Poetics Serendipity: Catching Up and Stuff

8:55 a.m. — Atlanta

listening to The Myth of Fingerprints sung by Paul Simon

Hello! I feel as if I have been gone forever, which, when you think about it, is ironic because I have been here for every day in April. However, I have not been talking to you, coming up with prompts, finding links and rounding up the week. I had to cogitate a moment [I was damned if I was going to go look] to remember how I wrote a regular post. For today, I have a true grab-bag, mostly tying things up.

1] My particular poem-a-day was through the Found Poetry Review and if you haven’t had a chance to look over their site because you, too, have been crazily composing, then spend some time in May wandering through what my fellow Ouli-posters came up with. They [you, if you are one] have been wonderful companions to spend the month with. That’s all I will say for now, as rumour has it I will be posting an exit interview.

2] The winners of the 5th Annual Big Poetry Giveaway are:

Dhyan — who was emailing me as I wrote this, to tell me I had won one of his draws
Mark Windham [!] — hello, where would you like it sent? 🙂
Ian Chandler — how lovely, and fitting, to have a blossoming poet win — email me your send to address, or leave it in comments
Andrew Albert J. Ty — Really. We have to stop meeting like this, you know! [Albert has won every year I have done the Giveaway. It’s getting a little spooky.] Somewhere I have your mailing address. Be a duck and send it to me again.

3] All the new people: Welcome. Throughout April I noticed a fairly steady stream of new followers. I realise many of you are Aprilites, but should you be a steady follower, even a contributor, here is how the blog works: On Tuesdays, I write a prompt for you. I have no time limits as to when you write to it and post a link in the comments. I leave the comments open for six months, or so.

Thursdays are serendipitous in more than their content. If I have nothing, there is no post. Otherwise, I provide links to nifty neat-o sites that have a connection to writing in some way; I discourse on a topic, and am more than happy to have people ask me to write on something [to do with some aspect of writing!]; and, if anyone wants something announced, that goes here.

Fridays are when I round up prompts from a dozen sites for your delectation. I’ll usually write something about each prompt so you know whether or not you want to go look.

My brain just died. It won’t even tell me if I had a fourth thing. I shall go play a video game [maybe write a poem]. I am so glad to be talking to you again.

Happy writing, everyone.

 

5th Annual Big Poetry Book Giveaway

And you thought nothing could make April better. It’s that time: The Big Poetry Giveaway (which you will never see me call the same thing twice). Started by Kelli Russell Agodon, the Giveaway has steadily grown to about 50 or so bloggers who each give away 2 books [or more] to their readers. Some bloggers give away subscriptions to poetry journals. As Kelli says, The goal is to share our favourite poets with others as well as to visit different blogs and see who others are reading.  For more, visit Kelli’s site Book of Kells and sign up for her books.

For readers who are visiting because they are on the Big Poetry Giveaway trail, welcome. Briefly, I am a writer who thoroughly enjoys keeping a blog because of the wonderful people I meet. The blog has three purposes: on Tuesday I present an exercise which, hopefully, results in a poem; on Thursday I provide links and some editorial comment on various things poetic; and on Fridays I give a roundup of the week’s poetry prompt sites.

The rest of my time is spent writing poetry, submitting poetry, having poetry accepted and rejected, and working towards a chapbook.

The official start of the Big Poetry Giveaway is now and will last through April 30, 2014.

Leave a comment, in this post, saying you would like to win a book and your email [so I can get in touch with you if you are one of the winners of the draw], anytime before the end of April, and at the end of the month, I will randomly choose three winners and mail them out the books. I shall put reminders in upcoming posts.

Make sure you enter your email when you leave a comment and note which book you would be interested in winning if you do win [you can leave it up to me, but if you already have one of the books you might want to let me know]. I will pick three winners on May 1st.

I have a diverse collection for you: A volume of the Found Poetry Review because I like found poetry and I have a couple of poems in this volume; A Brittle Thing, a lovely volume of poems by Alice Owen Duggan; and my favourite book this year, I Am the Maker of all sweetened possum: poetry found in Scarlet Sister Mary, a book of erasures and blackouts set within visual contexts, by james w. moore.

Sound good? Well, put your name in the hat.

