"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty

Archive for April, 2016

Daily Prompt <3 The Wandering

Happy National Poetry Month! 🙂 Thinking a lot about my sweet daddy, so there must be Yeats. ❤ 

The Song of Wandering Aengus
by William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

 

Make art about your wandering. 

 

Silver Apples - Yeats-_Song-of-Wandering

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Special Call for Submissions Love! Blink-Ink Wants Your Magic!

Yep, magic seems just about right right now 🙂 

Blink-Ink Call for Submissions “Magic Issue”

Deadline: May 15, 2016

 Do you speak Dragon? Have you been known to pull bunnies from within your silk top hat? Ancient magic buried deep, long predating mankind. The Fae with their magics and the enchantment of the glimmer, an uncle who pulls a coin from behind you ear (yet again). From the smallest magic of a kitchen witch or tomten, to the shifting of realms and the haunting of worlds by great powers unseen. In fifty words or so tell your magical story. Please send in the body of an email to: blinkinkinfo@gmail. Up to three pieces, no attachments or bios please.www.blink-ink.org

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Daily Prompt :-) A Star Is Born

Happy National Poetry Month! My first grandchild—a beautiful boy named Max!–was born yesterday 🙂 Our own lil star mariner 🙂 ❤ Oh the beauty and mystery of how this miraculous universe expresses itself 🙂 Stardust and myth ❤

The Voyage Of Earendel The Evening Star
by J.R.R. Tolkien

Earendel arose where the shadow flows
At Ocean’s silent birm;
Through the mouth of night as a ray of light
Where the shores are sheer and dim
He launched his bark like a silver spark
From the last and lonely sand;
Then on sunlit breath of day’s fiery death
He sailed from Westerland.

He threaded his path o’er the aftermath
Of the splendor of the Sun,
And wandered far past many a star
In his gleaming galleon.
On the gathering tide of darkness ride
The argosies of the sky,
And spangle the night eith their sails of light
As the streaming star goes by.

Unheeding he dips past these twinkling ships,
By his wayward spirit whirled
On an endless quest through the darkling West
O’er the margin of the world;
And he fares in haste o’er the jewelled waste
And the dusk from whence he came
With his heart afire with bright desire
And his face in silver flame.

The Ship of the Moon from the East comes soon
From the Haven of the Sun,
Whose white gates gleam in the coming beam
Of the mighty silver one.
Lo! With bellying clouds as his vessel’s shrouds
He weighs anchor down the dark,
And on shimmering oars leaves the blazing
shores
In his argent-timbered bark.

Then Earendel fled from from that Shipman dread
Beyond the dark earth’s pale,
Back under the rim of the Ocean dim ,
And behind the world set sail;
And he heard the mirth of the folk of earth
And the falling of their tears,
As the world dropped back in a cloudy wrack
On its journey down the years.

Then he glimmering passed to the starless vast
As an isled lamp at sea,
And beyond the ken of mortal men
Set his lonely errantry,
Tracking the Sun in his galleon
Through the pathless firmament,
Till his light grew old in abysses cold
And his eager flame was spent.

Make art about birth, about the miraculous being born.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000003302881/born-from-dust.html

 

 

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Daily Prompt <3 Celebrating, "Between Starshine and Clay"

Happy National Poetry Month! No way we could celebrate poetry without Lucille Clifton!

won’t you celebrate with me

by Lucille Clifton

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
 
Make art about celebration. Or survival. 
 
lucilleclifton

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Daily Prompt :-) What We Can’t Know

Happy National Poetry Month! A beautiful poem and a prompt!

to the sea

BY ARACELIS GIRMAY

 

You who cannot hear or cannot know
the terrible intricacies of our species, our minds,
the extent to which we have done
what we have done, & yet the depth to which
we have loved
what we have
loved —
the hillside
at dawn, dark eyes
outlined with the dark
sentences of kohl,
the fūl we shared
beneath the lime tree at the general’s house
after visiting Goitom in prison for trying to leave
the country (the first time),
the apricot color of camels racing
on the floor of the world
as the fires blazed in celebration of Independence.
How dare I move into the dark space of your body
carrying my dreams, without an invitation, my dreams
wandering in ellipses, pet goats or chickens
devouring your yard & shirts.
Sea, my oblivious afterworld,
grant us entry, please, when we knock,
but do not keep us there, deliver
our flowers & himbasha bread.
Though we can’t imagine, now, what
our dead might need,
& above all can’t imagine it is over
& that they are, in fact, askless, are
needless, in fact, still hold somewhere
the smell of coffee smoking
in the house, please,
the memory of joy
fluttering like a curtain in an open window
somewhere inside the brain’s secret luster
where a woman, hands red with henna,
beats the carpet clean with the stick of a broom
& the children, in the distance, choose stones
for the competition of stones, & the summer
wears a crown of beles in her green hair & the tigadelti’s
white teeth & the beautiful bones of Massawa,
the gaping eyes & mouths of its arches
worn clean by the sea, your breath & your salt.
                                             Please, you,
being water too,
find a way into the air & then
the river & the spring
so that your waters can wash the elders,
with the medicine of the dreaming of their children,
cold & clean.

 

Make art about water, about being water.

water watercolor

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Monday Must Read! Russell Dillon: Eternal Patrol

 

russell dillonThis week’s Must Read author is Russell Dillon, is co-editor of Big Bell and author of the the full collection Eternal Patrol, and the chapbook, Secret Damage. His work has also been included in collaboratives and pamphlets, including Hail Satan, Group Show Anthology, CS13 Gallery Press, and Local News, in collaboration with poet Jason Morris and artist Jason Grabowski, Push Press. Russell is a poet, writer, editor, and educator who divides his time between San Francisco and New York.

