Richard Robbins reads from new book Oct. 26, Raven Bookstore, Lawrence KS

Richard Robbins will read from his new book Body Turn to Rain: New & Selected Poems (Lynx House Press) at the upcoming Big Tent Reading Series, with Nino Cipri and Celeste Gainey--7 pm, 7th & Mass. Robbins's poems combine narrative with images to create surprise, as in this poem "Old Country Portraits." It appears to be a still life, suggesting a Vermeer portrait, a “lost sister” performing a trick on the family by snapping away the table cloth. The final trickery is the subtle interplay between the living and the dead.

Old Country Portraits by Richard Robbins © 2017

My lost sister used to try the trick

with the tablecloth, waiting until

the wine had been poured, the gravy boat filled,

before snapping the linen her way

smug as a matador, staring down

silver and crystal that would dare move,

paying no mind to the ancestor gloom

gliding across the wallpaper like clouds

of a disapproving front—no hutch

or bureau spared, no lost sister sure

the trick would work this time, all those she loved

in another room, nibbling saltines,

or in the kitchen plating the last

of the roast beef. How amazed they would be

to be called to the mahogany room

for supper, to find something missing,

something beautiful, finally, they could

never explain, the wine twittering

in its half-globes, candles aflutter, each

thing in its place, or so it seemed then,

even though their lives had changed for good.

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William Trowbridge writes of Robbins’ new collection: "The poems are grounded in the geography of the American west-iots seasons, its people, its destruction-and lifted by the music Robbins coaxes out of the language. They reveal a sympathy with nature and a passion for humane awareness in a culture which often seems to tell us merely to consume and, ‘Be happy you know nothing.’"

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Richard Robbins was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Southern California and Montana. He studied as an undergraduate with Glover Davis and Carolyn Forché at San Diego State University and as a graduate student with Richard Hugo, Madeline DeFrees, Tess Gallagher, and William Pitt Root at the University of Montana. He has published five full-length books: The Invisible Wedding was published in 1984 by the University of Missouri Press as part of its Breakthrough Series, Famous Persons We Have Known in 2000 by Eastern Washington University Press, and The Untested Hand in 2008 by The Backwaters Press. Radioactive City won the Bellday Prize and was published in 2009 by Bellday Books. Other Americas was released in 2010 by Blueroad Press. His Body Turn to Rain: New & Selected Poems is new in 2017.  Over the years, he's received awards and fellowships from The Loft, the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Society of America. From 1986-2014, Robbins directed the Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University Mankato, where he continues to direct the creative writing program. In 2006, he was awarded the Kay Sexton Award for long-standing dedication and outstanding work in fostering books, reading and literary activity in Minnesota. http://faculty.mnsu.edu/richardrobbins/

Linda Rodrigeuz shares exercises that help writers stay sharp

My favorite definition of a writer is: "A writer is a person who writes." Perhaps ten years is the average apprenticeship, as my mentor Carolyn Doty used to tell me. Master writer (and teacher) Linda Rodriguez has a blog about how writers are like pianists--they both need regular exercise in their genre. Here is the beginning of her essay and a link to the entire piece on the Writers Who Kill blog:

"Pianists know they must practice every day, playing scales and various exercises that stretch the fingers

and give them the flexibility and dexterity that they will need to play complicated compositions. Long ago, I read in one of Madeleine L'Engle's wonderful journals of life and writing about this need for writers.

