The Writers' Group of The Poetry Society of SC

Earlier I meant to give a shout-out to the PSSC Writers' Group, which has been going for decades. It's a critique group established for members of The Poetry Society of South Carolina. I had the pleasure of being its facilitator on February 23, and I thoroughly enjoyed the talents of our small group gathered around the table at the Charleston Library Society on a rainy Saturday morning. The Writers' Group meets once a month, with a different facilitator each month.

The anthology Seeking has been released!

It has been a long time coming, but the anthology Seeking: Poetry and Prose Inspired by the Art of Jonathan Green, is now out. Edited by Kwame Dawes, with a preface by SC poet laureate Marjory Wentworth, Seeking is published by The University of South Carolina. It contains the works of twenty-nine poets and writers, as well as the beautiful art of Jonathan Green. The pillar piece of the book is Green's painting Seeking, which depicts a young boy in the woods going through a Gulla rite of passage. The painting was commissioned by Mepkin Abbey and has a wonderful story behind its beginning. I'm honored to have my poetry included in the book.

Poems recently published -- NCLR and Heron Tree

Thanks to North Carolina Literary Review (NCLR) for publishing my poems "Banding Hummingbirds" and "Beggar's-Lice" in the 2013 online issue, pp. 58-59. Both poems were finalists for the 2012 James Applewhite Poetry Prize.

I'm also pleased to have a poem published in the new online journal Heron Tree: "At Odd Angles Speedily" is now in their archives.

Both of these journals are ones that I'm truly proud to be in.

Initial plans for Brookgreen Gardens poetry series

Sunday afternoon poetry series
The Poetry Garden
A celebration of National Poetry Month
Poems of spring & gardens

Stay tuned for details about a poetry reading series on Sunday afternoons in April at Brookgreen Gardens, the Poetry Garden, Pawleys Island, SC. Cliff Saunders will read on April 7; Libby Bernardin and I, on April 21. Other featured poets to be announced.  All readings will be at 2 p.m.

The Next Big Thing -- a self-interview

The talented poet Melanie McCabe, author of the newly released History of the Body, tagged me for The Next Big Thing, a series of self-interviews making its way around the blogosphere among poets and writers, one by one. Thank you, Melanie. You can read her self-interview at her blog.
 

Below is my own self-interview answering the set of questions that is traveling from blog to blog as a part of The Next Big Thing project. My answers all pertain to my second full-length volume of poems, forthcoming this fall.

________________________________

THE NEXT BIG THING

 

What is the working title of the book?

My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass

Where did the idea come from for the book?

In 2007 I began collecting and writing epistolary poems in preparation for a poetry workshop I was to teach on the subject, and immediately I was hooked. Besides that, I always loved writing and reading letters.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass doesn’t really want to be a movie. It would much prefer to be a musical composition by, say, Philip Glass. Wouldn't that be a dream!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

What does it mean, this journey of beauty and grief—of the dangerous and the ordinary—when language and love are almost enough to make a connection?

 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I’d have to guess—probably about a year. Or maybe ten. My whole life.

What books within the same genre would you compare yours to?

Instead of making comparisons I’ll just name some contemporary books I much admire for all sorts of reasons: Rose, by Li-Young Lee; Carolina Ghost Woods, by Judy Jordan; Romey’s Order, by Atsuro Riley; A Metaphorical God, Kimbery Johnson; Kingdom Animalia, Aracelis Girmay; Trapeze, Deborah Digges; Columbarium, Susan Stewart; Ornithologies, Joshua Poteat; We Don’t Know We Don’t Know, Nick Lantz; Compulsions of Silkworms & Bees, Julianna Baggott; Bad Boats, Laura Jensen

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Emily Dickinson. A. R. Ammons. Every poet I ever read. The moon. A lack of bees. The South Carolina Lowcountry. Redbelly water snakes. The weather. Back roads. My husband, always.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

How about a few poem titles: “Why I Am Not a Tightrope Walker,” “Dear Yellow Speed Bump,” “Dear Melancholy,” “Why Does Rain Cast This Longsome Spell?” “Dear Morning after the Hailstorm”

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Cider Press Review will release it this fall (Septemberish). I’m delighted that they selected it for their inaugural Editor’s Prize.

 

_________________________________

Thanks for reading this little sneak preview of My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass. In turn, I've tagged several poets so you can read about their new works.  Here are three poets with their own self-interviews for The Next Big Thing:

Mary Hutchins Harris, Do Not Fault the Mockingbird (ms. in progress)

Al Maginnes:  read Al's self-interview about his book Inventing Constellations on Facebook

Cassie Premo Steele,  Wednesday: poems

 

 

Poetry Workshop: Beyond Craft -- Feb. 21

POETRY WORKSHOP: BEYOND CRAFT
Susan Laughter Meyers, instructor
Thursday, Feb. 21
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
OLLI at CCU
Litchfield Exchange location
(exact venue TBA)
Register in person or online at webadvisor.coastal.edu (click on Continuing Ed)
$30, plus OLLI membership
 

When starting a poem, you are often writing blindly, not following a familiar path or arriving at answers but moving in uncertainty. The overriding issue is not a matter of craft—but how to proceed, how to find your way to the real poem. Class packet included. Within two weeks after the workshop, participants have the option of e-mailing a poem to the instructor for feedback. Lunch can be brought or bought nearby. (You may want to bring your own lunch, since our exact venue is uncertain.)

How important is our poetry?
          

            “The words you speak

            become the house
            you live in.”                    —Hafiz

 

Yes, we are choosing words. But when we’re deep in the process of writing, they are partly choosing us, too. Without measuring each move, we accrue sounds, rhythms, meanings, connotations, and so much more along the way. Each of us and our words are building something, the poem. It’s a makeshift hut we’re constructing in that first draft. Somewhere in our messy construction site is the real poem, or the path to it, and our job is to find it.

Please come join us for the workshop!

Poems in The Southern Review & its audio gallery

Thank you to The Southern Review for including my work in their fall and winter issues, five poems in all. Two of them are in the audio gallery of the winter issue: "[Let's say you forgot me]" and "Not one single further sorrow." Also in the gallery are poems by Philip Schultz, Brendan Galvin, and Deborah Flanagan. You can listen here.

New Issue of Cider Press Review

Thanks to Cider Press Review for including one of my poems from my forthcoming book, My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass, in their latest issue. They'll be publishing my book this fall, and I'm pleased that "Dear Morning after the Moon Kept Me Awake" serves as a sneak preview in CPR Volume 15, Issue 1.