7 Somersaults


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 strongly beg to difer.
Rhyme is complex as wine, or can be.
More than ever, I feel dedicated to pitching an article for 2016 about rhyme
and all the things it can be. It will be my third attempt.

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