Sunday, March 31, 2019

Simon Perchik - The Gibson Poems - New Book!



one hand
reaching for another and in the dark
you let your fingers unfold end over end
then close


The 216 poems in this collection would never be written except for the 216 photographs in the collection titled Deus Ex Machin by Ralph Gibson-Simon Perchik
Simon Perchik, an attorney, was born 1923 in Paterson, NJ and educated at New York University (BA English, LLB Law). His poems have appeared in various literary journals including Partisan Review, Poetry, The Nation, and The New Yorker.
reviews:
“Perchik’s poetry allows past and present, familiar and fantastic, banal and bombastic to co-exist with creative tension. Perchik dives deep into the unconscious in his poetry and emerges with much that is beautiful and strange.” Washington Review
“These are poems with fresh insights sticking out all over them and they ought to give pleasure to anyone whose mind is still open to new poetry.” X.J. Kennedy
"The "meaning" in these poems resembles a fugitive glimpsed only as he vanishes around a corner, reappearing only as he turns the next corner, about to vanish. But he always returns...Perchik is truly a master." Robert Kramer, American Book Review.





We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

John Brantingham - Crossing The High Sierra - New Book!



Just after Dawn, Wolverton Camp

I drank too much last night, laughed too much,
ate more than was good for me.
I do that too often. We all do,
and this morning my eyes are bright with dawn,
and I’m blowing steam, stomping like a horse 
who hates the long wait in his paddock.

No one’s moving, so I take my hangover,
my garbage sack belly and trudge
without even a pack
up the side of the mountain,
puffing because of yesterday
and 46 years of nights like that,
and there has never been a morning like this one.

I am alone unless you count
raccoons, scrub jay, deer and the whole cast,
just me sweating last night’s sin,
just me walking where I’ve never been,
going home.

John Brantingham is Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park’s first poet laureate. His work has been featured in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016. He has ten books of poetry and fiction including The L.A. Fiction Anthology (Red Hen Press) and A Sublime and Tragic Dance (Cholla Needles). He teaches at Mt. San Antonio College. He and his wife, Ann, teach poetry, fiction, and art classes in Sequoia and Kings Canyon.





We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

Lisa Mednick Powell - Finding The Azimuth - New Book!




Finding The Azimuth is Lisa Mednick Powell's storied map of her journey to becoming a musician-songstress, and some tales from her various times as a touring player. More than anything, Lisa is a traveler. Go with her; she knows the road. 

As a keyboard player and accordionist she's worked on stages and in studios from New York to New Orleans, and from Austin to Auckland. She has worked with too many artists to mention, known and unknown. Lisa Mednick Powell has produced three critically acclaimed albums of original music: Artifacts of Love, Semaphore, and Blue Book. Find them, and other bits of memoir, at lisamednickpowell.com

Lisa resides in Twentynine Palms, California with her husband and fellow songwriter-musician, Kip Powell.  



We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

ayaz daryl nielsen - a nameless stream - new book!



Lunar Caress

gentle solace
for all that’s
undefined
within us just
as we are 
in the holy,
magnificent 
battleground 
of earthen
existence

ayaz daryl nielsen was born in Valentine, Nebraska, attended schools in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Monterrey, Mexico, has lived in Bonn, Germany, and now lives in Longmont, Colorado, with his beloved wife, poet and psychoanalyst Judith Partin-Nielsen.
A veteran and former hospice nurse, he has edited the print publication bear creek haiku for over 28 years and 150 issues and is online at bear creek haiku.
Poems by ayaz daryl have been voted "best senryu of year" twice by the Irish Haiku Association.





We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

Dave Maresh - Jaegger In The Underworld - New Book!


Jaegger In The Underworld, the new novel by Dave Maresh, may be considered Science Fiction because it takes place in the future. How long into the future? Well, perhaps yesterday - but you weren't looking, so you'll need this book to catch up to the events you missed last week.

Dave Maresh was born in 1948 in Fullerton, California. Graduate of Cal State Fullerton and University of Redlands. Married with four grandchildren. His wife, Michelle, is a teacher. Retired from teaching career of 37 years. Dave has written fifteen novels, four short stories, three children's stories, and is writing poetry nowadays. He likes open styles, free verse, mysteries and adaptations from real life. He has always been a writer.
Dave and his wife, Michelle, have travelled extensively through Europe, and have four beautiful grandchildren. He is also a private pilot, so now you know who is making all the noise over your head. His book of poetry, a book that turned up one day (2018), and collection of short stories, Garage Band (2018), are published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library.





