100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE

For Poets and Lovers of Poetry. You have always been able to depend on me to promote the southern and Appalachian poets.  Your lack of interest makes me wonder if I have failed you.  Maybe it is time to step forth, open my arms to the whole wide world of poets. Click below.

http://www.bigbridge.org/100thousandpoetsforchange/

BLOGGER, I DO NOT WANT FAVICON.

CELEBRATING POET OF THE MONTH OF JULY - DANA WILDSMITH with an announcement and offering you her poems "A Southern Love Poem" and "Drying Peaches"

DANA WILDSMITH - Honored as Recipient of 47th Georgia Author of the Year Finalist for Essay.

July 2, 2011 from Barrow County News

Dana Wildsmith received a welcome surprise during the Georgia Author of the Year Awards ceremony at Kennesaw State University June 11. Wildsmith, who was on hand to introduce Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Terry Kay, was recognized as a Georgia Author of the Year Finalist for her book of essays, "Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South."

Books for sale at Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=+Dana+Wildsmith&x=19&y=11


A Southern Love Poem

Honey, I love you like I love boiled peanuts.

You’re a little bit mushy, a little bit salty

and I stop for a taste of you every chance I get.

Sugar, I love you like I love dirt roads.

The only ride better than taking you

slow and easy on a hot afternoon

is when I slide your curves like a drunk in a four by four. 

The Cokesbury Hymnal would be three pages long

if blind Fanny Crosby could have seen

what a blue-ribbon hound dog you are;

she would have wooed you in common meter,

ditching her hymns to sing your praises.     

Longer than July nights in a hotbox farmhouse,

truer than Billy Graham’s prayers,

tighter than the least one’s hold on his mama’s heartstrings,

will my love forever be yours, Sweet Thing.

You’re slicker than Talladega,

as classic as Gone with the Wind,

more hometown than Patty Loveless or REM,

sweeter than Iris Dement.

How could my heart not be yours?

Honey Child, I’ll love you until

peanuts are no longer boiled,

until every dirt road gets paved.

Until ya’ll becomes singular,

until grits becomes plural,

I’ll love you

my dumplin’

my Moonpie,

my cool mint julep.

Drying Peaches


Perhaps another hurricane,

you and I in our windowless

innermost room

waiting for

the walls to stop panting,

waiting some unclockable while

for the powerless days

when we will be

shoveling roof tiles,

shoveling carpeting, glass,

insulation, our books. We will

breathe sweat,  and the sweet

of everyone’s food putrefying,

everyone’s drowned dogs,

crabs washed in by the tidal surge.

We will sit up nights

letting each other talk.

Only the trees will lie down.

Remember how

filthy we will be.

You and the floors will grow beards.

When the rains come back

as they will

by the second week,

remember 

how disheartened,

how needy we will be

for some unreckoned pleasure

such as these peaches 

I’m putting by—

saving for later—

as I have by long habit

saved for you

the last of the orange juice,

today’s mail,

my egg each month

whether we use it or not.

from One Good Hand

Want to learn about Dana Wildsmith?

www.danawildsmith.com

GEORGIA AUTHORS, DID YOU KNOW?

Since 1964, Georgia Authors of the Year AWARDS have been awarded to Georgia-based authors, with one winner and one finalist selected for each category. This year, categories included First Novel, Fiction, Poetry, Biography, Essay, Inspirational, Memoir, History, Specialty Book, Children’s Picture Book, Young Adult Fiction, and Children’s Mid-Reader.

Three Young Poets

Three young poets wrote their message on the wall as I have written mine. They stand  on a street in Kabul, Afghanistan, holding a copy of the literary magazine that holds their poem titled "In Afghanistan 2011."


Dear Poets and Readers,

One of the things I am most proud of with editting Solo Novo v. 1 Wall Scrawls....has been the opportunity to work with Jaala Thibault to publish a special poem from Afghanistan by emerging poets, Yosuf Warastah, Abudul Hadi Iqbazada and Nasir Ahmad Noor Mohammed.  In the attached photo, these young men stand in front of a wall in Kabul, Afghanistan that speaks without words holding their copies of Solo Novo!

