POETRY PEDDLER: DANCING ON MARS

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

DANCING ON MARS

I haven't mentioned my book on the poetry blog, and I really should. Some of my poems are in it.

None of the poems were written specifically for the book; in fact, I hadn't planned to include my own poems at all. It just—happened. I won't go into the long and winding story about seeking permission to use other people's poems and finally giving up. Now it seems my own poems were meant to be in there; they're a good "fit."

Selected poems, written over the past thirty years, have been placed in related text in this memoir/exploration. They amplify what's said with the prose, sharpen and distill it. At least I hope that's what they do.

Dancing on Mars opens and closes with a poem. The first, "The Reluctant Thespian" was written very early in my poem-making life, in the mid-1970's. The last poem in the book, "Dream Yourself," was written while I was writing the book, but with no thought of including it. It just— happened.

With "Dream Yourself" I had challenged myself to get more comfortable with fantasy and allow my imagination to have its way. Far too reality-based, I wanted to broaden my scope of themes and images. I like to believe that particular poem points to "growth," but mostly it was just fun to write.

It's my hope that the accessibility of the poems will convert any poetryphobes out there. Maybe it will show readers that poetry isn't about dissecting a poem or "getting" what the poet intended to say. Very often this poet isn't at all sure what she intends to say herself! What matters is what the reader gets from experiencing a poem.

I invite you to check out the book trailer my generous, talented, and very busy son created for Dancing on Mars. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV4YjoQ9ksw&feature=youtu.be If you like it, there's a place to indicate that next to the video; you can also leave a comment.

The book, published by All Things That Matter Press, will launch this spring —I'm thinking fairly early this spring, sometime after the sap begins to rise and before butter melts on the table in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Stay tuned, y'all!

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Nikky Finney Wins National Book Award

I had decided to pair some pleasant TV with my dinner, and channel-flipping landed me at C-Span’s Book TV. There I received the gift of seeing a replay of the National Book Awards. I was filled with pride and delight that South Carolina poet Nikky Finney won the 2011 Award for Poetry. Even though I have her award-winning book, this awards ceremony was too good to have missed. Her speech, and what host John Lithgow had to say, are things I won't soon forget.

Here are some words from Joy Priest in Kentucky Kernel:

As Nikky Finney began her acceptance speech for “Head Off and Split” — the 2011 winner of the National Book Award for Poetry — on Wednesday evening, one might have mistaken it for a poem.
But it was just Finney, the Provost’s Distinguished Service Chair Professor of English at UK, being who she was and living, “the only life I’ve ever wanted, that of a poet,” she said.
“A fine of $100 and six months of prison will be imposed for teaching a slave to read and write,” Finney began her speech, reading from the 1739 slave codes of South Carolina. She talked about how blacks were forbidden to be literate in her home state and across America for a part of history.

John Lithgow, actor and host for the evening, took the podium over from Finney in front of an audience responding to her acceptance with a standing ovation.
“That was the best acceptance speech for anything I’ve ever heard in my life,” Lithgow said. “That’s also the loudest I’ve ever heard people cheer for a poetry award.”

Indeed. And isn't that marveous?! I hope it's the sign of greater appreciation of poetry. I suspect the enthusiasm, in this case, was for the poet herself, every bit of it richly deserved. Shine on, Nikky Finney.

More from the Mouths of Poets

Poetry can bring together those parts of us which exist in dread and those which have the surviving sense of a possible happiness, collectivity, community, a loss of isolation ~ Adrienne Rich

By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other.
~ Rita Dove

Poetry is a conversation with the world; poetry is a conversation with the words on the page in which you allow those words to speak back to you, and poetry is a conversation with yourself.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

I cannot imagine how other people live without poetry, because for me poetry is a way of living my life, a way of feeling life.

~ Daisy Zamora

Note: These quotes are from Bill Moyers' book, The Language of Life - A Festival of Poets (Doubleday, 1995) I treasure this book; bet you'd like to have it on your shelves, too. Another time-and-love-worn
book (never far from my reach) is Coleman Barks' The Essential Rumi. I have a number of Mary Oliver's books; you can't go wrong starting your Mary Oliver collection with her New and Selected Poems.
And I highly recommend celebrating yourself with a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and Kim Rosen writes about the joy of learning poems by heart in Saved by a Poem. A CD is included -- featuring poets reading the poems Rosen talks about in the book.

A few other poets I'd call "bigtime famous" and whose work I admire are Derek Walcott, Pablo Neruda, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, Sharon Olds, David Whyte, Mark Nepo, Joy Harjo, and Naomi Shihab Nye. Someday I will compile a list of local and area poets whose work I enjoy.

Asked to read my "favorite poem" recently. I couldn't oblige. There's no way to choose. In fact, I've failed here to name many of the poets I admire and enjoy.

Consider giving yourself the gift of poetry. Your life will become richer and more delicious if you do. You won't have to analyze, memorize, or take a test. Just absorb them, take them into your heart, poem by poem. Savor each one like a rich dessert. Listen for whatever any poem might have to say to you. You only have to open yourself to it. Then surrender to floating on the benevolent waves of wherever the experience takes you.

It's okay if a poem doesn't move you, energize you, make you feel something that's been in hiding or think of something in a fresh, new way. It's no reflection on your intelligence or sensitivity. Accept that it's simply not a poem you resonate with and let it go. There are plenty more to sample. Keep reading and enjoy the feast!

The Poet Says . . .

"Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out....Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure."
~ A. E. Housman

"Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason."
~ Novalis

"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there."
~ William Carlos Williams

"Poetry is nearer vital truth than history." ~ Plato

"Poetry enacts our own losses so that we can share the notion that we all lose--and hold each other's hand, as it were, in losing." ~ Donald Hall

Poetry is ". . . the human soul entire, squeezed like a lemon or a lime, drop by drop, into atomic words."
~ Langston Hughes

"A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman."
~ Wallace Stevens

"A poet can survive everything but a misprint."
~ Oscar Wilde

Literary Bio

Lucinda Shirley is a member of the South Carolina Writers Workshop, the Southeastern Writers Association, and the South Carolina Poetry Society. Her work has appeared in Sandlapper Magazine, Auntie Bellum, Midlands Woman, Skirt!, The Quill, Petigru Review, Purple Pros, and Pluff Mud Mag. From time to time she shares political opinions with area newspapers.

Her first book, Dancing on Mars, (a genre-bending "expanded memoir" from All Things That Matter Press) is now available in paperback and for Kindle at Amazon and for Nook at Barnes and Noble online.

Once Lucinda was awarded both first and second place in a poetry competition sponsored by the SCWW. She was relieved to learn there had been other entries.

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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

DANCING ON MARS

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Nikky Finney Wins National Book Award

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