 

Your Serendipity @ Thursday Thoughts

7:36 a.m. –Atlanta

Hello, everyone. How are you? I am trying to restrain myself from breaking into raptures. I have missed you all. Still, I heartily recommend going dark on your blog every now and then. Without its pull and the amount of time and energy spent, I was able to organise my poetry, so that I have all the poems I want to redraft in one spot and I know what needs to be done with each. I did not feel frazzled and frantic during the two weeks and, yet, kept a tenuous thread spun out with The Sunday Whirl, and a couple of other things that kept me more or less in touch. Now, I am reenergised and looking at Tuesday’s Tryout with a benevolent eye.

An assortment today, starting with [1] the winners of the Poetry Giveaway. I shall be sending chapbooks from James Penha, Joseph Harker, and James Brush, to de, Barb, Sasha, Joseph [I know], and Molly Spencer.

[2] So, how many of you will be in driving distance of Wickford, Rhode Island on the 24th of June? The Origami Poetry Project is celebrating its third anniversary. One of the two poets it is honouring is James [Jack] Penha, the other, Rhode Island’s poet laureate, Tom Chandler. This was too good an opportunity for me to pass up. I haven’t seen my friend and mentor in two years [for those who don’t know, Jack opened the door to poetry for me] and I have wanted to meet the women who founded and run the OPP.

On Sunday, June 24th 2012
3-5pm
we ( the OPP)
will be celebrating
Three Years of Free poetry
@ the Wickford Art Galley
an afternoon of poetry honoring
two of our BIGGEST OPP supporters:

James Penha (editor: New Verse News)
& Tom Chandler (Poetic License/Providence Journal).

We have selected six poets to read that evening in appreciation of the kind contribution of these Guest Poets to the OPP.

I will be one of the six and have, consequently, been thrown into a fervour. I used to cut class if I thought I might have to stand up in front of it. I shall spend the intervening time trying to distract myself, but I am honoured. I would love to meet any of you, if you can drive out Wickford way for a couple of hours.

3] I was asked by Bob DiPasquale to mention his site, HumorQ. While it’s not our usual path, it occurred to me that maybe some of you enjoy thinking up captions for cartoons. It’s a different path for the creative brain and anything different helps the usual creative path.

4] This last may seem an odd one, but I am sold on it. How many of you find it difficult to stop for two minutes and relax, take yourself away mentally? I have this site on my top bar so when my eye spots it, I click. Would you believe: calm.com?

The first time I visited, I was presented with a calming rural scene, calming music, and a calm voice doing a version of guided imagery. I followed all directions and felt amazingly refreshed. After the first time, I was allowed to choose . Mousing toward the bottom of the screen presents six choices of scene. All have water in some form, and all have movement. Whichever scene I pick, is accompanied by ambient sound. I can choose whether I want music, or the voice, or just ambient sounds. Time limits offered are two minutes and ten minutes. Right now, I am in the rushes, hearing the voice of a bird and the occasional insect. I love it. Go look.

An odd little bundle! I shall see you again tomorrow for the Friday roundup of prompts; Tuesday for a form [I am back]; and next Thursday for announcements, or thoughts.

Happy writing, all.

 

Your Serendipity @ Thursday Thoughts

7:52 a.m. — Atlanta

A brief post today. How are you all? The weekend nears and so does April, and you know what that means: Screaming. Hair pulling. Possible drinking. Swearing. A poem a day. Thirty poems.

1] April is National Poetry Month and there will be a ton of stuff going on. Google your state and National Poetry Month. You might be surprised. I was when I did that for Georgia last year and discovered it had a ton of stuff going on.[I repeated the exact same phrase didn’t I? One would almost think I did it purposely. I didn’t catch it until the reread. Scary.]

2] One event I participated in last year is the Big Poetry Giveaway, organised by poet and editor Kelli Agodon. About 50 or so bloggers gave away 2 chapbooks each, after a draw among participating readers. You may sign up for as many blogs as you visit. I ended up with five new chapbooks, a lovely way to read poets I didn’t know.

Big Poetry Giveaway 2012

Next Thursday, I will post the Great Poetry Giveaway blog where I will tell you the books I will give away and where you can sign up for the draw. You will have a month to sign up. I will also have a link to other participating blogs. The official start of the Big Poetry Giveaway, for my site, will be 29 March, 2012, and will last through April 30, 2012.

3] Julie Catherine has several things happening in April. She writes:

Coming in April, watch for my special Muse-Sings featured guest, Doug Peters.  Doug writes wonderful spiritual and inspirational poetry, and his spoken words set to beautiful music are absolutely exquisite.  It will be a definite must-read interview!

