Norbert Blei | Photo by Jeffrey Winke
Norbert Blei | Photo by Bobbie Krinsky
Please use the following form ( at the very end of this page ) if you like to contact us. Thanks !
poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground
Norbert Blei's Poetry Dispatch and other Notes from the Underground. “We live to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection,” said Anaїs Nin.
The coop has flown
Norbert Blei | 1935 – 2013
On the back roads of Door County again
Norbert Blei – 2012
Photo by Bobbie Krinsky
Norbert Blei – 2012
Photo by Jeffrey Winke
Norbert Blei – 2011
Photo by Sharon Auberle
metropolis | the shop | on-line source for jazz, improvised, innovative, adventurous and unheard music. We listen to music and read artists who don’t even exist yet. The Shop is part of the metropolis media group.
N.B.Coop News
Audio Poetry
The Outlaw Poetry Network
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Cross+Roads Press
Cross & Roads Press
Photo by Jude
Norbert Blei Books via David Pichaske of Ellis Press
poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 
Congratulations on this great new site! It will be an entertainment, but more than that, I expect it will be a tremendous reference resource.
Thanks,
– Ralph Murre
A library, archival center, and kitchen junk drawer all in one. Stupendous!
Only a poet with a haiku heart could put it in no uncertain words as these.
What could be more fascinating that a kitchen junk drawer?
This is your life: dull knives, bent forks, worn wooden spoons, rusted church keys smelling of stale beer, old string, rubber bands…books of matches anxious to burn…STRIKE…light the way…deeper and deeper into a dark drawer…you never know the shape of things awaiting the slightest touch…
norb
Norbert,
Ron Baatz, my dear friend of some 38 or so years, and I met for breakfast this past weekend then returned to my house to bemoan our mutually flagging female fortunes (a common topic these days). Then Ron pulled up his “thoughts on a snowy February afternoon” on your website for me to read. One of the few things of his I hadn’t read and till then I was unaware of your website……. so please include me on your email mailing list. Meantime here in the Catskills we’ll do our best to hold back the demons of loneliness bound to take a stab at us with the onset of winter.
Al Tirella
Dear Monsieur K:
Your website is wonderful, impressive and a boon to all us “quiet voices” out here in the rare air. I must ask you to do something regarding the poem “Once Again I Fail To,” it needs a reference to George Bilgere. When I sent it to Norb, I didn’t think of it being published and didn’t hv that note. I used George’s poem as an exercise in my poets’ group and we all generated wonderful info. Please accept my appology for this lack of etiquette.
Jackie
Dear Norbert,
I discovered your neat site by accident when I clicked on something after typing my own name (don’t tell anyone) into the internet. Thank you very much for including me here. Thank you for being underground and humble.
Off to clean a couple houses,
Ginger
This is such a wonderful page! What more can I say? Thanks
hello Norbert! Hope you can come visit my blog in your spare time I would like to receive a comment from you about my writings. My blog is at http://wordprompts.wordpress.com
I hope it’s not too much to ask. I’ll be waiting for a response from you. Many thanks in advance.
-Elisha
crows have been such an important part of my spirt all my life and i just wanted to congradulate you on some wonderful things in your site. i have many areas that show my passion for crows perhaps if you have time to look they are here:
http://www.zazzle.com/crowknow
http://www.zazzle.com/blazenraven
from these sites you can find links to all other areas, all the best “be-caws” your crew is cool!
David Kherdian, once the co-witness at my earliest marriage in Santa Fe
and after a lapse of many decades has again become a friend, an even
better one, and David clued me in today, Father’s Day, to your site–a fine and interesting one–not least of which is seeing DK’s “Father” poems again. Thank you! Please keep on your list. –David Giannini
Dear Norbert Blei,
I am writing about a public poetry event i am working to build in Chicago next year. It’s not until Valentine’s Day so there is time to plan but I like to plan well and early :). Please check out my website above. I’m based in Amsterdam, and started this project in Los Angeles – I lived in Chicago however for six years and did theater there – it is an excellent excellent theater town – as I’m sure you know! My project happened on a small level there this year and I would like it to be bigger and better next year.
Hundreds of poems submitted to my site are passed out attached to thousands of flowers I get at a discount fm FTD Floral (headquartered in the Chicago area actually) – poems can also be distributed as scrolls or attached to paper flowers. I work with some schools and have a friend who works with the Chicago Park District. Also the Neighborhood Writing Alliance (jot.org) will be participating next year.
I also work with schools at generating workshops but this is also a creative opportunity for a poetry evening or a workshop around themes of peace, global citizenship – or self reflection. The idea is that poems fm somewhere in the world are distributed on this day – as a large global friendship project!
Valentine’s day is a day about love so why not make it mean something for peace, or global community or reflections on love and peace and use the vehicle of poetry and the public distribution of poems to share this message.
OK – let me know if you or some in your writing community there would be interesed in participating in some creative way for February 14 2009.
Thanks – feel free to contact me for any further questions/information. This is a new project so I am still developing it (raising funds, expanding website etc.).
Warm regards,
Federico Hewson
The Valentine Peace Project
valentinepeaceproject.org
you seem to know lots of folks I know
not “know of” but knw…
and
where do I know Jeff Winke from? “rings a bell”
am book-marking you site sowze to peruse
cheers, ed baker
Where did you find these fantastic photographs of Jorge Luis Borges? I’m working on a brief tribute to him for Global Rhythm magazine (issue focusing on the music, art and culture of Argentina) and would love to run a high-resolution scan of the image that leads your entry entitled “The Destiny of Borges,” dated May 15 (with JLB looking skyward beneath a canopy of dark clouds).
Any help you can offer would be much appreciated…
best regards,
Bill Murphy
Managing Editor
GLOBAL RHYTHM magazine
Tribute (Haiku undone)
a vest of conciense
a seamless demise
tender poultry and a smell of spice
but in warren we see peppered lights
and streets, contrete
littered ashes of yesterday
sausages greasy admiration
of a day long gone
-Jim Peitz
For Ron Offen
40 years
by Jeff Kamen
Old battles are best
Remembered in soft focus
Better to be tasted
With the dried salt
Of long calmed fears
Or, just maybe,
The pain and daring
The praise and the concern
The comfort of good friends
Were all
Real and True
I have commented specifically on some of the other pages, but I do not think that precludes me from adding my thanks and how good to meet you and your compadres here.
I can see why John Harvey’s work is prized – the quality of the folks on the site shines right through.
MacArthur-like, I Shall Be Back.
Norbert and Monsieur K:
Congratulations!!! and Wow!!! and Holy Cow–50,000 hits is
no mean accomplishment. This terrific site will now take off
into the stratoshere according to the experts. For me it is
consciousness expanding. I read poems I would never find on
my own, and read authors I probably would never seek out, and read things I disagree with and phrases I have longed for all my life. Thank you for the beauty of the photos and illustrations and for the hard and dedicated work involved.