Please share this photo with your communities of readers and writers. This is why we write...."What can we do but leave our mark?  What must we do to leave our mark?"

I have attached a press release that you may forward to your local news media or use in any way that continues to bring Solo Novo to the communities of readers we poets serve.  Our interpretations of the times in which we live are imperative reading. 

Several of you have already included Solo Novo on your websites, blogs and facebook pages. Thank you!

If you would like to send me a photo of yourself holding Wall Scrawls in a local place that is meaningful to you, please do!  I will make sure all of these are posted on our website www.solopress.org

Stay tuned for more news!

Again, thank you, Jaala, for making this possible!

Paula Lowe

Solo Novo, editor

SOLO NOVO - a Literary Magazine Published in Carpinteria, California and North Wilksboro, NC Presents WALL SCRWLS. Have You Read It?

I've read Solo Novo  cover to cover and know I am   fortunate to have two of my newer poems included along with so many accomplished poets from across America: Marvin Bell. Marguerite Costigan, Al Magannes, Rita Ferarelli, and others. My poems included are "Aftermath" and "Mary Cassatt."

For those of you who remember my poems,  these are two spoken in voices from the other side.
I was first introduced to Solo Press by 

Lenard D. Moore when he was guest editor for Solo Cafe # 8- 9 (2011) which focused on poems for and about teaching.

Paula C. Lowe in her editor's note in  SOLO NOVO writes:

"Iowa Fram House Wall. Eighty years later, the farm house in the photograph is abandoned. I remembered it being on a gravel road. Now it sits like a broken sofa, orphaned near the freeway. But inside it is a hive of letters, a busy kitchen of words. Every kid with a can of spray paint some how gets here and leaves his or her native tngue on the walls. The layers on the old boards crack and peel. No matter. The kids keep wiriting. 

"Wall Scrawles is coverd in Afghanistan, earthquakes and hurricanes, oil, floods, torture, head counts, AIDS, prayers, nuclear catastrophe, bedside loss, daily work. We are sucked, grabbed, kicked, hugged, dumped, held, stilled, bowed, left speachless in these poems....".and she ends with "What can we do but leave our mark? What must we do to leave our mark?"

Solo Novo is a member of CLMP. Solo Novo is listed in the American Humanities Index, provided by Whitson Publishing Company. Solo Novo is an independent journal  of poetry published annually by Solo Press. Glenda Luschei, Publisher and Paula C. Lowe, editor.

Order your copy email to PCLSolo@gmail.com 
For each copy, please send a check made out to Solo Press for $12. Send to  Solo Press, 5146 Foothill Rd, Carpinteria, CA 93103.

And if you are interested in submitting your poems to this magazine, read   

Call for Submissions that will open in September 2011.

Solo Novo

v.2

122 Days

Poems written & about 

happenings between 

Sept 1 – Dec 31, 2011

For these four months. For these times. Get out there. Pay attention. Put your heart on the tracks where the future is NOW. 

No old stuff. No cover letters. No attachments. No dedications. Format your work the way you want it. All present tense. All present experience. All about “ What’s goin’ on?” (Marvin Gaye)

  

At Solo Press, we choose work for two reasons. One, it grabs us. Two, the poem adds an important voice to the chorus of poems for a particular issue. 

Send your work later rather than earlier. We will not respond to submissions until after the deadline.  Our team reads every poem with the care we would want for our own work. We welcome established and emerging poets.

Be part of the Solo Novo energy! Join us for 122 Days! 

Solo Novo, the all-poetry poetry journal.  

Paula C. Lowe, editor

SOLO NOVO 

v. 2  122 Days

Solo Novo poets write to be heard in our times.

Submission Guidelines:

1.  Submit up to three previously unpublished poems via email. 

(Note: poems published on the Internet count as previously published.)  Simultaneous submissions are okay. Just let us know if your poem will be published elsewhere.

2. Send poems IN THE BODY OF YOUR EMAIL 

(Attachments will NOT be opened). Use 12 point Times New Roman Font.

