The Lovely Bones -Hmmm

I've decided to go on a summer marathon reading binge reading many books (fiction and poetry) I've wanted to read but never have. I was at the library last week and found myself standing in front of the books on tape shelf coming face to face with the audio of  Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. What to do? Is this a book I want to read considering I have a long list. I had read the  glowing reviews of this book but also knew that it was about the brutal murder of  fourteen year old Susie Salmon as she walked home from school and Susie's view of  her murder and her family and their  grief and transformation told to us  from Susie's new home in heaven.

 Recently in Massachusetts where I live, there was a  murder ( Mortimer/ Stone murder). A father killed his wife, his mother-in-law and his two young children ages 2 and 4. The  story was on the news. It was disturbing. I was not sure I could take reading a book where a family was torn apart by the murder of a young girl by someone she knew. Young children being killed was too much for me, but I reluctantly took the audio version telling myself I could turn it off or tune out the awful scenes if I had had enough. I took the audio home. There is something like ten CDs  to listen to. Books on tape are now often CDs.

 I am on  disc 2 and still having a hard time listening to the story.  The thing that keeps me going is Sebold's way of storytelling, of unfolding the story. I keep hearing moments that  create a feeling of compassion in me and I want to  hear more. I want to hear that the family is healed and Susie is okay.  I  wonder if and when the murderer will be caught. What will the parent's reaction be when they find out who killed their daughter? Will forgiveness be part of their journey? So I listen.

Read others opinions of the book under customer reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/Lovely-Bones-Alice-Sebold/dp/1402532903

NO BOUNDARIES, Prose Poems by 24 American Poets

This is a terrific anthology  filled with the writing of many well known poets, many icons in contemporary  American Poetry including Mary Koncel, Robert Bly, John Bradley, -Killarney Clary, Jon Davis, Linda Dyer, Russell Edson, Amy Gerstler, Ray Gonzalez, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Juan Felipe Herrera, Louis Jenkins, Peter Johnson, George Kalamaras, Christine Boyka Kluge, Nin Andrews, Morton Marcus, Harryette Mullen, Naomi Shahib Nye, Liz -Waldner, Gary Young, Karen Volkman, Campbell McGrath, Charles Simic. 

I couldn't put  this anthology down.  Each poem was a surprise. The poems  are funny, profound, magical, relevant. They are lyrical, experimental, "formal." Something for every taste.

From the introduction of NO BOUNDARIES by editor Ray Gonzalez

" In his long out  of print anthology, The Prose Poem (Laurel, 1976), poet Michael Benedikt defines a prose poem as 'a genre of poetry, self-consciously written in prose, and characterized by the intense use of virtually all the devices of poetry, which includes the intense use of devices of verse. The sole exception to access to the possibilities, rather than the set priorities of verse is, the line break.' "

 Benedikt goes on to list the special properties of prose poems.

" 'attention to the unconscious and its logic
    accelerated  use of colloquial  and everyday speech
    patterns,
    a visionary thrust
    reliance on humour and wit
    an enlightened doubtfulness' "


 Here is the first line from one of my favorite poems "Involving the Use of the Word America" by John Bradley


 "In America, Kafka began and paused, staring  at the peeling gray planks
on the front porch. In America he began again, but lost his way in the enormity
of the phrase."


Another favorite

 The poem "The Gulf"  by Campbell McGrath is particularly relevant  in the face of the BP oil spill. McGrath captures the magic of the gulf focusing on seashells and the creatures that live in the water.  The poem is sound magical.


 "Floating in the gulf, on a hot June day, listening to the seashells sing.

 Eyes open I watch their migration, their seismic shifts and tidal seizures, as I am
 seized and lifted, lulled, and hushed and serenaded.  Eyes closed, I drift amid their
 resonant sibilance, soft hiss and crackle in the tide wash...."

"-flop,whoosh-a fine wash of shells and shell
bits and shards, a slurry of coquinas and scallops and sunrays, coral chunks, tubes..."

