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But Does it Rhyme?
We're a small, but
hopefully growing, band of poets who like to
talk about our craft and share what we've
written. We'll highlight favorite poets, review
new books, and explore the process of writing
poetry from inspiration to conclusion. (We might
venture into essays and short fiction, too.) We
hope you'll like our blog — and contribute your
own thought and poems.
Sally Zakariya, Poetry Editor
Richer Resources Publications
Charan Sue Wollard
(LivermoreLit)
Kevin Taylor
(Poet-ch'i)
Sherry Weaver Smith
(SherrysKnowledgeQuest)
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| ARCHIVES |
Your Name Here
That’s what I called a brief essay I wrote recently for the Mothers Always Write blog
The 25th Hour. I’d been thinking a lot about getting my poems published, in print or online, and I came up with some tips for other writers hoping to do the same. (See the post
here.)
My advice was nothing startling: know the market, submit often and widely, keep careful track, follow the submission guidelines, and above all, don’t give up. You’ve no doubt read similar suggestions already. But the real trick is putting them into practice
This morning I got another impersonal rejection email. Too bad, but I guess at least it shows I’m trying. The other day I counted up my submissions so far this year. I’ve had 10 acceptances out of a grand total of 78 submissions, a 12% acceptance rate. (Rejections are running at 23%, with many submissions still “under review.”)
Is 12% good? I don’t know, but I’ve learned one thing: don’t take those rejections personally. When I was a magazine editor, I rejected far, far more over-the-transom submissions than I accepted. After all, a print magazine has only so many pages. And even online, where page counts don’t count, there’s no accounting for taste. One poem that was dear to my heart was rejected 10 times before an editor accepted it. So I keep on.
By the way, writers who are parents should take a look at
Mothers Always Write, a fresh young site for parents of all ages. Fathers welcome, too, I understand.
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Coda
From Beat to Buddhist to Sufi poet,
Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore
was an American original, a prolific poet who wrote playfully, insightfully, ecstatically about the Big Questions of life, death, and the divine. He was also a dear friend, and we mourn his loss from a cancer that he faced with characteristic grace and humor and sweetness.
(Mini Epiphany En Route to Athens, GA)
Abdal-Hayy always seemed to have one foot in this world and one in the next. Now he is fully there, no doubt writing poetry in paradise.
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Here’s how my husband, Arabic-script calligrapher Mohamed Zakariya, described him on the back of one of the poet’s many books: “Abdal-Hayy lives the poetic life. He is the real thing. He has been there. He has seen it, written of it, and come to tell us, in his own voice, all about it. If you want to know what ‘it’ is, ask him and he will tell you, with cosmic music, with wit, with the intensity of a well-banked fire that warms but never burns.”
At a recent gathering, I read a few of his poems, ending with this small gem:
In an airplane there’s really very little
between you and the air
In this world there’s really very little
between you and the next
Feeling Flaky
Eliot may have said “April is the cruelist month,” but around here, it tends to be February or March, not to mention January. Snowmageddon, snowzilla, la tormenta de nieve di diablo—whatever you call it, we’ve had a lot of it lately, including dustings like lamb’s wool as March came in. Hence two poems about snow:
Late Snowfall
All that bluster, and only a little meaning,
for only a little while. The flowering quince
can wait it out, forsythia bide its time,
but crocuses, tuned to another reckoning,
appear on cosmic schedule anyway,
it seems, in spite of interruption.
It doesn't matter. Order will be restored
by afternoon, when schoolgirls coming home
will make their plans without regard to weather.
Geller, who calls himself an old poet from Boston, now lives in Northern Virginia. His amusing poem “Foodish” was the opening act in our 2015 anthology
Joys of the Table.
