Poetics Serendipity

8:06 a.m. — Atlanta

listening to a sampling from Google Play, based on my play-lists

Hello, all. How are you? Enh, you say? Come with me and wander through some distractions.

1] The first has all sorts of possibilities for distraction. Poet Robert Peake is one of a small group I have been following since the inception of this blog. He has written a lovely little essay ‘How Bedtime Stories Restored My Faith in Humanity‘. Sounds heavy, but it isn’t. In his essay Peake describes a recent epiphany regarding paper and ink books: I never thought a slim paperback of children’s poems, packed with silly illustrations, sing-song rhymes, and bottom humour would restore my faith that printed books will endure.

As for further distractions, you will have noticed that Peake writes beautifully. Look at the right hand column and check out some of his other posts. He also mentions a free, live online poetry broadcast and gives the link to investigate this project which he helps produce.

2] NaNoWriMo is hoving into sight and while many of you sharpen your pencils, you may have forgotten that Robert Lee Brewer has a November Poem a Day Chapbook Challenge. I have known some of you do both challenges [I will wait until November to give you a hard time]. Brewer tells us: While I’ve always considered the April challenge as a free-for-all; November is when I try (though don’t always succeed) to write around a specific theme. The article to which I have linked you, gives the guidelines.

3] This next is a weightier, but none the less interesting read. Kimberly Veklerov wrote an article for the Daily Californian, titled Poet in Motion about Robert Hass. One of my theories regarding the writing of poetry is that not only should we read a lot of poetry, but we should read about some poets and their work. Ideas spring from a variety of sources many of which we aren’t expecting. Reading what a writer says about his work can be helpful to our own. Besides, I love the final statement by Hass: Grief is the poetry of the world. What happens to bodies is the prose.

That should do us for today. I shall see you tomorrow for the prompts roundup; Tuesday for our image prompt — we might go surreal again; and Thursday for more links and such.

Happy writing, everyone.

P.S. Did you notice that all three posts involve Roberts? I didn’t notice until proofreading.