We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

Noreen Lawlor - Medusa Memories - New Book!



Noreen Lawlor is a poet and artist as well as a therapist. This book combines her art and poetry. She lived in Ojai for fifteen years and currently resides in Joshua Tree. Her four previous books are Matilija Days, Sacred Possibilities, Tangled Limbs and Prayers, and Mostly Mojave.

Medusa
I have learned to love my snakes, my hair
was once of silver moon beams made
now slithers, writhes and coils everywhere.

Their sweet sting, their silent tongues declare
a lullaby of serpents symphony they played
I have learned to sing my snakes, my hair

was once a cloud of curls turned nightmare
a stony heart still beating at your feet is laid
which slithers writhes and coils everywhere.

These locks the envy of the gods so fair
drape tentacles into old dreams that fade.
I have learned to dream my snakes, my hair

is now a wriggling mass of my despair.
The hiss and rattle turns warm flesh to jade
then slithers writhes and coils everywhere.

Their poisoned kisses linger here and there
in ears and eyes and cheeks where bade.
I have learned to kiss those snakes, my hair
which slithers writhes and coils everywhere.




We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Brian Beatty On Jack Kerouac


Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. – Brian Beatty

Jack Kerouac

Old men meditate
down at the end of the bar
to enlighten me.

– Brian Beatty





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- - - -

Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Friday, March 29, 2019

Tobi Alfier - April = National Poetry Month


I don’t know about you, but I think of poetry every month of the year. Full disclosure – this past week I had some things to do. All of it not poetic and therefore doubly irritating. I also wrote an 1100-word piece of short fiction. It was not poetic enough to be a prose poem, but I had to write it. It would not let me go. It’s done, I respect it, and I’ve already submitted it. The rest of the week was spent on poetry.

You’ve probably heard poets talk about the “30/30” in National Poetry Month. You may have even tried it, or accomplished it yourself. The “30/30” is writing thirty poems in thirty days. As a submitting poet, I don’t think I can personally write thirty poems good enough to submit in thirty days. When a poet friend made a Facebook post that said “I threw out a haiku before work so I’m good for today”, it confirmed that the “30/30” isn’t for me.

I do like writing every day to keep my fingers nimble and my thoughts sharp, but that’s like cardio for me. To “throw out a haiku”, just for the sake of ticking off a box with the least amount of syllables required? That’s like bench-pressing fifty pounds when you know you can bench-press twice as much. Or three times as much. In my opinion, it’s not worth it.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t stretch yourself. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a goal. What about this? Try a 15/30.  My husband Jeff tells me that if you were a baseball player, that would be a batting average of 500, which is stellar! Write about baseball, or any sport, or leisure activity, then submit it to Sport Literate Magazine. Sport Literate is a literary journal focusing on “honest reflections on life’s leisurely diversions.” They accept up to three poems in a submission, so write and submit three. 

Katie Caldwell Meets a Plumber at the Muscle Car Dance

Squat-bodied Chevys plant themselves
like a garden of boiling colors –
the red not seen in 50 years
and a green so old it makes nostalgia
feel young.

She follows the hood ornaments to the dance floor,
a blues band tuning up, that particular
beat that says I’ll sing about anything and you’ll
crave it. All the longing you’ll ever need.

You can awkwardly dance to it,
or look around. And look around she does.
He’s got 10 years on her if a day,
graceful in that dirty torn t-shirt kind of way
that says he’s a working man,
taking a break from the present to drift back
to his past,

when Saturday nights meant shine her up,
race her reckless, then get the girl.
And she wants to be that girl. Cherry-red
lips and a yellow dress match anywhere
she ends up.

Life was more unhardened then, the danger
more in their minds, adrenaline
churning and a pack of smokes hiding
in the glove box for later.

She can still do that high-school sidle,
she is by his side in a heartbeat.
The blues makes him talkative; the ex
and his girls live three states away, he’s
been here all his life, has a good business
left from his father, and a dog.

She takes his hand, dances gracefully among
the clowning tourists, visitors to this world
in plaid shorts and wrist bands. And in that dance
she becomes everything to him. Don’t matter
nothin’ ‘bout tomorrow. He knows she’ll be there,
sure as the dice hanging from the rear-view.