Dear Mr. Blei,
I’ve recently stumbled upon your site and have noticed your admiration for Jaroslav Seifert. I wonder if you might be interested in some of my recent translations of his work. I’m an American poet who has lived in Prague for five years, and done a fair amount of critical work on Seifert. Please let me know if this interests you.
All the best,
Stephan Delbos
I was more than excited when I found your website. The statement you made inre: the disenchantment with today’s written word struck me to the core. This website is a blessing for those who refuse to let poetry die and understand the importance poetry has in this ever changing world. Please let me know if there is anyway I may be of service. I am a northern Minnesota poetry/fiction writer.
Hi Norbert,
I have just discovered your site and have totally enjoyed reading through it. I will visit this site again. I live in Ireland and like to write poetry. I was wondering if i could forward a few of my poems on to you, i realise that you must be very busy, so hope i am not adding to the work burden, with my request.
Hope to hear from you.
Yours Sincerely,
John Behan.
I just found out about yr site and it looks very promising. Do you accept reviews for books you haven’t read? Essays? Other poetica crap? I have just published a book length poem by Todd Moore, entitled The Riddle of the Wooden Gun and I’m looking for places to promote it. I’ve also published books by John Yamrus and myself and a ton (well, a couple of pounds at least) of small chapbooks (59 titles). Please let me know how to get in touch with you more directly.
Dear Norbert:
Thanks for the kind words. I am still here, on Bataan, eating horsemeat, but, as you can see from the enclosed two sites, I will soon leave the trench and lead two more bayonet charges!
You’re right–there’s not many of us left, but there’s enough to get the job done.
Hope all is well with you and yours. You were always one of my favorite pals–still are–for you continued to go forward alone without bitterness or resentment, advancing Kipling’s iron ethic: “Believe in your God, trust to your luck and march to your front like a soldier!”
Best,
Jay
I am a writer from Nigeria , and wish to be informed on how to register with you
BEAUTIFUL JOB, MY FRIEND……
THE BEST EVER, EVER, EVER…..
A MILLION THANKS,
HUGH
BEAUTIFUL JOB….
NEVER BETTER,
MIL GRACIAS,
HUGH
I am a writer from Ecuador and I wish for the same as the writer from Nigeria above.
I was down–then I found your website and it picked me up, thank you.
In February I had a total knee replacement and On April 1st I got a bad session of shingles in my left eye. I haven’t been able to read or drive a car until last week,
I haven’t forgotten you. LaVona
Dear Mr. Blei,
This is a magnificent site. I commend you for it. I invite you to visit my blog and would appreciate any comments. Thank you.
S. Karlan
Hello Mr. Blei,
Your site is really interesting — I love finding stuff on here I haven’t heard of before.
Thanks for featuring me and my work. You may be interested in my new “poem a day” project on my website.
Thanks for your work,
Denver
google brought me here saying my name was mentioned on the site. i never found it, but in looking for it i realized what a privilege it would have been if i had been here. a true please. the illinois-ness (born Chicago, raised Tuscola) really tugs.
Philip
somebody tell this Deaver guy that this is the url to his page:
https://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/category/philip-f-deaver/
For a movie about McGrath:
http://thecie.org/mcgrath/
Zoom, Media Mike
Dear poets,
The Aquillrelle 2nd poetry contest is in full swing. This is just a reminder that you are personally invited to join our second contest.
Cash prizes await the winners, and publication the other finalists.
So, if you trust your poetry’s beauty, you are heartily welcome to submit.
Contest rules
1. Participants must be above 18 years of age, or sponsored by such a person.
2. Any style accepted ? rhyme, no rhyme, nature, family, erotica, personal, society, humor, etc.
3. We apply no censorship, however it is fair to tell you up front that poems encouraging hate, violence, pornography, derogation of others, drug abuse, and similar ? have no chance of winning. Of course, if such aspects are relevant and necessary as part of the ?story? ? then there is no problem in using them.
4. The specific conditions of each individual contest must be adhered to.
5. Proven plagiarism will result in indefinite banning from the site.
6. Poems must be between 10 and 50 lines long, empty lines included. This limitation might change occasionally, if specified in the individual contest. Submissions should be in .doc format.
participation and prizes
1. Any number of entries per contestant, grouped in groups of 5 poems with each group priced independently (see pricing lower down).
2. Participation is charged at:
– first entry $5
– second entry $4
– third and fourth entry $3 each
– fifth entry free
To be paid uniquely by Paypal.
Please select the number of poems you wish to submit, and the relevant submission fee.
Entries expected and accepted until 31 May 2010.
Contest results will be published on 31 July 2010.
The Aquillrelle team
http://www.aquillrelle.com
Aquillrelle contest is listed and verified by:
WinningWriters.com
FirstWriter.com
Please forward this newsletter to your fellow poets, writers and artists. Thank you.
please contact for the press release
RELEASE: POETRY ON POSTERS RECLAIMING THE WORLD.
Giving poetry the street visibility of punk and rock and roll, Phantom Billstickers is once again launching a new series of poem posters in late April 2010. Placing poems on the walls of cities across New Zealand, the United States and towns and cities everywhere, the intent is to bring poetry to the attention of the world. This will be Phantom Billstickers fourth run of Poem Posters. http://www.0800phantom.co.nz/news.php
THE LAUNCH
The ten new poems will be launched at a ceremony on the 28th of April at the old Government House, University of Auckland, Princess Street and Waterloo Quadrant, Auckland, New Zealand. The event will take place from 5pm until 7pm. All are welcome.
THE POETS
This time an interesting mix of Kiwi and American poets will be featured.
From Aotearoa (New Zealand):
Chris Knox, well known Kiwi musician, song writer and Beat Mystic.
Bill Manhire, New Zealand’s Man of Letters and five-times winner of the New Zealand Book Awards Poetry Prize.
Tusiata Avia, Pacifika performance poet and current Ursula Bethel Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.
Stephen Oliver, poet and voice artist, author of fifteen volumes of poetry including the recently published collection ‘Harmonic’.
Cilla McQueen, poet and artist, three-time winner of the New Zealand Book Award for poetry and current New Zealand Poet Laureate.
Mariana Isara, rising poetry star and winner of the Heritage Christchurch summer poets competition.
Then from the USA:
Robert Creeley, Black Mountain poet of the Charles Olson school and guardian of innovative poets and poetics everywhere.
Gerald Stern, Poet Laureate of New Jersey, recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, US National Book Award winner for poetry and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Michael Palma, poet and translator of Dante’s ‘Inferno’.
Roy Smith, vital unpublished poet from New Hope, Pennsylvania.
THE INSPIRATION
Jim Wilson, the founder of Phantom Billstickers New Zealand’s poster company, is a keen advocate and committed supporter of poetry and the arts. Jim’s aim is to take Kiwi arts to the world. He has worked to post streets and cafe walls with poem posters in places like Baltimore, Maryland, Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee and then through to Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. At least a dozen other American cities are also involved, from those in Mississippi State through to New York City.
Recently volunteers have been enlisted to place poem posters in Boulder, Colorado and Iowa City, Iowa (close to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop which is arguably the top writers’ workshop in the States). The city of Berlin, Germany, is also to be added to the list of destinations to feel the heat, passion and beauty of poem posters on its walls.
