A Constellation of Kisses

A Constellation of Kisses, is a brand new anthology edited by Diane Lockward.  The song says that "A kiss is just a kiss," but poets often remind us that a kiss is rarely just a kiss. Lockward has assembled over 100 poems about kisses written by many of our best contemporary poets.


You'll find kisses longed for, kisses auditioned, kisses rehearsed, ritualistic kissing, delicious kissing. There is kissing that comforts the grieving. Kissing that blesses a union.

Kisses in this anthology may be romantic or funny or comforting or erotic or mournful--and more.

We may hope that kissing always begins in delight and keeps on being delightful. But the truth, of course, is otherwise. This is, after all, a constellation of kisses.

May there be no end to the most genuine kisses, the right kisses, the ones that are good and meant for us to savor. And while we're at it, let's wish for no end to poems about kissing. (from the Foreword by Lee Upton)

Full Disclosure: A poem of mine is included in this anthology.

'The Practicing Poet' - Book Launch Event

If you are in the New Jersey metro area this weekend, I invite you to join me at a book launch reading for The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics on Sunday, November 11, 2018.  I am one of a number of poets who will be reading our poems that are in this new craft book.

The event will be at the West Caldwell Public Library (30 Clinton Rd., West Caldwell, NJ, 07006) at 2:00 PM.

Check out the event on Facebook.

Please join us to celebrate the publication - and get some poetic inspiration from the readers, including Jessica deKoninck, Deborah Gerrish, Tina Kelley, Adele Kenny, Jennifer Kosuda, Camille Norvaisas, Susanna Rich, Maxine Susman and the editor of the book, Diane Lockward.

A reception will follow the reading. Everyone is invited and books will be available for sale and signing.

Are You a Practicing Poet?

Are you a practicing poet?  The new craft book, The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics has in its title a double meaning. As an adjective, "practicing" means actively working at a profession, such as medicine, law or poetry. But as an implied verb, all poets are practicing their craft, like an athlete always trying to improve.

The editor of this collection of craft essays, writing prompts, and sample poems is Diane Lockward. Diane fits both definitions.

As a practicing poet, her collections of poetry include, most recently, The Uneaten Carrots of Atonement, as well as What Feeds Us  and Eve’s Red Dress.

As a teacher and poet, Diane knows the need for continuous practice in the craft of poetry. Her blog and newsletter includes many prompts and craft lessons.

The Practicing Poet is her third craft book. It was preceded by The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop and a sequel, The Crafty Poet II.

In this new book, there are ten sections with each devoted to a poetic concept, such as "Discovering New Material," "Working with Sentences and Line Breaks," "Crafting Surprise," and "Transforming Your Poems." The final section, "Publishing Your Book," covers manuscript organization, book promotion, and how to present a good public reading.

The book includes thirty brief craft essays, each followed by a model poem, analysis of the poem's craft, and then a prompt based on the poem.

Full disclosure: I have known Diane for many years, going back to when both of us were high school English teachers and poets who were practicing. I also have sample poems in The Crafty Poet and The Practicing Poet.

Her craft books are suitable as a classroom text, a guidebook in a workshop, or an at-home tutorial for the practicing poet who is working independently.

Each section includes 3 craft tips from such poets as Nicole Cooley, Patrick Donnelly, Barbara Hamby, Molly Peacock, Diane Seuss, Maggie Smith, and Lawrence Raab.

Plus, each section also includes 3 model poems contributed by such poets as Thomas Lux, Joseph Bathanti, Camille Dungy, James Galvin, and Vievee Francis. These 30 model poems each have an analysis of its poetic techniques, and a prompt based on the poem.

There are also 60 sample poems suggest the possibilities in the prompts, 10 bonus prompts, and 10 poets each compiled a list of their best poetry wisdom. The lists come from Patricia Smith, Lee Upton, George Bilgere, David Kirby, Robert Wrigley, Dorianne Laux, Jan Beatty, Ellen Bass, Alberto Rios, and Oliver de la Paz.

The book represents three years of work from Diane in compiling the material in this book and the result shows her care.


