant, Weather, Flowers, Seed, Insects, Earth, Grass, Compost, Bird, Stone, Ocean, Animal, Desert My first thought was to put the poems into seasonal categories, i.e., Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. … Continue reading Organizing the Field
