Jamie's comments (member since Sep 29, 2007)

Jamie's comments from the ¡ POETRY ! group.

Erica,
Your state university may have an online option for a workshop through their adult education or night class offerings. The University of Tennessee offers a very reasonably priced online poetry workshop at around $99 when I took it. The class was excellent and I could easily fit it in to my schedule as I could sign in and do the assignments whenever I wanted. The quality was good and the participants knowledgeable and enthusiastic. For my first online class I picked something through the university because I thought the source would be reliable. Also check in to local writing guilds. Ours offers very cheap workshops once a year run by local professors and published writers. (Both of these have students of all ages, which really improves the quality of the class in my mind.)

Jan wrote: "Hi Jamie,
I'd love to hear more about your Excel system and/or see a sample. My friend MK Chavez, another poet and writer, wants to set up such a system for my personal use on my Mac iBook and her ..."

Jan, Sorry to take so long to get back to you, but I will send an example of my spreadsheet and hopefully you will find it useful. Look for an email from kjkjz. I also used Duotrope, referenced earlier in this thread, which I find very useful.

Jamie

Malcolm,
How kind of you to share your experience. It is encouraging to learn of your successes. Thank you and by the way, Toll is a wonderful poem.

Ruth, I use Excel which is pretty much the same idea, but then you can sort by title, by publication, by status and by date submitted, which can be helpful.

Whoops, sorry about the typo. The collection is entitled Valentines.

Also take a look at Ted Kooser's collection of love poems from his collection, Valentine's.
Here is one:

Map of the World

One of the ancient maps of the world
is heart-shaped, carefully drawn
and once washed with bright colors,
though the colors have faded
as you might expect feelings to fade
from a fragile old heart, the brown map
of a life. But feeling is indelible,
and longing infinite, a starburst compass
pointing in all the directions
two lovers might go, a fresh breeze
swelling their sails, the future uncharted,
still far from the edge
where the sea pours into the stars.

Nice, Robert. Thanks for sharing. I look forward to reading more.

Very nice job on Contact. It was the rhythm of the piece that especially struck me. And the fresh comparison of the loved one to a poem. You smoothly carried the analogy throughout your piece without forcing the images. I especially liked 'coincidence of skin' and 'The spaces between words are the way you breathe'. I wonder if the title gives your piece justice. Contact to me connotes something brief. The poem itself describes something more prolonged. I really enjoyed it. Keep up the good work.

This online journal was new to me and quite a find. Lots of good material. I liked Jacqueline May's Simple Tips for the Beginning Cook.