woo hoo!

Hello all; I hope things have been well with you. I just thought I'd update you on some neat things going on in poetry in my world:

- My poetry postcard has officially been released into the world. It's prettier than I imagined, and you can buy your very own copy here.
- I applied and was accepted into the Intermedia Mentorship program called Writer-to-Writer. I'm working with Jude Nutter, who just won the Minnesota Book Award for poetry. Critiques have been phenomenally helpful, which is exactly what I need right now--learning how to develop that critical eye with my own work.
- I'm also working with Carolyn with Split Rock Arts online mentorship, and it's also going fabulously, but that is no surprise!
- And today, I just found out I was accepted to the Palm Beach Poetry Festival this winter (thanks, Teresa, for introducing it to me). I don't know if my principal will allow that much time off from school; we're waiting to hear back, but I'm still shocked and pleased I was accepted at all.

What about you? What's going on in your realm?

Hi all!

Two of my poems won in the Chicagoland Poets and Patrons Contest this year and I will be reading them at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago on Oct. 27. I won in the religion category for "To Abraham: To be Opened on my Deathbed" and in the experimental category,
"Going Along" One never knows. A poem that some people hate, wins a prize and one that I submitted that everyone loved, won nothing! Go figure. Poetry is the most subjective field. I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

I may not be around for awhile as I will be going to Prague, Budapest, Warsaw and Krakow with a group of Reform Rabbis. I hope this stimulates more poems.

Return from Europe

Dear dear poets,
My trip to Macedonia and Slovenia was truly extraordinary, in the company of poets from all over the world (here pictured with Tsead Bruinja of the Netherlands and Stanley Onjeani Kenani of Malawi), my books published in Macedonian and Albanian, giving readings accompanied by fireworks and lighted torches, music and boats, from a bridge on the river, with thousands of people along the banks. All over Macedonia it was that way: readings in town squares attended by what seemed the whole town, with speakers such as one would see at a rock concert. And then Vilenica, where by coincidence I stayed at the very Lipicanci (Lippenzanner) horse farm where my grandfather worked as a young man, training horses. Ljubljana is a most beautiful city! And I had a wonderful time with Tomas Transtromer, his wife Monica, and a very good young Slovenian poet, Ales Streger. I have so much to tell you in the coming weeks about all of this. But during October I will be at Hedgebrook a writers' colony for women on Whidbey Island (near Seattle), hoping to finish my memoir, which is due by Christmas! So I may not be online during that time. I wanted to tell you also that there are three places left in my workshop in Mexico January 4th - 12th. If you are interesting in coming, I would love to have you there. go to www.underthevolcano.org
The workshop takes place in Tetoztlan, a beautiful town about an hour and a half from Mexico City.
With abundant affection to all of you,
Carolyn

yes and beloit

You can go here to purchase your very own copy.

Limited edition (100 copies); poem permanently linked here.

In addition: I received a lovely rejection from Beloit, who told me I had an almost-poem and explained why it didn't make it, which just blew me over. Handwritten, even.

Said poem, along with the others they didn't want, are going back into the mail on Monday. Not sure where just yet, but the boomerang is the way to go.

And one more thing: Am working on applications for graduate school. Making lists, checking them twice. Have a GRE scheduled for November 3rd, just before my birthday. Gulp. It's all happening so fast, but it's good. I feel good about it all.

Happy nearly-October. It is rainy here in Red Wing, but I love thunderstorms, especially when I can read in bed through them, occasionally spotting a flash out the window.

From Milwaukee

It's good to hear everyone's news. I check the Poetry Daily website each day. On September 4th, there was a great poem by Thom Gunn called "A Sketch of the Great Dejection". Then, on September 5th, a great poem entitled "Sale" by Mary Kinzie. I'd never heard of her, and have purchased one of her books, which is sittng in the stack of books I plan to get to.

I'm finishing up a biography of Lyndon Johnson, which is fascinating. I'm very preoccupied, in my reading and plans for poems, with putting myself and my experience in historical context. Possibly that's a common phenomenon for a person into their fifties..... any observations on that from my fellow poets?