(previously published in Sport Literate Magazine)

Will Wright is an amazing poet and professor who lives and teaches in Mississippi and other universities in the south. Living in Southern California, there was no way I was ever going to be able to take any of his classes, but he offered to do an online mentorship with me. It took me about two seconds to get up off the floor and say “yes”. For my first lesson, Will said “write a poem with the words "sap," "starling," "hex," and "marl" in it. Make it in tercets. Free verse”

Why don’t you do the same thing? What the heck? If you’ve never worked with prompts before, this is a favorite technique of many writing teachers, and a LOT of fun! I had to look up the word “marl” but who cares? It took about ten seconds. The poem I wrote was published in the Western Issue of Hobo Camp Review. But you don’t have to write a western poem, and even if you do, it can be published anywhere!

April 18th – National Poem in Your Pocket Day. I didn’t even know about this. My friend Denise Buschmann, who you all met in my October 20th blog post last year, told me about it. According to Poets.org, “On this day, select a poem, carry it with you, and share it with others at schools, bookstores, libraries, parks, workplaces, street corners, and on social media using the hashtag #pocketpoem. 
Poem in Your Pocket Day was initiated in April 2002 by the Office of the Mayor in New York City, in partnership with the city’s Departments of Cultural Affairs and Education. In 2008, the Academy of American Poets took the initiative to all fifty United States, encouraging individuals around the country to participate. In 2016, the League of Canadian Poets extended Poem in Your Pocket Day to Canada.”
Honestly? Every single day, if Jeff reads something wonderful, or I read something I know he’d love, we read them to each other. He often puts a short poem or a stanza of a longer poem on Facebook to accompany one of his photos (I know I’ve mention Facebook twice now, but social media is part of marketing, as you know). I love the idea of cutting out short poems and passing them out. Why just do it on April 18th, why not the whole month of April? But I am as shy now as I was at the eighth grade dance – glasses, braces and flat-chested, waiting for my mom to pick me up. I don’t know if I could pass out a poem to everyone I see, but I sure can try.
Denise sent me three short poems that she passes out. If anyone needs some, please put your email in the comments below and I’ll send them to you. I will probably print one of my favorite poems in the world – “When You Are Old” by Yeats. You should print the best poems for you.
When You Are Old
             William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
National Poetry Month is more than doing the “30/30”. Read more poetry. Buy some poetry by a poet you like. Write some poetry, and pass some out if you’re not shy. There’s a lot you can do, a lot you can try, and have a great time doing it. In the next few weeks I’ll include some lines as prompts from the woodpile Jeff and I share, and more ideas for making this a joyous month…one you can celebrate every day of the year.
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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Brian Beatty On James Tate

Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to James Tate (1943-2015)

I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. – Brian Beatty

James Tate

The cowboy atop his horse
could see as far as Ohio.

He grinned his gold hip-hop smile.

He didn’t miss the gunfights
or the range for that matter.

He’d also given up branding.

His herds were identified
in the streets of Indianapolis

by their pastel ribbons and bows.

– Brian Beatty





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- - - -

Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Friday, March 22, 2019

Tobi Alfier - Why We Write

You’ve heard me say a million times that I write because I can’t not. And maybe you’ve heard the story I’ll tell in a second. But I also write, not to be clever, not to be funny (I’m not funny), not to be political, and not to make a living selling books. I write because if I can touch just one person, and make them feel not alone, forty years of writing poetry will be worth it. Why do you write? Have you ever thought about it?

I do believe that writers have an ability to articulate things in ways that non-writers sometimes can’t. That doesn’t make us special. That makes us lucky. One night at a Writer’s Conference I said something about the moon. My fiction writer friend said “only a poet would say that”.  Fourteen-ish years ago, I spoke at a memorial. I was told “you spoke like a poet”. I think that was good, despite the circumstances.

All kinds of writers do this, not just poets. Every day my poetry AND fiction-loving  husband reads me lines of fiction that are breathtaking. When I used to feature, I often started with a few paragraphs from “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” by Nick Flynn. It’s a memoir but some of the prose were gorgeous. I was proud to read from it to start off my features.

Okay, the story: Years ago (everything was years ago, I’m a damned dinosaur, I swear) I took a class at LMU from Brendan Constantine. To me, Brendan is like a rock star of poetry, but much kinder and more generous than how rock stars are usually portrayed. For one of our assignments, he handed every single person in the class a wrapped box, and told us to write about mystery. He said after the first page we could unwrap the box and write page two. I never unwrapped it. I read my poem one night at a feature that Brendan attended, then I handed it in.  Thankfully it was an extension class so it wasn’t graded.

Life’s Mysteries

Monday:

You can sing, and you do, but you can’t raise your arms.

Tuesday:

You can raise your arms
tall, glorious stretches,
but you can’t sing.