3. The email’s subject line should read Solo Submission + your name.

4. In the body of the email, type your name, email address, home address and phone number.

5. Next, provide your poems. Titles should be bolded. 

6. EMAIL YOUR SUBMISSION to: PCLSolo@gmail.com

7. We read all submissions. We will let you know we got your work. We will let you know within two months if we seek to publish your poem/s.

8.  If we ask to publish your work, we will email you a first serial rights contract that we will ask you to sign and return to us via snail mail. (Copyright reverts to the poet upon publication.)  We will also ask for a very short bio.

9. All selected poets will receive a complimentary Solo Café: 122 Days.  Any other wanting copies, send an email to PCLSolo@gmail.com with the names and addresses of recipients.  For each additional copy, please send a check made out to Solo Press for $12. Send to  Solo Press, 5146 Foothill Rd, Carpinteria, CA 93103.

Wow!  That is a generous post!  Thank you Nancy!  I am honored that you gave Solo Novo so much kind attention and even included the submission guidelines for 122 Days.  I hope every theme prompts poets to consider poetry in an imperative way....as emotional cultural food for real people in these very real and unstable times.

I hope you send us more work.  It is a pleasure to publish your poetry.

Best,

Paula

MOUNTAIN WRITERS SELL THEIR BOOKS AT SIDEWALK CAFE IN HAYESVILLE, NC

BOOK LOVER NEWS:

 Author/ Members of North Carolina Writers Network West celebrated writing and sold copies of their books at a sidewalk cafe in Hayesville, NC on July 9th, 2011. It was the big day for the annual festival on the square but writers, not even professional, published authors, are allowed to participate in this  N.C. Arts Council annual event. Wanting to be a part of the sesquicentennial celebration of Clay County, a few writers set up their own booth in front of Cafe Touche in town, the same shop that welcomes them there for a monthly reading of poems with open mic, Coffee With the Poets.

( photo)Author and publisher Robert S. King and poet Janice Townley Moore author of Teaching the Robins and Like a Summer Peach.

 (photo)Glenda Beall with copies of ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains and her own book published at Finishing Line Press, NOW MIGHT AS WELL BE THEN. (Sorry, Glenda Beall requested the photo be removed.)

(Photo) Poet Nancy Simpson with her book LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE, SELECTED AND NEW POEMS  (Carolina Wren Press 2010)   and  Poet Publisher Robert S, King  author of
The Hunted River and  The Grave Digger's Roots.  

Nancy Simpson's book LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE NEW AND SELECTED POEMS

is for sale at Phillip and Lloyd's Book Shop on the square or it can be ordered from the press and at Amazon.com.   

http://carolinawrenpress.org/books-and-merchandise/poetry/living-above-the-frost-line

(below) THE HUNTED RIVER AND THE GRAVEDIGGER'S ROOTS
by Robert S. King -  Order copies at:

http://www.sharedroads.net/HuntedRiver.aspx  

http://www.sharedroads.net/GravediggersRoots.aspx

Click here to buy poetry books by Mary Ricketson and by Glenda Beall

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1599242141/ref=dp_olp_3/103-1642903-7363836

Echoes Across the Blue Ridge
Stories, Poems and Essays by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
Edited by Nancy Simpson with an Introduction by Robert Morgan
Get your copy: Click below.

http://www.amazon.com/Echoes-across-Blue-Ridge-Stories/dp/1450701523/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

Article by Scott Owens Celebrating Poet Nancy Simpson in Asheville - Citizen Times

Citizen-Times article on Nancy Simpson's acclaim from the NC Poetry Council.

 Click to read:

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110715/NEWS/307150057/Hayesville-poet-Nancy-Simpson-honored-by-Poetry-Council-NC?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFrontpage%7Cp

PHYSICIAN POET JOHN STONE A Note From Thad

Dear Readers, especially lovers of poetry. One of the most read poets on this blog is Physician Poet John Stone. When I get my site meter report each month, it is clear that people are still loving, missing, and still reading the poems of John Stone. This morning I got this note from Thad.

