Saturday, July 30, 2005

Put Wings to Your Words

Medusa got a letter!

HI, Kathy -- I'm really enjoying your Medusa's Kitchen blogs.
Maybe you have already run this. If not, people might be interested in the project of current US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. If you go to his website on American Life in Poetry, at:
http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/current.html you can register to get a poem emailed to you every week. This week's poem by Dan Gerber is extremely potent. (Or poetent.) The site says the column is free to newspapers, but I don't know
of any newspaper taking advantage of this.

Hope you are well.

JoAnn Anglin

_________________

Thanks, JoAnn! Send poems!!! (JoAnn has been a Snake-pal since the very beginning, contributing wonderful articles and poetry and consenting to do Rattlechap #2, Words Like Knives, Like Feathers, which is available at The Book Collector.)

Yesterday I mentioned that the latest issue of Poetry Depth Quarterly is out; here is a reprint of Taylor Graham's poem from that issue. Order a PDQ from poetdpth@aol.com:


TOO SMALL TO NOTICE
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

Such a thin book of poems, and yet
it's full of bugs. Insects.
Every poem buzzes, flits, refuses
to sit still.

Iridescence. A dragonfly, a
swallowtail. Waspish stingers,
moths at the tip of pistil.
All these pages flutter, itch
and tingle.

Shut them fast
between the covers.
Listen. Outside

nothing but the dead drone
of traffic. Leaden sky, sleep-
walkers between their concrete
lines.

Truth is not this absence
of wings.

___________________

Right now Medusa is also thinking about writing, so get to work and put wings to your words. Send in a poem about emus (kathykieth@hotmail.com) before AUGUST 5 and receive a free copy of Colette Jonopulos' rattlechap, The Burden of Wings. Make it a limerick and get a free copy of Rattlechap 13.1, Why We Have Sternums by Kathy Kieth, in addition. Make it a sonnet and get a free year's subscription, as well as both books: 4 Snakes, 3 Snakelets, 2 Vypers, and assorted littlesnake broadsides—all sent to your home! Shazam!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to
kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.