New Zealand, one of the poetry and music hearts of the world, first saw Phantom Billsticker’s poem posters in June 2009. Cities and towns throughout the country enjoy a damn good pasting of poem posters and as top Kiwi poet Stephen Oliver puts it: “Poem posters are part of the dress code of any city that recommends itself to its citizens.”
You can read about the poetry project on http://www.0800phantom.co.nz
Jim Wilson currently lives in New Jersey and may be contacted at jfwilson@chch.planet.org.nz
In the previous three rounds of Poetry Posters, the poets featured have included Janet Frame, Geoff Cochrane, Campbell McKay, Brian Turner, Jackie Steincamp, Bill Direen, Michele Leggott, Sam Hunt, Gary McCormick, Hilaire Campbell, Jeffery McCaleb, Ben Brown, Michael White, Nicholas Thomas, Tusiata Avia, Pablo Nova, Robert Pinsky, Marcie Sims, Joe Treceno, Lawrence Arabia, Josie McQuail, Jay Clarkson and Sandra Bell. The project has met with widespread enthusiasm. It seems everyone understands a poem poster in the streets.
Printing poems on posters is largely about hope. In a world of splitting opinions, extreme violence and never-ending political and commercial intrigue, the aim is to bring Truth and Beauty back into the streets. This is what has been missing.
These posters and in fact all posters are truly ‘Flora for the Concrete Jungle’. The wish is that people partake and celebrate in the creativity of language. The aim is inspirational and uplifting, the presence of poems in our cities is about re-claiming the world through art.
At the April 28th Launch some of the Phantom Billstickers poets will read and the event will be hosted by celebrated poet and New Zealand’s inaugural Poet Laureate Michele Leggott. The evening will also feature LOUNGE#13 which is an exciting project run by the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre & the English Department at the University of Auckland. Local poets including Ben Daniels, Martin Edmond, Paula Green, Greg Zan, Zarah Butcher McGunnigle, Sacha Norrie, Jack Ross and Sonja Yelich will read.
“The only thing that can save the world is reclaiming the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does.” Allen Ginsberg.
PHANTOMPOETRY
Poetry on Posters Reclaiming the World
For further press enquiries or interviews, please contact:
Jamey Holloway
ph +64-21 333012 (New Zealand)
email: jamey@0800phantom.co.nz
or Terry Ryder
ph +64-21 334696 (New Zealand)
email: terry@0800phantom.co.nz
Hi im trying to find Underground Stages in Amsterdam for my friend and I to do our show.. we have a high energy colorful show where Wofe (my friend) reads out punked up acid poetry body full beautifully on and I Hedda is portraiting her or the people listening with pens and pensels… we’ve done the show in copenhagen where we live big time happily being mothers of three children each around them and our artwork… now we’d love to show the people in amsterdam our show and hope this could be a source of information… so if you could suggest some contacts we’d be luckily happy… nice summer on you all!!!
t. kilgore splake,
I have the pictures and would like to print some of them in Third Wednesday. I am interested in the mechanical ones, large engine close ups, and a door latch, but there is a question about which way is up in some of them. Should I mail the ones in question to Calumet, or is there a way to contact you via the Internet? I like your work, always have since the old Peninsula Poets days, and would like to include some of your work in Third Wednesday.
Laurence (Larry) W. Thomas, Editor, Third Wednesday
Hi – how do I purchase Robert Zoschkes book Made In America? Very interested! Thanks!
Rob Zoschke recently published his first collection of poetry: MADE IN AMERICA, Street Corner Press, 2010, $14 –Buy it from the author: Robert Zoschke, P.O. Box 499, Sister Bay, WI 54234. USA
Dear Norbert Blei,
I want to greet you and thank you for your kind comments on HUMMINGBIRD and my work in that peerlessly edited journal.
i would like to send you a copy of my most recent book, THE BOOK OF JEWELED VISIONS, published by Tom Montag’s MWPH, PO BOX 8, Fairwater, WI.
Please send me your address.
My best, Robert Schuler
Dear Robert,
I have known and admired your work for a long time–especially the ‘jazz’ poems and your sensitive grasp of “Eastern.’/Midwestern. (You and I go back a long time, as I recall.)
I would certainly appreciate a copy of the new book. Anything published by Tom Montag has to be a winner.
All the best,
norb blei
PO Box 33
Ellison Bay, WI 54210
Is this guy amazing … er … what !!!
yep.
Hello, My name is Margaret Ramirez and I am a reporter for the Chicago Tribune writing an obituary on Ron Offen and would like to know if you had time for a brief phone interview to speak about him.
If so, please send an e-mail to: maramirez@tribune.com.
Thank you.
Evening,
I attend Woodward Academy in College Park, Georgia although I live in the capital, Atlanta. I am seventeen and I recently wrote a novel entitled The Surrogate. http://thesurrogate.org/ The reason I am informing you of this accomplishment is I was wondering if it was possible to ship a copy of the novel to you and possibly get a co-sign and some publicity. I don’t mean to sound repetitive or desperate. This is simply a humble request of mine, a request for your website to take on a Kanye-type role in the sense of discovering young talent and assisting in harnessing that talent and exposing it to your audience. This would be an excellent PR move. It would boost the image of “knowledge is power” and reveal to the internet that your blog not just providing and spreading the very best music has to offer right now but also that it realizes and comprehends the magnitude of paving the way for the youth of America, to not only take the time to read what an avid fan of their site has wrote and connect with them on a personal level but also to spread awareness and encourage youth doing positive things.
All I am asking for is a whimsical glance, at the very least and at the very most, an offer to do an article/interview on your website.
The Links: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mustafa-Abubaker/130069354869?ref=ts and http://thesurrogate.org/ andhttp://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Surrogate/Mustafa-Abubaker/e/9781441562074/?itm=1&USRI=mustafa+abubaker
Much Love,
Mustafa Abubaker
Class of 2011
Woodward Academy
770 905 4187
3597 Rembrandt Road NW, Atlanta, GA, 30327
http://www.facebook.com/mustafa.abubaker?ref=profile
“HOUSE OF HAPPINESS”
by Ben Burroughs
To build a house of happiness…the foundation must be strong…it must be made of trust and love…and fashioned with a song…the framework must be high ideals…and nailed with honesty…so that each house can stand each test…of what may come to be…the walls should be sincerity…that nothing can degrade…the paint should be of truest blue…the kind that will not fade…the doors and windows must be made…of hope and fondest dreams…so that the sun and moon and stars…can shine upon your schemes…the roof should be the strongest faith…to shut out all life’s rain…the kind of faith that God inspires…and protects your domain…if you use these materials…you’ll have a house of cheer…where peace and real tranquility…will live year after year.