Russell’s Website

http://www.russelldillon.com

Buy Russell’s Books

Eternal Patrol

http://www.forkliftohio.com/index.php?page=eternal-patrol

Secret Damage

http://www.forkliftohio.com/index.php?page=secretdamage

Praise for Eternal Patrol

If I were a sailor lost at sea, Eternal Patrol would be my lullaby, my dreamed-of rescue. I’d listen to Russell Dillon’s warning: “Living terrified of the sea, I had no way to keep / myself from drowning inland, truncated,” and I’d know that if I weren’t lost at sea, I’d be lost somewhere else instead. These poems ask us, according to myriad adventures, Who are we/you/I/they? But answering this question would be like pinning a butterfly to a museum wall, real morbid. So, in Dillon’s world, we’re shifters—­monster images cast upon ourselves, the empty box living in “somethingtude,” holding congress with the mighty wind.—Alexis Orgera

The difference between being lost and wandering is what you find, and what these elegant, heart-rending, fuckall funny and smart poems find again and again is deep shining truths and their own stellar vitality. Russell Dillon is a perpetually wandering poet with a keen eye for local glories and an ear for strange outbursts of song, a tender guide through the terrors, lurches, and sudden exultations of life.—Dean Young

“remember: / you are not in charge,” writes Russell Dillon in his gorgeous debut collection, where every line sutures the romance of recklessness with the fragility of glass. These poems feel like the deep-pile lining of a secret hideout—feathers, twine, glittering detritus in the tree’s highest, most improbable branch. This is what gets said after the breakdown has diffused, after the rash act has been committed, when the speaker finds himself in the afterglow, almost alone, advancing a kind of perpetual exchange. Eternal Patrol welcomes the reader into the charged dilation between fight and flight—a heavy, soaring, totalizing space that is not the answer to anything, but is thrilling, magnetic, and relentlessly beautiful.—Mary Austin Speaker

From Publisher’s Weekly

This sincere, winding, and attentive debut collection from Dillon explores a strange landscape in which our highly-attuned guide reminds himself, “Sometimes, I forget that you don’t see everything I see.” He invites his readers to shed reservations and engage with the universe at large: “The gods are half the myth,/ the other half is the believing.” With the poems’ urgency subtly underscoring their own necessity, Dillon’s music is part staccato, part crescendo, and totally operatic; but the notion of vocation is described in visceral terms: “You never wanted to sing/ before they wired the mouth shut,/ but after that, the desire was terrible.” We share in Dillon’s discovery of simultaneous beauty and hideousness—perhaps his greatest accomplishment here—and we’re implored to “Remember: the poison and its antidote/ are both synthesized from one mother venom. We can’t deny/ that.” These poems operate in the space of impossibility; we need look no further than his summarization of history’s every love letter: “What is it you’re unable to surrender, and please/ may I have that.” An intolerable vivacity lends the appearance of unquenchability, as if the poems continue to tick even with the book closed, and perhaps it’s best to consider each one representative of “a work in progress, like undressing/ an angel.”

Read More From Russell Dillon Online

http://www.interrupture.com/archives/feb_2011/russell_dillon/

http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/tag/russell-dillon/

http://coldfrontmag.com/the-naming-and-the-codes-things-outside-of-poetry-where-i-most-found-a-poetics-or-standing-up-for-falling-down-by-russell- 

Hear Russell Read

http://www.russelldillon.com/media/

 

Happy Reading!

xo

Mary

 

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Daily Prompt <3 What Work Is

Happy National Poetry Month! Another favorite poem from a favorite poet 🙂 And a Prompt at the end!

What Work Is

by Philip Levine

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring today,” for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who’s not beside you or behind or
ahead because he’s home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you’re too young or too dumb,
not because you’re jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don’t know what work is.

Make art about what work is. 

Philip-Levine’s-Poetry-of-the-Working-Man

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Daily Prompt <3 Where the World Ends, Or Begins

Happy National Poetry Month! Another favorite poet!

Perhaps the World Ends Here

by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
Make art about where the world ends, or begins.
joy harjo

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Friday Call For Submissions Love! Mainstreet Rag

M. Scott Douglas has been rocking the lit world since 1996, still and always producing beautiful publications filled with really amazing work. Check out their guidelines, but also peruse and purchase in their bookstore. You won’t be disappointed. 

Here’s their current call: 

Publishing Opportunities at Main Street Rag

Deadline: Rolling

 

If you’re a writer looking for opportunities, Main Street Rag Publishing Company is the place. It starts with The Main Street Rag, our quarterly independent literary magazine which features poetry, fiction, reviews, interviews, and more and has been publishing uninterrupted since 1996. We also publish themed anthologies, poetry books and chapbooks, short story collections, novellas, and novels. Visit our website and take a tour of our publishing options. Visit the Main Street Rag Online Bookstore and sample some of the books we’ve already published. Main Street Rag Publishing Company, PO BOX 690100, Charlotte, NC 28227-7001, www.MainStreetRag.com, , 704-573-2516.

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Daily Prompt :-) What You Really Want

Happy National Poetry Month! Another favorite poem 🙂 

What Do Women Want?

BY KIM ADDONIZIO

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it   
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store   
with all those keys glittering in the window,   
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old   
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers   
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,   
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.   
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.   
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you   
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment   
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body   
to carry me into this world, through   
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,   
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,   
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
Make art about what you really want. 
woman red dress

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