Thad said...


Thank you for presenting on your blog the poem The Bass. I wanted to share it with a friend and therefore did a Google search for it.

Dr. Stone was my friend, mentor, and fellow cardiologist. I loved him and his work dearly.

I thought you would be interested to know that his course on Literature and Medicine continues to live on, at Colgate University. Professor George Hudson, with Mae Nelson Stone's permission and active help, is now teaching from the syllabus that Dr. Stone developed at Emory University. I had the privilege of attending the course and presenting one of the lectures.

JULY 15, 2011 2:25 AM

More  about Poet John stone.

Living Above the Frost Line: POEMS BY Physician Poet John Stone

Feb 02, 2009

Hi Nancy, I'm a physician-poet from New Zealand and came across John Stone in an article on the NY Times. I'd like to feature and discuss his poem "Gaudeamus Igitur" in a blog I contribute to,...

http://nancysimpson.blogspot.com/

Living Above the Frost Line: PHYSICIAN POET JOHN STONE 1936-2008

Nov 11, 2008

PHYSICIAN POET JOHN STONE 1936-2008. Beloved Southern Physician Poet John Stone, born February 7, 1936, in Jackson, Mississippi, died on November 6, 2008. He will be mourned. John Stone was an emeritus professor of ...

http://nancysimpson.blogspot.com/

Jul 11, 2011

Listen to Physician Poet John Stone read poems. Listen to Physician Poet John Stone read poems. Double click on photo to learn more and to hear the poet read "He Makes a House Call" and more. ...

http://nancysimpson.blogspot.com/

2011 SOUTHERN INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS AWARD WINNER'S LIST

The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA), a trade association representing over 300 bookstores, votes each year for their favorite southern book to recognize great books set in the South or having been written by a Southern author.

Radford University professor, Jim Minick, won the non-fiction award for “The Blueberry Years,” a memoir about his time operating a pick-your-own blueberry farm.

The 2011 winners are:

Children’s Winner: “Mockingbird“ by Kathryn Erskine (Puffin Books)

Cooking Winner: “Southern My Way“ by Gena Knox (Gena Knox Media, LLC)

Fiction Winner: “Burning Bright“ by Ron Rash (Ecco Press)

Nonfiction Winner:  ”The Blueberry Years“ by Jim Minick (Thomas Dunne Books)

Poetry Winner: “A House of Branches” by Janisse Ray (Wind Publications) 

Young Adult Winner: “Countdown“ by Deborah Wiles (Scholastic)

ANNOUNCING DANA WILDSMITH POET OF THE MONTH OF JULY 2011 WITH THREE POEMS

Dana Wildsmith is the author of four collections of poetry: One Good Hand Iris Press, 2005), Our Bodies Remember (The Sow’s Ear Press, 2000), Annie (Palanquin Press, 1999), and Alchemy (The Sow’s Ear Press, 1995). One Good Hand was a SIBA Poetry Book of the Year nominee. In this her birth month, she has been named Poet of the Month of July, 2011.

Wildsmith is  also the author of an environmental memoir, Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South (MotesBooks). 

She has served as Artist-in-Residence for the Grand Canyon National Park and for The Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska, and has been a Poetry Fellow with the South Carolina Academy Of Authors. Her work is widely published in journals and anthologies, including most recently: Writing By ear (MotesBooks), Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia (University Press of Kentucky), The Southern Poetry Anthology (Texas Review Press, 2007), and Women, Period (Spinsters Ink). Wildsmith lives in Bethlehem, Georgia.    

Double-digging

Nothing so pleases as

yanking winter grass

from a squared-off plot—

untangling the earth

one hank at a time

while afternoon

rests softly on your back

and options

grit among your thought

like seeds.

August

We break a sweat brushing our teeth.

Fish-slick, who says we gave up gills?

We’re breathing, aren’t we ? The air 

six a.m. is hot water;

the sky is a slap of blue.

We wade into miasma

in t-shirts, shorts and brimmed hats,

sweat-tides already rising

at our necks and armpits and sides

where the heat needs to bubble out.

