Poetry Matters (17): Spring Selection of Books on Form and Structure

Spring Selection of Books on Form and Structure

Every so often I come across a recommendation for a book on the craft of poetry. I thought I would list one or two of these publications in case they are also of interest to other writers – and in the hope that readers of this post may care to share the title of recommended or favourite poetic craft books in the Comments section for us all to see.

Michael Theune's distinction between Poetic Form and Poetic Structure (and here) may be of interest to those who engage in the practice of making poetry.

I own a copy of the first book on my list below, and have just ordered a copy of the fourth book. I have read about the other books, and am listing them here as a personal prompt - and in the hope that they may also strike a chord with you.

1] The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics Including Odd and Invented Forms (4th Edition, UPNE) by Lewis Putnam Turco. This book includes three of my sample poems. You can read my post about the book here.

2] A Poet's Craft: a Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry by Annie Finch

3] Structure and Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns by Michael Theune

4] “You Only Guide Me by Surprise”: Poetry and the Dolphin’s Turn by Peter Sacks

and one that is as yet available for pre-order ...

5] Adventures in Form: A Compendium of Poetic Forms, Rules and Constraints by Paul Muldoon

and finally a brand new Creative Writing book that looks most exciting ...

6] The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing by David Morley (available to buy from CUP). The volume includes a chapter on Poetry and Poetics by Bronwyn Lea.

Magazine Moment (31): The Seventh Quarry

The Seventh Quarry (against a blue background for contrast)

Issue 15 of The Seventh Quarry poetry magazine contains submissions from most corners of the British Isles in addition to contributions from Italy, Germany, Korea, USA and Guatemala. The magazine is edited by Peter Thabit Jones from Swansea. Wales is represented by eight writers in this issue.

My eye was immediately drawn to 'Gales at Rhossili' by Jean Salkilld, who runs the Swansea Tuesday Poetry group. I can visualise those Gower gales as

White horses break the misted greyness of

the sea circus ...

This issue contains a fascinating interview with Chicano poet and Boston University professor, Tino Villanueva, who came to Swansea in 2010 to read in the Dylan Thomas Birthplace. Tino, author of six books, defines the term Chicano as 'an American of Mexican descent, whether native-born or naturalized citizen.' Villanueva describes Dylan Thomas as the poet whose 'language most seduced' him. However, there are other powerful influences, too. Tino explains that he has spent the last ten years working on a poem sequence revolving around Penelope, the faithful Homeric wife of Odysseus. I sense the significance of  'ten years' as a unit of time since not only did the Trojan War drag on for a decade, but it then took Odysseus a further ten years to return to his island home of Ithaca.

Sultan Catto is the poet in profile in this edition. He is professor of Theoretical Physics at the CUNY Graduate Center and at the Rockefeller University in New York. He writes poetry in Turkish and English. I was intrigued by Sultan's poem, 'Sunday Afternoon' (the more so having just viewed a study for Seurat's Pointillist work, 'Sunday Afternoon at the island of La Grande Jatte' in the New York Met). The poem contains compelling juxtapositions of images - we find 'starfish on sands' alongside 'flights of songs'.

'The Seventh Quarry' is not only international in flavour, representing an ever-expanding global community of poets and artists, but is also refreshingly eclectic in terms of style and form. There are short pithy poems like 'Lost Song in Swansea' by John Edwin Cohen and long ones that flow across the page, such as 'Remembering Fengdu' by Nancy E. Wright. 'Visiting the Lady Chapel at Llandaff in April' by Penelope Duckworth is a modern sonnet and '45 Grave on the Nostalgia Circuit' by Simon Hunt is a rhyming sonnet.

John Brantingham holds the stage for the Grand Finale with his masterful '30 Poets, 1 Violinist, 1 Cameraman in Wales', a tribute poem to Swansea's First International Poetry Festival, which took place last summer. The poem is set in Laugharne, at the Dylan Thomas Boat House, and I am left with the lingering image of a violinist playing his music in Wales under a white umbrella in the rain.

• Details of The Seventh Quarry (subscriptions, submissions ...) can be found here.

Magazine Moment (28): Shabdaguchha, Reach Poetry and Orizont Literar Contemporan

Shabdaguchha is under the editorship of Bangladesh-born, New York-based poet, novelist, critic and translator, Hassanal Abdullah. You can reads a feature about him here. 

Issue 53/54 includes a section prepared by Peter Thabit Jones (editor of The Seventh Quarry magazine) and dedicated to the work in English of 'Welsh Poets'. It is always a pleasure (though a rare one) to find that David (Gill) and I have poetry in the same volume! Our first joint appearance in the poetry press was, I believe, in the Pairs Issue of Purple Patch, edited by Geoff Stevens, whose recent death (see below) brought shockwaves of sadness to the poetry fraternity. Our paired poems on that occasion were - not surprisingly - on the archaeology and topography of Greece. Our Shabdaguchha pieces have been published alongside poems by Peter Thabit Jones, Aeronwy Thomas (d.2009), Jean Salkilld (leader of Swansea's Tuesday Poetry group) and Lynn Hopkins.

