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“Beware” … and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Here is our collection from last week’s writing prompt, into the great yawning, November 8: what should we do, what should we ask for, when we know that vision has died and lunacy is on the rampage?  It garnered such an interesting, pointed and passionate response.

The great joy of themes and prompts is that there are always surprises.You just never know where people are going to take an idea. It’s always a jumping off point to something that’s been nagging – perhaps even raging – from each writer’s unique perspective.

I never hold people strictly to the theme or the prompt, which I recognize is an irritation to some … or, at least, that’s what I’ve been told recently. The thing is: art comes from sacred space. That has to be honored. So if the piece is linked by a thin silken thread or was written before the prompt went up and the poet/writer is inclined to share, so be it. Amen, I say.  This is, after all, an informal exercise meant to inspire, work the writing muscle, offer a venue for worthy ideas and writers, and to provide a chance to get to know others who share our passions. Enjoy! …

… and thanks to Colin Blundell, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Paul Brookes and Juli. Bravo! Your ideals are real.

The next Wednesday Writing Prompt will post tomorrow. All are welcome to join in no matter the status of career: beginning, emerging or pro.

beware

the Abstraction Monster
roughing its way
through pompous discourse
whose wifflers maybe don’t realise
quite how they destroy
all purchase on the sticks & stones
of things – real apples ripening
towards August drainage systems
against water on the brain…
George Washington’s Birthday
done by Charles Ives
complete with jaw harp
dissolving into glorious dancing

freedom justice beauty
our country (usually wrong) money –
Abstraction Monster friends
death-dealing to the tip
of the iceberg thought

real thinking dwells in all the open doorways
and river basins of the wide wide world

© 2017, Colin Blundell  (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

This comes from my 2016 ‘101 apolitical poems’ (ironical!) in which the poem (posted here not necessarily as a contribution, just for amusement), headed by a quotation from my favourite long-dead politician, is: “No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.” Aneurin Bevan (1948)

lower than vermin

therefore not really vermin at all –
not worms (Latin vermis = worm) or snakes
or miscellaneous bugs
not reptiles not fleas or flying ants
not wild animals not insects of any kind
difficult to control in large numbers

but maybe ghouls that go bang
in some dark pit at dead of night
at the centre of an impenetrable forest
whose trees are constructed
out of piled up old rancid dustbins
that haven’t been emptied for months
where not even rats will go
for a Sunday afternoon promenade
for fear of the calculated potholes

I wonder if ghouls that go bang
in the night really are lower than vermin –
there may be something even lower

ridiculous demons if they weren’t
so terrifyingly malevolent

© 2017, Colin Blundell  (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

a vision requested.

early while driving.                     omen repeating

sometimes the sun comes lower after the crest

one moment

imagine them marching,           slow & white.

will you name them?

in the wake all things come clear.

slow & white.

later below the peaks i tell him. he said it is

the dark crystal.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher  (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

Don’t Get (From A World Where 2)

involved. Distance yourself.
Else you’ll be wound in,

A fish on a line, handed
responsibilities you can’t handle.

Care for those you help will absorb
all the time you can spend with yourself.

Stay sane. Hold folk at arms length.
Others who can afford it will fill the absence

You make with your lack of response
When a person falls, injures themselves.

Be assured their are professionals our society
employs who can deal with it better than you.

© 2017, Paul Brookes  (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Our Insanity (From A World Where 2)

is healthy. Hurt others,
hurt yourself. Hospitals

widen wounds. Firemen
are firestarters. Doctors

avidly spread disease.
Dementia is encouraged.

Helpfulness and reasoned action
is criminal. Thought for others

will get you referred to a psychiatrist.
Multiple personality is encouraged.

Not knowing who you are is wellbeing.
Celebrate murder, envy, greed, selfishness.

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

The Offering

of your place for theirs.
A seat for those who cannot stand.

An arm for those who need support.
An empathetic word for those who grieve.

Warmth for those cold as marble.
A smile for those downcast.

Small acts of give amongst the take.
Your strength amongst the enfeebled.