          

Book Launch for The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop

Book Launch for The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop

Sunday, November 10, 2013

2 PM

Join Diane Lockward and 20 poets featured in the book for a book launch reading for The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop at the West Caldwell Public Library (30 Clinton Road, West Caldwell, NJ)

. . . this is a poetry exercise/craft tip book poets (and English instructors) only dream about, a collection divided into sections such as "Sound," "Voice," and "Syntax," each addressing the stated topic with relevant writing/revision suggestions, plus a poem provided as a springboard for writing a poem in a similar mode or form. There are even examples of poems written from the prompt. . . I look forward to the next time I teach introduction to poetry writing because I definitely think students will appreciate the specificity of Lockward's prompts.
Martha Silano, Blue Positive

Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, most recently, Temptation by Water. Her poems have been included in such anthologies as Poetry Daily: 360 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times, and have been published in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. 

The book conatins model poems with prompts, writing tips, and interviews contributed by 56 of our nation's finest poets, including 13 former and current state Poets Laureate: Kim Addonizio, JoAnn Balingit, Ellen Bass, Jan Beatty, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Robert Bense, Pam Bernard, Michelle Bitting, Deborah Bogen, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Edward Byrne, Kelly Cherry, Philip F. Deaver, Bruce Dethlefsen, Caitlin Doyle, Patricia Fargnoli, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Amy Gerstler, Karin Gottshall, Jennifer Gresham, Bruce Guernsey, Marilyn Hacker, Jeffrey Harrison, Lola Haskins, Jane Hirshfield, Gray Jacobik, Rod Jellema, Richard Jones, Julie Kane, Adele Kenny, Dorianne Laux, Sydney Lea, Hailey Leithauser, Jeffrey Levine, Diane Lockward, Denise Low, Jennifer Maier, Marie-Elizabeth Mali, Jeffrey McDaniel, Wesley McNair, Susan Laughter Meyers, Bronwen Butter Newcott, Alicia Ostriker, Linda Pastan, Stanley Plumly, Vern Rutsala, Martha Silano, Marilyn L. Taylor, Matthew Thorburn, Lee Upton, Nance Van Winckel, Ingrid Wendt, Nancy White, Cecilia Woloch, Baron Wormser, Suzanne Zweizig

And an additional 45 accomplished poets whose poems inspired by the prompts in the book serve as samples: Joel Allegretti, Linda Benninghoff, Broeck Blumberg, Rose Mary Boehm, Bob Bradshaw, Kelly Cressio-Moeller, Rachel Dacus, Ann DeVenezia, Liz Dolan, Kristina England, Laura Freedgood, Gail Fishman Gerwin, Erica Goss, Jeanie Greensfelder, Constance Hanstedt, John Hutchinson, Penny Harter, Wendy Elizabeth Ingersoll, Tina Kelley, Claire Keyes, Laurie Kolp, Joan Mazza, Janet McCann, Antoinette Libro, Charlotte Mandel, Joan Mazza, Janet McCann, Nancy Bailey Miller, Thomas Moudry, Drew Myron, Shawnte Orion, Donna Pflueger, Wanda Praisner, Susanna Rich, Ken Ronkowitz, Basil Rouskas, Nancy Scott, Martha Silano, Linda Simone, Melissa Studdard, Lisken Van Pelt Dus, Jeanne Wagner, Ingrid Wendt, Scott Wiggerman, Bill Wunder, Michael T. Young, Sander Zulauf

Tenth Annual Celebration of Literary Journals May 19

  

Join 12 literary journals and their editors for the free tenth annual POETRY FESTIVAL: A CELEBRATION OF LITERARY JOURNALS in New Jersey. This annual event, organized by poet Diane Lockward, includes readings throughout the afternoon by poets featured in the journals.

Books by the poets will be available for sale and for signing and the 12 journals will be displayed and available for purchase. This is a great opportunity for poets to talk with the editors about their publications. Each journal will be represented by two poets who have published in that journal.

