There'll be some poetry book signing going on at AWP this Saturday. Come on by and say hello!
March 26, 2019
March 2, 2019
PLUME POETRY 7 is in publication and order-able--one click away!
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| Publisher: Canisy Press |
You can order your copy of the anthology today at Plume Poetry 7. I am confident this anthology will excite and satiate your literary spirit.
February 6, 2019
Old and New
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| The Nortown Theater, on Western Avenue, just south of Devon Avenue, west side of the street |
There was a second story to the building, where a marble staircase led you to the marble ladies' restroom. Once inside, it was magical to an 11-year-old. I will never forget the metal machine affixed to the restroom wall at which you could purchase, for two quarters, ladies' private needs, bobby pins, soft thick wrapped kleenexes, and most fantastically, a rich, red miniature lipstick. Ah, Debbie and Geralyn and me, we were swept away.
It was at the Nortown Theater we saw Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet over a dozen times, Buster and Billie, still a film dear to my heart on so many emotional levels, on top of which with that gorgeous Hoyt Axton theme song, oh! The Exorcist, once and once only. I believe it scared me so much I did sleep with the light on in my closet for a week. So many, many movies. You know the phrase--it holds truer here about theaters than almost anyplace: they really don't make them like they used to. I think I bought that lipstick once. I think also I was too timid to try it on.
Meanwhile, front and center, I've been teaching poetry workshops quite often and having a grand time. I have a student who has published a new chapbook with a fine press for which I have provided a blurb and the book is sublime. I'll write more on that on a future post. Gads of other students are sending their brand-new shopped poems out all over the place! I'm thrilled for them and their best cheerleader. Here's a photo of one of my classes at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe--these folks are great people, and very good poets.
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| Poetry Ms. Workshop Students |
October 31, 2018
Poem Acceptances Are the Best Candy
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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| McCall's vintage pattern for a "Poet Shirt" costume |
What's better than chocolate and candies? I used to think nothing, but things do change...this morning I received not one but two poem acceptances, one from an outstanding annual anthology, and the second from a well-read and much-respected literary journal, so I'm good if I go put on an old white nightgown, wrap a black leather belt around it and swashbuckle my way into throwing something in the skillet tonight for dinner. Eye patch, I need an eye patch. I can't help it; it looks more like a "pirate" than a "poet" shirt to me.
Bring two eye patches, please. Keep one for yourself.
October 23, 2018
October 2018 Poetry Book Exemplars, you say? 'Bout time you asked!
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| Ms. Grace Cavalieri |
This is the lovely and gracious Poetry Book Reviewer, Grace Cavalieri. She has a monthly column with the above-bannered magazine called Poetry Book Exemplars, further indicated by pertinent year and month. This month's is called 2018 October Poetry Book Exemplars, and I have the amazing great fortune to have had my new collection, Horn Section All Day Every Day, selected as one of October 2018's outstanding books for review. It's a thing like delicious freezing ice cream mouth shock when I think of the magnificent company my book keeps among its fellow exemplars. Listen, and I don't go around prefacing sentences with single words like "Listen" or "Look" at all, ever, but this time, this time, let me tell you....
It's funny, because in Ms. Cavalieri's review you can see down below--I reprint the whole thing for you, that is the size of my overwhelmed state--she has a sentence that is more than precious. She says, "This girl's got game...." Girl. I love that. There's something about me that people sense doesn't get old. I can't deny it. It's not a deniable thing. I wear the lingerie. I dance the dance. Heck, I'm the one pulled over getting the speed ticket. And tomorrow's my birthday. I can't help it, it's my favorite day of the year. It's a very special day to me! Yours should be to you! Sixth decade and counting. Harry Winston, you can keep that flawless 15c. Burmese ruby. This is a birthday gift priceless to me. I'm overthrilled about this review because something like this has never come my way during my poetry career--my plus-forty-year poetry career.
So I'll sing a little while, and then I'll get back down to lacing up these word-boot Redwings, and climb on up those word-trees, have me some more looksee around.
Thank you for all time, Miss Grace. They named you exceedingly well.
Horn Section All Day Every Day by Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow. Salmon Poetry. 80 pages.
“Super Dan,” a hero from outer space, comes to Edlow’s
consciousness to observe our humanity. These thought shards are in the form of
“Super Dan Comics Question Box Series,” and they number 88 poems. Super Dan
poems are interspersed with others: riffs on music, animals, brothers, baton
twirling, policemen, drummers, and even a love poem to bison. What I’m telling
you is this is encyclopedic high holiday where Edlow romps with language, risks
everything, uses dialogue as if she invented idiom, and writes with high-octane
energy.
Edlow houses her imagination in couplets, haiku, narratives and
all respectable versification, but the end result is the same. The words burst
at the seams with insistence to be original and incorrigible and seem to say if
poetry isn’t fun, who needs it. This poet is in her own lane, and manages
structural success with unconventional methods. It’s intense reading because
Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow believes velocity is trajectory. The girl’s got
game. She brings it, and her verbal connections are skill, not coincidence.