To Norbert Blei,
I was pleased to find this website while looking for information on whether you were still alive. Happily, I see you are. You have done a great job on your website. I liked reading the poems. I hail from the Crawford and Madison neighborhood of Chicago. My family moved from there in 1961to Cicero. Recently, I have been happily reliving my early life with your books, Neighborhood and Chi Town. My husband and I left Illinois, as newlyweds in 1977 and have been in the Appleton, WI area ever since. I read the last section in Chi Town and had some of the same feelings you did about Chicago. One of my fondest memories was tying my pretend pony to my Aunt’s front steps. Play was so much more fun then! You wrote so well. I could feel, see, and hear the ride on the El to the Loop from 50th Avenue in Cicero! I just wanted to say hello. I hope you will have some time to drop me an e-mail note. Congratulations on your success.
Dear Mr. Blei,
I came across Poetry Dispatch (great idea) doing research on Brian Turner and wondered if you’d be interested in reading/reviewing “Stateside” by Jehanne Dubrow. I am the manager and press agent for my daughter Jehanne and would like to acquaint your many readers and site visitors with her work. Jehanne is a poet, essayist, and academic. She’s also a military spouse.
Jehanne’s third poetry collection, Stateside (Northwestern UP 2010), with a foreword by former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize Winner Ted Kooser, examines her experiences as a “milspouse” – a Navy wife – looking at the before, during and after of a deployment. Although the soldier-poet has long been a recognized presence in literature, the military wife represents an entirely new voice in the poetry of war. The last military wife to be portrayed fully in poetry was Penelope in “The Odyssey”, which was over 2,000 years ago! With Stateside, Jehanne hopes to expand poetry’s depiction of wary to include a modern feminine viewpoint of what it means to be “married to the military”.
There has already been considerable interest in Jehanne’s work in the military community and in scholarly circles. Jehanne discussed and read selections from the book at the U.S. Air Force Academy, at the U.S. Naval Academy, at the State Department, at the West Chester Poetry Center, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Stateside is being taught at theNaval Academy in Annapolis and at other universities. In the coming months she is scheduled to read and lecture at various local and national institutions, including the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island.
Stateside has been featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, the PBS NewsHour “Art Beat” Blog, Poetry Daily, the Academy of American Poets website, and at the Academy of American Poets Summer Reading Series in Central Park in New York City. The Virginian-Pilot, Stars and Stripes, and Government Executive have published feature stories on Jehanne, the book, and her writing workshops for military veterans.
You can visit Jehanne’s website http://www.jehannedubrow.com for more information about her poetry, reviews, and creative nonfiction.
If you would like to see more of Jehanne’s work, please let me know and I’ll be happy to mail you a copy of Stateside.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely yours,
Jeannette P. Dubrow
(202) 362-0326
Dear Mr. Blei,
I greatly appreciate your thoughts on the well-made book. Are you sure you have not come from the T’ang Dynasty? Tu Fu once wrote: “pack scrolls/ joy /nears madness”…I sense this same “sane” joy in you. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Patrick Sweeney
Dear Norbert,
I’d like to congratulate you on your excellent site, full of informative content and with a great layout. Would you be interested in doing a link exchange with our blog?
http://www.honestpublishing.com/blog/
Please let us know either way.
All the best,
Bogdan Tiganov
Thank you for your hard work and devotion to poetry. You have a great eye and ear.
Warmly,
Christina
Hi, I’m the chairman of The Haiku Foundation’s Awards Committee. We recently posted the results of our inaugural Touchstone Awards to our website. Read on for more. best wishes, Mark
For those who conceive of English-language haiku as a Hallmark-like sentiment about the Buddha, cherry blossoms, or other Japanese-inflected subject matter, all served up in a neat seventeen syllable package, the evidence is in: such impressions are at least half a century and half a world removed from its best current practice.
This is the unstated message conveyed by winning selections for the annual Touchstone Awards, a pair of new honors – one for individual haiku poems, the other for haiku-related books – launched this year by The Haiku Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose aim is “to preserve and archive the accomplishments of our first century of haiku in English, and to provide resources for its expansion in our next”.
From hundreds of entries, a panel of six highly regarded English-language haiku poets have chosen seven haiku (the plural as well as singular term) to receive the Touchstone Award for an individual poem. The award recipients hail from around the globe: Australia (2), New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, and the United States (2). According to Jim Kacian, president of The Haiku Foundation, English-language haiku is the most broadly composed form of poetry worldwide — a function of both its brevity and the widespread use of English, and largely fueled by the growth of the Internet.
Ranging from eight to thirteen syllables, the selected poems each feature everyday subject matter, often conveyed through the use of a telling detail that mediates between the world of humanity and the world of (non-human) nature.
morning mist—
the church fills
with the smell of overcoats
Mark Lonergan
Dublin, Ireland
paper wasp 16 (Australia)
the time it takes
to thaw the breast milk—
winter night
Duro Jaiye
Hirakata, Japan
The Heron’s Nest, XII:1
a crow at dusk—
ink seeps deeper
into the page
Greg Piko
New South Wales, Australia
The Heron’s Nest, XII:1
Among the seven haiku is a one-line poem whose author, a veteran haiku poet and editor, died September 3, 2010 after a period of illness:
into the afterlife red leaves
Peggy Willis Lyles
Georgia, USA
Modern Haiku 41:1
Selections for the Touchstone Distinguished Book Award were made by a separate judging panel comprised of four haiku poets and editors, as well as “mainstream” poet Barbara Louise Ungar, winner of the Gival Press Poetry Award and other honors. The seven honored books (four winners and three honorable mentions) consist of six personal haiku collections and one English-language haiku anthology, Montage, edited by Allan Burns. All five authors of the six collections are veteran haiku poets who live in North America. Four of them are also current or former editors of haiku publications, and the fifth, John Martone of Charleston, Illinois, received dual honors for his collections scrittura povera (winner) and ksana (honorable mention).
More complete information about the selected poems and books can be found at http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/awards/touchstone-archive.
Just stopped by to say hello! Nice blog…love the typewriter keys photo. I used one of those all through college as an English major! Good thing you can’t die from white-out poisoning, well, unless you drink it, of course! All the best from a NC poet, Terri Kirby Erickson, http://terrikirbyerickson.wordpress.com
Unrequited Love
Odinsoeruaka
Destroy me with love
Suck away the juice of my life
Drain me of every fluid of emotion
And discard me, bedraggled
Like a fowl drenched
In an angry rain
Odinsoeruaka
Kill me; yes go ahead
And quench this fire
That flames, wrecking
The foundation of my being
Save me the trauma…this agony
Visit me with a murderous love
But when I’m conveniently dead;
If the post-mortem says
‘Unrequited passion’
Bury me, the carcass of a dead love
In the grave-yard of hope
We love what you are doing in honor of of Poetry Month. Check out with LitWorld is doing during the Poetry Month.
www. litworld.org/poemblog
• NYU Fales and the Department of English Present a Lecture by Paul Muldoon, April 26
Apr 19, 2011
The New York University Fales Library and the Department of English at New York University cordially invite you to the 2011 Fales Lecture in English and American Literature, “The Missives of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop,” by Paul Muldoon Pulitzer Prize winning poet and author of Maggot, Tuesday, APRIL 26, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/3lwjlpp
We meet again. I was trying to find info on Tom McGrath’s script for Michael Cimino. Responded to the website re Thomas mcGrath. I edited two collections o Tom’s poems; Open Songs and Waiting for the Angel, an honor. I very much loved the man and his writing.