Sunday, May 19, 2013
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
West Caldwell Public Library (30 Clinton Road, West Caldwell, New Jersey, 973-226-5441)

The journals that will be represented:

1. Adanna
2. Edison Literary Review
3. Exit 13
4. Journal of New Jersey Poets
5. Lips
6. Painted Bride Quarterly
7. Paterson Literary Review
8. Raintown Review
9. Schuylkill Valley Journal
10. Stillwater Review
11. Tiferet
12. US 1 Worksheets

Scheduled poets reading throughout the afternoon:
ROBERT CARNEVALE
MIKE COHEN
LORRAINE DORAN
JUDITHA DOWD
SANDRA DUGUID
MARTIN FARAWELL
ANDREW “INK” FEINDT
JIM GWYN
MIRIAM HAIER
ERIC HELLER
ERNEST HILBERT
LINDA HILLRINGHOUSE
JANET KIRCHHEIMER
DAVID KOZINSKI
FRANCESCA MAXIME
KATHY NELSON
KATHE PALKA
WANDA PRAISNER
ED ROMOND
LINDA STERN
CHUCK TRIPI
EMILY VOGEL
JOE WEIL
EDYTTA WOJNAR

Ample Parking; Refreshments Available; #33 NJT Bus Stop Within Short Walking Distance; Many Area Restaurants

Directions to Event

Festival Information

Figurative Language

These days, many people associate formal poetry with "old poetry."  Forms, like sonnets, and rhyme schemes are often seen as those things we had to study in school.

When many readers see lines like

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?

their eyes get cloudy - and they stop reading.

Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, most recently, Temptation by Water.  Her free monthly poetry newsletter (subscribe here) has reviews, writing tips and a poetry prompt. She is collecting some of those prompts and model poems in a new book, The Crafty Poet, due out later this year.

In one issue, I was struck by Diane's suggestion that literal language is not always enough for a poem.

The just-right use of the figurative—moving beyond the dictionary meaning of words—can open a poem to both broader interpretation and greater exactness. Metaphor and simile are what we first think of when we consider figurative language, but there are enough other rhetorical figures to boggle the mind. 

Five of the figurative tools that she suggests (beyond the familiar metaphor and simile) are apostrophe, personification, hyperbole, metonymy, and synecdoche. They are all good tools that poets should know and use.

To use apostrophe, as John Donne does, for example, in his sonnet “Death, be not proud,” is to bring to the subject an immediacy not otherwise possible. Direct address achieves this feeling of being up-close and personal.

Personification creates a similar effect of immediacy. It can enliven a poem and heighten its emotion, as Philip Levine does in “Animals Are Passing from Our Lives,” a poem in which the pig speaking is given human qualities: It's wonderful how I jog / on four honed-down ivory toes. Personification can be tricky; the key is knowing when to use it and how much is enough in a poem.

Frost, in “After Apple-Picking,” finds a surprisingly convincing way to get across the idea “I have had too much / Of apple picking” with the hyperbole “There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch.”

Metonymy, with its substitution of an associated word for the intended one, shortwires the way we think of the substituted term and thereby offers an efficiency of language. In “How She Described Her Ex-Husband When the Police Called,” poet Martha Clarkson ends with, "He’s the joker pinned in bicycle spokes / vanishing down the street." Because it’s common knowledge that a joker is a playing card, the substitution works.

Synecdoche, with its substitution of a part for the whole, is a type of metonymy, providing that same efficiency. T. S. Eliot uses synecdoche in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in the lines "I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."  In doing so, he gives us claws as an intentional disembodiment.

Poetry Only

Not that poets don't like prose, but...

Diane Lockward has a nice post that lists poetry-only journals that she reads so that she doesn't find herself "skipping over the prose pieces to get to the poems."

As Diane says, these are "poetry with perhaps some reviews of poetry books, interviews with poets, and/or a poetics essay. A bit of art would be nice, too.

She includes: Poet Lore (Poetry and Reviews, occasional essay. Two issues per year.), Rattle (Poetry and interviews. Each issue has a section of poems solicited from a particular group, e.g., nurses, attorneys. Reviews are online. Two issues per year.), Southern Poetry Review (Pure poetry. Two issues per year.) and others.

Read on...  "Blogalicious: Poetry Only, Please:

Lazy Summer Prompt

Poets Online has been on a bit of a hiatus lately (yes, there will be a new July prompt!), but not everyone in the poetry world has been lazy. Poet Diane Lockward is always active and her July newsletter she offers this prompt for you in the meantime.

