Mason-Dixon Publishing Blog
National Poetry Month/Napowrimo 2013 - Blog 3: Pulitzer Prize Poetry
April 17, 2013
Here it is, the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Sharon Olds’ Stag’s Leap, the saga in poetry of the arc of her breaking marriage. The talk of the poetic blogosphere, no doubt.
Check out Powellsbooks website for Pulitzer-prize winning poetry of previous years. I’ve read former US poet laureate’s Kay Ryan’s Best of It, and of course Native Guard by my hero Natasha Tretheway, the current Poet Laureate.
Oh, and here are the rest of the prize winners this year: Pulitzer Prize Winners 2013
Napowrimo: Well, I wrote one poem last night, so now after 16 days I have created 5 poems. Ah well, not the incandescent Napowrimo of last year, but for me, still a stretch.
A variation Napowrimo to consider is to rewrite the same poem each of the 30 days. In his book Best Words, Best OrdeR, Stephen Dobyns noted that Ellen Bryant Voigt rewrote her poem “Amaryllis” 34 times to get to its final resonant version. Next year, perhaps
Ujjvala
National Poetry Month/Napowrimo 2013 - Blog 2
April 09, 2013
Napowrimo.net is a site founded in 2003 to promote both National Poetry Month and Napowrimo, the poetic counterpart to Nanowrimo. (By the way, have any of you tried Nanowrimo? Let us know!) The charming site posts participants’ poems and also has writing prompts to egg us along. I’d like to try the prompt to write a poem that tells a lie! In addition, Napowrimo.net hosts others’ websites, and Mason-Dixon is now among them.
A week of chock full of late nights, scurried days, and no writing has finally ended, and I’m back to my normal pace. I took a walk which led to a worm writhing metronomically, and later this evening I watched one of my cats drift to sleep and nearly fall of the edge of the table, These observations led to a poem, preceded by 15 minutes of nothing-doing (per Martha Beck) and accompanied by lush classical music on NPR. What’s your routine?
Have a look at the books of poetry, as well as other books, I’ve reviewed on Goodreads.com.
>
Ujjvala
National Poetry Month/Napowrimo 2013
April 05, 2013
Well, here we go again!! National Poetry Month 2013 - to write and to read! Click on the Poets.org logo to get to the website to learn about this month-long celebration of poetry.
I started Napowrimo just today, however, due to a horrific week: my darling Sebring convertible suddenly broke down about halfway through the 2 / 1/2 hour drive to the airpot in Charleston, SC, so that we missed the United flight my daughter was to take to visit my family in Virginia. Fortunately, United let us transfer the ticket to the next day’s flight out of Savannah. However, these first days of April has been a flurry of car towing, car rentals, car shopping, interspersed with work and hasty takeout meals. Today was my first normal day. Naturally I returned to writing!
I’ve read that we should prime the creative pump, for instance by reading other poetry, lighting a candle, putting on some music or performing some other ritual as a psychological switch. This year what works for me is to play the same relaxation music CD and lounge for awhile with my open poetry journal. Then I warm up by writing a haiku, which loosens me up to write another poem. Today I wrote first drafts of a haiku and a free verse poem of 152 words. I will talk with Joe about whether we want to post our poem drafts (he may be doing Napowrimo as well), but here is the haiku:
Elegant outfit
in the mirror, the closet
hides mountains of clothes
Ujjvala
GoodReads.com for book review source
March 14, 2013
Ujjvala
Readers - Check out Goodreads.com for intelligent, often passionate book reviews. Much better than Amazon, which can be stuffed with purchased reviews. I recently posted my GoodReads review of Audrey Niffenegger’s ghost story Her Fearful Symmetry. Here is a link to the Venusification and Other Stories in GoodReads, so if you’ve read the book, would you please write a review in that website? The cover of the book is not yet appearing, but if you enter the entire title you’ll find it. Of course, please do make comments on our Facebook page, or on our very own website here. Write to us, tell us what you think.
Aftermath of the 2013 Savannah Book Festival on February 16
March 06, 2013
It was chilly this year (about 60 degrees – yeah, southerners call this cold) and there were no local book vendors. The website noted that it has discontinued that feature, to make room for the featured speakers. I thought it was a snobbish omission. To add insult to injury, the local and the rising authors were relegated to heated tents, while the award-winning authors, admittedly big names, were planted in indoor venues.
Mason-Dixon has entered my name as author of Red Silk Sari for the SC Book Festival in South Carolina’s capitol Columbia, and that festival still retains the book vendors exhibit.
I missed Al Gore’s talk on his new book The Future. He was second, right after Hoda Kotb, and I just could not get myself up earlier enough, say 6am, on a Saturday to get a seat for the 10am presentation. I heard it was packed.
One of the last presenters was Leonard Pitts, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Miami Herald columnist, but five minutes after I got into the line snaking into the Jepson Center, we were told the room was full, so we were turned away. Ah well.
I did get a seat in the packed room for TC Boyle, who spent most of his hour reading one of his own short stories, which was amusing but rather a lazy (or shy) way out of engaging with his audience.
Marissa Meyer, however, was an inspiring writer of young adult fiction, specifically the merging of traditional Western fairytales with science fiction. For instance, the heroine in her novel Cinder is a cyborg. Lovely cover:
Of course I had to buy the book, as well as these other two:
ASL Videos, E-Books, and More
Check out our Original ASL Videos, Poetry and Fiction
Order Venusification and Other Stories Today!
These provocative short stories will challenge you and take you to exotic places and times.
Click here to read "The Old Spaceman," an award winning story included in the book, and to make your order.