And speaking of old, here’s a poem I wrote some years ago:
Lullaby for a Winter Evening
Lie down and let me tell you about snow br /> about geometry and silence
two parts cold to one part marvel
let me tell you of the twofold
mystery of its nature
how a single flake
dissolves at once
how two flakes linger
when they gather
whitely on the ground
Lie down and lift your face to snow
drifting down like petals
in a spring orchard
taste it on your tongue
a fleeting kiss of ice
Lie down and listen to the
wind wind through the apple trees
twisting the bare twigs
into complex runes
against a curtained sky
spelling out a recipe
for snow
((first published in
Innisfree Poetry Journal, Spring 2014)/font>
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Views from the Balcony
Last year, my friend Beth Isham
wrote/a>
about her “through the window glass” daily poetry journal. Here are a few of her 2015 observations:
January 11
“These observations of the morning sky serve as rough drafts for future poems, short stories, and memoirs,” Beth writes. “I grew up in a smallish town with open and wide Michigan skies. My adult life was in cities with sky seldom visible. What a joy it is to meet again the majestic colors and shapes of space—freedom!”
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Fun with Form
Mel Goldberg, whose moving poem “The Chocolate Cake” appeared in
Joys of the Table
What are you trying to hide?
Wet blanket stretched
across the horizon.
Tree skeletons holding up the sky
but the sky is not there.
Only the fog.
The moisture particles collected en masse
into a gray nothingness.
January 12
A band of golden yellow
Across the horizon.
Bright flames leap into the sky.
Morning has begun.
February 9
Small particles of sky
fall earthward
and appear as snowflakes.
Mel manages to tell a meaningful story in a light-hearted but challenging format. I stand amazed.
The Pig Who Wanted to Be a Jew
One morning Pig sat up in bed
He’d had his dream anew
To all the animals he said,
“I want to be a Jew.”
Creatures came to have their say
Began to shout and bray,
“What makes you think,” they said in scorn,
“That you can get your way?”
Ram trotted up and shook his horns
“I once became the life
That saved young Isaac, the first born
When Avram raised his knife.
I was the sacred sacrifice
In place of Isaac’s price.
My horn’s the shofar blown to say
Only atonement will suffice. .
Pig felt chagrined and walked away.
Lamb said, “We gave salvation.”
She sneered at Pig and shook her ears,
“We saved the Hebrew nation.
They smeared our blood upon their doors.
We were God’s conspirators.”
Pig felt great sadness for each one
of all his ancestors. .
“Then Pharaoh lost his first-born son
And set the Hebrews free.
To wander in the desert sun
Each one a refugee.”
Though Pig was sad he was not glum
He cried, “I won’t succumb
To scorn. I will pursue my quest.
A Jew I will become.”
Then Goat said, “That’s a fool’s request.
While I must carry sin,
You have done nothing to be blessed
So Jews may all begin
A year with spirits fresh and clean
And every soul serene.”
Then Pig let out a heart-felt sob,
“I might have never been.
Why do I have no sacred job?
It really isn’t fair.
I do not wish to be a snob
But what good is my prayer?”
A somber God heard Pig complain
“You’re needed just like rain
In my beloved eternal plan.
Your loss would be a stain.
Although I placed you in the ban
In Deuteronomy,
Your place is quite significant
In air on land or sea.
You serve to constantly remind
All Jews that they must bind
Themselves to honor the Torah
And work to help mankind.”
Then Pig stood tall, puffed out his chest.
He had a job to do.
He’d take his place and do his best.
Perhaps he always knew
All creatures have a place.
His fate Is to communicate
That every living thing has worth—
Those who serve and those who validate
Mel Goldberg has taught literature and writing in California, Illinois, Arizona, and as a Fulbright Exchange teacher in Cambridgeshire, England. His writing has been published online and in print in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico.
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What Are You Writing?
Why should we get all the bylines? Submit your
latest poem—just one for now—and we’ll publish
the poems we like best in an upcoming blog post.
Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please
let us know if the poem is accepted or published
elsewhere. Send your poem, plus a few lines
about yourself, in the body of an e-mail message
to:
poetryeditor@RicherResourcesPublications.com