The prompt poem is by Marie-Elizabeth Mali which Diane found in the 2011 collection, Steady, My Gaze.

Second Year of Marriage


Over breakfast and the staggering waft

of jasmine tea and pesto eggs, you say

if it were your job to create the senses,

you would have forgotten smell.

I keep my mouth shut, look

intrigued. A link to the limbic,

the olfactory: the pulse-quickening

scent-coffee, green-humid air, exhaust—

of the airport in Venezuela—or the way

the geranium in my living room sends me

straight back to my grandparents' deck,

those summer lunches. Last year,

I would have tried to convince you

of smell's virtues. Instead, I let it be.

Later, we fight over the best way to unlock

the car. No matter. Your scent, that wordless

telegram, still takes me apart, like it did

when it first arrived out of nowhere.


Diane's prompt:  What intrigues me in this poem is the poet's use of smell. We are very accustomed to visual imagery, but not so much to olfactory imagery. And yet smell is such an important sense. When I read the lines about the geranium taking the speaker right back to her grandparents' deck, I knew just what she meant, that is, how closely tied to past experience smell can be. There's a certain kind of wet morning that takes me back to Red Raider Camp with its vile man-made lake full of frogs and mud. The morning smell triggers my memory, along with a sense of revulsion and a keen ache of nostalgia. Whenever I smell lilies of the valley, I remember my mother's Muguet des Bois, my mother all dolled up to go to Canasta Club. Let's see how the sense of smell might work for you in a poem.

Write down the names of some sensuous food items, ones with fabulous aromas.

Write down some other items with strong, distinctive smells.

Let one or more of these trigger a memory. Go back to another time and place.

Is there another person in your present scene and / or in the past scene?

Let this be a love poem, though it doesn't have to be a romantic love poem.

Now see how you might pull your material into a draft that shifts back and forth between past and present. Try just freewriting at first. Give yourself 10 minutes.

Shape your material into a poem, maybe eventually using 2-line stanzas as Marie-Elizabeth has.

   

Follow Diane at her blog dianelockward.blogspot.com and her official site dianelockward.com

A Poetry Newsletter

In addition to her Blogalicious poetry blog, poet Diane Lockward is now doing a free monthly poetry newsletter.

The first one offered a poem and a prompt, useful links (journals that read during the summer and print journals that accept online submissions), a book recommendation (The Working Poet: 75 Writing Exercises and a Poetry Anthology, edited by Scott Minar). There was also Molly Fisk's Poem-A-Day project for August.

You can can sign up for her newsletter at her blog.

Diane's own books of poetry are Eve's Red Dress, What Feeds Us and her newest collection, Temptation by Water.

Festival of NJ Literary Journals This Weekend in Caldwell

A Celebration of New Jersey’s Literary Journals (and Some Neighbors)

This will be the sixth year of this showcase event created by poet Diane Lockward. 

Twelve journals will be displayed and available for purchase and each journal will be represented by two poets reading who have published in the journal. 

Readings will be held throughout the event and poets' books will be available for sale and signing.

• Journals will be available along with subscription and submission information.
• Editors will answer questions about publishing.
• 24 poets will read throughout the afternoon.
• Books will be available for sale and signing.

at the West Caldwell Public Library
30 Clinton Rd.
West Caldwell, NJ

1-5 PM
Free

directions via GoogleMaps

schedule of readers

JOURNALS & EDITORS

Edison Literary Review
Gina Larkin

Exit 13
Tom Plante

Journal of New Jersey Poets
Sandy Zulauf

Lips
Laura Boss

The Literary Review
Minna Proctor

New York Quarterly
Raymond Hammond

Now Culture
Gene Myers and Don Zirilli

Painted Bride Quarterly
Marion Wrenn

Paterson Literary Review
Maria Mazziotti Gillan

River Poets Journal
Judith Lawrence

Tiferet
Donna Stein

U.S. 1 Worksheets
Nancy Scott

Celebrating NJ's Literary Journals - June 1 - Free Festival

Diane Lockward has been organizing a poetry festival that is a "Celebration of New Jersey's Literary Journals (and Some Neighbors)" since 2004. (Here's a funny NY Times take on that first one.)