 More about NO BOUNDARIES
From Amazon editorial review
""As more poets write prose poems, one of the most common reasons they give for turning to them is that their fluent composition offers a 'freedom of expression' lined poetry often restricts. To many, this sounds like a contradiction stemming from the eternal belief that any kind of good poetry has no boundaries. Yet those that write prose poems insist the act of placing their poems into sentences and paragraphs gives them a fresh approach to content and form."" -- From the introduction by Ray Gonzalez.


http://www.amazon.com/No-Boundaries-Ray-Gonzalez/dp/1932195017

 NO BOUNDARIES was published by Tupelo Press in 2003.

http://www.tupelopress.org/

My Poems in Frigg May 2010 Spring Issue

http://www.friggmagazine.com/issuetwentyeight/splashpages/ElizabethGlixman.htm

June 1, 2010- Curtain Call on Amazon Shorts Program (Short Literary Works)

http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Drawings-Edgar-Elizabeth-Glixman/dp/B000OV16WG

 Some Short's authors are transferring their work to Kindle. Hopefully there will be a lot of short stories to read on this innovative electronic device. The Atlantic is posting short stories on K also. Long live the short story form!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000463361

Poemeleon a journal of poetry - Collaborative Issue- Don't Miss This

Volume IV Issue 2 - Winter/Spring 2010

The Collaborative Issue

Editor's Note
http://www.poemeleon.org/editors-note4/


Dare You and Another Poet Collaborate?
Collaborative poems often fail, but I admit they’re pretty darn fun

By Marilyn L. Taylor

http://www.poemeleon.org/marilyn-taylor-on-collaboratio/

Favorite Quotes for Today

"The purpose of art is to stop time." Bob Dylan

"That is what stories and poems do, what all art does. Art is energy, held in a form long enough to be experienced."
Ordinary Genius- A Guide for the Poet Within by Kim Addonizio

http://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Genius-Guide-Poet-Within/dp/0393334163

Helpful Site- Rhymes

From a A GLOSSARY OF RHYMES  http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/formsofverse/furtherreading/page2.html The following terms occur frequently in discussions of poetry and critical writing, but not with absolute consistency. It may be tempting, simply because the terms are listed here, to get overly scrupulous about fine distinctions between, for example, "identical" and "rich" rhyme, or "broken" as opposed to "linked" rhyme--but these are distinctions that rarely find practical sanction in critical usage and are often much more useful for the writer.  Nonetheless, it may be useful to consider the various terms that do appear in the literature.  Even more, it may be useful to gather and describe a range of rhymes available in the English language.  English is often said to be poor in rhyme, as opposed to, for example, the Romance languages, but this glossary and definition of terms will point to a rich variety of choices.  This list is adapted from Poetic Designs, by Stephen Adams (Broadview Press, 1997), and Manual of English Meters, by Joseph Malof (Bloomington: Indiana U Press, 1970). The rhymes are distinguished by usage in the following ways:   Rhymes Defined by Nature of Similarity   Rhymes Defined by Relation to Stress Pattern   Rhymes Defined by Position         By Position in the Line             By Position in the      Stanza or Verse Paragraph   Rhyme across Word Boundaries

New Eclectica! Poetry, Fiction, Book Reviews, Interviews, Commentary.

http://www.eclectica.org/v14n2/toc.html

One of my favorite poems from the issue.

The Story—Shoshauna Shy—

http://www.eclectica.org/v14n2/shy.html

Poems About Birds - Poets Online, A site of inspiration since 1998

"POETS ONLINE offers you the opportunity to try writing a poem to our current monthly writing prompt. Write it for yourself, or submit it - and if it is selected, you'll share it with the online world. We will only consider poems that are in response to our current writing prompt.


March 2010

Why have so many poets gone to the birds for inspiration? Song certainly has something to do with it. With poets probably first being singers, birds were natural compatriots.

And how many writers were delighted to discover in some classroom those poetic collective nouns. The avian ones were particularly appealing to me: a murder of crows, a murmuration of starlings, a parliament of fowls.

