How to Win Free Poetry Books for National Poetry Month!

Just in time for America's National Poetry Month, a whole host of poets & bloggers are sharing their love of poetry with the world--for free--one book (or two) at a time!  Special thanks to poet-blogger extraordinaire, Kelli over at Book of Kells, for the idea & organizing a list of all giveaways. So if you're like me and  love poetry books, but find the slim little volumes cost-prohibitive at times, this is your chance to own new books of poetry for free.

I'm happily giving away two fabulous books of poetry to two lucky winners--includes speedy delivery (for free) to anywhere in the world! Hand-delivery an option to any winner(s) from southeastern Wisconsin.

How You Can Win:

• Leave a comment on this post any time before May 1st, 2010. 
• Include your name and a way to be contacted if/when you win. 
• Check back on May 1st for a list of winners!

On the morning of May 1st, 2010, I will lovingly place the names of each commenter in my Grandma's favorite hat and we will each choose a winner of one of the following fabulous books of poetry:
Answering Back ed. Carol Ann Duffy

         a n d 
Names Above Houses by  Oliver de la Paz

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Thanks again to Kell & all the poets and bloggers participating and sharing their love of poetry far and wide. I'm excited to discover new many new blogs and writers-at-large.

And hey, while you're at it, why not give-away two books of poetry for a good cause? It's a great way to get folks interested in your blog and spread some happiness. It really is the little things in life that can mean the most to us sometimes.On that note, I'll let Louise have the last word (yeah, we're on a first name basis):

GRATITUDE  

Do not think I am not grateful for your small
kindness to me.
I like small kindnesses.
In fact I actually prefer them to the more
substantial kindness, that is always eying you
like a large animal on a rug,
until your whole life reduces
to nothing but waking up morning after morning.
cramped, and the bright sun shining on its tusks.


Louise Glück

history written in charcoal & sand

Hey! Ukraine's Got Talent! And winner Ksenya Simonove’s powerful images have been compared to the work of South African filmmaker William Kentridge, famous for his animations using charcoal and pastel on paper, transforming the frame as he continually erases and adds to his drawings to make them come alive on film.  The following is Kentridge's "Weighing and Wanting," which is one of my favorites.

Like all of Kentridge's films, his art provides the starting point for a revelation of conscience. You can check out more of his films here. 

And if you liked that, you've gotta see the clip below of twenty-four year old  Ksenya Simonove, (frankly, the Ukraine puts Britain & "America's Got Talent" to shame). What's remarkable is how Kesenya appears to effortlessly create and transform such poignant images, all by manipulating sand on a light box. In the video below, her hands paint a story of WWII life in the Soviet Union, tapping into the audience's rather raw emotions even all these years later. It's a beautiful kind of sadness...

Post Script: The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.

Who among us can deny the bold power of art to transform and inform lives?

In Taiwan

Everyone quotes poets and philosophers

with ease: Li Po, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Lao Zi.

We burned paper houses, paper Mercedes

assuring ancestral comforts in heaven.

Why Comedians Make Excellent Poets (but rarely vice-versa)

I am not a funny poet. If I am, it's usually unintentional. :) But I love to laugh and I love certain poetry, so in thinking about poets I most admire folks like Tony Hoagland and Matt Cook come to mind. Not just because they wield words wryly and thoughtfully, but because they're also damn funny--and truthful--and not afraid to say it like it is. To do so and still leave an impression on readers long after the poem has been read is the mark of true genius. 


Truth is, I find poetic inspiration from comedians more so than contemporary poets, though I like to pretend I am both. But really, just think about it for a moment: everything that makes a good joke makes a good poem; most of what makes a good comedian makes a good poet. Look at Stephen Colbert, for example, and the ways his humor mixes with tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless relevant complexities of human language and human nature, particularly during  "The Word" segment of his show. Hey, thanks to Colbert, "truthiness" is now an official part of the American lexicon. Next up? Wikiality or Absinthethinence? What about Americon Dream or Blackwashing? C'mon Webster, whadya say?

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Truthiness
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

l a n g u a g e | o f | h a n d s

Once in India we stood on the edge of a grave 

and looked down at the bones inside. I could not tell

the women from the men or which hands killed;
marveling at the identical stillness; their pelvises

opened the same, like prayer books lacking words.

On Glück's Meadowlands

         Glück engages readers of Meadowlands, her seventh book of poems, by crafting a tight collection of accessible poems featuring candid conversations, provocative commentaries, opposing perspectives, sobering parables and poignant vignettes drawn from her own life as well as guest appearances by Homer's Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus. These unsectioned poems are uniformly neat, short, stylistically similar and best appreciated as a series since the veiled references and deeper implications regarding Glück's own marriage in poems like "Circe's Torment" and "Parable of the Swans" can't help but rise to the surface when paired alongside poems like "The Dream" and "Meadowlands (1, 2, 3),” which show Glück's marriage and family life on the brink of collapse. The drawback to Meadowlands is that despite well timed infusions of levity readers end up on a distressing modern odyssey of sorts—a ride too often weighed down by moments of private suffering made public. Unfortunately, it’s a ride many of us 1.) are all too familiar with, and 2.) prefer to avoid, especially during playtime.

            Sadly, the tagline for Meadowlands may as well be “Much misery, not enough light.” A sense of dark hopelessness and stark admonitions pervade the collection; for example, in "Midnight:"

If I were you

I'd think ahead. After fifteen years,

his voice could be getting tired; some night

if you don't answer, someone else will (26).

h a n s e l | c a n c e l s | t h e r a p y | s e s s i o n | w i t h | g r e t e l

Pt. canceled session w/sister via letter.

No interest in rescheduling. Follow up

Calls on 10/10 and 10/15 unsuccessful;

Billed ins. for missed appt. Current pt.

Status unknown. –Dr. X.

d e a r | f a t h e r

I know you wanted to be scattered like seeds 

across water; dust and ashes and one final sunset. 

Story goes that Mama, stuck inside her grief,

decided to shellac the body, covering it 

with kisses and glaze: a homemade varnish

to seal your soul inside. No one knows 

what to do with such information.