A Moment to Believe In and Other Good Finds Sunday

The Purple-Leaf Plums are blooming in my backyard

I've selected Anne Sexton's "The Expatriates" as the poem for this week. "...it was a moment/ to clutch at for a moment/so that you may believe in it..."

Other good finds from this week:

Librotraficante is smuggling banned books back into Arizona in the coming weeks

It's Women's History Month! How are you celebrating? Here's a poetry pairing for it!

I want to go for a ride with Terrance Hayes - fabulous poetry article! 

The back story for my poem "Flying Ant" is now up on Rose & Thorn Journal's blog

A lovely music video to inspire you: "Did Skies Divide" by Leora Caylor

What has inspired you? What are you looking forward to this week?

Parting with a Book

A few months ago, I began writing a found poem after each poetry collection I read. It started with Anne Sexton's Transformations and moved on to Naomi Shihab Nye's Transfer along with Jane Hirshfield's Come, Thief. I try to capture my favorite moments within each book and weave them into something for myself and further reflection. It's become my way of letting go of the book, a sweet parting of ways for now.

Currently, I'm on the last chapter of Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. I'm thinking about extending my found poem tradition to fiction books too.

What are you reading right now and what do you do once you've finished with a book?

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: Generating Content - Logopoetics

TECHNIQUE. Jack ends this section with a statement I feel is more of a question: "It's just a matter of whether the techniques are being invented in the making or are being applied more consciously as devices a book such as this can teach."

I'd like to know what he thought about Anne Sexton's Transformations. There are many varied streams of consciousness and clever uses of literary devices throughout her collection. Were these poems carefully crafted or had they already been created in her mind, longing for the page? The layers in Sexton's poems are exquisite. "The White Snake" comes to mind...

I tried my hand at the exercise this section concluded with entitled "Twenty Little Poetry Projects" by Jim Simmerman.  I feel as if I've channeled John Ashbery in my attempt (think "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape") and am still chuckling about my hen and her impending frying.

I think you can create a poem from each one of these "Twenty Little Poetry Projects."  Have fun!