© 2017, Paul Brookes  (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

The Exponential Demise of our Well-Being

You know that sudden speeding montage of thoughts and images you get when a torrent of information flashes through your mind and your consciousness grasps their thematic connections and creates a glimpse of the bigger picture? It only lasts seconds but it’s revelatory and dramatic and, when it produces a physical resonance, can be said to reveal truth – be it the individual’s recognition of a personal truth or of an external reality. You shiver, feel sick, overwhelmed perhaps, or optimistic, even excited if the epiphanous moment is positive. It’s the kind of high frequency, moment of clarity that sparks creativity, spurs innovation and signposts direction – and of course, it can also incite utter panic. The fact that it’s not an everyday occurrence – besides probably making such events all the more meaningful – is likely a good thing: there is such a thing as ‘too much’ and systems, mechanical or biological, do not really appreciate being overloaded.

But what about the low frequency hum of the mundane? The unnecessary, interminable tension imposed by the government and its agents, who intervene for our own good like stereotypical missionaries: they’re enough to drive the sanest people to distraction. For a party which professes ‘small state’ governance, they’ve made spectacular inroads into nearly all levels our daily lives, with their micro-management and moral prescriptions. They’re like all-enveloping smog, systematically choking the goodwill, the patience and the hope out of an entire nation.

This bass resonance features large in our everyday domestic arrangements too. Life is a journey of relationships, private, public and overwhelmingly political in nature. Government is in your face; so is media hype. But maybe, so are your neighbours, members of your family, your friends, your boss, your ‘clients’… we are all someone intruding in another’s space. As the infrasound increases pitch and pierces the surface, the customary dynamics dance under intensifying friction with random acts of ‘true colours’ and out-of-character behaviour.

People are living precariously under perpetual and pernicious stress. (Sorry for the ‘Ps’) You don’t need me to tell you about the growing surveillant, authoritarian management-style; the stark poverty living side by side with gluttony; religious oppression and paranoia; conflict and invasion; economic malfeasance – the list is almost as endless as it is global – and the cost of such dis-ease, as we all know, is far more than monetary. We are being worn down by failure and blame and uncertainty. People can’t help but project their hopes and fears into the future, but how much can you channel or manage them when you are the puppet of puppets?

I see the low frequency as starting to have the same impact as the high. We are overwhelmed and panicked and most people are either fighting it off, drowning under it or veering between the two. This is a fight or flight lifestyle and it is unsustainable: you can’t operate indefinitely on adrenaline, can you? Not without serious repercussions to your physical, mental and emotional health. That would be like perpetual war…

Mental health is a spectrum. We’re all on it. We travel its width in both directions for the length of our lives and, if we avoid the pain at its extremes, it is surely by some merciful grace? But this does not mean that the rest of us are healthy individuals, communities or nations. Not when we live in a state of constant dis-ease.

For as long as they can, people cope as well as they can, with whatever resources they can muster and with varying degrees of success. It might be instinctive but it’s exhausting and dispiriting to exist rather than to live, so it doesn’t take any genius to understand why some will chose denial rather than face reality or the unknown; that many of those who cannot unsee and unknow, will seek intoxication as respite; and that recklessness will become attractive to some while others will withdraw and become frozen.

And people snap. Everyone has a breaking point – though I must confess: it’s somewhat reassuring in the UK, to know you are at least unlikely to be shot at. But, facetiousness aside – I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to discover where my snapping point is – I can’t help but imagine we will see and hear of many implosions, both in our personal spheres and in the News at large. There’s an ever increasing number of people who live every day at the threshold of a breakdown: people who are grateful if they merely find themselves no worse off at the end of their day than at its start. Every day. With no seeming end.

Lives of such fragility are surely unsustainable: they are certainly an obscene mark on a modern world. I fear that, in a climate of continual manipulation and confusion, gifted by the accelerating machinations of a powerful few, the exponential demise of our well-being is almost certain. But, just as pain and anger can be warning signals that something is wrong, so too is the hum and it is screaming at us to make the madness stop: to pay attention to real meaning and create meaningful solutions

© 2017, Juli [Juxtaposed] (Subject to Change)

A frozen spring

The behaviour of our world leaders is extraordinary. These creatures trot out one ridiculous line after another about whatever and whoever, seemingly oblivious to the irony of their expedient relativism, all the while projecting as if theirs was the light and the way. They make policies based on any outlying prediction of convenience that their hypothetical histrionics can fashion and these become as the self-fulfilling prophesies of their tragic little imaginations. I’d say you couldn’t make it up but I reckon they do.