Wednesday:

You have no balance.

Thursday:

You wear heels all day and put on taller heels that night,
remember what it was like
to punch holes with your stilletos in the roof
of Jimmy’s car after the dance,
after a little sloe gin,
before your curfew.

Friday:

You can’t swallow.

Saturday:

You can’t taste
but you can swallow.

Sunday:

Words fly away.
You know they’ll come back,
you just have to be patient.

Monday:

Did someone sit on your glasses?
Did someone turn up the sun?

Tuesday:

If you close your eyes at the red light,
you’ll fall asleep.  But you have to pee.
You know where every ladies room
is in the two miles between work and home
in case you can’t make it.

Wednesday:

“9’s don’t want to type.
You write poems with    strange extra spaces,
You leave the spaces i n.

Thursday:

You can feel your fingertips
so you change your earrings.
The backs on the moonstones
are too awkward but the diamonds
go on nicely.

Friday:

You can still feel your fingertips
so you change your necklace.

Saturday:

And on,

Sunday:

and on and on…

After the reading was over, a young woman came up to me with a couple of her friends. She said “I’m sick”. I said “I am too”. She said “I never talk about it”. I said “I don’t either”.

Did they buy my books? I have no idea. Did I give them some books? I don’t know. But I will never forget that humbling, heart-full experience. Never.

I still write the way I write, edit like hell, submit to every journal in the world, make books, try and sell books, ask people to put reviews on Amazon, then do it all over again. Just like you.

I could say I write because my mom hand-beaded my Barbie wedding dresses and I could NOT sew. The one “dress” I made in Home Ec had the armholes sewn directly over the boobs (the following semester I was the first girl allowed to take drafting).

I could say I write because my mom used to pick me up from junior high on her motorcycle, and the only time I rode a dirt bike I got stuck in hot asphalt in the middle of nowhere.

But that’s just because my mom is a wonder-woman and I was a typical nerdy insecure girl.

I write because I have to, and because of that one quiet young woman at a reading years ago, who resonated with a poem I wrote, that gave her a voice and made her feel she was not alone. I know I already said that, but for that I am so thankful.

And mom? Happy birthday (March 23rd), wonder-woman. For years you said I should publish “Slices of Alice” and I’m so glad I did. I love you.


- - - -

Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Brian Beatty On C.D. Wright

Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to C.D. Wright (1949-2016)

I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. – Brian Beatty

C.D. Wright

The cracked plaster ceiling
flickers like the first few scenes  

of a family’s home movie
in which everyone appears

to be wearing some sort of costume.
It must have been Halloween.

The grandson practices shadow puppets
by the dim glow of a nightlight.

The room’s windows are thrown open
because it’s always summer in Arkansas.

What the boy considers a dog
more closely resembles a dinosaur.

– Brian Beatty
  



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- - - -

Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Friday, March 15, 2019

Tobi Alfier - Organization

Organization – Anything is Better than Nothing

On the scale of keeping submissions organized, I am probably a five on a scale of one to ten. Some people have Excel spreadsheets of everything you could possibly imagine you could sort by, and maybe if I were starting now, I’d do that too. But I started submitting poetry in 2005. I have a 334-page Word document and I’m not going to change now.

For my more common than not rejections, my entries look like this:

            Lily 5/30/05 – all declined

                        9am to Noon
                        The Recognition
                        Cello
                        Morning Sounds
                        Para Marco

For my thank you God acceptances, my entries look like this:

            Cholla Needles Magazine 7-31-18

                        A Close Look – published October 2018 #22
                        A Wish for Air Empty of Summer – published October 2018 #22
                        Amuse-Bouches – published October 2018 #22
                        In the Hospital in Tucson – published #23
                        Missing Him – published #23
       
I know the date I did the submissions, what I sent, and the downfalls, I mean results.

I keep this minimized on my computer at all times, except when some darned update gets done in the middle of the night and restarts my computer. Lesson #1 – Save your file religiously! I don’t care if Word is supposed to save every five minutes. I don’t believe it.

photo by ag ku
I know sometimes time gets away from me. Jeff might ask me “Have you ever submitted to _________ Journal?” and I may say “They hate me. I’ve always been rejected”. Then I go back and search my document (Control F). It turns out that yes, I did submit three times, and yes, I was rejected, but it was back in 2009, 2010 and 2012!

If this is a University journal, the advisor may still be there, but seven years later—the staff is all different. They will be the first ones to tell you that they try to keep to the general aesthetic of the journal, but they probably have different tastes. It’s time to try them again!

