Sunday June 28th, Afterall

The reading went well despite all my angst. Maura MacNeil also read very well. I loved her poems and recommend that you search out her chapbook.

As long as I'm recommending books, here are some others I've read lately and recommend:

Ann Fisher-Wirth's Carta Marina: I've been a fan of Ann's work for several years now but this newest one is my favorite: She so expertly twines together the complexities of reconnecting with a long unresolved love, a sabbatical in a cold country, marital love, and an ancient map that seems to hold all the potential dangers of these first three. The speaker of the poems navigates through these territories discovering along the way that "love" cannot be easily defined, that it is possible to love more than one person, that the past inhabits the present.

Robert Cording's Common Life: These are poems of clarity and elegance full of a deep spirituality. I've been reading them slowly so as not to too quickly skim their many gifts.

Charles Bennett's How to Make a Woman Out of Water: I learned of this English poet after I read a poem from his book on Poetry Daily. I was so enchanted by it, that I ordered the book. Bennett’s poems are magical; they read like fables or nursery rhymes or lullabies. There are poems of water, poems of animals (bat, mole, moth), love poems….all of them short, lyrical, clear. They are distinguished by the poet’s absolute originality of voice and vision. Bennett sees things as they have never been seen before and makes you see them too. For instance, he describes a kite as “on string with down at the end.” And a moon is seen “with his face/ on top of the dark.” He can speak in the voice of the rain or of a pillow moth or snow, and get it so exactly right that you will believe the rain, moth and snow are speaking.

And, lastly, as of July 1st, there will be a lovely new online journal named "Cerise" (which I say not only because I have a poem in it!)... after 7/1 go check it out. http://www.cerisepress.com