The poems we used as models included Sandpiper" by Elizabeth Bishop."


Check out my bird poem THE RESTAURANT IS CROWDED EACH MORNING NO MATTER WHAT THE WEATHER, and bird poems by Kathleen Harm, Marie A. Mennuto-Rovello, Michael P. McDermott, Del McNulty Ken Ronkowitz,Pammy, Christopher Morriss, Charles Michaels, Kathy Nelson, Patty Joslyn, Russ Allison Loar,Taylor Graham,Vivien Jones, Emily Henderson and Edward Halperin.



Read the rest
http://web.njit.edu/~ronkowit/poetsonline/archive/arch_birds.html

napowrimo #3: scared yet?

Teeth Mark Fantasy Draft

by

E.P.G

It is arid August
and the trees sweat
sucking drops of moisture
from the air to relieve
their thirst.

Asters stand on the hill
My white hidden from the sun legs
wrap around your waist
in the tepid pond.
My feet dangle.
We swim together conjoined twins-
You are my Atlas
holding up my world.

Birds’ nests bare
Alligators boulders’ eyes
ripe-
Hard teeth waiting
To devour.

http://readwritepoem.org/blog/2010/04/03/napowrimo-prompt-3-scared-yet/

April Poems and Drafts - Read Write Poetry Challenge

 April 1

 First Draft

The Floods in New England March 2010

These days there are birds with raincoats

on my windowsill

I sit in my water free house

my dry fountain of sorrow preening imagined wings

Looking up at the sky

There is grayness and rain

in streets on roofs inside other's basements and bedrooms

clothes, couches, food,  love photos of weddings and births

are soggy and damp

rivers rise brooks bulge, drips grow gargantuan

Gladly I praise my good fortune

to not live near a river bank

It is late for the sky to be so introverted with grief

No signs of heat and bloom buds

irises in the front garden

Nothing speaks of spring.

 I am the pretender

 Vertical lines of water fall

 I sing loudly to overcome the sound

 hitting my flat roof.

It is hard to see people running on empty

Hope is that thing with feathers

Call it a loan or whatever but let hope

attach itself to people's skin
after the rain.

Lines from Next Voice You Hear/ The Best of Jackson Browne

 These Days

 Fountain of Sorrow

 Late for the Sky

 The Pretender

 Running on Empty

http://readwritepoem.org/blog/2010/04/01/napowrimo-1-shuffle-a-poem/

April is National Poetry Month in USA- introducing the read write poem napowrimo challenge

Meow Poetry - "Fun, Fabulous Feline Verse" Anthology

I wrote a poem about a cat named Simon. He was a character. He passed away several years ago. The poem is included in this collection.

---

MEOW POETRY: Fun, Fabulous Feline Verse is an anthology of cat poetry written by established poets and newcomers. A collection of accessible and enjoyable poetry. Paperback: 86 pages Publisher: Outskirts Press (October 28, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 1432747924 ISBN-13: 978-1432747923

http://www.amazon.com/Meow-Poetry-fabulous-feline-verse/dp/1432747924

 Profits will go to ASPCA.


 Here are some of the poets who contributed their work to this collection:

 Judith Kerman, Bruce Ladder, Lynn Veach Sadler, Grace Ocasio, Brenda Kay Ledford, Lana Hechtman Ayers,  Larry Levy, Beth Browne, Ian Mohle, Leslea Newman, David Arnold Hughes, Arnie Johanson, John Achorn, Tony Trigilio

 http://www.aspca.org/

New Stories Live at "Lady Jane" Inaugural Online Edition

San Francisco Bay Press: Publishers of Fine Poetry and a Smattering of Prose

"San Fransisco Bay Press is a small publisher with two offices - one located in San Francisco and the other in Norfolk, Virginia. We publish 8 to 10 books a year as well as a semi annual literary journal, "Lady Jane's Miscellany". We believe in publishing both established, critically acclaimed poets as well as newly emerging voices in contemporary poetry. You can find our titles below in our online bookstore, as well as on Amazon.com. Our books are also available from bookshops including Barnes and Nobles (in Newport News and Norfolk) as well as Prince Books (in Norfolk)."