'Nobody can teach creative writing–run like mad from anybody who thinks he can. But one can teach practices, like finger exercises on the piano; one can share the tools of the trade, and what one has gleaned from the great writers: it is the great writers themselves who do the teaching.' –A Circle of Quiet

For years now, I've created my own finger exercises, as well as borrowing from other writers who've written books about writing, and used them in my journals."  http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2016/10/scales-for-writers.html

Linda Rodriguez has published three novels in the Skeet Bannion mystery series, Every Hidden Fear (Minotaur

Books), Every Broken Trust (Minotaur Books), finalist for the International Latino Book Award and the Premio Aztlan Literary Award and a Las Comadres National Latino Book Club selection, and Every Last Secret (Minotaur Books), winner of the Malice Domestic First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition and finalist for the International Latino Book Award. She also has published two books of poetry, Heart's Migration (Tia Chucha Press) winner of the Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence and finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and Skin Hunger (Potpourri Publications; Scapegoat Press). She edited Woven Voices: 3 Generations of Puertorriquena Poets Look at Their American Lives (Scapegoat Press), second place, International Latino Book Award. She is the 2015 Chair of the AWP Indigenous/Aboriginal American Writers Caucus, immediate past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, a founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, Kansas City Cherokee Community, and International Thriller Writers. Learn more about her books and events at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/

DENISE LOW INTERVIEWS DENNIS ETZEL, JR. RE: MEMOIR-BASED POETRY

Dennis Etzel, Junior, agreed to answer a few questions about his new book and his memoir/documentary-based writing projects. He is a fabulous reader and advocate for the arts, if anyone needs a program. He inspires me both with his community contributions and fine work. I recommend his book, available from his website (below) and FaceBook. He is one of the reasons Lawrencians haverespect for our upriver neighbors in Topeka!
 DL: Please list the titles of your books and chapbooks (and where to get them).
DE: My Secret Wars of 1984 (BlazeVOX 2015); The Sum of Two Mothers (ELJ Publications 2013); My Graphic Novel (Kattywompus Press 2015). Available at The Raven, Prospero’s, and my website
I do like selling them from my website for people who can’t come to readings, as I sign them and include other fun memorabilia. For My Secret Wars of 1984, I include a pack of cards, buttons, Pop Rocks, or other things that are from 1984 or 1984-inspired.

 ​DL: I notice your books have thematic unity. How do these book-length topics come to you?

DE: I enjoy working out of my memoir, writing about topics of survival, LGBT communities, pro-feminism, class, Patriarchy, etc. I often come up with a project and go through with it. For example, My Secret Wars of 1984 is an alphabetized 366-sentence poetry-memoir collage, using texts from

the year 1984 (Lyn Hejinian, Ronald Johnson, bell hooks, Marvel Comics, Dungeons & Dragons, President Reagan, etc.) with sentences of my own—within the context of political and personal struggles of that time (my mother coming out in the midst of living in a conservative neighborhood, America in a recession, daily nuclear bomb threats, etc.).
                My Secret Wars of 1984 developed from the Ronald Johnson Reading Group in Lawrence back in 2011. After thinking about how that was one rough year for me, I thought I could examine that time through documentary poetics strategies. i knew the sentences should have tension, play with words, etc. to describe my personal story. At the same time, I looked for texts from 1984—texts to reflect what I was reading (comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, Orwell, etc.), as well as what inspires me now (bell hooks, Hejinian). As it was an election year, Ronald Reagan had to work his way in, as he scared me! He truly scared me with his talk about nuclear war, as if he was ready to show those Russians!
                Using different texts--the appropriation--along with my sentences to create a collage, I was worried how I could put a stop to my collecting. I figured, 1984 was a leap year, so I would collect 356 sentences. Also, if each sentence was a part of that year, a part of me, then no sentence should be lesser than any other. Based on a poem by Carolyn Forche called "Blue Hour," I realized I could alphabetize the whole thing and that would be that—to mimic what I used to do with my music, comic books, and such.
                It took time to locate and read through the texts after I got home. I also included song titles, movies titles, etc. I placed each sentence in an Excel spreadsheet, along with where I found the sentence, if it was my own, etc. in different columns. This allowed me to alphabetize the sentences within moments, but could return back to the original sequence by source (alphabetizing the column of sources). When I started playing with the idea of stanzas, it truly worked as a book-length piece. What I love about the collection is that it was fun to write, to collect, to create. The surprise of going from one sentence to another sentence creates its own metaphor—placing two unlike things together to say they can be compared or are the same. Prose Poetry seems to work on that level, from sentence to sentence for enjambment.
                Another thing I love about the collection is it does what I set out to accomplish--to pull off a memoir as text as representation, borderlining the confessional mode. It's hard for me to read confessional poetry anymore, but the experimental mode seems the best way to convey true emotions without pointing the finger or dropping a ton of lead onto someone's foot.