Best to you, Robert Schuler
My name is T. Christian Digiosa. I studied at The New School (creative writing) and The New York Film Academy (screenwriting). My first chapbook, published by Silenced Press, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
I currently pushing my second manuscript, totally on my own. It’s called Brave Moon and can be downloaded for FREE.
Perhaps if you enjoy it enough, you’ll share with friends? Or even write a blog? I’m determined to get this out there.
CALL FOR ENTRIES
As part of events to mark the one year remembrance of the tragic death of Professor Esiaba Irobi, Loneranger Comprehensive Theater Services, Owerri, Imo State, has undertaken to sponsor the publication of two anthologies namely; Rhythms Through Cancer-an anthology of poems on cancer and cancer related issues, and Exiles of conscience – a collection of stories and plays. The two anthologies will be dedicated to Ezenwa Ohaeto and Esiaba Irobi respectively.
Interested writers are therefore invited to send in their entries through e-mail to lonerangerfilms@yahoo.com
GUIDELINES:
The subject column of the mail should be addressed, depending on the anthology being entered for, thus:
a. 2011 Anthology: Poem
b. 2011 Anthology: Play/story
• Entries must not exceed 3 works per anthology.
• Entries must be sent in a Microsoft Word attachment with a biography of not more than sixty words pasted on the body of mail.
• The deadline for receiving entries is 31st July, 2011. Any work sent in after the deadline will not be considered
ABOUT THE POETRY ANTHOLOGY
The title is Rhythms through Cancer: an anthology of poems on cancer and cancer related issues
It shall have two editors comprising the main editor and a coordinating editor.
Each poem must not exceed hundred words. Contributors are expected to explore but not restricted to the following themes
1. The state of medi-care in developing countries
2. Healthcare and the fate of the Nigerian writer
3. Cancer in varying shapes and shades
4. Cancer around the globe
5. The writer, the exile, the doctor, and cancer
6. Cancer and effective cure: foraging into the future
7. Symptoms of cancer
8. Factors that promote the prevalence of cancer
9. Traditional African and Orthodox Western medicine: the struggle for the soul of cancer
10. Cancer, children and Gender issues
ABOUT THE COLLECTION OF STORIES AND PLAYS
• The Title is Exiles of Conscience – a collection of stories and plays
• Stories and plays are expected to reflect serious psychological depth.
• Writers are encouraged to be experimental. The works we shall accept must have something beyond the ordinary
• Works should be futuristic and preferably utopian.
• The anthology shall have three editors comprising editor of stories, editors of plays a coordinating editor.
• Stories should not exceed 1500 words
• Plays should not exceed four A4 pages of font point 14 typed with Times New Roman in 1.5 line spacing
NOTE:
The editors reserve the right to either include or reject any work as they deem appropriate
Contributors still reserve the copyright of their individual works and are free to use them for any other personal reason
Rejected works will not be returned to their owners but deleted from the e-mail inbox
The owners of works accepted for the anthologies will be notified
Every contributor whose work(s) appears in the anthology is entitled to a complimentary copy.
The anthology is billed to be presented on 1 October, 2011 at a special occasion to mark one year remembrance of the tragic death of Prof. Esiaba Irobi.
CONTACTS:
Post all entries to lonerangerfilms@yahoo.com
For enquiries, call: +2348063591311, +2348037262774
a better version
Steve
Steven Fortney
501 West South Street
Stoughton, Wisconsin 53589
1-608-873-3917
1-608-235-0985 cell
sfortney@me.com
The Juniper Bush
There are more mays than just
black and white, Mr. McCarthy.
Nothingness
Your inhumanism reigns. Weddings scraped
away by tornadoes, bull-thistles and trillium
flowering in the same pasture, wolverine
and fawn fright in a mutual wood, novas eat
planets in a wink, in the movement of an
atom’s thread. That we are nothing,
that we are a shade in the micron membrane
of the present, now, is proper cause for despair,
to throw this body before speeding trains.
The shadow of the ax hangs, you say,
over every joy; we dangle senselessly
in an icy void, over storms of terrifying fire.
No meaning here. Just absurd expectation
rules supreme for this assembly of the dead.
Inhumanism rules. In the Gods of arbitrary
will, in the vanity of man making sacred
edifice to his own loss, in whose sanctuary
despair and sorrow are required,
where nothing, nothing at all appears
and our worship certifies empty hearts.
Inhumanism triumphs. It rules man’s Bloodlands
where, in recent times, fourteen million died.
To murder just one–that loss is infinite.
To slaughter multitudes, each loss is yet infinite.
In Eastern Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine
villages are erased by its masters to clear land
for the Ideal; cities cancelled by state
bureaucrats to brush out ways for war.
One dictator starves his farmers, millions die.
The German, his jackboots fouled by blood
and shit, dances on naked corpses of Jewish girls.
Emptiness
But, on his deck, emptiness is golden. He was,
by his second daughter, caught on that
place one bright winter morning, shouting
ecstatic raptures at the naked trees
in his yard, sure, that like him, they were,
even in that winter season, by wearing
his beating heart within their exuberant
wood, his kin, and richly alive.
But, a Spring later, emptiness is bright
on that same deck. One, part of his Royan-ji
plantings of seven placed in textured grass,
occident sand, is a juniper bush, olive
green, its pruning for years untouched,
run to riot, its limbs tangled, snarls,
is random rooted a short distance
near him. It is there–prosaic, inset in a
would-be poetic garden-scape. It is there.
But now. But now. Becoming more itself.
Not shining, not burning, nor in darkness
visible, like a black shipwreck on sand.
His seeing, yes, instatic, complete: utterly
solid, that bush-wreck is as dull and final
as anything he has ever seen. His silence:
that bush, just there. Thus come
beyond mystery; beyond metaphor.
Great site, Norbert, what a labor of love. I wanted to share two free ebooks with your readership, one is a rather odd little book of poems called A MIND ON FIRE by a character named Claire McGill. Even her acknowledgments are worth checking out. Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/lakeoffiremovie?sk=app_178454675543356
Hope you don’t mind the crass self-promotion (the book giveaway is connected to a promotion for an independent film we made – a Southern Gothic piece called Swimming in a Lake of Fire.)
Les Butchart, Writer/Producer
My mind fell from a tree and landed as a baby bird,
That bird made wordrevolt.com
Hope you enjoy!
Luv Todd.
Hi Norbet,
Great site here.
I was just writing to bring your attention to an audiobook an audiobook of Czeslaw Milosz’s Poetry, read by Stephen Fry. Born in 2011, and bearing witness to the most turbulent period of the 20th Century western history, Milosz’s work presents a fascinating perspective of Poland’s recent past.
It will be available with the Times Literary Supplement on the 12th of August but also it will be available for free streaming from http://www.culture.pl
Would this be of interest to you?
I would love to hear your commentary on this.