Baton
Twirler With Horns
Only the
trumpeters and Sharon
drink the
peppermint schnapps
under the
bleachers.
Good
thing half-time is over.
Two-inch
white-heeled go-go boots
on a
spongy grass field don’t jive
with a
flying metal rod
above the
head. Keeping the free hand
L-shaped,
and pretty all the time,
the
non-stop smile even as her head is
thrown
back to gauge
shimmering
rotation against the overcast
sky. Blue
skies disorient the game out of her.
Through a
soft chilly schnapps fog
her mind
revives the crown of her routine—
the
forward bending at the cinched, spangled waist,
her mom
rising out of her seat. Dad, silent.
She
catches the descending baton
with her
right shoulder blade. The wand jumps high, still
in
revolution and on the arsis
she grabs
it from the air like an oriole. Then kicks on.
Which is
when the tassels finally get their due.
[end of review]
///
August 20, 2018
Washington Independent Review of Books - August 2018 Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri
August 2018 Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri
- Grace Cavalieri
- August 15, 2018
A monthly feature that looks at books of and about poetry. Read the reviews here.
If You Have to Go by Katie Ford. Graywolf Press. 72 pages.
Sing Silence by Le Hinton. Iris G. Press. 80 pages.
The Carrying by Ada Limon. Milkweed Editions. 120 pages.
Our Hands a Hollow Bowl by Sharron Singleton. Grayson Books. 80 pages.
Also, most innovative, plus best chapbooks, anthology, and illustrated:
Feeld by Jos Charles. Milkweed Editions. 80 pages.
Punishment by Nancy Miller Gomez. Rattle. 26 pages.
The Wild Side of the Window by Irene Fick. Main Street Rag. 40 pages.
New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich. Graywolf Press. 304 pages.
Ozark Crows by Carolyn Guinzio. Spuyten Duyvil Press. 86 pages.
Lovebirdman by Stephanie Pressman, illustrations by Lydia Rae Black. CreateSpace. 62 pages.
Plus, four books not reviewed but listed as AUGUST’S BEST BOOKS for summer reading:
Horn Section All Day Every Day by Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow. Salmon Poetry. 80 pages.
Atmospheric Embroidery by Meena Alexander. TriQuarterly. 112 pages.
Someone Is Breathing by J. Morris. Dos Madres Press. 100 pages.
Bliss in Triple Rhythm: A Toolbox for Poets by Martin Bidney. CreateSpace. 456 pages.
"BEST BOOK" by Ms. Cavalieri for summer reading in her Washington Independent
Review of Books column, truly I did. But it's fruitless to be disentranced and lukewarm
when you're jumping for joy like you're half-trampoline -- and I assume all the other
solid names on this lovely list feel quite the same. Well, except for, you know,
Mr. Kooser, because don't we assume he's napping after all that tree-trimming
he does?
Come this October, Horn Section All Day Every Day will receive a full, astute
consideration from Grace Cavalieri in the Washington Independent Review
of Books. I can think of very few things I've looked more forward to, and for.
May 20, 2018
Quasimodo's Bell part II
...continued book launch pictorial--audience, buffet tables, and "Satin Bondage" in all its phenomenal glory...
...and one real-life caped crusader...
~
Yes, Mom would say, "don't let the grass grow under your feet." Sure, you've heard that one.
So I won't. There's a new and third collection a' brewin' right now. Going to give it my all.
I've decided to call this period my National Poetry Summer: May 1-Sept 30.
Big Love to Everyone who came to the launch and made the celebration for Horn Section All Day Every Day so memorable and extraordinary. I never forget.
Oh, interested? I was waiting on you to ask!
~
Only a thinking girlfriend would get a fab pic of the best portion of my outfit. And those unpinching shoes.
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| So much, so much.... |
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| Leah LeMoine, in scarf, Managing Editor for PHOENIX Magazine, and one heck of a magnificent lady. |
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| Jax. Man of few words. |
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| Mom, I'm sorry about those black plastic tongs. I know, I know. No time to polish three sets of burnished tongs. |
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| Booksigning Table, oh!, we sold out Horn Section..., with a few copies for the shelves in the Tempe & the Phoenix stores. |
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| Satin Bondage Cake. "Snarfed" it, they did, I tell you. |
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| Thank you to the entire sublime audience, and to my great friend Patte Lanus for taking all these photographs! |
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| Overwhelmed by the explosive response. It was beautiful. |
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| Signing books |
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| A true and real SuperHero dropped by for a sip of the bubbly before dashing off to try to keep the planet spinning in the right direction, and stop it from hurting itself. The people saw, and they believed. Thank you to Amy Schwab, and her daughter, and her daughter's friend, for this photo. Very much appreciated. |
So I won't. There's a new and third collection a' brewin' right now. Going to give it my all.
I've decided to call this period my National Poetry Summer: May 1-Sept 30.