I guess folks outside NJ don't realize that there's a LOT of poetry happening here. After all, the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival (the Big Kahuna of poetry festivals) is here, and the Dodge supports many other poetry efforts in the state.

This day of poetry spotlights New Jersey publications devoted to poetry and brings editors out to meet the people who are submitting poems. There are also very fast paced readings going on all afternoon.

Check out Diane's own poetry site for the full list of poets, journals and editors.

Here's a look at last year's event -





Sunday, June 1, 2008
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

at the West Caldwell Public Library
30 Clinton Rd.
West Caldwell, New Jersey

call for info: 973-226-5441

click for directions

Good Advice Gone Bad

"You Should Avoid Doctors", says Diane Lockward in our model poem for November. Diane takes it a step further and provides our writing prompt.

"Take a piece of good advice and write a poem in which you argue for its opposite. As in my poem--we're told to go for the yearly physical, to stay in touch with the doctor, but the poem argues just the opposite--stay away from the doctor! There seems to be a bit of a tradition in poetry for this approach - Donne's "Valediction Forbidding Mourning" or Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night". As a writing strategy I find it liberating and exciting to be on the opposite side of the fence. I call it playing Opposite George--after a Seinfeld episode in which George announced that henceforth he'd be doing everything opposite; he'd be " Opposite George". Of course, my beginning point is not of the size that Donne or Thomas used, but I like taking something seemingly insignificant and escalating it. You might choose something like: chew with your mouth closed, don't make waves, play by the rules (you'll come up with better than these, I'm sure). Bonus challenge: Use a body part in the poem."

A first for us - extra credit!

I last saw Diane when the two of us were greeting busloads of high school students and their teachers at this year's Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. She mentioned during our down time that her new book would be out this fall, so I contacted her last month about using something from the collection on Poets Online.

Diane and I met years ago when we were both teaching secondary school English. We have both left those noisy but wonderful hallways, but she still works as a poet-in-the-schools for both the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

She also conducts writing workshops for young and old poets, inexperienced and experienced poets, and for teachers on how to teach poetry, so writing prompts are a part of her repertoire.

I like her wit and wordtwisting - what Thomas Lux calls on the book jacket, "humorous and sometimes heartbreaking...plain-spoken and rich, lush."

Another one of her poems opens this way:

The Missing Wife

Wife and dog missing.
Reward for the dog.
—bumper sticker on a pickup truck

The wife and the dog planned their escape
months in advance, laid up biscuits and bones,
waited for the careless moment when he’d forget
to latch the gate, then hightailed it.
They took shelter in the forest, camouflaged
the scent of their trail with leaves.
Free of him at last,
they peed with relief on a tree.

I have heard Lux, Billy Collins and other poets say that they like "to learn something new" in a poem. I agree. Look how Diane gives us a fact and then sets it ablaze in this stanza from her poem, "Pyromania":

And now I learn that silicone in the breasts
must be excised before cremation
or it blows up, liquefying to a dangerous substance,
destroying the crematorium.
I’d like to have breasts like that—
round and full, earth-tipped and tilted
heavenward, the kind that ignite and explode.
I’d like my breasts to burst into flame,
spreading like wildfire,
tongues of scarlet licking the walls.
I’d like breasts just that white-hot
as once they were under the touch
of my lover, so recently departed.
I’d like to burn the crematorium down.

Have you got some good advice that you think we could turn around for poetic purposes? Even if you can't write the poem, post your advice below in the comments and let someone else take a crack at it.


Diane Lockward is the author of Eve's Red Dress and What Feeds Us (Wind Publications, 2003, 2006). Diane has also been a featured poet at a number of festivals, such as the Warren County Poetry Festival, the Inkberry Festival, the Long Branch Poetry Festival, the Walt Whitman Poetry Festival, and the 2006 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. She was a featured poet at the 2005 Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching and a workshop presenter at the New Jersey State Council of Teachers of English Conference in both 2003 and 2006. Her work has recently appeared in The Seattle Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Poet Lore,and Prairie Schooner, as well as in the anthologies Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times.





Diane's Website is at http://www.dianelockward.com/