http://sanfranciscobaypress.com/

Online & Print

Check out two of my stories and the works of other writers and poets at

http://sanfranciscobaypress.com/ladyjanesmiscellany-online-extended-edition

1/21/10 Poem - Grey Sparrow Journal

Copyright E. P. Glixman

LAUGHING WITH FATHER
by Elizabeth P. Glixman

https://greysparrowpress.sharepoint.com/Pages/Winter2011PoetryGlixman.aspx

The Poetry Bomb Project- Poetry to the People

If all goes well my poem and many others will be in this project.


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1768073198/the-poetry-bomb

Images in Color and in Black and White- Fall Makes Me Think of Color and the Absence of Color

All work copyrighted by E. P. Glixman
Cannot be copied without my permission.

Ron McLarty Interview in October Issue of Eclectica: I Didn't Know the Veteran Character Actor I Saw on TV and in Films Was a Talented Writer...

UNTIL NOW.....

Read my interview with actor and writer Ron McLarty here
http://www.eclectica.org/v13n4/glixman_mclarty.html





and check out new poetry, fiction, book reviews, op-ed pieces and interviews in October 2009 Eclectica.

http://www.eclectica.org/v13n4/toc.html

Video-Poet Clare Shaw Reads from Some Girls' Mother

http://www.route-online.com/?s=+Some+Girls%27+Mothers&x=15&y=10

"In this highly acclaimed book and live literature event, six daughters speak openly and passionately about mother and daughter relationships.

Some Girls’ Mothers features stories from Suzanne Batty, Anne Caldwell, Nell Farrell, Char March, Clare Shaw and River Wolton.

Do daughters step into their mothers’ shoes? How does this central relationship colour women’s lives? The tales in this anthology address these questions with honesty and vigour, weaving humour and warmth into the telling of small but significant tragedies.

Celebrated poets, the writers showcased here explore daughterhood and motherhood in their own unique styles. They speak out in prose that fizzes and crackles, throwing light on these questions and many others. The stories offer a unique set of insights into this relationship. You’ll find plenty to uncover in this irreverent but heartfelt take on an age-old subject.

'Touching, wounding, humbling' - Simon Armitage

'Beautiful writing. A lovely mix of poignant and funny material, it will touch so many chords with so many mothers and daughters' - Polly Thomas (read less)
In this highly acclaimed book and live literature event, six daughters speak openly and passionately about mother and daughter relationships.

Some Girls’ Mothers features stories from Suzanne Batty, Anne Caldwell, Nell Farrell, Char March, Clare Shaw and River Wolton"

"Vegetable Love" Poem by Barbara Crooker Read by Garrison Keillor on the Writer's Almanac- I Love This Poem!

www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images

Poem- Vegetable Love

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/08/23

13 Poets (I am one) Interpret the Word "Marked" in the Blossom Bones Summer Issue.

http://www.blossombones.com

Journey - Poetry Anthology Eden Waters Press

http://edenwaterspress.com/current_issue

Journey Anthology includes work by Peter Krok, Mike Amado, Ed Galing, Halima Sussman, Helen Bar-Lev, Phillip E. Burnham, Phil Levy, Susan Tepper, Tom Sheehan, Elizabeth P. Glixman and many others.

Your form was submitted successfully. Thank you for your message.

From Editor Anne Brudevold

"Our second anthology Journey is a huge success, in the eyes of the critics who have read the galleys and and I hope it will be with you and the public. We think it is a beautiful book inside and out. The content is thought-provoking, funny, luminous, mysterious and covers all the emotions and brings up important issues. It's beautiful to look at. It's beautiful to read."

