There’s a new book on the street. (And in the pink limo.) The Novelist, a novella that will teach you how to write fiction, even as you get lost in a story of one big challenge, an elusive cup of tea, and a ruminating poet’s attempt to break free. “Hilarious protagonist, ” says one reader. […]
Archives for August 2012
image-ine: tribes
tribes save me from the little tribes the us and them tribes that say who can’t marry who that make you take up a gun to defend them give me those sisters and brothers in the bigger family to link arms with to cluck and strut together to head off somewhere not knowing precisely where […]
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art Is nothing left sacred? Evidently an elderly townswoman in Spain failed to ask this question before attempting to “touch up” a nineteenth century fresco of Christ, the “ecce homo.” Painted by famous Spanish artist Elias Garcia Martinez in the sanctuary of […]
Art’s Uncommon Environments: Interview with Evy Lareau
Figurative painter Evy Lareau is an art instructor at a correctional facility. She got the job after responding to a help-wanted ad. She’s worked as an art therapist (she has a master’s degree in art therapy), case manager, and art teacher in residential treatment centers and specialized schools, as well as public schools, around the […]
The Sacred Tree
What happened to me on that blustery afternoon fifteen years ago cannot be explained. Four hundred miles from home. Bancroft, Nebraska. The area formerly inhabited by the Omaha Indians is now this small town of fewer than five hundred. Ninety-eight percent of European descent. I am ready to meet Hilda Neihardt, the author of Black […]
August Rain: Morose Mother Goose
Nursery rhymes are often our first introductions to poetry. You’d be hard-pressed to find a youngster who was unaware of Jack’s broken crown, the shoe-dwelling woman with more children than the Duggars, or everyone’s favorite fall-on-your-bum game, “ring around the rosie.” But despite the sing-song rhythms and lyrical use of end rhyme, many of Mother […]
Speak Like Rain
1. “Mama, ” my five-year-old calls from the back of the minivan, “can you make up a poem?” “A poem?” I ask. “Yes. A poem about words. A poem that rhymes.” I look out the window. Well, crap. A rhyming poem about words? “It might take me awhile, ” I say. “That’s okay, Mama. Whenever […]
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Will Willingham. 1 Art As an insurance adjuster, I find the term “perfect storm” an unfortunate combination of words, unless we simply mean the sort of storm which generates a lot of business for me but in which no one is hurt and only easily […]
The Silence and Violence of Rain
Few things sneak past my Ozark grandmother—and that includes the wonder, mischief, and brutality of Mother Nature. Born in 1924, Granny Hollis remembers horse and wagon (I kid you not) that her father drove. Down gravel roads, he maneuvered the horses to carry wife and children to a small town, not much more than a […]
Must-Have Infographic: Read a Poem Today
Buy a year of happy mornings today (and become a better writer). Every Day Poems, just $5.99 Want a Sonnet Infographic? Try Quatrain Wreck: On How to Write a Sonnet Infographic by Will Willingham. ________________ How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers […]
The Poet of the Workplace
I generally had fine English teachers in high school and college, teachers who emphasized poetry as much as they did other literary forms. From The Iliad through Beowulf and Chaucer, and then on to Romantics, Victorians and Moderns, I likely read as much poetry as I did anything else. And then, for close to a […]
August Rain: Stormy Weather
There is a long-standing metaphorical marriage of rain and sorrow. Painters, film-makers, musical artists — they have all used tempestuous imagery to denote loss, grief, and sadness. In 1933 Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler penned “Stormy Weather, ” the quintessential breakup song first performed by Ethel Waters. Covered by greats like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, […]
Bored by Your Apps? There’s an Oprah Book App for That
Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago at the Midwest Writers Workshop, I was fortunate to work with Kathleen Rooney, an extraordinary poetry teacher. This literary superhero somehow got each member of her workshop to produce and/or revise about a half dozen poems in just as many hours. She also spoke on writing memoirs and getting published […]
Songs for Our Theme this Month: Rain
Got a rain playlist? Share it here in the comment box 🙂 Photo by Emreterok. Creative Commons, via Flickr. Playlist by Seth Haines. _____ Buy Rumors of Water Now
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art Since my introduction to Bottle Rocket, I have been a shameless apologist for Wes Anderson. His unabashed use of obscure music, vibrant color, and awkward, character-driven storytelling has led to some of the most artistic film-making in recent memory. His latest release, Moonrise […]
I am the Rain
The gerbera daisy that I had planted in an old green ceramic pitcher on my back porch isn’t red anymore. In fact, the red bloom shriveled and fell off weeks ago. But the stem and the leaves that were left behind, now they have died too. At least that’s my initial diagnosis. With my plastic […]
The Novelist: You Could Learn to Write Fiction
In our upcoming title, The Novelist, you can follow copywriter and poet, Laura, as she tries to figure out how the hell to write a novel to meet Megan Willow’s challenge: a book by September. Megan has a thriving tea business and does everything in a big way. To her, the idea of writing a […]
Poetry for Isaac and Ishmael
This is not the poetry of Mideast politics but the poetry of people – peoples – caught up in Mideast politics, whether the scene is set in the Auschwitz death camp or the Aida refugee camp.
August Rain: The Decisive Moment
As a boy, I lived a spell in East Texas. Somewhere on the edge of the urban sprawl, my sister and I ran barefooted down dirt roads, sat under the shade of mesquite groves, and tromped through fields of briars to the neighbor-lady’s house with all the aquariums. We were home on the range and […]
Caught Flashing
Everyone knows writing conferences can get a little crazy. In fact, this normally prim poet was just caught flashing at the Midwest Writers Workshop. Fiction flashing, that is. I should have seen it coming. I hadn’t written fiction in nearly two decades, was let loose in Muncie, Indiana, without my husband and kids, and was […]