Also, April is National Poetry Month, celebrated nationally across both Canada and the United States.  So get your pens, pencils and typing fingers ready to share your poetry with the world during the entire month.  In addition to my regular monthly Medal of Humor week, I’ll be holding a special “Word Whisperer” contest, with a personally signed paperback copy of Love Notes romantic poetry as the prize.

As well, at the beginning of the month, I’ll be writing a book review of Part I of Justin Ordonez’ book, Sykosa, as part of  the “Novel Publicity” whirlwind blog tour team.

Please join me for these exciting events coming up in April!  ~  Love, Julie

Me, here. That’s it for today. I told you it would be short! I shall see you tomorrow for the roundup; Tuesday for an image prompt; and next Thursday for announcements.

Happy writing, everyone.

 

 

Thursday Thoughts: Being Thankful and Paying Forward

8:40 am — Atlanta

I promised you a break today, dear readers. No more haranguing on words to avoid…until next Thursday. And I was going to share with you some bookmarkable sites, but have had to shift my focus a little because of a number of things that happened this past week.

The Big Poetry Giveaway is over and I won four of the many I entered, so that winging their ways towards me are five poetry books. I am excited, as [except for one] these are poets I have not read, but are well-spoken of. New poems to read. Delicious.

You may have noticed, or not, that I have two new badges on my sidebar. The one for 50 favourite blogs in poetry, I stumbled across accidentally. I was interested in the title when I spotted it on someone’s blog, and curious to see whether I could find still more blogs to follow, because, of course, I don’t have enough already. I make my way down the list and am stunned…gobsmacked…speechless…you get the idea…to see my name and blog listed. Not that I don’t think I have a good blog, but there are many blogs out there and mine has not been around that long. I gave you the link in case you too are curious and do not have enough blogs to follow.

And, I was honoured, recently, by being nominated for the Versatile Blogger award by Eric Quinn, of the blog The Rag Tree. I was stunned by the award and what he says: From Hong Kong with insight, this teacher avoids all the clichés: neither pedantic, boring, nor burned out, she carries on the craft she has practiced for decades. This blog is a clearinghouse of information on writing, poetry, prompts, giveaways, style, tips, and ideas. And all of it wonderfully, logically organized… a labor of love. Anyone who practices even a few of her exercises will benefit enormously. A++ I got quite teary. He reached me in my soft spot — he graded me! No, his words on my teaching, which I realised some weeks ago, I have carried from the classroom to my blog, were what touched me the most. I haven’t retired it seems.

Then I read the rules and had minor panic attacks. Oh yes, strings come with this award, hefty ones. Here are the rules:

1.    Thank the person who honored you and give a link to their blog: Okay, did this when I responded to Eric’s blog post. Coming from him this is an honour.

2.    Tell 7 random facts about yourself. What? Wait…I’ll get back to this.

3.    Pass the award to 15 new-found bloggers. Wow! Fifteen bloggers I want not only to give the award to, but to unleash them on you, dear readers. I’ll get back to this. Although, if I could I would reaward The Rag Tree. While, his blog is not new-found to me, it might be for many of you. And it is the most versatile blog I have seen. Not only that, but the writing is worth reading both from the point of content and style. Where else can you find someone holding forth intelligently and cogently on astronomy, linguistics and Gilgamesh? And, he writes poetry.

4.    Contact each blogger onto whom you pass the award and let them know. Okay, seems the polite thing to do in case they do not wish to be unleashed. The logistics might be interesting. Must ask Eric how he went about this.

5.    Let the giver of the award know you accept it or not. I believe I said: Oy! There are rules? For nominees? Just checking…but I do accept, formally.

I notice sharing this with you has taken an entire blog post. It looks to me like you might get another Thursday reprieve. I owe you seven random facts about myself. Crikey! And I must scour my collection of blogs for 15 to unleash, or, rather, nominate.

I will see you tomorrow for prompts roundup. I saw some fun ones for us to play with. On Tuesday I have a fun exercise while you are recovering from ballad writing. You are all writing ballads, yes? Happy writing.

 

Winners!

Hello dear regulars. This is an extra post to announce the winners of the Big Poetry Giveaway. I had forty-six entrants and wish I could give each one a book of poetry. I wish the non-winners luck in other draws. Using a random number generator, I picked the lucky winners of three poetry books:

Elizabeth Crawford wins a copy of pay attention: a river of stones.

Gale also wins a copy of pay attention: a river of stones.

Andrew Albert J. Ty wins a copy of James Penha’s No Bones to Carry.

Congratulations to all three. If this is your first knowledge of your win, please let me know your mailing address. I have sent emails to all three.

