Two More Books

The larger book is the recent Asheville Poetry Review which I had to hunt down in order to finish Kathryn Stripling Byer's magnificent poem "Searcher." She posted the beginning on her blog and I was hooked. The subject matter is startling and beautifully rendered. Have a look.

The tiny book is a little hand made treasure Kay sent me some time ago. Its blank pages intimidated me, as blank pages in a pretty book always do. But at last I decided to put one word on each page -- words I deem suitable for poetry. (Oh, I know -- all words are suitable for poetry; I mean words that in and of themselves convey a kind of poetry . . . a suggestion.) I'm adding the words as they occur to me, opening the book at random and writing the word.

So far, most of the words that have come to me are what I would call soft -- silken, wind-swept, silver-scaled, crimson -- sounds kinda like a romance novel. There are a few more solid sounds -- earth (though I find myself wanting to write earthen,) root-bound, wake (resolutely avoiding waken.)

I'm inviting you all to send me one or two words each and I'll put them in. When the book is full, I'll post what we've got.

National Poetry Month

It's National Poetry month and I urge you to check out this post of Kay Byer's. Her poem sequence "Searcher" has been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize and she shares two poems from the work.

Years ago in England, a searcher was a woman employed to check bodies before burial to ensure that they had been clothed in English wool cloth, rather than in prohibited foreign goods.

Kay takes this dark material and weaves a deeply-felt and beautifully-imaged web of words.

But that's what poets do.