In addition to the Welsh poetry, the current magazine includes sections in Bengali and English. A poem called 'No Cats on the Yangtze' by Stanley H. Barkan, editor of Cross-Cultural Communications in New York, particularly caught my eye. My thanks to Hassanal Abdullah - and many congratulations on the 14th anniversary of the magazine. 

Details of how to purchase a hard copy of the magazine can be found by clicking here. Issue 53/54 Vol. 14, no.1-2, July-Dec 2011 of Shabdaguchha contains the following poems by the Gills ...

Caroline

• Elegy for Idris Davies
• Preseli Blue
• Swansong

David

• Standing Alone
• From Syracuse to Manhattan
• Gloucestershire in the Negev

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REACH POETRY, INDIGO DREAMS PUBLISHING, UK

I was delighted to receive my copy of the March edition of Reach Poetry (162) yesterday. The beautiful cover shows a pony (perhaps a grey mare?) at sunset. Editor, Ronnie Goodyer, has included a fitting tribute to small press poet-publisher extraordinaire, Geoff Stevens. Geoff will be much missed.

My poem, 'Harmony in Fragmentation', inspired by Seurat's Pointillist work, 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte', took Second Place in the readers' votes for February, so thank you to all who voted.  

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ORIZONT LITERAR CONTEMPORAN, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

And finally, I have just noticed that the new edition of the Romanian literary magazine, Orizont Literar Contemporan, will be coming out soon, thanks to editor-in-chief, Daniel Dragomirescu from Bucharest. You might just recognise a certain person on the cover . . .

Publication Pointer (4): Orizont Literar Contemporan - Antologia (2)

The new Antologia

ALL THE WORLD IN AN ANTHOLOGY

TODO O MUNDO EM UMA ANTOLOGIA

TOUT LE MONDE DANS UNE ANTHOLOGIE

TODO EL MUNDO EN UNA ANTOLOGIA

TOT MAPAMONDUL ÎNTR-O ANTOLOGIE

Daniel Dragomirescu and his editorial assistants in Bucharest have produced the second Antologia Revistei Orizont Literar Contemporan / Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology. It is 82 pages long and packed with lively literary material from most corners of the globe. The four sections are as follows:

1. Orizonturi Contemporane - including, for example, Peggy Landsman's stroke of sheer brilliance in the form of 'Daniel's Cosmic Suitcase' and Professor Donald Riggs' commentary of the poetry of Marius Ştefan Aldea.
2. Dialoguri Mulitculturale - including Alina-Olimpia Miron in conversation with the editor-in-chief, Daniel Dragomirescu, on the subject of whether 'A Good Book is One in Which Most Readers Recognize Themselves'.
3. Orizonturi Poetice - this section features the work of 21 contemporary poets - often in more than one language, largely thanks to the stalwart translation work of the Romanian students linked to Professor Lidia Vianu's MTTLC in Bucharest.
4. Orizontul Prozei - Alex Kudera from the USA heads up the final section with a touching extract from 'The Book of Jay', a memoir about the author's father, the poet Jay Roberts. Magazine Director, Mihai Canuniari's contribution, 'Ocarina De Lut' / 'The Clay Ocarina', is an excerpt about his 'musical evolution' from the second volume of the cycle, 'Man as Grass'.  

Those who know me will know that international poetry is something that I particularly enjoy. I am grateful to the translators for enabling us to appreciate poems in Spanish ('Caracol de Sueno Sobre una Cosa Que Mata' by Luis Benitez from Argentina), in Romanian ('Rigoletto' by Tatiana Rădulescu), and in other languages besides, like French and Italian - and not forgetting English! Three of my poems, 'A Flicker, A Flash', 'On Emily's Moor', and 'Afternoon with Alfred Wallis in St Ives' have been included. My thanks to Iulian Daniel Trandafir and Teodora Gheorghe of MTTLC, Universitatea din Bucureti for their translations into Romanian. My poems appear in Romanian as 'O Licarire, O Fulgerare', 'In Ţinutul lui Emily', and 'O După Amiază Cu Alfred Wallis in St Ives'.   

If you are interested in taking out a subscription to the magazine or would like to buy a copy of the Antologia, you might like to contact Daniel Dragomirescu or leave a comment here on my blog or on the Contemporary Literary Horizon site here. We would love to hear from you!   

Magazine Moment (30): Poems in Bengali / American Magazine, Shabdaguchha

Not exactly a [Keatsian] fading rose - as in my poem, 'Swansong' - but more picturesque

I discovered this morning that the latest issue of Shabdaguchha, a Bengali-American publication, is now online and features three of my poems. Hard copies are also available.

Shabdaguchha is under the editorship of Bangladesh-born, New York-based poet, novelist, critic and translator, HassanAl Abdullah. You can reads a feature about him here. 