The scope for all manner of catastrophe by their obnoxious, cynical hands is horrifying. And we keep being told that there’s no alternative; that it’s competence or chaos; mainstream or radical fringe; with us or against us; deserving or undeserving; ally or monster; either-or. Always either-or… To do this they oversimplify each issue and circumstance, scapegoating or sexing up, until it is reduced to a catchy, polarizing meme and then they feign consternation over all the threats and distress they’ve conjured. Or do they conjure up a load of threats and distress and then simplify them to polarize everyone…?

How are we continuing to tolerate such an industrialised scale of hypocrisy and hubris? How on earth are we still bearing their cold indifference to cause and consequence; the expedience of their cruel, misguided pragmatism? How do we stomach the interminable provocations and funnelled paranoia? I don’t believe our modern species is so readily predisposed to such superficial extremes. I think we’re far too full of contradictions and nuance once you get underneath the first couple of layers. Why are these creatures still being allowed to get away with their obscene behaviour? At what point will we admit we are complicit and have learned to love our chains? For, if we are not; have not: where are our blazing pitchforks?

And Mainstream News’ content and delivery? It mostly seems to collude to serve the Powerful. We get fed shallow headlines followed by even shallower analyses; celebrity big-up or tear-down; something about someone, who apparently should know better, not toeing the latest line; a report about a report on something so appalling that people cannot understand how it could ever have happened at all, must ‘never again’ but probably will; a few temporary and meaningless economic numbers, followed by even more meaningless analysis; another story of hair-raising incompetence or fraud, quickly justified or deflected; another populist policy to tempt, punish or placate, framed as anything but the tinkering that it is; merit given to sheer electioneering mischief… And on and on. Every day more surreal and yet so sterile.

There are moments, some days and some whole days when it’s as though my outrage and numbness have been whisked into a solid fusion. It’s like I’m flung, for a period, into suspended animation. The passion of impotent protest, crowding in and freezing my whole being. I know it’s a fleeting overwhelm of emotion and thought but, well, it’s visiting more often and staying longer. Sometimes I think I’m only saved from losing ‘it’ due to lashings of healthy irreverence, an eye for the wry and a great deal of there but for the grace of… And I wonder at the leadership which creates and depends on a world of fight or flight for its profit; at all those around the world for whom this designed overwhelm is an imposed, perpetual constant. How are there not more people running around, demented, with wild eyes, pulling their hair out? Or curling up in a corner and rocking? I think we are, though, in our souls. Is it just me being temporarily consumed by the fanned extremes of my own angst or am I tripping into the angst of collective consciousness?

For the global atmosphere is a heavy fog of fear and denial, so widespread, so deep, so prevalent that, whether consciously or subconsciously, it must overshadow and infiltrate every individual to some degree. Even if you’re paying only a little attention to national and international affairs and conditions, you surely cannot fail to be at least uneasy about the interminable, mind-blowing ineptitude that has put our world in such a state – however you measure yourself by pressing ideological instruments. And they are pressing, aren’t they? In this reckoning coming – for reckoning is our current trajectory – there will be teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing for everyone.

And yet…

I have hope. It’s in that inextinguishable light contained in Humanity’s heart and mind and an enduring faith in our capacity for enlightenment and generosity of spirit. And I tell my shadow self that this grotesque age, too, shall pass. That the People will rise. That these monsters of narrow, selfish ideology will surely be slain lest our doom be sealed because, simply, it’s the grotesque or the rest of us. And I tell myself that, whether I’ll still be sane (please smile at that) or even still around for our healing, it matters little. Others will be. However long it takes. And that those generations will conduct themselves a bit better, perhaps for longer, next time around.

