Tag Archives: writing

Some Questions about Chapbooks

So, a few things are pointing me toward the idea that how I ought to spend May is in putting together a chapbook. First, as great as it is to get individual poems published here and there, I feel a bit scattered and would like to gather together a few things all in one spot. Second, since I did both NaPoWriMo and PAD, I’m looking down the barrel of 61 poems that many will now consider to be “previously published.” Non, je ne regrette rien, but still … 

In the past, I’ve entered a couple-few chapbook contests but have never won — and then I put that potential chapbook aside and move on to something else. I’ve never seen one through to the finish line before, and maybe this is the time to do it.

There are a couple of ways I don’t want to do this: 1) I don’t want to self-publish (because, as you might recall, I’m someone who really needs the stamp of approval that comes from acceptance letters), and 2) I don’t want to enter a contest (because I’ve found that’s a very expensive way to get a rejection letter — and I already get plenty of those, just for the cost of a SASE).

If someone could point me toward favorite publishers who do more of an “open call” deal where they choose a small handful of people to publish, that would be much appreciated! Also, if you read a lot of chapbooks and/or have opinions about how they should be put together, how unified do you think they should be? Might I be able to pull something together from what I’ve written in the past month, if I gather the ones that seem to have similar themes? Or must I write a couple dozen poems all on the same general subject?

(If the latter, you know it will be evil garden vegetables.)

Again, many thanks to anyone who wishes to weigh in with big thoughts on tiny books …

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No More NaPoWriMo, But Here’s a Persona Poem

The Carrot Says

I am the vegetable
you most want to see,
but honey, I won’t
make you well.

Come with me
and I will take you
back down to where
it all began, when I

waited in the dark
for someone like
you; I sent up my
leafy top like a

flag, a signal for
you to pull me.
Now, I’ll pull you
down to the dirt;

I still remember
where I used to
live. Don’t worry.
You’ll put down

roots soon enough.
After a while, you’ll
forget you ever
had eyes.

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NaPoWriMo, Day 29: A Double Dactyl (But Not Really)

The Despot Queen of Soap

Rub a dub, scrub a dub,
Queen Ranavalona
bathed on her balcony,
wearing a hat.

Slaves washed her naked flesh
as a crowd cheered and clapped;
there was nothing she liked
better than that.

 

 

This is a crazy form. Nuts. Let’s look at the requirements: 1) It’s supposed to be about a person. 2) The first line should be a nonsense phrase. 3) There should be two four-line stanzas. 4) In each stanza, lines one through three have six syllables, and the fourth has four. 4) The two fourth lines rhyme with each other. 5) And … the six syllables in each line should follow a pattern where a stressed syllable is followed two that are unstressed, and then you do that again. 

I think I got everything but that last part. I just … I can’t hear syllables very well at all. There’s a reason why, after a test in elementary school to see which band instruments suited us best, I was advised to *please* not play percussion. 

Also, Queen Ranavalona I ruled in Madagascar in the 19th century. This book (which I’m reading for kicks, not for life coaching or etiquette tips) is where I got the detail about her proclivity for bathing while wearing a hat and while citizens dutifully cheered. Sounds like a fun gal, except for the slaves … and she also ordered a lot of people to be burned at the stake, boiled alive, or chucked off mountains. There’s always something, isn’t there?

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NaPoWriMo, Day 28: Space

Snorkeling in Mexico

In a cave of chalk, the bats cling,
and some swoop. If you keep
your head down, you can

forget them; you can see yourself
clearly, chalk-gray hands and legs,
as if this is your real color, and
you’ve never seen it until now.

Your mask, your face in the water.
Look. There are tiny, colorless fish
darting through the one shaft of

dust-watered sun that lances down
from a hole in the roof of the cave
and unites everything, is the center,
the reason for all the life here.

Clearer than clear. Cleaner than clean.

At the edge, the mouth of the cave,
the people wait, your fellow tourists
who stepped out of the van, walked
down the farm path, like you, but
saw the bats and could not enter

this space, deep and cold, dark,
where you and your husband
drift in and out of the sun, until
you are no different from the fish.

 

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NaPoWriMo, Day 27: A Nursery Rhyme or Clapping Game

Itty Bitty

 

Itty bitty
small and pretty
left the country
for the city

Rode there in
a moving truck,
Mama waved and
wished her luck

Itty bitty
small and pretty
left the country
for the city

Began to knit,
then to sew,
then to weave
both high and low

Itty bitty
small and pretty
left the country
for the city

Climbed the wall,
began to spin,
how many flies
came … right … IN?