Issue 53/54 includes a section prepared by Peter Thabit Jones (editor of The Seventh Quarry magazine) and dedicated to the work in English of 'Welsh Poets'. It is always a pleasure (though a rare one) to find that David (Gill) and I have poetry in the same volume! Our first joint appearance in the poetry press was, I believe, in the Pairs Issue of Purple Patch, edited by Geoff Stevens, whose recent death brought shockwaves of sadness to the poetry fraternity. Our paired poems on that occasion were - not surprisingly - on the archaeology and topography of Greece. Our Shabdaguchha pieces have been published alongside poems by Peter Thabit Jones, Aeronwy Thomas (d.2009), Jean Salkilld (leader of Swansea's Tuesday Poetry group) and Lynn Hopkins.

In addition to the Welsh poetry, the current magazine includes sections in Bengali and English. A poem called 'No Cats on the Yangtze' by Stanley H. Barkan, editor of Cross-Cultural Communications in New York, particularly caught my eye. My thanks to HassanAl Abdullah - and many congratulations on the 14th anniversary of the magazine. 

*

Details of how to purchase a hard copy of the magazine can be found by clicking here. Issue 53/54 Vol. 14, no.1-2, July-Dec 2011 of Shabdaguchha contains the following poems by the Gills ...

Caroline

• Elegy for Idris Davies
• Preseli Blue
• Swansong

David

• Standing Alone
• From Syracuse to Manhattan
• Gloucestershire in the Negev

Magazine Moment (28): TIPS FOR WRITERS 87

Cover design: Wendy Webb

I wonder how many of us you can identify!

Wendy's latest edition of TIPS contains 31 pages of poetry, along with reviews, competition news and readers' feedback. Many of us became acquainted with Wendy through her new poetry form challenges, but if you are expecting a magazine full of Villanelles, Sonnets, Davidians and Echotains, please think again for this is the Free Verse number. Those of us who feel particularly at home among the poetry forms need not worry, for a few formal contributions may, apparently, 'have slipped in'!

Congratulations are in order, for Wendy has taken Joint First Place with Bernard M.Jackson in the Reach Poetry (Indigo Dreams Publishing) 'Highest Number of Appearances in the Box' category AND Second Place (after Bernard Jackson) in the Reach Poet of the Year section. Well done, Wendy! And the 'Box', for the uninitiated, is the box containing the names of the poets who have received the highest number of votes from their Reach Poetry peers in a given issue. 

Having moved from Wales only three months ago, my eye was immediately drawn to 'Hymns and Arias' by Peter Davies. There are resonances, to my ear at least, with the autobiographical verse of Idris Davies. The speaker (perhaps Peter himself) describes familiar, if diverse, scenes from Ebbw Vale in the heart of The Valleys to the beautiful rugged coasts of Gower (Oxwich Bay) and Pembrokeshire (Strumble Head). Aberfan, Nye Bevan and 'King Coal' are all mentioned. This fine Villanelle, which presumably crept in to the Free Verse issue by virtue of being a prize winning poem in the November competition, draws to a close with a memory of sitting in a 'frosty per' in Pisgah, one of the Welsh chapels. This is a fine poem of love and loss.  

Mention should also be made of Ronnie Goodyer's 'Summer Friendship, Fernworthy' with its arresting lines,

             bell-heather rained violet and pink
             in an abandonment of grass ...

Other poems that particularly appealed include 'Ezekiel's Dream' by Joan Sheridan Smith, 'Lotos Land' (which really made me smile), 'Winter Poem' by Michael Newman (with its harsh and unrelenting refrain of 'again' and 'again') and 'High Tide' by Norman Bissett,

So thank you, Wendy, for another beautifully produced publication.

 

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How did you fare in the Cover Quiz?

• Norman and Faith Bissett
• Anne Mullender
• Gerald Hampshire
• Ronnie Goodyer
• Bernard M. Jackson
• No prizes for this one (or the others, for that matter!)
• Michael Newman - under Bernard Jackson
• Wendy M. Lister
• Kay D. Weeks
• TIPS Editor, Wendy Webb

Publication Pointer (5): Seurat, Pointillism (and the 2012 Olympics)

© Caroline Gill 2012

Well, I wonder how you rate my Pointillistic view of the Eiffel Tower!

I have not been in Paris for over quarter of a century, so my photographs, taken on my small 'point-and-shoot' camera are feeling their age. I cropped one and hope you will feel that Photoshop has helped me to jazz it up ... just a little!

Having recently returned from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, with its truly amazing works (and here - not forgetting the monkey in the painting mentioned below) by Seurat, I am almost ashamed to post my electronic attempt. However, my affinity with the artist's Pointillistic techniques goes back almost into the last century, and earned me the nick-name of the 'Dotty Painter' (or was it the 'Spotty Painter'?) in my Friday art class! 

My poem, 'Harmony in Fragmentation', an ekphrastic piece concerning Seurat's painting, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (the study for this painting is here in New York), has just been published by Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling of Indigo Dreams Publishing in issue 161 of Reach Poetry magazine. 

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Curiously, Seurat seems to be currently in the news. This Seurat-style Olympic Games photo might make you smile!