© 2017, Juli [Juxtaposed] (Subject to Change)

‘especially in times of dark‘

Always
but especially in times of dark,
encroaching space,
my hope alights and leans
on an enduring faith
in the human spirit
and the myriad illumined pockets
of kindness and enlightened thought.
They are as the stars in a night sky:
escape the density of beamed artifice
and they are constant; visible.
For the heart sees what it looks for
as much as does the mind’s lensed eye.

© 2017, Juli [Juxtaposed] (Subject to Change)

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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Ramble Tramble … a BeAttitude from poet and writer, Joseph Hesch

Joseph Hesch
Joseph Hesch

“Each day I squeeze the contents of my heart over whatever expression I’m wearing & imprint it onto a notebook page–my version of St. Veronica’s veil.”

Joseph Hesch (A Thing for Words) lives in a beautiful region, upstate New York, at the confluence of my own beloved Hudson River and the Mohawk River.  It’s a fine setting for a poet.

This is a prequel to this month’s The BeZine. It’s on theme by a slender thread but profoundly supports the core objective of the Zine, which is to recognize that “other” isn’t other at all and to respect and honor all humanity. Enjoy! … and visit The BeZine on the 15th for our November edition, HUNGER, POVERTY AND THE WORKING CLASS AS SLAVE LABOR. Read more about our core-team member,Joseph Hesch, HERE.

When you’re in the middle of it, living and learning, learning about living, living as a means of learning, you don’t notice how you might be different from (or the same as) some guys across the ocean or across the room. You don’t notice much about anything but what’s inside the three inches of air surrounding your body.

They are Them, There, Then. You are You, Here, Now. Context is but a ghost, barely a specter of a concept through which you  your place in a wider world. You accept ideas, tenets, the virtual castle walls within which you secure your position as the center of the Universe. You don’t question. God just IS, He is a He and you need to toe his line in order to win the lovely parting gifts they hand you for completing the Home version of this dicey Game of Life.

The other day, I asked myself not only who I am, but what, forcing myself to look beyond myself as this sack of meat, its spark of intellectual and essential energy and the possessor of opposing thumbs that answers to Joseph, Joe, Joey and any of a hundred or so discrete alphanumeric identifiers that differentiate me from you. And you and you, as well.

I saw such a small thing, a cluster of cells both good and ill, beneficial and malignant, functional and inert, held modestly upright by some universally accepted beliefs that inherently make me superior to so much of the rest of the inhabitants of this blue marble upon which we stand as it falls, rises, or circles in the vastness of the Universe.

And so much of what I see is just a matter of dumb luck, some bit of kismet that Valentine met Maria and Patrick loved Lizzy and they all somehow decided to leave their homes in Europe to come to this coast-to-coast set of geographic coordinates that may make this the most varied and valuable piece of real estate on the planet. They came to this place where people can be free to become the monarchs of their own existence. Here in this nation established upon the premise that all men are created equal.

Except, of course, if you were on the wrong end of our “peculiar institution,” where white men owned black men who did the physical labor that either built or buttressed the Whites’ socioeconomic standing. And that sin was committed even in my hometown, tucked up here in the upper right corner of your map, which is the oldest chartered municipality in the country.

And also except if you were a member of the class of original inhabitants of this breadth of the continent. Then you were crushed in the essentially forgotten, if considered at all, dirty little secret of American’s Manifest Destiny, which included eviction, subjugation, military intimidation, interdiction and an open-air type of incarceration. And, quite often, our Euro-America’s God-blessed version of the final solution to the “Indian problem,” eradication.

Which brings us rambling back to my original premise. When you are so busy trying to make it from First to Twelfth Grade, from freshly minted believer to elder keeper of whatever Word you follow, from allowance grabber to worker bee and then retirement check-cashing senior, you don’t think of these things. You pretty much have to live within your insulated little castle keep, those walls of ideas and ideals I spoke of before.

It’s human nature. Self-preservation, self-centeredness, selfishness, maybe even a selective selflessness, draw blinders around us from which we might occasionally sneak a peek outside ourselves. Then we pull our heads back within the silken bonds of our own spiritual and intellectual cells. There in the comforting darkness we see house-of-mirrors reflections of ourselves, warm and fuzzy, clean and bright, dark and angry, volatile and violent. And we accept them or reject them with but a blink, a wink or a meditative, prayerful closing of the eyes.