DL: What made you want to be a poet?

DE: A young boy told me that people write poetry to say the things they normally wouldn’t say, to share feelings they wouldn’t normally feel. I wanted to do that. During my first years at Washburn University earning a degree in Computer Systems Analysis, Dr. Jorge Nobo from Washburn’s Philosophy Department gave me advice on how to improve my writing: carry a thesaurus and write in a journal daily. I did, and that journal became really personal. It was a way to get my deeper voice on paper, to examine my life and wish to connect with others. The journal held my first poems. I then went to an open-mic poetry night at the Classic Bean and realized poets were alive and well, not only being published around the country, but living in Topeka. I was dedicated from then on.

DL: You have an MFA and other degrees. What helped your writing from your education?

DE: Each degree in English helped me further to realizing I wanted to write out of memoir, to play with what the “I” could do, and to write something past post-Confessionalism. Working with all of my mentors showed me different ways of exploring form based on each person’s preference in her or his own writing.

DL: What did you learn on your own?

DE: I read everything I could—wishing to be as well-read as possible. My own studies of various writers taught me how form and context serves the poem’s intent in different ways.

DL: What do you want to accomplish in your writing?

DE: I am still exploring those things from the past, as well as wanting to explore the Patriarchal, racist, sexist, anti-LGBT, classist culture we are a part of. They are intertwined—the public and the private. If I can write as a form of activism, I want it to be a part of the many other voices speaking now.

DL: What poetic form in your poetry is interesting to you and how/why?

DE: I vary in forms. My chapbooks are lyrical, and I’ve began making those poems into a full-length collection. I also love how My Secret Wars turned out. I have also started experimenting with poems as footnotes to other poems—embedded like Matroyshka dolls.

DL: Please give a sample poem in that form.

DE:

yearbook pages⁵ surveyed

 

 

 

 

 

 

I alienate myself on this planet

 but record as an anthropologist

every name of each lifeform
as this was my world

 

 5

as a closed-off street I walked
sometimes as a clown
to put on a face
recognized with
two outcasts hung out with me
one my best friend I knew
the first and last name
of every last student
the first thing I think about
when looking back
down the blocks of photos
names like house-markers
streets I ran to escape
after the final bell to Comics
& Fantasys [sic], I am sick
of being Orpheus
I look back every time see
your own middle school for details

 ***********************************

Dennis Etzel Jr. lives with Carrie and the boys in Topeka, Kansas where he teaches English at Washburn University. He has an MFA from The University of Kansas, and an MA and Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies from Kansas State University. He has two chapbooks, The Sum of Two Mothers (ELJ Publications 2013) and My Graphic Novel (Kattywompus Press 2015), and a full-length poetic memoir My Secret Wars of 1984 (BlazeVOX 2015). His work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, BlazeVOX, Fact-Simile, 1913: a journal of poetic forms, 3:AM, Tarpaulin Sky, DIAGRAM, and others. He is a TALK Scholar for the Kansas Humanities Council and leads poetry workshops in various Kansas spaces. Please feel free to connect with him at dennisetzeljr.com.