Other than that, my days are full of work, union related concerns, yoga, sinus trouble and a class called "Spanish For Restaurant Staff". It's just once a week but I'm trying to get in a little study with the CD's. Working Milwaukee's South Side, I get to practice everything I learn immediately, so it should stick! All my best... Sue

Conversation

What is everyone finding about Shakespeare lately?

I've only just gotten the sonnets book; I ordered it before the wedding, and this is how long it took to finally arrive on my doorstep. It's heavy and beautiful--exactly what any adoring reader would want, especially one who thinks explication is something fun to do on an autumn afternoon.

I am currently teaching literary theory to my British and Western Lit students, and it's going really well. We're using children's books to start; they seem to be more willing to do anything that involves colorful pictures. We may also do magazine ads, especially since the critical lenses seem to be needed most here.

And in my ALC (Alternative Learning Center--this is the opposite end of the spectrum from the Brit Lit kids, who are, in some ways, the smarter kids of the school--the ALC kids are the ones who need lots of extra help) classes, we are doing poetry. Francisco Aragon has a residency at the Anderson Center, and whenever a writer is there during the school year, they come to the high school to work with the kids. I'm looking forward to his being in my ALC classes; we're having tons of fun reading and writing poems and simply enjoying them.

Sometimes we explicate. And sometimes we read simply for the sheer joy of it. I'm trying not to stifle them with poetry--so many people cite their high school English teacher as the one who ruined poetry for them.

How is everyone doing? What's going on with you this fall? Any good books read? Good magazines to submit to? New poems being written? Poetry adventures on the horizon?

PS: Teresa, I've been reading your "back issues" of your blog, and I am absolutely in love with it.

What I share with my students on the 6th anniversary of 9/11

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,

let's not speak any language,

let's stop for one second,

and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,

without hurry, without locomotives,

all of us would be together

in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea

would do no harm to the whales

and the peasant gathering salt

would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,

wars of gas, wars of fire,

victories without survivors,

would put on clean clothing

and would walk alongside their brothers

in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn't be confused

with final inactivity:

life alone is what matters,

I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren't unanimous

about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,

perhaps a great silence would

interrupt this sadness,

this never understanding ourselves

and threatening ourselves with death,

perhaps the earth is teaching us

when everything seems to be dead

and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve

and you keep quiet and I'll go.

-from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Left Boob

I read this new poem by Sinan Antoon in World Literature Today and thought it was brilliant. Actually I said out loud in the bookstore—I’d give my left boob to have written this...

A Letter

Silently
I address them
The dead Iraqis
Where do we stand now?
Give or take a few hundred thousand?

….
Had you been birds,
Your disappearance might have caused some outrage
you could have flown en masse
over the metropolis,
clouded its skies for a few hours
in protest.
Meteorologists and bird-watchers
surely would have noticed
Had you been trees,
you would have made a beautiful forest
whose destruction would have been deemed a crime
against the planet.
Had you been words,
you would have formed a precious book
or manuscript whose loss
would be mourned across the world
But you are none of these
And you had to pass quietly and uneventfully
No one will campaign for you
No one cares to represent you
No absentee ballots have been issued or sent
You will have to wait decades
for a monument,
or a tiny museum.
If you are lucky
in provoking retroactive guilt
your names will be inscribed on a wall somewhere
But until then, you may welcome more to your midst
and form a vast silent chorus
of ghosts,
condemning the spectators and the actors
Exeunt Omens!

Nice Rejection

Just wanted you all to know, I got the nicest rejection from a publisher ever. I got an honorable mention for my chapbook called "Dwelling in the desert" and a particular notice for the poem 'Martyr" from the publisher- all handwritten. I thought it wqas nice he took the time to write about my poetry even though I did not win. I"ll keep on. I wrote a complete service for Selichot, which is a preparatory service before the High Holy Days. I wrote it in free verse. I lookeed at the services and thought I could say something more contemporary. We'll see how the congregation reacts. Now I am working on a poem on the effect of "Words" since so many of the sins we talk about on Yom Kippur are sins of the tongue. I have not given up. I think the name of my first book of poems on growing up, etc, will be called ' Masquerade" . Any Thoughts. The second one is still in development. And I have two more sermons to go....

Carolyn Forché @ Struga Poetry Evenings Macedonia 2007