I will see my readers tomorrow for ballads.

 

Friday Freeforall: Prompts Roundup

8:23 am — Atlanta

Hello everyone. I shall try and keep this abbreviated as, not only are people participating in the poem a day, but Passover and Easter share this week and many of you have been, or will be, traveling, or otherwise busy with family.

A reminder that there is only one more week to enter for the big poetry giveaway. Donna Vorreyer has a complete list of participants. If you have not checked it out yet, do so. You might win a book of poetry and it gets sent to you: Free book, no mailing fees. What can be better?

No Poetry Tow Truck this week, but Donna does have a prompt for one of her NaPoWriMo days that she got from Marty McConnell who references it in an interview in Muzzle Magazine. If you go to Donna’s blog you can get the link to the interview and you can see Donna’s poem as a result of this prompt.

Prompt: (stanza 1) tell us what you are not; (stanza 2) say where the light comes from; (stanza 3) give three details about the hardest year of your life; (stanza 4) tell a lie about who you are; (stanza 5) tell us something you remember involving light; (stanza 6) share a good memory; (stanza 7) admit to the lie; (stanza eight) describe an object that exemplifies who/what you are.

In the Big Tent we have a selection as they are participating in NaPoWriMo: 1. Write a poem about escape. 2. Write a poem that uses a pearl of wisdom, or wives tale, as its title. 4. Write a poem in which you have to repeat yourself. I have given you three of the seven, so grab a ticket and head over to the Big Tent for the others.

The prompt for We Write Poems starts: The dynamics of complementary opposites is the very essence of creation. Thus, yin (moon, dark, feminine) must be complemented by yang (sun, light, masculine). With this most elementary pairing, comes life and rebirth. You know you want to see what We Write Poems wants us to do with this. Visit them and find out.

There: I managed to keep it short. Wonder of wonders! I will see you back here Tuesday when we will tackle ballads; and Thursday for more of the words to keep out of our lives. I shall be doing my own drawing of three winners for the big poetry giveaway, next weekend, and will announce the winners in a separate Monday blog. If you think of anyone who would enjoy this, feel free to click on buttons below. Have a good weekend and happy writing.

 

Friday Freeforall: Prompts Roundup

9:10 — Atlanta

Hello. Anyone else feel like it has been two weeks crammed into one? Whew! Bring on the weekend. Meanwhile what do we have to entertain us and keep us writing? I think I will be glad to get back to the routine of my usual Friday sites. Hunting for two or three, so that anyone participating in National Poetry Month doesn’t feel overwhelmed by all that is on offer, takes longer. I want those who are not participating to have enough to play with, too.

Let us start with Big Tent, who are giving us seven prompts a week for the month of April. Here are a couple:
2. Write an ode to a thing you love in nature.
3. Write a poem that starts, “It’s not true that ______.”
7. Write a poem in which you pull a small object (toy? animal?) out of your mouth. To read the rest, enter the Big Tent.

At Poets & Writers they ask us to try a fun trick. If you are stuck on the draft of a poem, or you have an old poem you don’t quite know what to do with, write, or print, it out, snip it into lines or small chunks and physically move the lines around. You will be surprised at what a new perspective can do.

The prompt offered at Poets United has many possibilities, maybe even a series. They ask us to contemplate firsts: “a first” in life….like a first kiss, first job, first vacation, or even first husband…lol.  When is the first time you experienced death, love, God, hate, a broken bone, happiness?  Head over to the site for a couple of photographs, a statement by Churchill, and the rest of the prompt.

And, finally [still keeping things short], one of the prompts from Inkseeds, where Jennie asks us to think about talismans: Think back over the times in your life when you’ve put something on or carried something with you “for luck,” or just because having it with you made you feel a little better. Maybe it’s a special piece of jewelry or other adornment. A tumbled gemstone you tuck into your pocket once in a while. Maybe you carry a letter someone wrote to you because it inspires or comforts. Maybe you have a lucky pen you sign contracts or write poems with, or maybe you wear a pair of lucky underwear (or tie, or other article of clothing) to job interviews. Go on over and read the rest of the prompt. She writes particularly well, so her whole blog is worth the visit, and offers plenty of possibilities.

In case you haven’t checked out the Big Poetry Giveaway, or the Poem a Day sites, and would like to, head to my post here. Do share this with anyone who might enjoy it and I will see you Tuesday to learn another form, and Thursday to continue the discussion of words to avoid.

Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Writing.