 

 

Kansas Poet Laureate Eric McHenry Explains Poetry

Eric McHenry, the fifth and current Kansas Poet Laureate, recently shared insights about poetry at Kansas City Kansas Community College. He described the unique place of poetry among the arts: ““A poem is composed of words. A song is composed of notes, and a painting is composed of paint. But the historical function of paint is not to mean. The historical function of notes is not to mean,' he said. 'However, the historical function of language is to mean, to communicate, to express, to convey and to make things clearer.'” Here is the article about his visit to KCKCC, with more of his insights about poetry:

                 Eric McHenry, the Poet Laureate of Kansas, visited Kansas City Kansas Community College Oct. 29 to share his talent and love of poetry with students, faculty, staff and community members. “The best poems, for me, are the opposite of page turners, they are page don’t turners,” he said. “When I finish a page of poetry that blows me away, the last thing I want to do is turn the page. I want to stay there with it, re-enter it, and continue digging until I have gotten to the bottom of it. Some of the best poems I know on the surface are the furthest things one can imagine from a page turner.”

Denise Low, Eric McHenry, Wyatt Townley, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

                McHenry was named the 2015-17 Poet Laureate of Kansas by the Kansas Humanities Council in April. As poet laureate, he will work to promote the humanities as a public resource in Kansas through appearances, presentations, public readings and discussions throughout the state. His visit to KCKCC was jointly sponsored by the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Division; Institutional Services; the KCKCC Library and the Intercultural Center.
                One of the poems McHenry recited was “The Bean Eaters” by Gwendolyn Brooks. Born in 1917 in Topeka, Kan., she was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize when she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950. McHenry said he had the honor of meeting Brooks in the late 1990s when she visited Washburn University.
                Another poem that he shared was “After Apple-Picking” by Robert Frost. He described the poem as “an experience. It is a world we can enter and inhabit. The point of the poem, to me, is its existence,” he said. “This is not to say this is a poem without meanings that we can apply to our own lives and experiences. One of the reasons the poem seems so real, so true, is because it speaks to experiences so many of us have had.” . . . .  McHenry said many times when reading poetry, people look to find the meaning. He said looking for that meaning might be an unreasonable to ask of a poem. “A poem is composed of words. A song is composed of notes, and a painting is composed of paint. But the historical function of paint is not to mean. The historical function of notes is not to mean,” he said. “However, the historical function of language is to mean, to communicate, to express, to convey and to make things clearer. It is a natural human reaction to a poem to say what does it mean. What is it trying to say? I think when you ask those questions, you risk restricting what the poem can be a little too much.”

---

Bio: "Known throughout the United States as a poet, McHenry is an associate professor at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. His work has appeared in a variety of publications including Poetry International and Yale Review. In addition, publications such as the New York Times and Columbia magazine have published his poetry reviews. His third book of poems, Odd Evening, will be published in 2016. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for poetry seven times and is the recipient of the Theodore Roethke Prize. In 2007, he received the Kate Tufts Discovery Award for his first book of poems, Potscrubber Lullabies. It is the largest American prize for a first book of poetry."
LINKS

Eric McHenry named Poet Laureate of Kansas by the Kansas Humanities Council.

McHenry Interview with Miranda Ericsson. Same Interview as a link.

Eric McHenry on Wikipedia

Eric McHenry and his book, Potscrubber Lullabies on Waywiser Press'swebsite

Eric McHenry on Washburn University's website

Potscrubber Lullabies on Powell's Books' website

Nov. 13, 2015, Kansas City Kansas Community College 7250 State Ave. Kansas City, Kan. 66112, press release.

Alarie Tennille Responds to a Writer’s Survey

Thanks to Kansas City poet Alarie Tennille for allowing me to post her responses to my writers’ survey. I created this for several professional workshops. Tennille is a force in the Kansas City literary scene. She recently was runner-up for the prestigious Thorpe Menn Award for her book Running Counterclockwise (Aldrich Press, 2014), which I reviewed for the Kansas City Star-- A quartet of locally rooted poets  She is a thoughtful person; her wise responses are helpful for writers and readers alike.

