It is a question I am often asked after a poetry reading. I usually offer a tongue-in-cheek reply, ‘Metallica, Blind Guardian, and Johnny Cash.’ The deer-in-headlights look I receive is ‘gold standard’ (as one writer puts it). I guess they expect something like ‘Whitman, Ginsberg, and Bukowski’ or some other literary trinity.
Specific books inspire me more than specific poets. During April, 32 Poems blog published poets who offer their list of five poetry books you need to read. I enjoyed reading what other poets offer as recommended poetry reading. But I often wondered if the five books chosen by the featured poets were more a literary bumper sticker proclaiming themselves serious poets or, like indie rock musicians, a list of obscure books that no one knows but should know how important they are.
So, I am not going to offer a list of five poetry books that inspire me. I’ll stick with my initial reply, ‘Metallica, Blind Guardian, and Johnny Cash.’
I plan to read poems from the anthology Rooftop Poets (2010) as well as selected published and unpublished material.
Also, I take requests. If you’ve seen something I’ve posted recently as part of the 30 poems in 30 days challenge that you would like me to read for Poetrio, please email me, DM me on Twitter (@mxmulder) or leave a comment and I’ll make sure to read your requests. Hope to see you on Sunday!
To save money by reducing library services and resources is like trying to save a bleeding man by cutting out his heart. Or — if we could reach it — his soul.
Using sliding panels and walls and consummately clever thinking, architect Gary Chang revamped his tiny 344-square-foot Hong Kong apartment to be able to change it into 24 different designs. It totally challenges preconceived notions of what a space can be, which is Chang’s mission.
[Writing is] like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you’re making up the earth you’re going to stand on.
Diana Pinckney has published poetry and prose in such journals and magazines as Southern Poetry Review, Cream City Review, Tar River Poetry, Cave Wall, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Icarus International, Atlanta Review, Green Mountains Review, Main Street Rag, Kalliope, Iodine, Asheville Poetry Review, Calyx, RHINO, Charlotte Viewpoint… Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine.com, Creative Loafing and many others. Her chapbook, Fishing With Tall Women, won North Carolina’s 1996 Persephone Press Book Award and South Carolina’s Kinlock Rivers Memorial Chapbook Contest. Nightshade Press, Troy, Maine, published her second book of poems, White Linen, in 1998. Alchemy, the third collection was published by Main Street Rag Publishing Co. in 2004. The latest full-length book of poems concerns the many fascinations and mysteries of the sea, among other things. Green Daughters was released April 2011.
Barbara Gravelle, author of several poetry books including, Keepsake, Dancing the Naked Dance of Love, and her latest collection of poems, Poet on the Roof of the World. Barbara Gravelle began to publish poetry in the 1960s when she was in Detroit at Wayne State University. In 1970 she moved to Berkeley, California where her first book, Keepsake, was published by Two Windows Press. She worked with the San Francisco State NEA Poetry in the Schools program at Northern California schools. Concurrently she worked at Intersection Center for the Arts in North Beach directing the Women’ Reading Series and an experimental Feminist Writing Workshop. Dancing the Naked Dance of Love, her book of San Francisco poems was published during this time. In the mid 1980’s Barbara began to migrate to the island of Kythera in Southern Greece, while living there she wrote the poems for Poet on the Roof of the World.
Matthew Mulder has published poetry and prose in such journals and magazines as Crab Creek Review, H_NGM_N, The Indie, Rapid River Magazine, ISM Quarterly, Salamander, Wander, The Blotter, Southern Cross Review and others. He teaches poetry writing classes at Asheville bookstores and fine arts centers and is presently translating selected works of German poet Rolf Dieter Brinkmann. He is the author Late Night Writing (2004) and editor of A Body Turning (2010) and Tomorrow We Sweat Poetry (2009). His new poems are anthologized in Rooftop Poets (2010).