UPDATE! Taking Poetry Public by Kiki Anderson- Poets and Writers Magazine

Adam Robinson founded the outdoor journal Is Reads. My poem A Mother and Son Conversation is part of the current issue that is posted in public places in Baltimore Maryland. I love the idea that my poem appears in an unlikely place. Not a book. I don't know who read it, if anyone read it and I don't know if the wind blew it away. The randomness of the viewing is exciting. A person might walk into a rest room or by the side of an abandoned building and see a poem never having any interest in reading poetry. What a surprise. It is like finding something ( a jewel, a needle in a haystack, an irritation, a zen koan, nonsense, profundity) in an unexpected environment. Perhaps it has a momentary effect on the reader's consciousness even if only the utterance of the words, What's that doing here? An interaction has taken place.

The online issue my poem is in is not up yet. Enjoy the previous issue.

Is Reads website www.isreads.com.

And read an article about Adam and his outdoor journal in Poets and Writers Magazine

http://wwan>w.pw.org/content/taking_poetry_public

My poem was posted in these two spots among many others.

http://www.nashvilleisreads.com/glixman.html

http://www.baltimoreisreads.com/glixman.html

Charles Olson- "What do you see? What is happening where you live?"

You can watch Polis Is This about poet Charles Olson at
http://www.polisisthis.com/ . I have an interest in Olson's work for many reasons.

One: He was born in my hometown in Massachusetts along with other notable poets such as Stanley Kunitz and Elizabeth Bishop.

Two: I love Gloucester, Massachusetts. The Maximus Poems were inspired by Olson's love of Gloucester.Gloucester is a beautiful place even though it has changed dramatically in the last four decades. Going to Gloucester on a day trip when I was a teenager was like going to a new world where nature ruled. The air was clean. There was an abundance of light. I felt invigorated. The smell of the sea and the fish, the weathered buildings, the fishing boats, the ocean, the quaintness of it all spoke of another time when people lived off the land, respected it and had roots in community. It was this sense of an enclosed community that held onto tradition that intrigued me.

Three: Olson believed in people's ability to shape their world.

Four: It seems he didn't care what people thought of him ( he was a bit eccentric) and he was humble. He was outspoken, eccentric yet humble. Hmm. Seems like a contradiction. I gathered this from the film Polis Is This.

Five: He had a station wagon that had no reverse. When asked why, he said no one should go backward in life.

I often think that many great poets are like mystic sages, visionaries or teachers who show things to us we do not see because we do not have the capacity or sensitivity to see things as they are in this world. Or because we are stuck in our solo vision of things. Olson gives the people who read his work a different view of what people can achieve.


Info on Charles Olson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970), was an important 2nd generation American modernist poet who was a crucial link between earlier figures like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, a rubric which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance. Subsequently, many postmodern groups, such as the poets of the Language School, include Olson as a primary and precedent figure. He is credited as one of the thinkers who coined the term postmodern. Across the Atlantic, these various poetic movements have exerted a deep and ongoing influence on an important array of alternative and experimental writers, including Roy Fisher, Edwin Morgan, and Geoffrey Hill, behind whose works lurks Olson's ghost of language-driven inventiveness."

Info on poems from poets.org

"He began work on his opus, The Maximus Poems, in the mid-1940s, and continued to expand and revise them until his death in 1970. Formally similar to Ezra Pound's Cantos, the Maximus poems are, in Olson's words, "about a person and a place."

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5964

April 24, 2009 - Do you love to draw whether free hand or on the computer? On June 6, 2009 ( Drawing Day)show the world your drawings.

Edward Gorey's drawings
One of my favorite " drawers" is Edward Gorey. I love his black and white drawings for their designs, textures, and humour (often bizarre or horrific).

Photos of Edward Gory
http://www.phobos-deimos.com/Edward_Gorey/Main/Edward_Gorey_Pics.htm

He did the illustrations for the intro to the PBS Mystery series.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/mystery/game.html


Make your own lines on a surface.
READ ABOUT DRAWING DAY

Poem- Kim Addonizio- What Do Women Want?

Kim Addonizio- What Do Women Want?
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171221

Slate
http://www.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/2936214.aspx

Kim Addonizio- Video Readings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkiZfPPY6HE&feature=related