You know how there’s always one poem you forget about? It’s a good poem. You like it. You respect it. You’ve submitted it, but somehow it got replaced by newer ones in your submissions? You can scroll up the pages, see what you’ve been submitting, and that poor little lost poem will jump out at you. How did that happen?  The excitement of the new work? I don’t know. Lesson #2 – scroll up and recapture your forgotten poems!

I use this document in a few other ways as well. When I was featuring a lot, I’d list the feature (where and when), and the poems I planned to read. This was in case I was ever asked to feature again—I didn’t want to duplicate what I read.

I also have the names and dates of the poems I’ve written since “Somewhere, Anywhere, Doesn’t Matter Where”, and “Slices of Alice & Other Character Studies” were accepted for publication. If/when I decide to do another book, I will be able to tell the poems that definitely have not yet been published in a book. I bring this list forward from year-to-year; now it is hanging out on January 1, 2019. Whenever I write a new poem, I write the title and date on this list. Lesson #3 – get multiple uses out of your organizational process, whatever it is!

Besides this giant submission report, the poems have to live somewhere. I have a “Poetry” file on my computer. It has separate folders for the journals I’ve submitted to. Each folder may only contain a cover letter if it was a submission by mail, the email sent if it was a submission by email, or the receipts if it was a submission through Submittable. I also save the PayPal receipts if there was a submission fee. One time I had to send the receipt to a journal to prove I paid. Once was enough. They accepted a poem. I think of these folders as place holders for when I get either the rejection or acceptance, and for the publication agreement, if there is one. Everything gets filed (I have 1,400 messages in Outlook. Everything I can save somewhere else is a bonus).

Each poem I write is saved in the same computer file after the folders. When I have a poem accepted, I save it as XYZ poem (accepted), and I write the name and publication date at the bottom of the actual (accepted) poem. I do this for several reasons:

  1. By saving it as a new, (accepted) poem, it retains the original date written. I like knowing that a poem I wrote in 2014 was accepted in 2019. If you just open the poem, put the acceptance info on the bottom and save it, it will save with the current date. You have now lost when it was originally written. You might not care about this, but I do.

  1. If/when you make a book, you will have the information for the “Acknowledgments Page” easily available (because it will be at the bottom of the poem).
When I first started seriously writing, I used to print out the poems, 3-hole punch them, and put them in a notebook. In alphabetical order. If you plan to write for any length of time, and I hope you do, that will get old fast! Your notebook will fill up. You will waste tons of ink and paper for no reason. Your hole punch will punch something crooked and drive you nuts. It’s not worth it. Lesson #4 – do as much as you can electronically!

Back up to that first submission for a second. Every one of those poems was subsequently accepted. Some took longer than others. I only did one more submission to that journal. It was declined, but all of those poems were subsequently accepted. Lesson #5 – don’t let the decision of one journal make you question your ability as a writer, and keep trying!

Para Marco

Was I mistaken about
the many times I think I caught
your glance—always serious, brooding.
I was shy to smile, I would turn my back,
peek in the mirror sometimes.
Even then you were turned my way.  Like
a blind man facing toward the light,
not seeing anything but shadows.

As the flight approaches Goose Bay
I have such sadness that you
will never know my name.
I regret that I never touched
your hand, smelled your neck,
the hard work mingled with smoke.
I never said “You must be so tired”,
or “Please, let me soothe your strong shoulders”.
We will not share café con leche
in the peaceful hours.  I will not
hear you whisper deep words
to open my heart like a sun
of thousands of flowers exploding
upon the paling night.

500 miles per hour is not quick
enough to speed me to forget.
I don’t even close my eyes
to see you before me. 
It is 70 degrees at my destination,
yet cold.  I have traveled twenty hours
with more to go.  Haze and cloud layer
the sky bleached apricot and white-blue that
has no name, a christening robe upon
the land below, but my watch
tells me your night has already begun—
your sky a charcoal wash, pen and ink
across a full moon we both will share.

I fly over cities you can’t pronounce, the turbulence
grounding my thoughts, while I know you forget me already.
My soul breaks—please help me.
Please help me.


While the marketing we talked about last week is a necessary requirement to get your name on the world’s radar, organization of your work isn’t, but it sure is helpful down the line. There’s no right or wrong way, there’s just the best way for you. Lesson #6 – by date or by title, Word, Excel or paper taped to the wall, black and white, or red, green or rainbow…whatever works for you, do it. Keep it up, and hopefully you’ll be doing it for a long, long time!

- - - -

Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.