Please forgive me this tedious ramble. I’ve been reading again, something I haven’t done as much as when I was younger. Back then it was hardcore youthful inquisitiveness, feeding the insatiable intellectual beast as much trivia, possibly necessary minutiae and winning team history it could take. Now, it’s my own version of sticking this silver-pated gourd out of the dusty crust of virtual Hesch topography to see what I missed. In my old age I’ve become another type of Self-something. Self-aware. It’s embarrassing and painful, yet somehow freeing.

I see the mistakes, poor judgments and failures I’ve made. I see the victories, loves and lucky guesses, too. On electronic and physical pages I’ve cast them out there like stars across a desert sky. And now I see how they tell stories and give necessary direction, even if I have almost reached my ultimate destination.

I just thought I’d pass this on to you, since you’re traveling that way, Slán abhaile.  Auf wiedersehen.  Safe travels.  Ramble Tamble. Down the road I go.

This started its life as a poem, then grew like some good ol’ southern kudzu, spilling all around the page, seemingly taking over everything from my writing hand to better judgment. By the way, Ramble Tamble is the title of the first cut on Creedence Clearwater Revival’s  classic 1970 album, Cosmo’s Factory. It’s one of the rockingest songs I know, a great road song and might be as good a fit for our current times as it was for my youth.

© 2017, essay and photograph, Joseph Hesch.

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

 

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SUNDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS: Calls for Submissions, Contests, Events and Other Information and News

SPECIAL REQUEST: More and more magazines are charging submission fees and these are in some cases going up. The highest I encountered recently was $23 for the submission of one poem. Sometimes the publication pays writers and poets. Sometimes it doesn’t. This is not new, of course. Its been going on for some years now. It makes me wonder how much of a barrier that creates for writers. I’m collecting material on how you feel about these charges as a poet/writer and/or editor. Fair? Not fair? Okay depending on rate? Okay depending on whether or not they pay poets and writers? That sort of thing. I do plan to share the results of this informal survey at The Poet by Day. I won’t quote you by name without first getting your permission. Please let me know your thoughts about submission fees in the comments section below or by email: thepoetbyday@gmail.com.  Thank you! J.D.

Related:

CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Opportunity Knocks

AMBIT MAGAZINE is a quarterly literary and art magazine, published in London that accepts “unsolicited, previously unpublished poetry and short fiction.” Ambit is open for poetry submissions from January 1st through March 1, 2018 and fiction from February 1st – March 1, 2018. Payment in copies. No submissions fees. Details HERE.

ARTEMISpoetry Issue 20 (May 2018) deadline to be announced. “Women poets only, of any age. Unpublished poetry only and not out in submission elsewhere.  Strict limit:max 4 poems; the total number of lines in all should not exceed 200 lines (i.e. you could send a poem of 200 lines and this would restrict your submission to just one poem).  Two copies, A4 paper only [U.S. standard letter paper – 8 1/2 x 11 is the closest we have in the US to A4], typed or neatly handwritten.  Each numbered sheet to bear the poet’s contact details (name, address, telephone, e-mail). Artwork – Black and white photographs or line-art sketches are welcome for submission. Four max. Send to ARTEMISpoetry, ATTN.: Dilys Wood, 3 Springfield Close, East Preston, West Sussex, BN162 SZ.”

COFFEE, TEA and POETRY coffeeteaandpoetry dot net is a home for simple pleasures and features poets and their poems, specialty teas and coffees along with slow-carb grain-free recipes. Send food poems and brief bio to Jamie Dedes for consideration – thepoetbyday@gmail.com with Coffee, Tea and Poetry in the subject line. Recent Posts: A poem after Basho … and Genmaicha, the people’s tea and Research on Parkinson’s Disease … and Ketogenic Diet for PD; today’s poem is “Vision Quest.”

