the INLAID EAR

My second attempt to list " Poetry Review Reading Comment Feedback Evaluation on Your Poem by Published Poet " on eBay was a lot more mutually fruitful than the first. Upping the ante from one cent to one dollar weeded out eBayers who just wanted to exchange positive feedback, a crucial element in the eBay culture of trust. Instead, I connected with one Peter Rocha who paid 99c (66c after PayPal's cut) for what turned out to be 1,000 words of feedback on his poem — and my utter pleasure. It was amazing to engage in the sincere creative output of a complete stranger, to find it in the gem of personal truth and to reply with honest feedback including what grabbed me and what I wasn't as excited about. Overall the poem pleased me, and the exchange between us even more so. He said he was leaving university soon and worried he might not find such a ready source of creative sharing as he has enjoyed in school. Maybe that's why he turned to eBay. And that's fin...

Today I swapped in naturally for needlessly because why should any dramatic action be judged causeless if it's still worth mentioning? Or why should it be judged at all when even a shrug puts something into the mood? I want these words to roam like mountain goats in Death Valley, to be their own reasons with curled horns. And when in illness, age or avalanche they fall, I want to know their bones bleach sharp and clear, in the canyon nobody visits, in the blazing air. What?! Yup.

Lipogram day! Lipo- in this case means lacking or leaving though the spelling is the same as lipo- meaning fat . It's fascinating how the prefix in liposuction works two ways at once! Lipograms are writings in which one more more letters of the alphabet are consciously omitted. This morning I began to recast "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as a lipogram series. My warm up was omitting the letter B , an uncommon  letter, but significant as it begins boat and but . The B lipogram: Row, row, row your raft gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Life: it is a dream. Leaving out W was also pretty easy as it only appears in row and down . But replaying row is a little tricky. As an ancient monosyllable, it doesn't have many monosyllabic synonyms. Using paddle destroys the meters. I fell back on a somewhat uncommon verb: Punt, punt, punt your boat gently on the stream... The rest is the same. M is also uncommon, but has a big impact here...

Here's something I knew about eBay: ratings are VERY important. Every registered eBay user has a number associated with their user name, and that number is associated with a star. This higher the number, the fancier the star. This more positive feedback is left for you, the higher your number goes, and the fancier your star becomes. The fancy star and the high number— and the high the percentage next to the legend "Positive feedback," the greater the trust from eBay buyers as a class. What I've learned about today's eBay is that sellers will spend the time to find penny auctions and spend the few cents just to exchange positive feedback. I looked and found several eBay listings for nothing more than positive feedback. Many start at a penny, but there are people asking 99 cents for the service. I bid six cents and should know soon if I've won. There will be no poem coming from the car-parts seller who purchased my offer to read and give comme...

Greetings, When you're ready, please send your poem for me to review and respond to. Let me know anything you'd like about the kind of feedback you wish, what you want out of writing poetry, whether you intend to publish or share your work with others, and any other thoughts you have for me before I read. I will then read your poem and respond. Afterwards, you can pay me the 11 cents, or if you think what I provide you is worth more, I am certainly open to a tip :) Sincerely yours,

I'm auctioning a poem-readiing-and-feedback correspondence on eBay . As of this writing, the value is cash American is six hundredths of a dollar. But I know from recent exchanges with a talented but relatively new poet that being earnestly read and commented on is a considerable heart value. This experiment is also one of marketing: how do I make the eBay listing more alluring and more expressive of the intangible value it represents? Can I begin to accumulate testimonials over time? The truth is, I do this sort of thing for free when I'm in the mood. I think it will be a good learning. And perhaps I will ask permission to post poems and my feedback and correspondence here. But it will be the poet's perogative.

Thrilling post today: got my copy of 2015 Poet's Market starring me! So cool to see my name in print, even on the thin paper of this seminal directory. My essay is on creative techniques—somersaults— for editing poetry on a level beyond the typical checklist about excising cliches and converting to active voice. No, my essay is about mind-space, creative oil to get the word libido as juiced as it is in the drafting or conception of poems. How to recapture that fervor for the focused and slow process of weighing and retasting each word? I feel my essay in the book takes its own space and says something that hasn't been said before in this way. *** Also piqued to see an essay about rhyme, one of my favorite subjects, that treats, to my surprise only in true rhyme: true blue lou and actually disparages off rhyme! What?! Emily Dickinson and I William Blake and I William Carlos Williams and I A gillion poets, music makers and hearers of sounds str...

Everything is improving your writing. Existence is, I think, yellow pine. I could sit. I could write the answers. Mesa. http://www.shamansmarket.com/catalog/product/view/id/1811 Shaare Emeth, http://www.shaare-emeth.org/Our-History Learn to get small, heart and soul, Shifting, imperfect—Gosh! I am standing, counting the days. Round about ten, I’m verging. What vessel slips through yesterday— Summertime Lantern Gazelle— to that woman— you, you, you! Friday morning, it was fairy tales. We sent dips, lips, pips, quips, periphery poem scene eating & releasing. I will introduce myself as lonely dry lake. What is a mountain? Clarice? Valerie? Like her sifts and settles, my worst, reckless aphorisms fill the space. So much happens in a day! I get peeved life has only one blossoming, and this insensitivity. The embrace— if I embrace Daniel in love and burn when observed,

Words open into libraries . My cognition leaps easily . How do fingertips apprehend this instant fractal teleport ?