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Congratulations to Patricia Leighton on Her New Collection; SAFTA & VIDA Is Now Accepting Applications for Fall Artist Residencies

British Poet, Patricia Leighton

Making Hay on the Snowline

Sloe-black tadpoles
chassé the shallows
of this glacial lake
worrying their rumps
reaping a harvest from
ice-smooth rocks
with busy mouths.

How long in this short
summer to bloat bodies
and turn tail to frog?
How long to frog-bask
soft skinned on baked stone
flip to scissor silk again
choosing life’s temperature?

And when the crush of snow
deadens the plateau
turning silk to steel

what price survival?

© 2019, Patricia Leighton from Hidden (Oversteps Books, 2019)

I’m just in the middle of pulling together the Tuesday post with poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt (it will post in an hour or so) when I got this news from Patricia Leighton, a frequent contributor to the The BeZine and a member of the Second Light Network of Women Poets. I had to share it with you and congratulate Pat on her first published collection. Well done. I’m sure it’s stellar.

The poem above is from her collection and here is a sampling of the reviews:

“Patricia Leighton’s poems continually evoke the wonder of the everyday. She has an unerring eye and ear for life’s details, and yet her poetry conveys hidden depths of feeling and moments of soaring magic.” Jeremy Hilton

“Patricia Leighton’s thoughtful collection rings true in its humanity and its expressed doubt.  Many poems explore the margins of belief, the ‘leavings and seasonal returns’.  Leighton writes marvellous lines like: ‘I borrow small cupfuls of time from both ends’.  There is a great tenderness to her work, which navigates both large and little griefs alongside an unstoppable sense of awe at the world and its capacity for recovery.  I like her close focus on everyday things, and the strength she draws from them: ‘but this is an ordinary dawn like many others/ … two fields away a yard cockerel crows three times/ the day begins to chew.’ Jean Atkin

This also in from SAFTA and VIDA. I missed it while in the hospital, so please note the deadline for applications is coming up on May 15.  

 

Sundress Academy for the Arts & VIDA
Now Accepting Applications for Fall Artist Residencies

The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is excited to announce that they are now accepting applications for short-term artists’ residencies in creative writing, visual art, film/theater, music, and more. Each residency includes a room of one’s own, access to a communal kitchen, bathroom, office, and living space, plus wireless internet.

The length of a residency can run from one to three weeks. SAFTA is currently accepting applications for our fall residency period, which runs from August 21st to December 31st, 2019. The deadline for fall residency applications is May 15, 2019

For the fall residency period, SAFTA will be pairing with VIDA to offer two fellowships (one full fellowship and one 50% fellowship) for a week-long residency to two women writers of any genre. VIDA’s mission as a research-driven organization is to increase critical attention to contemporary women’s writing as well as further transparency around gender equality issues in contemporary literary culture. Fellowships will be chosen by guest judge, Sarah Clark.

Sarah Clark is a non-binary Native (Nanticoke) editor, writer, and cultural consultant. They are a VIDA Board member, Executive Editor at Vida Review, Co-Editor at Bettering American Poetry, a reader at Atlas Review, as well as Editor-in-Chief at Features & Reviews Editor at Anomaly. They curated Anomaly’s GLITTERBRAIN folio on mental health by trans and queer writers of color, a folio on Indigenous & Decolonial Futures & Futurisms, and edited Drunken Boat’s folios on Sound Art, “Desire & Interaction,” and a collection of global indigenous art and literature, “First Peoples, Plural.” They were co-editor of Apogee Journal’s #NoDAPL #Still Here folio, and co-edited Apogee Journal’sseries “WE OUTLAST EMPIRE,” of work against imperialism, and “Place[meant],” on place and meaning. Sarah has previously read for Sundress Press’s Best of the Net and Curious Specimensanthologies.

The SAFTA farmhouse is located on a working farm that rests on a 45-acre wooded plot in a Tennessee “holler” perfect for hiking, camping, and nature walks. Located less than a half-hour from downtown Knoxville, an exciting and creative city of 200,000 in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, SAFTA is an ideal location for those looking for a rural get-away with access to urban amenities.