 Personal Writing Style

1. Where do you do your best writing? Describe the table, chair, keyboard or tablet, and room or place. AT: My best first drafts are usually written somewhere cozy, usually I'm sitting on my sofa with my legs up. I write in long hand in a magic notebook. (It's magic because it seems to expand and never fill up...well, not for years anyway. I favor large sheets of lined paper in a spiral bound book that will lie flat. Cat on lap optional (at cat's discretion). Usually I have a hot mug of tea beside me, sometimes a different beverage. After that I move to my computer in my upstairs study to type it in. The room is red, and I'm surrounded by bookcases.
2. What audio environment works best for your writing? Silence or background chatter? AT: I definitely don't like chatter. I prefer silence or very soft Classical music (nothing with lyrics!). Nature sounds are fine: birds, fountains.
3. What is the feeling you get when you do your best writing? Does this happen often? AT: It doesn't have to be my best writing, just writing that pleases me at that moment. (I sometimes change my mind later.) At times, it's a peacefulness, because I can let go of my guilt about procrastination or writer's block. Other times, it's an adrenalin rush. I almost want to share it with the world right then, though I know that's not a good idea. (The adrenalin rush is typically after I hear my critique group's reaction.) Thankfully, the feeling comes pretty often and never gets old. I wrote professionally for many years and didn't have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. Now I don't pressure myself to write every day, but enough to be ready for my critique group.

Public Writing Experience

1. What kinds of experience do you have with publicly sharing writing (besides this class)? AT: If it's bringing a homework assignment in for a critique, I generally enjoy it. If it's sharing what I just wrote on-the-spot, I don't like feeling pressured to do that. My best writing rarely happens sitting at a table of strangers and working on a tight deadline.
2. What do you enjoy about public situations that involve sharing of writing? What is your favorite type of activity? AT: I love to share my writing at public readings and open mics. However, it took me many years to get over my stage fright. I like hearing and seeing the crowd's reactions. I'm often surprised which poems seem to be the evening's favorites. I can feel shy about sharing in a workshop if I don't feel I've had time to polish my work a little.
3. When you participate in a public activity you like, do you have any feelings similar to your good writing times? AT: YES! The satisfaction of reading my poems to an audience is really the culmination to my original feeling of wanting to share the poem.
4. What can you do to improve your personal satisfaction from writing? From public sharing of writing? AT: The best way to improve both craft and satisfaction is to work at it and repeat the process. If you'd told me 10-11 years ago that I'd one day enjoy giving public readings, I wouldn't have believed you.

 Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia with a genius older brother destined for NASA, a ghost, and a yard full of cats. A Phi Beta Kappa, she graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class that admitted women (B.A. with distinction in English). She met her husband, graphic artist Chris Purcell, in college. She still misses the ocean, but loves the writing community she’s found in Kansas City. After a career ranging from technical editor to greeting card writer, Alarie is retired and has more time to focus on her poetry writing. She serves on the Emeritus Board of The Writers Place. Her poem, “The Quilters of Gee’s Bend” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2010, she published a chapbook, Spiraling into Control (The Lives You Touch Publications). In 2014, Alarie celebrates her first full-length poetry collection, Running Counterclockwise (Kelsay Books: Aldrich Press), a Thorpe Menn Award finalist. Her work appears in The Whirlybird Anthology of Kansas City Writers and in numerous journals including Margie, Poetry East, Coal City Review, I-70 Review, English Journal, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and Southern Women’s Review. Website: http://alariepoet.com/ Reviews

A quartet of locally rooted poets.The Kansas City Star.

