Poetry Book Giveaway

April is national poetry month, and I will be sending out free books to anyone who leaves a comment to this post by April 30 (your comment might also rank the books in order of desire / lust). I will randomly choose the winner (or winners, maybe one book per winner?) on May 1 if I'm not too busy grading finals. The below are some of my favorite books, one for obvious reasons.

The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck

Lush, lyrical persona poems on flowers, plants, times of day, prayers.

What the Body Told by Rafael Campo

Gay physician, father, Cuban-American, reinvents formal poetry for the 21st century in gritty and moving imagery.

Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa

The best poetry collection on the Vietnam War experience ever, and by a good poet to boot.

Indelible Marks by Benjamin Vogt

My first chapbook. It's ok. There are two poems I'd like to cut. The second chap, forthcoming this October, will be better.

Thanks to Kelli Russell Agodon for instigating this idea for poet bloggers (I am a poet / nonfiction / garden / environmental / whiney blogger).

Smorgasbord Recipes for Neurotic Goat People

As the four people who still read my blog occasionally might notice, my postings have become a bit neurotic. Like goat people. Hungry goat people. Hungry goat people who want hot dish. This is a sure fire product of my impending graduation and the refusal of my university to acknowledge two dissertations in their stupid and pointless paperwork combined with too many rejections still coming my way. I was heartened to recently discover that Einstein, in his mid twenties, questioned why he was alive, and wrote to his parents saying maybe he shouldn't have been born. Therefore, my melancholoy will breed genius. It's inevitable.

But, some good things have been happening on the writerly front, so I will list them in an attempt to create some coherence and pretend I'm happy and everything is easier than it appears (or closer than they appear, like in a rearview mirror, you know....):

1) Two essays from the hybrid memoir are forthcoming in two journals: Sou'wester, aforementioned in an earlier post I do believe, and a special environmental issue of Amoskeag.

2) I won $1,000 last month for some poems of mine. I need to do that about 20 more times this year.

3) Ted Kooser will be publishing one of my poems from my other dissertation, a poetry manuscript, in his nationally syndicated column American Life in Poetry. It should appear in about 40 weeks. The man plans ahead.

4) I've sent out the last batch of essays to journals and contests and books to publishers, I hope for some time. It was a busy weekend. I will now focus on editing the memoir for the oral exam, and with an eye toward its full-blown submission to presses this summer: Borealis Books (Minnesota Historical Society Press), Milkweed Editions, University of Iowa Press, University of Nebraska Press.

5) Classes feel, to me, like they are winding down. But it's simply the calm before the storm: portfolios of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and the other class has a 10 page term paper. Class workshops, conferences, two field trips and a film will buffer spring break for our weary souls. Which is next week. Thank the Lords of Kobol. (2 episodes left and it's just now getting good! Don't abandon the Galactica! Don't do it! I love you BSG!!)

Other People's Rejection Letters

An interesting project from the author of Other People's Love Letters.

"Other People's Rejection Letters will feature reproductions of all kinds of rejection letters. Whether typed form letters or handwritten in a fit of rage, whether sent by text message, email, or scrawled in crayon, any kind of rejection is fair game: You didn't get the job or the loan or the membership; you're not the right fit for our dentistry school; you're my son but I never want to see you again; your restaurant failed its health inspection; your parole has been denied; we had a good time together but you cheated on me so this is goodbye."

http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/opll/

And in good cheer I give you what woke me up in the middle of the night and made me scramble for a pencil. Seriously. Ready?

R emember to schedule that duck transplant for your back
E veryone hates you
J ust kidding
E veryone hates you but your cat
C ould be worse
T achinid flies could lay eggs in you like in monarchs
I ncomplete satisfaction over and over but you fake happiness so no one worries
O (see I)
N aughty thoughts get you through the day (it worked in high school)

'Tis National Poetry Month--So Have a Poem

These days everything has a month, and without recognizing shoe polish and chickens, what kind of world would it be? (Are there months for shoe polish and chickens? Gosh, I hope it's the same month.) Have a poem I wrote that almost won a prize, but didn't.
------------------------------

Photograph, 1990

Before construction started my parents put
a blueprint on the kitchen table asking me
which room I’d like. Then my father fashioned
three sets of miniature ceilings out of cardboard—
using an x-acto knife to make the angles—
and with my back against a wall he placed
them one by one above my head like half
formed continental hats I’d made in grade school.
Beneath each one I saw what it’d be like
laying awake at night on my bed, mapping out
the contours of the house that would protect
and then cast me out to a world of 8 foot
ceilings flat and lacking this affection.
He said I had my choice since I was older
than my sister. It was the first time, twelve
years old and wanting to follow him, I saw
the architecture of my thoughts in form.
I felt the smooth lines above me as I reached
toward them, I felt the warmth of breath
and the heat of my face nuzzled in the safe
enclosure of that space. I felt the perfect shape
we made and see it now, again, through half
covered bones and missing doors, tall masts
of two by fours as scaffolding across
the sidewalk. I see the corner of that window,
set back and rising on the sill of one in front,
pushing light into the shadow of my home.


(copyright 2008)