The residency bedrooms are 130 sq. ft. with queen-size platform bed, closet, dresser, and desk. There is also a communal kitchen supplied with stove, refrigerator, and microwave plus plenty of cook- and dining-ware. The facility also includes a full-size working 19th century full-size letterpress with type, woodworking tools, a 1930’s drafting table, and an extensive library of contemporary literature.

For more information and application material, visit sundressacademyforthearts.com.

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

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Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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Dreaming of the Sheik, a poem

I’m the Sheik of Araby,

Your love belongs to me.

At night when you’re asleep

Into your tent I’ll creep.

The Sheik of Araby, lyrics by Harry B. Smith and Francis Wheeler, music by Ted Snyder, written in 1921 in response to the popularity of Rudolph Valentino and the movie The Sheik.

Valentino by James Abbe

This – probably silly little poem – was inspired by the tales my mother told me of how the women swooned over the actor Rudolph Valentino, even the women from the Arabic-speaking world who seemed not to have realized their beloved “Sheik” was Italian (Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguella).  She also told me how the streets were lined with adoring fans as Valentino’s funeral cottage passed through the city. Valentino died at 31 years of peritonitis. I included a clip from the movie at the end of this post. You can watch the whole abysmal thing on YouTube if you have an unhealthy inclination to do so. 

Doe eyes stare at the waiting world

Long lashed, bright with longing, feeding

An inner vision, a secret, hers alone

·

Music played the strings of that heart

Magical whispers of marriage, she’d

Assume love as young people do

·

Predictable fantasies, the house with a white

Porch and rocker, a picket fence, a back yard

Rich dark earth, flower bedecked, fruit

·

Of the womb, of course, expected and roses

On birthdays, lilies at Easter, garlands in May

Christmas trees and mistletoe and other such

·

She watered beets on the fire escape,

Helped her mother with siblings, dreamed

Dreams gifted by movies and magazines

·

There, tying her boots, ready for school

Smooth the hand-me-down dress, then

Down the steps and on through the streets

·

Dreaming of ocean mists, oak trees

Well-groomed houses, polished rides

In horseless-carriages, easy transit

·

She grew old enough, hopeful enough

To dance in the jaundiced night, a ghetto-bound

Diana waiting for her Sheik, and he

·

Looking for his Sheba, he took her

Hand for one bright minute, then gone

To be followed by another, and each

·

Sheik stayed to steal her heart, rode off

With another piece of her, a souvenir of

Yearning and promise, love and gullibility

·

“The movies and the magazines”, she says, “they lied …”

Then whispered softly: “When Valentino died, women

lined the streets for his funeral cortége and cried  … “

·

Rudolf Valentino as the Sheik and Agnes Ayers as Lady Diana.

“Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the canvas on which women paint their dreams.” Rudolph Valentino – 1923

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“When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats

Yeats photographed in 1908 by Alvin Langdon Coburn

“I bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams.”
William Butler Yeats, The Wind Among the Reeds

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

– William Butler Yeats

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

Facebook

Twitter

Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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Michael Rothenberg and The Ecosound Ensemble live at The Moon – Word of South 2019

I took this photo at Moe’s Books in Berkeley, CA. Michael is the gentleman in the hat and Terri is the lovely woman with the camera. Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion are cofounders of 100tpc. If you came up in the ’60s and especially if you are a Beat fan, you’ll recognize others in the photograph.

Michael Rothenberg is an American poet, songwriter, editor, and active environmentalist. Born inMiami Beach, Florida, Rothenberg received his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Afterward, he moved to California in 1976, where he began “Shelldance Orchid Gardens”, an orchid and bromeliad nursery. In 2016, Rothenberg moved to Tallahassee, Florida. In 1993 he received his MA in Poetics at New College of California. In 1989, Rothenberg and artist Nancy Davis began Big Bridge Press, a fine print literary press, publishing works by Jim Harrison, Joanne Kyger, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen and others. Rothenberg is editor of Big Bridge, a webzine of poetry. Rothenberg is also co-editor and co-founder of Jack Magazine.

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

Facebook

Twitter

Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton