AWAKE, ALL YE .... !

Lest you think all I'm doing is SITTING AROUND, just to alert you that I have a new book coming out -- and it's not a mini.  Thank you, Steve Tills and theenk books, for publishing my first book in 2013 (I know -- but I'm being optimistic vs arrogant in assuming I'll release more than one book; it's only January, after all ...):


      THE AWAKENING: A Long Poem Triptych & A Poetics Fragment


It's my first book to focus on the long poem, and here's a look-see at the front cover which features art by the brilliant and talented jenifer k wofford:

(Click on image to enlarge)

Await the word and It Will Come ... To Wake You Up!

SUNDAY DESK SNAPSHOT (6/24/12)

Here's the third of my snapshot series posting an image of my working desk every Sunday.

On the laptop screen is an image that will appear on the front cover of my next  book -- my 20th poetry collection! -- coz that's what I do: make books.  It's from the "MacArthur Paintings" series by brilliant artist jenifer k wofford.  I love jenifer's work and particularly empathize with her approach in the MacArthur series which recontextualizes the iconic photograph image of General Douglas MacArthur and other soldiers wading onto Philippine shores during World War II.  My next book's title?  THE AWAKENING (also considering THE AWAKENING OF A) -- look for it later this year! More details most assuredly to come...
 
Among the books--poetry books!--on the desk is the newly-released CEMETERY CHESS: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS by Sandy McIntosh.  I'm so glad to see this book is out because it's interesting to see the historical trajectory for a poet who's doing something fairly unique in contemporary poetry: his blend of humor and surrealism.  No one else I know is approaching poetry the way Sandy McIntosh does and I do highly recommend you check out this book!  And, hoo-haa! A review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects!  (Well, actually, there is one famous--insofar as poets can be famous--poet out there who also mixes humor and surrealism, but this nameless one doesn't do it as effectively or layeredly as McIntosh.  That's a detail just for moi amusement...)

THE WRITING JOB

TODAY,
--edited an existing draft into a more final form

Okay!  A new long poem.  It was unexpected, but I'm Grateful...

Unexpected because it was out of the scope of two manuscripts-in-progress.  But its existence just generated a new manuscript if I'm to combine it with some other older poems.  New manuscript-in-progress title:
***

How cheered I am by this sudden bounty of unpublished manuscripts.  Three! haven't had three unpublished manuscripts in years! My last published book was commissioned into its being, as I might not have put it together if I didn't have an offer for book publication when an opening surfaced in Marsh Hawk Press' lineup...

... even as I think of Joyce Carol Oates' riveting memoir, A WIDOW'S STORY, where the prolific author notes something about -- ... it's only when we stop doing when we then can we see our true selves. 

But perhaps it's in the doing that we're making our selves.  Anyway, I hope not to see myself for a while. 

THE AWAKENING OF A