Tag: poetry

The garden project: marigolds

week two

I came here last, bringing
marigolds from the round garden
outside the kitchen.
—Donald Hall, “Maple Syrup”

The last few weeks have been chaotic and I’ve had a challenge focusing on the garden project. The goal is to build six wood container boxes. But my weekly lumber allowance disappeared rather quickly; cost more over $17 to build two 4’x4′ boxes. The other challenge is the composting I did in the fall of ’09 only filled one box. So know I have to spend a few extra dollars purchasing topsoil.

Since I don’t own a motorized tiller, I resorted to a very old method of preparing the soil for planting. The New Self-sufficient Gardener by John Seymour offers an old English tradition for raised beds preparation. Basically, get a spade and dig down 6 to 10 inches and flip, or turn, the soil. After turning the soil in each box, I used a garden weasel tool to break up the soil even more. Finally, I added about two to three inches of topsoil before I began planting marigolds around the perimeter of the box. One source I read stated that marigolds provide an organic pest repellent. This is the first year I’ve used marigolds in the garden.

No more Free Lunch

This weekend I received a letter in the post informing me that Free Lunch is closing shop. The news really disappointed me for two reasons. One, I was hoping to have some poems published. Two, I reviewed an issue of Free Lunch for Small Press Review and really enjoyed the publication. Some literary/poetry publications are dense with inaccessible poetry and my work doesn’t seem to fit. But Free Lunch felt like a good fit. Here’s an abridged version of the review I submitted to Small Press Review:

Free Lunch presents an engaging 20th Anniversary issue. Unlike many poetry magazines that contain a smattering of good poems and a couple great poems, the Spring 2009 issue of Free Lunch collects stellar work by Billy Collins, Stephen Dunn and many others. It is my habit as a reader to dog-ear pages in books or magazines that elicit some sort of physical response; like smacking a book on my knee and saying “yeah” to the amusement of fellow bus riders. Lyn Lifshin writes, “I love the sense/ of her contentment/ feel it moving/ inside me the/ way when a/ poem works…” in her poem “Writing a poem is like why and when a cat purs.” In “Advice from a Pro,” X. J. Kennedy writes, “I vowed to make my work intensley sober.” There are many great poems by poets Roger Aplon, Denise Duhamel, and others. And, in short, my copy of the 20th Anniversary of Free Lunch has almost every page dog-eared with praise.

Poem: Saturday Night, Coffee House

“Saturday Night, Coffee House” by Matthew Mulder

The awkwardness is complete—
strangers sitting side by side
with nothing to offer but body heat
on this cold winter night;
and the only thing that
connects us is my brother’s wife
and the wooden bench we sit upon.

Conversation is embarrassingly
fumbled with references to
the chai we sip;
and at long silences we sip
more chai and look
around the coffee house
for more material to
discuss,
or some distraction
to fascinate our senses.

(Originally published in Rapid River Magazine, April 2004.)

Knowledge

Knowledge is erotic.

Jane Hirshfield, from her book Nine Gates

Poetry reading – March 8, 2010, 7:00pm – Malaprop’s

Asheville Tumblrs & Tweeps are cordially invited to a poetry reading Monday, March 8, 2010, 7:00pm at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, downtown Asheville, NC.

Samara Scheckler is one of the featured poets for Monday’s reading and plans to read selections from a new chapbook A Body Turning.

Other poets include Barbie Angell, Donna Ensor, and myself with host and international poet Pasckie Pascua.

Poetry reading: March 8, 2010 at Malaprop’s

You are invited to a poetry reading featuring local poets: Barbie Angell, Donna Ensor, Samara Scheckler and Matthew Mulder, and hosted by Pasckie Pascua.

8 MARCH, Monday, 7pm-8pm.
Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, downtown Asheville, NC.
(828) 254-6734

www.malaprops.com

Field notes

special thanks to @malaprops for hosting the poetry reading!

Field notes

also, thanks to those online friends i got to mirl… nice to finally meet face to face…

Thanks to all for joining me at Malaprops…

I was surprised to look up during the reading & find the cafe full & with people standing in the back!

Poetry reading tonight

Tonight’s one-hour poetry reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore (55 Haywood St., Asheville, NC) begins at 7 p.m.

I’ll read from 7:00 to 7:30. Here is my set list:

  1. Immigrant
  2. Quits
  3. Leave my girlfriend alone
  4. Three shots in the night air
  5. Autobiography I
  6. Autobiography II
  7. Wander
  8. Immolation
  9. Dream catcher
  10. We are so far from home
  11. Stone upon stone I’ll bleed the river
  12. Always departing
  13. Where can men weep?
  14. Harvest moon
  15. Winter roost
  16. Bonfire
  17. What divides us
  18. We shall carry our pajamas in our book bags

This list is subject to change.

The Traveling Bonfires’ “Vagrant Wind”

The Traveling Bonfires return to Asheville with a one-hour poetry reading featuring founding members Pasckie Pascua and Matthew Mulder.

