“You don’t blog about me like you used to” -WJD

Books I’ve Ordered:

I’m also reading Tarpaulin Sky Issue #13/ Print Issue #1 Fall/Winter 2007. The cover, I think, reflects the feminine, spiritual nature of the poems (to categorize them reductively). I don’t “agree” with a lot of the subject matter, but every so often I’ll read a poem that, even if I lack agreement, I will concede to its master of craft. 

I liked Annie Guthrie, specifically her poem “*Weather’d:”

The world unwound shut down.

Thunder, and a newly reckoned darkness.

The light out made birds sound otherwise.

 

I feared the place inside I never visited.

Was out now, a flushed out dark would up in sky

crossed by lightning–

I recognize myself out there in those pockets
of darkness between flashes:

I can hold the reigns of the visible.

The visible: a tyrant over taste & smells and bird calls
and other calls.

The thunder unseams a silent sky,
and my wonder.

How a mind makes shapes of gathering clouds.

(I feel,) I say,
I feel designed. 

I like Guthrie’s bookends to the poem: “The world unwound shut down.” and “(I feel,), I say,/ I feel designed.” It is that sort of word and sound play that turned me on to her poetry in the magazine. Typing the poem out was a good exercise because I became hyperaware of her use of line breaks, which are varied in a way that I didn’t pick up on when I read it. 

Some other notable poets in the magazine: Karla Kelsey, Bethany Wright, John Deming. But I’m not done reading yet.

Also, those of you who are in the NYC/Chicago/LA/etc areas, y’all poets are broke and need to check out MyOpenBar. It’s a website that lists all the open bars in whatever area you’re in. The catch? It’s usually open because the bar is promoting a new kind of alcohol, which is the only thing they’ll serve free. I checked it out with my friend WJD in Manhattan on Monday and we drank free bourbon from 6-8 pm. You can’t beat that.