Big Love to Everyone who came to the launch and made the celebration for Horn Section All Day Every Day so memorable and extraordinary. I never forget.
Oh, interested? I was waiting on you to ask!
~
Quasimodo's Bell part I
And so somewhere last month, April, that much-embraced month of poetry, just a short while after Friday the 13th, to me a rather blessed, lovely day, and better evening, I think somewhere between truth and fiction I ran full-steam into a concrete block wall and inside, my head rang like Quasimodo's bell. The taking of stock was at hand.
The aforementioned Friday had been the launch of my new, second poetry collection, of which I feel the kind of joy, satisfaction, pride, and relief a writer had been better feel, or as the great Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette had remarked upon another occasion, it would be for the writer "...time to lay aside the pen."
Further below in this post are a bunch of photos taken of the launch. But here are my favorite parts:
- The audience laughed just where the poems wanted them to, and the audience applauded madly, spontaneously, after four of the seven poems I read.
- No one left early. No one wanted an open mic after. No one fell asleep; well, Johnnie's husband, dear Tom, feel asleep, but he falls asleep at everything, and I'm crazy about him anyway. NO ONE looked at their CELL PHONE EVEN ONCE! Not one single person.
- Standing room only, and so many people were sitting in the aisles beside bookshelves, and then began thronging to the stage area, the staff had to put out more chairs.
- I didn't say too much, finally, after all these years, and I didn't screw up even one word in any poem -- which I've always done at every reading I've ever given.
- My shoes didn't pinch.
- The owner of the famous independent bookstore made it a point of attending my reading. Yes, I was overjoyed by that. You'd be, too. She leaned forward in her chair during the whole reading, smiling, her blue eyes sparkling and wide with listening.
- I didn't read any of the sadder, more intense, longer poems. Seems people (honestly) want a happy time when they go out. They'll tolerate "bleak" but I've also learned you can tell bleak truths just as powerfully with a dose of sly humor on the underbelly. Took a long time to get that one down pat.
- Five of my students were in the audience. Everyone's tired of hearing about my work in law, I know -- and last year I began teaching poetry workshops and craft classes (for money, and a pittance) at Phoenix Center for the Arts, and wouldn't you know it?, five of my wonderful students came. I got misty-eyed at the lectern when I told the audience they were there that night. Photos to prove. One of them, Daniel Pereyra, has just had his own collection, How I Learned to Learn New Things, accepted for publication at Finishing Line Press, and I was honored to provide a blurb for his book. It is a very good book of poems.
- My mother's serving trays, cake tray, and serving ware graced the buffet table and the dessert table. Nobody knows how much this meant to me. In fact, four days up to the reading I was more concerned about the food, the arrangement, the specialty cake, and the presentation than having my set list down. This is a true statement. I changed that set list over six times the four days up to the day of the reading.
- The booksigning line was serpentine - I say, serpentine, to the degree that the store closes at 9PM, and cash registers were still ringing and I was still inscribing up to near 10PM. Serpentine! J. K. Rowling-serpentine, well, not quite....
- I felt like the most fortunate person to have this embracing, thoughtful, engaged, spirited, appreciative audience.
- The specialty cake was actually called "Satin Bondage." I am not fabricating this. I've never used this word before in print, but it applies like no other: they "snarfed" it. I was beyond happy.
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| Pre-Reading, with Pinna Joseph, Marketing and Events Director for Changing Hands Bookstore |
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| Book Display Table, Lectern, Mic - The Changing Hands Bookstore Stage |
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| I'm thinking I'm in the "warm golden oil" line from "Why All The Ladies Like Ray" |
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| Rachel and Danny, two great students in this pic, including Gayle, owner of CH, but you can't see her because she's directly behind the applauding man in the black T-shirt. Oh joy! Jeredith! Wilson! Everyone else is beautifully new. |
And so there has to be a part II since this blog won't let me load but so many photos per each post. And I haven't even shown off the buffet!
February 18, 2018
Horn Section All Day Every Day
Welcome to the world, my new poetry collection! Best wishes, and cheers~
♡~
February 6, 2018
Emdashes Can Kiss My Desert A**
Multiple sets of proofs later, I can say at least I know where every darn emdash is in this book, not to be confused with endashes, hyphens, hiccups, or myriad sniffles of sundry sort. My right eye has developed a more than annoying on-again, off-again, semi-twitch, which, when I ignore it, utterly disappears. When I think about it, it behaves like a bedeviled railroad crossing light. Every orange or lime slip of paper sticking out from those sheets signifies something amiss, discovered, corrected, checked, double-checked, quadruple-checked, let go, gone on faith....Meanwhile, Australia, lord love ya, Australia everybody!, let's hear it for koala bears, and Booktopia!, is first up promoting my sweet poetry book and I just found out and yes, I could weep~
+612 9045 4394
Horn
Section All Day Every Day
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you are looking for is not available right now.
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ISBN-10: 1910669504
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 80
Available: 29th April 2018
~but I won't weep, because why? Because someone's got to go get the ladder.
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