All the best,
Hannah
Hannah,
I have been planning to purchase a collected edition of Milosz’s poetry. I will do so today. Thank you for the wake-up call. I will tell others about the audiobook.
Robert Schuler
Yes, Hannah,
I would be very interested in this.
Milosz’s poetry speaks to us all, anywhere in the world–past, present, future.
And Fry is a wonderful reader.
I will try my best to get my hands on the audiobook.
norbert
Hi Norbet,
I am delighted you are interested in this – shall i link you when the audiobook goes live? perhaps you could do a review of it?
Best wishes,
Hannah
Hi, how do I submit a poem?
Hi Nortbert,
I have the audiobook now – I am happy to whizz it across to you if you would like to comment upon it?
Best wishes,
Hannah
Norb –
I hope you’re well.
Eric
Hi Norbert, Some anonymous benefactor steered your emailed posts to me several years ago and I have greatly appreciated them. Now I’d like to ask if you’d like to take a look at my collection of short essays on the natural world, “The Other End of the Driveway.” It’s not verse, which I figured out my ear was too tinny to keep writing long ago, but the same subject matter and impulse, and appears in keeping with a lot of the writing you mention here. Thanks for pondering this request. Cheers, Dana Wilde, Troy, Maine
Dana,
Yes. Please send me a copy. I would be happy to take a look at the essays.
Good title.
Norbert Blei
PO Box 33
Ellison Bay,WI 54210
What an amazing site! I’m a grad student at the University of New Orleans, and we’ve been talking about life v. art in a few of my classes (The Muse’s Tragedy and Tonio Kroger, in particular). Your site is a testament to using art to pursue joys in life.
Anyway, I also work for the UNO Press and we recently released a collection of poems called, “Dear Oxygen, New & Selected Poems, 1966-2011,” by Lewis MacAdams.
Poet Anne Waldman describes it as “a vivid lyrical romp through many tender shared realities.” The book details backwaters and broken concrete (Gary Snyder), love, and the heartbreaks of modern man.
Can we please send you a review copy?
I hope you’re loving life!
Dear Kara,
Thanks for all your good words. TONIO KROGER, Jesus, there’s a little, much neglected (these days) Mann masterpiece! I’m impressed with your course of studies at the University of New Orleans. I wish you much success.
I have heard of “Dear Oxygen…” and would love to see it, deal with it…so by all means, yes send a review copy.
Congratulations, too, to UNO and all the fine work they do to keep the real words alive.
Norbert Blei
PO Box 33
Ellison Bay, WI 54210
Hello –
I have an interest in mining poetry, books about mining & history, books by miners, etc. Sounds like some of the works of T. Kilgore Splake listed elsewhere on this site might fit this interest, including: The Dredge (2006), Tailings (2002), Keweenah, Copper Country (1988)?? Are these all out of print or would any local bookstores have copies??
Thanks,
Robert
Hi Norbert,
I just read your review of Kamini Press and it was like a thousand volts of electrcity running through me! It is the kind of review that every writer and publisher aspires to receive! Excellent work! I am very much interested in sending you some books from Epic Rites Press. I have your address but wanted to query first – would you be interested in looking at them in consideration for potential review? Shoot me an email at epicritespress@gmail.com.
Keep up the great work!
Wolf Carstens
I will soon be promoting a CD by Bay Area singer-songwriter Kyle Alden. Alden has set 13 of W. B. Yeats’ poems to music. Would you consider reviewing it? I would send you a free copy; assuming you liked it, you could review it on your blog.
Zach Hudson
Hearth Music
Dear Zach Hudson,
Yes, I would be more than happy to receive a review copy. No promises. But if it works for me, I’ll certainly spread the news via one of my websites–Poetry Dispatch, most likely. I’m at:
norbert blei
PO Box 33
Ellison Bay, WI 54210
All the best,
norb blei
Dear Mr. Blei,
My name is Raj Dronamraju and I am an American living in Malaysia where I teach English.
I wanted to ask if you would be willing to review on your blog either or both books of poetry I’ve written. They are THE RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT NINNY AND OTHER POEMS which was released in 2010 and SOLIDARITY WITH THE FLESH EATING MOSAIC AND OTHER POEMS released in June 2011. Both books are published by Post Egoism Press. The books can be found here – http://www.rajbooks.com or I can have my publisher mail you a copy.
I am also the author of a novel entitled CRIPPLED HEARTS published by the same publisher.
Newer poems I’ve written can be found here on my poetry blog – http://www.xanga.com/rgdinmalaysia my other blog is http://www.rgdinmalaysia.blogspot.com
Thank you for your time.
Regards,
Raj
The celebrated opera-theatre work DARKLING is now reincarnated as an album. Albany Records releases DARKLING today. Details are below. Consider for an upcoming CD review, interview, preview, etc… Let me know if you’d like a copy mailed to you, photos, interview requests, etc… Thanks!
Regards,
April for DARKLING
DARKLING (Albany Records) CD Release 11/1
An Experimental Opera-Theatre Work with Original Music by Stefan Weisman and Libretto by Anna Rabinowitz
Release Date: 11/1/2011
Label: Albany Records
Composed by: Stefan Weisman
Libretto by: Anna Rabinowitz
Produced/Engineered by: Judith Sherman
Performers: Maeve Höglund (soprano), Hai-Ting Chinn (mezzo-soprano), Jon Garrison (tenor), Mark Uhlemann (bass-baritone), Tom Chiu (violin), Philip Patyon (violin), Kenji Bunch (viola), Raman Ramakrishnan (cello), + Brian DeMaris (conductor)
TRT: 1 hr 26 min 13 sec
Media Contact: April Thibeault │212.861.0990│april@amtpublicrelations.com
“…an intense aural stimulation… a controversial and ultimately important work.” – Opera Today
“…brave, sensitive…and compelling.” – New York Times
“…an unlikely collaboration of Wagner, Sally Bowles and Steven Spielberg” – Time Out New York
“…stretches the very definition of opera.” – Steve Smith, music critic
NEW YORK (For Release 11/1/11) — From a book-length poem to a multi-media experimental opera to its current incarnation as a CD, DARKLING gives a haunting portrayal of the emotions, terrors, and incalculable losses incurred during the period between the two World Wars and the Holocaust. Commissioned by American Opera Projects, DARKLING is based on Anna Rabinowitz’s Darkling: A Poem (Tupelo Press, 2001) set to original music by post-classical composer Stefan Weisman. Featuring four singers (soprano / mezzo / tenor / baritone), a string quartet and 16 spoken-word artists, DARKLING movingly evokes the memory of the Holocaust as well as the human cost of cataclysmic events through a fusion of avant-garde theater, opera, cutting-edge technology and poignant language.
DARKLING is a remarkable story of love, loss, calamity and hope pieced together from bits of memorabilia such as fading photographs and yellowing letters found by the poet in a shoe box saved on a shelf in her deceased father’s closet. Faceless, and mainly nameless, voices of DARKLING emerged for her from the old photos and letters – lost fragments of the Eastern European Jewish world destroyed by the Holocaust.
