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Friday, April 27, 2012

Poetry Around the Web: Broach, Minor, Stallings/River Styx, Dougherty, Weil, and Rich Tributes at VIDA

Ronda Broach has an amazing concrete poem up at Rattle today. I am always looking for strong samples of concrete poetry to show my students, and Ronda's will definitely go into my files. I love how she uses line breaks so well (toe-/hold!), and gosh, she's got an ear for assonance and slant rhyme ("suggestive trajectories"). She had me with the first line ("I envy them / their silent lines ..."). Oy, such a fine poem. I also love that she ends with a question she does not answer. The poem is magic from start to finish, mysteriously matchig form with content from syllable to syllable and line break to line break. How did she pull it off?  I will be studying this poem for a long time trying to figure it out, though I doubt I ever will (which, I reckon, is the issue with all resonant and ineffable--and lasting--poems). Congratulations, Ronda!

Found poems are another type of poem I ask my students to try to write. Annie Dillard has an entire book of them (Mornings Like This: Found Poems). Thanks to Maureen Doallas for posting today's Experiment Station Blog poem by Britton Minor, Lunar Installation.

The wonderful poet A.E. Stallings is judging the River Styx 2012 International Poetry Contest! More information is available here. Deadline is May 31. Up to three poems (14 pages total); all poems considered for publication. $20 reading fee. I just ordered a copy of her translation of Lucretius' The Nature of Things, just out from Penguin. Can't wait to dive in.

Sean Thomas Dougherty's "I am Scared of the Seam in the Air" is featured at H__NGM__N. Does anyone write with more longing, more elegiacally? Gorgeous, courageous poem. Congrats, Sean!

Joe Weil asks What Do I Mean When I Call Myself a Catholic?  A lovely piece. Thanks for reminding me why I am enthralled with the saints, with cathedrals, and with my Catholic roots.

"21 Love Poems to Adrienne Rich" continues for three more days at the VIDA website, but you can access all the entries at their website. My day was April 22.

So much else to keep me away from grading papers, but will stop here as students beckon.


5 comments:

Maureen said...

Thank you for the mention. I contributed a "found poem" to Experiment Station, and wrote another I'll be posting soon on my own blog. Fun to experiment this way but not always so easy to write as one might think. There's an entire site devoted to the type: Found Poetry.

Some wonderful work at the links here.

Martha Silano said...

Hi Maureen --

You're very welcome. I love your tweets because they take me to new places I didn't know existed, and great poems too. I didn't know about the Phillips Museum or their Experiment Station, so I am happy you shared. Keep up the great blogging and tweeting.

Martha Silano said...

P.S. I will be looking out for your found poem on your blog!

R Piszk Broatch said...

You are so sweet. Thank you for reading my salute to Pluto! Can't wait to receive your newest book. I love your work~

Martha Silano said...

You're welcome, Salmon!