Friday, January 22, 2010
7:00pm
Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe Street, 55 Haywood Street City/Town: Asheville, NC

Taking requests

For those who are familiar with my work, is there a poem I wrote that you would like me to read at Friday’s poetry reading at Malaprop’s? Email me at coffeehousejunkie@gmail.com to make a request and I’ll dedicate the poem(s) to you during the reading: http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents&eventId=433391

Field notes

putting together my reading set list for Friday’s reading.

Field notes

join me on Jan. 22, Fri., 7pm, i’ll read new & selected poems.

You will become literature

ireadintothings: You will become literature, and you’re already a poem in my head.

I AM NOT YOUR PRINCESS

Sandpaper between two cultures which tear one another apart

I’m not a means by which you can reach spiritual understanding

Or even learn to do beadwork
I’m only willing to tell you how to make fry bread
1 cup flour, spoon of salt, spoon of baking powder
Stir, add milk or water or beer until it holds together
Slap each piece into rounds -let rest
Fry in hot grease until golden
This is Indian food
Only if you know that Indian is a government word
Which has nothing to do with our names for ourselves
I won’t chant for you
I admit no spirituality to you
I will not sweat with you or ease your guilt with fine turtle tales
I will not wear dancing clothes to read poetry Or explain hardly anything at all
I don’t think your attempts to understand us are going to work so
I’d rather you left us in whatever peace we can still
Scramble up- after all you continue to do
If you send me one more damn flyer about how to heal myself
For $300 with special feminist counseling
I’ll probably set fire to something
If you tell me one more time that I’m wise

I’ll throw up on you
Look at me
See my confusion, loneliness, fear, worrying about all our
Struggles to keep what little is left for us
Look at my heart

Not your fantasies

Please don’t ever again tell me about your Cherokee great-great grandmother
don’t assume I know every other Native Activist
In the world personally

That I even know names of all the tribes
or can pronounce names I’ve never heard
or that I’m expert at the peyote stitch
If you ever again tell me
How strong I am
I’ll lay down on the ground & moan so you’ll see
at last my human weakness

Like your own
I’m not strong, I’m scraped
I’m blessed with life while so many I’ve known are dead
I have work to do dishes, to wash a house to clean
There is no magic
See my simple cracked hands which

Have washed the same things you wash

See my eyes dark with fear in a house by myself late at night

See that to pity me or to adore me are the same
1 cup flour, spoon of salt, spoon of baking powder, liquid to hold
Remember this is only my recipe

There are many others
Let me rest
Here
At least

– Chrystos, Menominee

(via deltafoxtrot)1

NOTES:
1) Delta Foxtrot, “I am not your princess,” January 8, 2010, Deltafoxtrot, accessed January 8, 2010, https://deltafoxtrot.tumblr.com/post/323784465/i-am-not-your-princess

We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering -these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love -these are what we stay alive for.

Dead Poets Society (via ireadintothings)

High def regrets

high def regrets…

(via frontiercity)

(Source: http://www.asofterworld.com/)

Send you my heart

(via giannasunshine)

Flood Reading Series @ Posana Cafe

tonight at 7:30, Flood Reading Series @ Posana Cafe featuring Ned Condini and Laura Hope-Gill

Theory versus practice

Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem.

“Show or Tell: Should creative writing be taught?” by Louis Menand in The New Yorker (via somethingchanged)

the definition of haiku

the definition of haiku is more than 3-line poems with no more than 17 syllables… the key is the revelatory moment…

Haiku… are short, unrhymed, poems… that juxtapose two images to capture a moment of insight about the world or about oneself. (via poetry foundation)

What is poetry?

how many pull quotes can you possible use to answer whether poetry is poetry, or prose?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

The definition of good prose is – proper words in their proper places; of good verse – the most proper words in their proper places. The words in prose ought to express their intended meaning, and no more… But in verse, you must do more; there the words [are] the media…

Housman:

Poetry is not the thing said but the way of saying it.

Frost:

poetry is what’s lost in translation.

Auden:

A poem must be a closed system.

(via)

An argument for self-publishing your poetry manuscript

if you had $2000 to spend on publishing your poetry manuscript, why give that money to 76 publishers?

from the book of kells:

So in total, 76 presses had the opportunity to consider it over 5 years (plus 9 that ALMOST got to consider it…) Don’t do the math on how much it cost me in postage, paper, and contest fees (I’m estimating about $30 a shot) or you’ll end up with about $400 a year on submissions (I’d guess about $2000 total). This makes me a little ill as that’s a lot of money. Thankfully, it was over 5 years, so my family still ate well and was fully clothed while I tried my best to be published. (via)

this is a really good argument for self-publishing your own poetry manuscript… imho… i’m just saying, if i had $2000 to spend on my own book, i’d hire a professional editor, art director, & spend the rest on printing, ad/marketing & distribution.