One
two
three
four
five …

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NaPoWriMo, Day 26: An Elegy

An Old Grief

 

I dance around the shape of loss,
these empty cups, these brittle bones;
sadness seeps into places I can’t name.

What is it when grief becomes
a slide across the sun, a scrim
so thick, the light diffuses,

footsteps down some other
hallway? What is the sound
when it’s all been said, when

there’s no more time for saying,
and life carries you like a little boat,
purposeful and aimless as a leaf? 

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NaPoWriMo, Day 25: A Cento (Which Doesn’t Mean it Has 100 Lines)

How Long the Years Grow

Into the dangerous world I leapt,
like strings of broken lyres.

Again, when have I ever not loved?

I summon you now,
the happy genius of my household,
from a kingdom that bullies, and hectors, and swears.

And within the pane-lit windows,
the ghosts swarm.

Skin remembers how long the years grow.
Let’s ask a poet with no way of knowing:

Did I have to be born?

With many, many thanks to the following poets:

William Blake, Thomas Hardy, Derek Walcott, May Sarton, William Carlos Williams, Philip Freneau, Bill Knott, Rae Armantrout, Naomi Shihab Nye, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Mattathias (as translated by David Rosenberg).

OK, putting in the links took longer than writing the poem …

A cento is a poem made entirely of lines borrowed from other poems. For mine, I went to poets.org and navigated to their index of poems appropriate for various holidays. I grabbed a line from one poem for each holiday listed there. I did this mostly in order, except that I flipped Chanukah and Christmas because the line I found for Chanukah was an especially killer ending, and I just didn’t like the poem as much without the flip in the last two lines. I also made a few changes to punctuation and such, where needed for sense.

I had fun with this. Was it … cento-riffic? Maybe. Maybe it was.

Oh, and also, P.S.: I forgot to say thank you, thank you here to Vince Gotera for featuring one of my poems from a few days back, on his blog, The Man with the Blue Guitar. I was honored and thrilled, and you should visit him posthaste!

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NaPoWriMo, Day 24: A Lipogram (Which is Not a Poem about Fat)

My Stars

you wallow
in a sky
just past
my hair

I touch
I cry
I hold

why
do you
ask this:

what I am,
what words
I own, and

who follows,
who wants?

you know
I am solo,
without

a paramour,
a companion,
a buddy,
a pal.

no, nothing
but you.

nothing
but you,
my stars.

Note: A lipogram is a poem in which the poet avoids using a certain letter. The classic choice for English speakers is to avoid the letter “e,” so that’s what I did. Oh, also … I’m happily married and do have some other buddies and pals, too. The speaker here is not me — so, no need to worry … or recommend that I check out eHarmony. And finally … Eeeeeeeeeeee! That was fun.

OK, not quite finally … I’m linking to dVerse for its Open Link Night, which is every Tuesday. Thanks for the tip, Anna!

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NaPoWriMo, Day 23: Let’s Get Ekphrastic

Phone Books in Strange Towns

thin, yellow
rustle between
fingers.

hotel room
nightstand,
a guide to

where I am,
what businesses
prevail here,

where pizza
comes from
if I order it,

where to get
a car fixed
if I had one.

street names,
area code,
territory.

sometimes
there are
white pages,

too; I scan
for last names:
do I know

anyone here?
does anyone
know me?

most times,
now, there is
no book

in the drawer
other than
the Bible,

sometimes
the Mormon
testament.

Gideons
have answers,
place them

like crumbs,
but no one
leaves me

the path
I most want
to follow.

 

 

OK, only sort of ekphrastic …. Truthfully, I don’t like ekphrastic poems much — either writing or reading. (But if you wrote one today, I’m sure it’s terrific.) There are some really great examples, some ekphrastic poems that really do work on their own. But all too often, the sense I get — again, both as a writer as a reader — is, “Ehh, you kind of had to be there.” The word is a problem, too: For some reason, “ekphrastic” has always sounded like a painful, gassy condition to me. So, I kind of thumbed my nose at today’s prompt … but I really do love to see a phone book when I travel on business. They’re not works of art, certainly, but I decided to celebrate them anyway.

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