GULF COAST, A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts has a open call for writers to respond to Harvey. Poems, stories and essays may be sent through March 1, 2018.  The journal’s regular print submission period runs through March 1 as well.  There is a reading fee of $2.50 for regular submissions. Those fees are put toward providing “competitive honorarium” for authors published. Payment is $50 per page for poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Details HERE.

THE BeZINE, Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be December issue – themed Spirituality (Spiritual Paradigms, Awakenings, Miracles)  is now open and the deadline is December 10th. Send submissions to me (Jamie) at bardogroup@gmail.com. Publication is December 15th. Poetry, essays, fiction and creative nonfiction, art and photography, music (videos or essays), and whatever lends itself to online presentation is welcome for consideration.  No demographic restrictions. Please read at least one issue and the Intro/Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines. We DO NOT publish anything that promotes hate, divisiveness or violence or that is scornful or in any way dismissive of “other” peoples.

The BeZine is an entirely volunteer effort, a mission. It is not a paying market but neither does it charge submission or subscription fees.

I do consider previously published work if you hold the copyright and I encourage submissions from beginning and emerging poets and writers as well as pro. I am especially interested now in short stores, feature articles, music videos and art. / J.D.

INTERZONE, Britain’s longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine, accepts manuscripts of up to 10,000 words. There is an interest in art but not in unsolicited nonfiction. No poetry. No payment is mention but neither is there a submission charge. Details HERE. The publisher of Interzone also publishes Black Static (horror fiction “that pushes the envelope) and Crimewave (crime and mystery short stories). Details HERE.

SWIMM, Supporting Women Writers in Miami publishes a poem each day and delivers it to subscribers via email. Submissions are open from “women and women-identifying/femme-presenting writers. Women of all ages, races, ethnicities, cultures, orientations, and expressions are encouraged to submit their poems on a variety of themes, or subjects. The only criterion is outstanding work that makes the editors’ heads, well, swim.” Non-paying market. $2 submission fee. Details HERE.

OXFORD POETRY has an open call through 25th December 2017 for its Winter 2017/2018 edition. “As we end one eventful year, and cross into the seasons and stations of the next, The Editors invite submissions to Oxford Poetry’s Winter 2017-2018 issue on the theme of ‘crossings’: send us poems which cross the line, poems from the crossed-out and in-between.” Non-paying market. No submission fees. Details HERE.

WEST TEXAS REVIEW is open for submissions year-round  “poems, essays, flash fiction, and photographs that bring value to the page. We want work that is thoughtful, deliberate, and authentic. We want work that is concrete and direct, and can justify its own existence. Think of poets like William Carlos Williams, Anne Sexton, and Nikki Giovanni. Think of essayists like George Orwell. Think of short story writers like Donald Barthelme, Octavio Paz, and Jorge Luis Borges. We want your best work and, if you send us your best work, we will treat it with respect and care.” Non-paying market. $3 submission fee. Details HERE.

CONTEST

THE MASTERS REVIEW, a platform for emerging writers is hosting its third annual award. Call for Submissions closes on November 15. The winning story will be awarded $2000 and publication online. Second and third place stories will be awarded publication and $200 and $100 respectively. All winners and honorable mentions will receive agency review by: Amy Williams of The Williams Agency, Victoria Marini from Irene Goodman, and Laura Biagi from Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. We want you to succeed, and we want your writing to be read. It’s been our mission to support emerging writers since day one.” Further detail HERE.

EVENT

  • SWWIM, Supporting Women Writers in Miami and The Betsy-South Beach present a night of poetry with visiting, acclaimed poet Allison Joseph and celebrated local poet Julie Marie Wade.  Held in The Conservatory at The Betsy-South Beach, the event is free and open to the public. Tickets are requested. (Please see the link below.) December 13, 2017, Details HERE.

Accessible anytime from anywhere in the world:

  • The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, online every week (except for vacation) and all are invited to take part no matter the stage of career (emerging or established) or status (amateur or professional). Poems related to the challenge of the week (always theme based not form based) will be published here on the following Tuesday.
  • The Poet by Day, Sunday Announcements. Every week (except for vacation) opportunity knocks for poets and writers.
  • THE BeZINE, Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be – always online HERE.  
  • Beguine Again, daily inspiration and spiritual practice  – always online HERE.  Beguine Again is the sister site to The BeZine.