Interview: Alarie Tennille . Zingara Poet

 

 

K.C. Writer Pat Daneman Reports on the Brooklyn Book Festival

Impressions from the 10th Annual Brooklyn Book Festival, September 20, 2015

by Pat Daneman
I was lucky to have my most recent trip to New York coincide with this year’s Brooklyn Book Festival, which bills itself as the largest free independent literary festival in the U.S. It is 10 days of events spread across venues in the heart of the borough:  Hundreds of national and international writers, editors, independent booksellers and small-press publishers. Food trucks. Books and magazines and mugs and tote bags and Kurt Vonnegut dolls for sale. Crowds of happy, friendly word lovers crammed into the narrow aisles of bookstores. Standing-room-only poetry  readings. Cheers and whistles. Long, loud applause. Panels and Readings The festival runs for a week. The main day of events this year was Sunday, September 20. I attended with my daughter, Kathy, who lives in Brooklyn and works in publishing. Eight or nine events were scheduled every hour from

10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Programs included The Writer’s Life, with Joyce Carol Oates, Ben Greenman and Pico Iyer reading from their new work and discussing process and inspiration; John Leguizamo and Jonathan Lethem talking about storytelling; and memoirists Charles Blow, Augusten Burroughs, Kate Bolick and Robert Christgau sharing stories about family. Terry McMillan was there and A.M. Homes, Jim Shepard, Stuart O’Nan, Heidi Julavits, Russell Banks, Edwidge Danticat, Andre Dubus III—to name just a few of the dozens of writers I love to read but didn’t get to see because I couldn’t be in four places at once.

Shopping Every book by every author at the festival was for sale somewhere and also books from indie publishers like Ugly Duckling Presse, Featherproof and Poets Wear Prada, and exciting lit mags with exciting names: Bomb. Epiphany. Confrontation. I fell victim to a T-shirt vendor displaying merchandise that featured my favorite Brooklyn poet, the one who rode the ferry and wrote “. . . stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! / Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!” 
Prizes Kathy and I bought hot dogs and fries from Nathan’s food truck and found a shady seat for the Quotables contest. Festival staff read a quote and the first person to call out the author’s name won a prize. Not to brag, but Kathy and I each won an official BBF T-shirt within 5 minutes of arriving. Then we decided to move on to give everyone else a chance.

Inspiration Tina Chang, Marie Howe and Jean Valentine—past and present New York state poets laureate—reading new work—angry, moving, obstinate poems about current events. Saeed Jones reading from his debut collection Prelude to a Bruise. It is the story of Boy, a queer African-American growing up in the South. It is stunning. Buy it. Mark Doty leading a conversation between Elizabeth Alexander and Tracy K. Smith about poets going deep to write memoirs of personal grief.
Ping-Pong Tournament
The Battle for the Paddle—Brooklyn Book Festival vs. Brooklyn Public Library. I regret to say we skipped this. Maybe next year.  www.brooklynbookfestival.org 
  

Annual indie party at Greenlight Bookstore

Pat Daneman is a New York native who lives in Lenexa, KS.  She is a poet, pet sitter and freelance writer/editor.  Her most recent poems appear in the anthology New Poetry from the Midwest, I-70 Review, Comstock Review and Bellevue Literary Review.   On November 7, she will be teaching a workshop on putting together a poetry chapbook at The Writer’s Place in Kansas City. Her chapbook, Where the World Begins, is available from Finishing Line Press . See more at Pat Daneman

  
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

Denise Low Reviews Richard Siken and Amy Gerstler for the KC Star

Richard Siken's War of the Foxes (Copper Canyon) and Amy Gerstler's Scattered at Sea (Penguin) are both intense, well written books. The latter begins: "What to do with gazillions of factoids accumulating in the Age of the Internet? A Shakespearean sonnet cannot present Facebook news feed in a mere 14 lines. Or can it? Poet Amy Gerstler, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, has found a way to celebrate the infinite branching of knowledge. She collages it in exuberant, endless scrapbooks interspersed with her own life story. She makes rich poetry. Divisions in the book are “Kissing,” “Womanish,” “Dust of Heirs, Dust of Ancestors,” “What I Did With Your Ashes” and “Only at Certain Sacred Locations.” The last considers reincarnation and the journeys of “A Terribly Sentimental Fork,” among other surprises. Each of Gerstler’s poems has a personal voice, overlaid with a Babel of images."

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/article25366783.html#storylink=cpy

See more of my reviews at:

http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/article25366783.html