Daily Prompt
Happy Leap Day!
A leap year, where an extra day is added to the end of February every four years, is down to the solar system’s disparity with the Gregorian calendar. A complete orbit of the earth around the sun takes exactly 365.2422 days to complete, but the Gregorian calendar uses 365 days. So leap seconds – and leap years – are added as means of keeping our clocks (and calendars) in sync with the Earth and its seasons.
This week meet one of my favorite poets and one of the most beautiful souls in this world, Susan Deer Cloud. Susan is a mixed lineage Catskill Mountain Indian who has traveled to and sojourned in many places. She has a B.A. & M.A. in Literature/Creative Writing from Binghamton University and an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Goddard College. She has taught literature and creative writing at the college level. Deer Cloud has been awarded various prizes, fellowships and awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, 2 New York State Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowships, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, a Chenango County Council for the Arts Individual Artist’s Grant, Allen Ginsberg 1st Prize in Poetry (twice) & Prairie Schooner’s Readers’ Choice Prize in Poetry . Her books includethe stunning Hunger Mountain (Shabda Press 2014), Fox Mountain (Foothills Publishing, 2013), I Was Indian Before Being Indian Was Cool, I & I (Foothills Publishing, 2012), Braiding Starlight (Split Oak Press, 2010), Car Stealer(Foothills Publishing, 2009), and The Last Ceremony (Foothills Publishing, 2007).
Hunger Mountain (Seriously, you need to own this book!)
Shabda Press: http://www.shabdapress.com/susan-deer-cloud.html
Buy Hunger Mountain!
http://www.amazon.com/Hunger-Moon-Susan-Deer-Cloud/dp/0985315172
Praise for Hunger Mountain
“Native American poet Susan Deer Cloud is the master of the long lament, and Hunger Moon is her mournful and magical masterpiece. The work is a song of celebration, but at times her pen becomes a low-sounding cedar flute, searching for that sorrowful note at the bottom of all the holes. When Deer Cloud lets loose one of her salty soliloquies about her mixed lineage mountain people and their exuberant and long-suffering lives, she clears the deck and points the finger at us all. But none of the colorful characters that inhabit Hunger Moon receive more poetic punishment than the poet herself. She wields a self-deprecating style of humor that goes beyond the call of humility. Deer Cloud digs deeper into the back-country Catskill mud she flings to find momentary marvels of wisdom and insight that are simply stunning … sentences of solid gold. At those moments … and there are many … readers will feel they have discovered genius and perhaps touched immortality.”–Evan Pritchard, poet and professor of Native Studies (Marist, Pace, Vassar, etc.) and author of No Word For Time, Bird Medicine, Native New Yorkers.
Find Susan’s Other Books!
Fox Mountain
http://www.foothillspublishing.com/2013/id64.htm
I WAS INDIAN (Before Being Indian Was Cool): An Anthology of Indigenous Poetry, Volume II http://foothillspublishing.com/2013/id58.htm
Car Stealer
http://foothillspublishing.com/2010/id48.htm
I WAS INDIAN (Before Being Indian Was Cool): an Anthology of Indigenous Poetry, Volume I
http://foothillspublishing.com/2009/id62.htm
The Last Ceremony
http://www.foothillspublishing.com/2007/id164.htm
In the Moon when the Deer Lose Their Horns
(Clements, Susan) 🙂 The first book I ever read by this poet, back in 1993 🙂
http://www.abebooks.com/Moon-when-Deer-Lose-Horns-Clements/248556198/bd
More About and From Susan Online!
https://sites.google.com/site/susandeercloud/home/featured-poem
http://oddballmagazine.com/2016/01/18/poem-by-susan-deer-cloud-3/
http://www.thethepoetry.com/2014/09/infoxicated-corner-political-punch-poems-by-susan-deer-cloud/
http://www.verse-virtual.com/susan-deer-cloud-2015-november.html
http://aboutplacejournal.org/voices/s1-iii-ii/susan-deer-cloud-iii-ii/
http://spoonfuljournal.blogspot.com/2008/03/poem-by-susan-deer-cloud.html
Hear Susan Read!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSTkRZdJLWc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BChqN2rYS4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzq_t3fiT9Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80MAk3w3DgQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBC2Y1gJDUE
Interviews
http://www.cervenabarvapress.com/SusanDeerCloudinterview.htm
http://outofboundsradioshow.com/shows/susan-deer-cloud/
Talk with Poet Monty Campbell Jr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iwLAAj3_sE
Book Susan for Readings and Talks!
http://www.pw.org/content/susan_deer_cloud_3
Happy Reading, y’all!
Susan’s the real deal!
xo
Mary
Daily Prompt
Make art about early morning driving.
Daily Prompt
Was greeted by frost on the windows this morning. Oh those fractals!
“Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.”~William Blake
Make art about fractal patterns in nature. Or create art where the structure is inspired by fractal patterns.
Daily Prompt
Virginia devastated by multiple tornadoes yesterday. Even growing up near the coast of NC, where hurricanes and tornadoes happened all the time, I’ve not seen destruction like some of what happened here yesterday. Praying for everyone hurt by the storms. Make art about the power of nature.
2/21/2016
Crocus! Tiny purple blooms announcing the slow change of season today in the yard! Make art about the first signs of spring.
2/22/2016
I bought my first ever new car in 2010, and today, I paid that Lil Red Beauty off! I grew up poor, so this is a big deal for me, as someone who has had a very complicated relationship with money. Make art about finishing something. Or about your relationsip with money.
Grunge rubber stamp with text paid in full inside,vector illustration
2/23/2016
Did an exercise with my Baby Poets last night where they did freewrites in response to a scent. Make art about a memory evoked by a particular scent.
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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