KUDOS TO

Denise Fletcher (Poetry Curator) and Clarissa Simmens for their poems included in Bards Against Hunger 5th Year Anniversary Book. “Profits from the sale of this book will be going to help the Bards Against Hunger project which has raised thousands of pounds of food over the last 5 years to help local charities and food shelters in many different states.”

OTHER INFORMATION and NEWS

YOUR SUNDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS may be emailed to thepoetbyday@gmail.com. Please do so at least a week in advance.

If you would like me to consider reviewing your book, chapbook, magazine or film, here are some general guidelines:

  • send PDF to jamiededes@gmail.com (Note: I have a backlog of six or seven months, so at this writing I suggest you wait until June 2018 to forward anything. Thank you!)
  • nothing that foments hate or misunderstanding
  • nothing violent or encouraging of violence
  • English only, though Spanish is okay if accompanied by translation
  • though your book or other product doesn’t have to be available through Amazon for review here, it should be easy for readers to find through your site or other venues.

Often information is just that–information – and not necessarily recommendation. I haven’t worked with all the publications or other organizations featured in my regular Sunday Announcements or other announcements shared on this site. Awards and contests are often (generally) a means to generate income, publicity and marketing mailing lists for the host organizations, some of which are more reputable than others. I rarely attend events anymore. Please be sure to verify information for yourself before submitting work, buying products, paying fees or attending events et al.

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

​

 

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PERCEPTIONS OF TIME: a distance-learning poetry workshop delivered by the stellar English poet, Myra Schneider

English Poet Myra Schneider at her 80th Birthday celebration and the launch of her 12th collection

A full-day workshop (5 hours plus). Price: £8.  Details HERE.

“Time plays a central role in every aspect of our lives. The workshop explores ways in which we perceive time and how we represent these perceptions in writing.

“Past experience crucially influences how we view the present and future. Earth’s distant past, cosmological time are difficult to imagine … Clock time is fixed but our impressions of time are subjective – an hour’s enjoyable exercise session will seem to be over quickly, but the minutes drag during a boring lecture…” © Myra Schneider via Second Light Network of Women Poets, publisher of ARTEMISpoetry

To order, contact Administrator, Anne Stewart, +44 (0)1689 811394 / +44 (0)7850 537489 or editor@poetrypf.co.uk

Second Light Workshops

“We aim to fulfil our promise of ‘inclusivity’ for poets who are unable to travel to Second Light workshop events, however, our Remote Workshops are pitched at anyone wanting to enjoy a ‘work-out’ and/or kick-start a new selection of work. We also aim to keep our prices low enough for all to access.

“The workshops involve many varied exercises to stimulate new writing, some involving experimenting with formal forms and other approaches you may not have tried. They include notes and discussion points, simulating thoughts and comments of the sort that might be exchanged between participants in a ‘live’ workshop.

“Poems by women participants are eligible for consideration for ARTEMISpoetry, over and above any submission made under the general submission guidelines.” Second Light Network of Women Poets, further details on workshops HERE.

MYRA SCHNEIDER‘s latest and recent books are Persephone in Finsbury Park (SLP), The Door to Colour (Enitharmon); What Women Want(SLP). More at Myra Schneider website where you can also order Myra’s books.

HERE is a wonderful interview with Myra on the occasion of her 80th birthday earlier this year. Who wouldn’t want to gather and savor the voice of so much experience: thirteen collections of poetry, children’s books, author of Writing My Way Through Cancer and, with John Killick, Writing Yourself: Transforming Personal Material. Myra has collaborated on more anthologies than I can count, is a poetry coach and champion of women poets, a consultant to Second Light Network of Women Poets and a poetry editor.  Myra’s professional life seems like it is and always has been full and busy. Yet along the way – even when coping with catastrophic illness – Myra is able to take a breath, pick up her pen and inspire.

  • Myra’s Amazon page U.S. is HERE.
  • Myra’s Amazon page U.K. is HERE.

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