In his musical process, Weisman emulated the poem’s overarching acrostic structure. He also made efforts to capture the poetry’s underlying emotionality. “My goal was to take the heartrending ideas which I found in Darkling’s poetry and make them instantly clear and direct through music,” explains Weisman.
The score, rich in Minimalist riffs, recalls Schoenberg, Bartok and Schostakovich, and hints at Jewish folk idioms. It “is personal moody and skillfully wrought…most compelling when…the harmonic language becomes astringent and a raw, fitful quality erupts.” (New York Times)
DARKLING premiered to great acclaim at the Classic Stage Company in 2006 in New York City before it went to New York City Opera’s VOX at NYU’s Skirball Center. According to the New York Resident, “Darkling…courses with charged generosity…,” and is “…acute in its musical reach and dead smart as theater.” DARKLING was also included in the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series, toured Europe in 2007, and was performed by The Center City Opera Theatre at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in 2009.
About Stefan Weisman
Stefan Weisman is a composer living in New York City. His music in Darkling was described by Anthony Tommasini (The New York Times) as “personal, moody and skillfully wrought.” His one-act opera Fade, commissioned by the British opera company Second Movement, premiered in London in 2008 and also had successful productions in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Brooklyn. His commissioned work for the Bang on a Can All Stars was mentioned in the New York Times’ retrospective of 2007’s best new music. Upcoming projects include a new chamber work for eighth blackbird, and a multimedia family opera, The Scarlet Ibis, which is being developed by the HERE Arts Center and American Opera Projects. http://www.stefanweisman.com
About Anna Rabinowitz
A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Anna Rabinowitz has published four volumes of poetry: Present Tense, Omnidawn (cited by the Huffington Post as one of the best poetry books of 2010), The Wanton Sublime (for which she has been commissioned by AOP to write a libretto for a monodrama of the same name, with music by British composer Tarik O’Regan), Darkling, and At the Site of Inside Out, (winner of the Juniper Prize). Her work has appeared widely in literary journals and in various anthologies. http://www.annarabinowitz.com
About American Opera Projects
American Opera Projects’ mission is to champion innovative works of music theater, to expand the art form, and to identify, develop and present new works by emerging and established talent. In addition to Darkling, operas to receive fully-staged premieres after passing through AOP’s First Chance development program include Séance on a Wet Afternoon (New York City Opera, Opera Santa Barbara), Before Night Falls (Fort Worth Opera), and Heart of Darkness (London’s Royal Opera House), among many others. http://www.operaprojects.org
Darkling is available for purchase at all major online retailers. For more info about the CD, visit http://www.albanyrecords.com.
# # #
Hi! I’m a poet as well. My website is http://www.nostroviatowriting.com. I hope you can give me some words of wisdom on the site and my poetry. It’s a website where people can participate in a free weekly poetry contest, read poetry, and post their own creations. I hope you enjoy it. Please use the contact box in my website to respond. Thanks in advance – Jeremiah Walton
Hi Norbert,
I send you a gift of three books and three magazines from Epic Rites Press. I hope they reach you safely and in high spirits.
Cheers and best wishes from Canada.
– Wolfgang
Dear Norbert,
What a delightful website and poetry blog you do have! I am having an excellent time going through it..
Perhaps, when you have a moment, you would visit my scribbles at
http://partamused.iyerbiswas.com ?
I am a physicist by day and a covert poet by night and any input on my writings is warmly appreciated.
Best,
Sri
Hello, Mr. Blei, I came across your poetry online and thought you may enjoy some of my work, I hope you decide to read some of my pieces!!
https://www.facebook.com/Rakeda.Akasha?sk=app_106171216118819
I’m John Sprecher, Chairman and Creative Supervisor of NOISE. We’re a brand experience agency with Door County Visitor Bureau as one of our clients. We’re currently working on an all-new e-newsletter to our database of more than 250,000. This will launch in January, so we’re working on it now. One of our articles is “What Door County Authors are Reading,” and I’d like to invite you to participate. It would require 10-15 minutes of your time on the phone probably with me, we’d get your background, write your bio, promote you, then quote you as to what you’re reading and why you like it. When we’re done, we’ll include your image and a link to your website. Best of all, it’s free! Really! This is to promote Door County and entice visitors to the area. Please email me or call me as to if you’re interested, and a good time to reach you. Johns@make-noise.com, or 239.738.6299. It could be this evening, or anytime Thursday if that works. Thank you.
Hi – i found you whilst chasing after details of the life of Robert Graves.
And finding some excellent reading here, I am moved to tell you about http://www.MauiWritersBlog.com
Especially since my search led me to you via a neighbor of ours here in Haiku, Maui…W.S.Merwin, who I learn, once tutored Graves’ son in Majorca.
Whilst here, I will risk my reputation by adding that I was searching out Graves’ past because I just released a poetic treatise from the goddess. the title was rather whimsically inspired by Graves’ book I Claudius. My book has a name which forever places it somewhat outside the mainstream, but its content is far from prurient. It is about sexual sanctity. It can be found at http://www.mauimysteryschool.blogspot.com. Some will blush, I am told, but only (mostly) at the title.
I am a 28 year-old quadriplegic wheelchair user who has a book of poetry/prose coming out in March 2012 titled The Virgin Journals released by A S D publishing out of New Jersey. The book will be split into three sections; Life, Love, World. It is going to be roughly 170 pages long and is a good mixture of memoir poetry & person centered world views. My hope is that people will be able to learn about themselves by reading my words. I would love to make myself available as a possible interview for your site. Thanks for any interest!
Travis,
Because of the backlog of work on my desk, I can’t promise anything. But if you care to chance it and send me a copy of the book, I’ll give it a close look and if it works for me, I’ll give it my best.
e-mail ngblei@gmail.com
address: Norbert Blei
PO Box 33
Ellison Bay, WI 54210
USA
I hope all is going well and that you are having a great life !
I’m a 16 year old youth poet. I live in New England and I am attending High School. I have a single poetry collection ebook out and I am having my first paper back published soon. I manage Nostrovia! Poetry (www.nostroviatowriting.com), a website for poets and writers. I was wondering if you would be willing to get in contact with me through my website (I don’t want to post my email address). I’ve found your website and was wondering if you would be interested in me writing a blog post on young poets or maybe poetry vs prose? Something along those lines that I can include a link to my website in. The content I write will be exclusively for your site. Let me know what you think. Thanks for your time -Sincerely Jeremiah Walton
Your words:
“. . . words of all kinds . . . essentially instruct. Light up the darkness within, without. Open new pathways to thought. Change lives. Especially the writer’s. Which is why he spends a lifetime in pursuit of words that will make a difference. . . .”
My view is different. It changes the writer, but only coincidence, not by intent, changes others.
“I have lived that life . . . and sensed the need to tell others.”
Except in politics I sense no such need, particularly of the solitude of writing.