Sweet Sweat


Wouldn’t seem honest not to sweat,

like claiming bragging rights 

on two armloads of Better Boys

half a pound each with no spots

while you stand there dry as July clay.

It’s sweat proves you grew these beauts.

Sweat’s how you earn your okra;

it’s your right to sweet iced tea;

it’s your Georgia union card.

The deeper you’ve dug 

your generational toehold

into Winder’s red dirt,

Blood Mountain’s granite,

the kaolin clay under Claxton,

the more kinds of sweat

you’re able to tell apart right off--

like knowing you can hear

south Georgia scrub

in that banker’s voice,

despite he claims Atlanta).

From birth, you know underarm sweat so well

it’s hardly worth the mention;

it’s what you get lugging groceries

from car to kitchen. Spend the morning

yanking garden weeds and you get

whole-back sweat, wet neck,

sticky back-of-the-knees.

An afternoon running fence wire

adds scalp sweat to all these,

and digging post holes

puddles hot sweat in your ears.

But it’s when eyelid sweat starts to

gum your lashes that everybody knows

you’ve hauled in groceries, hoed beans,

and by god run forty more feet of fence wire.

You should sit down. Cool off. Let the sweat dry.

Have a glass of iced tea.

You’ve done an honest day’s work.


These poems from One Good Hand by Dana Wildsmith, Iris Press


http://www.danawildsmith.com/One%20Good%20Hand.htm

POETRY COUNCIL OF NC ANNOUNCES THE WINNER OF OSCAR ARNOLD YOUNG POETRY BOOK CONTEST

The Results Are In


(announced in Wild Goose Poetry Review)

Winners of the Poetry Council of NC 2011 Contests

OSCAR ARNOLD YOUNG POETRY BOOK CONTEST
1st Place: David Rigsbee, The Red Tower: New & Selected Poems (New South Books)

2nd Place: Jodi Barnes, Unsettled (Main Street Rag)

Honorable Mention: Joseph Bathanti, Restoring Sacred Art (Star Cloud Press)

Honorable Mention: Nancy Simpson, Living Above the Frost 

Line: New and Selected Poems (Carolina Wren Press)

Awards will be presented at Poetry Day, 10-2:30, October 1,

2011 at Peeler Crystal Lounge, Catawba College, Salisbury, NC

Mary Ricketson's Poem Wins First Place in the Joyce Kilmer Poetry Contest

Lost In the Roar of Big Santeetlah

I cross a wooden bridge.

A stand of dark red trillium

waits for my attention.

White violets and crested dwarf iris

sit quietly at trail’s edge.  Birdsong begins.

Butterflies dance. Jack in the Pulpit presides.

River birch, pine and poplar stand tall.

Rippling water stills my thoughts.

I can taste the wind.

Soon pink lady slipper will bloom,

then purple rhododendron.

I know every season at this forest.

I fell in love here long ago,

found comfort on this path,

met parts of me I did not know,

told secrets never spoken.

Trees made promises

then asked for mine.

I fill myself with peace and hope when I am here

then give it all away when I am gone.

written by Mary Ricketson 2011

The poetry contest is a celebration of  75th Anniversary of the dedication of Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest which is a living memorial to poet Joyce Kilmer, author of "Trees".  Kilmer was killed  during action during World War  while serving in France on July 30, 1918.

Mary Ricketson  Winning poem will  be displayed at the celebration July 30th and also will be displayed at the Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center throughout the month of July. 

Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center

121 School House Drive

Robbinsville, NC 28771

More about Poet Mary Ricketson

Mary Ricketson is a practicing poet, a mental health counselor, and a blueberry farmer living in Murphy, North Carolina.  Her poems have been published in Lights in the Mountains and in her chapbook I Hear the River Call My Name, published at Finishing Line Press (2007). Mary Ricketson  writes a column "Woman to Woman" for the Cherokee Scout. 

The Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is a favorite place for this poet. She has walked and camped there on many occasions. Another of her poems showing a winter walk,  "At Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest" was published in ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE, Stories, Essays, and Poems by writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains (2010)