Hello there,
I, like Jeremiah two posts above me, am sixteen years old, though while I’d love to call myself a poet, I think “musician” is a more just title. I come here looking for feedback on my music, and, more specifically, my lyricism. You can hear my short song “Flower” here: http://onesheet.com/haydenarpmusic/
In flower, I tried to create a story that was only planted in the lyrics, and blossomed in the listeners imagination. It is for that reason that the song is a little over a minute long and there are only eight lines of text. Please email me with any feedback you have, whenever you get around to listening to it.
Thank you so much,
-Hayden
I am trying to reach Thomas Smith (Splake) concerning your request. Please contact me on Facebook or email: lauriesunland@aol.com or email: lauriekauffman@netzero.com. I hope to hear from you. Thanks, Laurie Kauffman
Hi Norbert
I read your blog and very much respect your criticism. I just e-published my first collection of poems I’ve written between the ages of 16 – 25 (I’m 26 now). I majored in Immunology, but I’ve always kept these stashed away. It would mean a lot if you could take a look?
Emergence of the Lotus Flower by
Malkia Charlee NoCry (Kindle Edition –
28 Mar 2012) – Kindle eBook
You can find it on Amazon.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks
MCN
Would love to send you a press release about Jeff Vande Zande’s (www.jeffvandezande.com) latest novel, American Poet. I could see your readers being very interested, and review copies are available.
Best,
Frank Watson
Publicist
I’ve just found your illuminating poetry site.
I hope it’s not too late for an old guy like myself to mine its many treasures.
Thank you Norbet
My name is Jerald M. Simon. I am the president and founder of Music Motivation (http://www.musicmotivation.com) I recently finished my latest book, a poetry book titled: The “As If” Principle (motivational poetry) featuring 222 original motivational poems I have written. I would love to send you a copy of the book for your review. You may read more about the book by clicking on this link: http://musicmotivation.com/poetrybooksbyjerald. I’d love to send a few copies you could give away to your readers and followers of your blog as well.
Here is a bit of information about the book:
When you act “as if”
you are foretelling your fate,
your future is already known.
Act as if it is possible,
and the seeds of fulfillment are sown.
(from the poem “Act as If…” by Jerald M. Simon)
The “As If” Principle (motivational poetry) by Jerald M. Simon features 222 original motivational poems written by Simon to inspire and motivate men, women, businesses, organizations, leaders, mentors, advisers, teachers, and students. The poems were written to teach values and encourage everyone everywhere to do and be their best.
The poems were written over a 20 year period and contain motivational advice about never giving up. It’s about doing what it takes, believing in yourself and your own abilities and believing in others. The poems focus on such topics as:
Honor, courage, success, strength, will power, leadership, possibilities, confidence, goal setting, optimism, rising above mediocrity, character, never doubting ourselves, being productive, learning from adversity, doing what it takes, being happy, seeing the good in others, forgiving, seeing our own potential and the potential in others, learning life’s lessons, righting wrongs, becoming a self starter, learning to control our thoughts, words, and deeds, and many more.
The book is available from amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, the istore and several other ebook stores as well as various physical book stores.
This is a blog post I wrote giving more detail about the book: http://musicmotivation.com/TheAsIfPrinciplebyJeraldM.Simon. You may use any of the pictures and information from my website at: http://www.musicmotivation.com, and also from the PRESS info section of my website at: http://www.musicmotivation.com/pressinfo.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Thank you.
Jerald M. Simon
(801)444-5143
Dear Mr. Blei: I don’t believe you’ll remember me, but you published my poem “Mother Nature’s Winter Kitchen” in the Door Voice (late 1990’s?). My grandfather was L.A. Davison of Washington Island. Anyway, can you tell me where I could get a hold of any “old” copies of the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar(s)? My poem, “April” was the “title” poem of the month of April (1991 or 1992). I lost my copy. I tried searching the www, to no avail. I’d appreciate it if you could give me any info. My e-mail address is: paisleypattern@hotmail.com. Thank you! – Naomi Rouse-Kugel. “April” would’ve been published under the name “Naomi Rouse”.
Mr. Norbert Blei,
You don’t know me, but I believe we are second cousins. Long story, but our mutual great grandparents were Henry and Mary Blei. My grandmother was their daughter, Rose (Rosie). I have met (via e mail) our mutual cousin Jeff Blei, who told me about you. I am half way through “Chi town,” and learning some of how my older brothers, parents, and grandparents lived before we all moved to California. Anyway, at your convenience, would love to either talk to you or ideally visit. Thanks.
Dear Norbert Blei,
We at Ooligan Press are contacting you, lovely blogger, to share the first installment of our grand literary adventure, Alive at the Center. Alive at the Center is an anthology honoring the depth and breadth of the Pacific Northwest’s poetic community, and includes work from poets residing in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, B.C. Contributors include Kathleen Flenniken, Paulann Petersen, and Evelyn Lau. We hope to inspire cultural conversations among communities that share more than just a common landscape.
Alive at the Center is available as a free, digital review copy on Edelweiss (http://bit.ly/10EC6N.a) Ooligan Press has also established a guest poet blog where Alive at the Center contributors share their stories on the craft, community, and the value of poetry: http://ooligan.pdx.edu/topics/guest-blogger/. This series of posts, by poets such as Paulann Petersen, Kevin Craft, and Julie Larios, educates and entertains readers with everything from invaluable tips of the trade to anecdotes of teenage literary angst. We’d like to invite you to review the anthology and share these well-crafted commentaries with your readers.
If you choose to promote or review Alive at the Center, please email marketing@ooliganpress.pdx.edu so we may link to your site on our social media platforms.
Thank you!
Best,
Sarah Currin
Ooligan Press
Ref: Poetry Dispatch No.223
Hello,
Can anybody help me?
Does anybody know what the second painting, by Lawrence, is called on the above mentioned ‘D. H. Lawrence: We Are Transmitters’ article?
It is the one where the man/ women is lying down with a leaf covering the genitals. I have tried to locate the information everywhere and am having no luck.
If you’ve got this far thanks for reading and hopefully you can help me.
Thanks again,
Karl Hanlon
Goodbye, my dear friend. You lived life uniquely and exited it gracefully. Thanks for your words, your mentoring, soup for lunch in your kitchen, coffee at Al’s, a beer at Coyote Road House,etc. I miss you, but you will always be a part of me.
George Bisbee
skillet zucchini fantasy ranks among my favorite post-modernist poems of all time. i totally get into it! soooo sexy. playing by ear. best to rob. no hard feelings.
On November 12, 1967, there was a poetry reading at Town Hall I NYC. Thich Nhat Hanh, Daniel Berrigan, Anais Nin, Galway Kinnell and Arthur Miller were among the 23 who read that night. Out of it came a Spoken Arts and record — here’s a photo:
I doubt you have it but perhaps you know someone who does and even has the means of playing it and converting it to a digital file. I’ma at work on a biography of Daniel Berrigan,
Friendly greetings,
Jim Forest
Thanks a lot Jim!
Not the same apparently, but “The Original READ-IN for PEACE in VIETNAM” was recorded at Town Hall, New York, in 1967. Originally Broadside Records BR 452, it is available from Smithsonian Folkways Archive (via Smithsonian Institute website) as FW 9752.