Celia Lisset Alvarez's Blog, page 7

Poetry Revision 101, Lesson Two: Countering the Bobblehead Reflex

When I was about 13 or so, I wrote this poem:





The Poet,

before the invention of tweezers.
Amber are the eyes of love

Through them I see a blazing fire

As I look at you with wild desire.



Topaz shine the tiger's eyesBefore he leaps upon his prey

I will hunt you night and day

And love you till the sapphire moonlight goes away.



Like diamonds shines the morning sunAs it illuminates an onyx sky

And turn it aquamarine,

First low, then high.



The night is goneBut soon it will come,

And...

Black-Eyed Peas & Quinoa Salad

As promised, today I'm participating in the 32 Poems Blog's call for "Recipes for Poets." I'm not a "great" cook or anything like that, but I enjoy cooking very much the same way some people enjoy shopping (which I definitely don't!). You put together an outfit, and, though you may never wear it, it holds such promise! Surely anyone who wears an off-the-shoulder black silk dress and four-inch stilettos is part of some walking party. Or, perhaps you wear the outfit, but wind up getting...

Please Stop Explaining: Poetry Revision 101

Don't speak

I know just what you're saying

So please stop explaining

Don't tell me cause it hurts

Don't speak

I know what you're thinking

I don't need your reasons

Don't tell me cause it hurts

—"Don't Speak," No Doubt



May is the perfect month to think about revision. If you wrote a bunch of poems for National Poetry Month in April, you now have a bunch of drafts and might be wondering where's a good place to start revising. I've got a great one for you: stop explaining.

It's...

Cooking with Celia?

Cooking is a lot like writing poetry. Think of the ingredients as words; you toss some together, and the whole becomes bigger than its parts. You experiment, fiddle with it. One day cilantro, another day parsley. It feeds you.



It's no wonder, then, that come May 20, 2011, Deborah Ager of the 32poems blog is going to be collecting recipes from poet-bloggers. Here is her rationale:

Recipes for Poetsby 32poems on April 26, 2011



Time management is one of the most important (yet seldom...

Wonder Wheeler

Poet Lesley Wheeler, author of Heterotopia (Barrow Street, 2010), shares her experiences on writing, teaching, the VIDA count, and Wom-po.

When I reviewed Lesley Wheeler's Scholarship Girl (Finishing Line Press, 2007) for Prairie Schooner in 2009, what struck me about the collection was its resonance with my own experience of being the child of immigrants. What could this collection of poems about Liverpool via Virginia possibly have to do with a Cuban-American who grew up in Miami? I was...

The Winners of the 2011 Big Poetry Giveaway

As promised, I have just selected the two winners of the 2011 Big Poetry Giveaway at my blog via random number generator. The winning entries were 1 and 13, Yazmin Andino of Miami, Florida and Michael Wells of Independence, Missouri. Yazmin will receive a copy of my chapbook, Shapeshifting ,  and Michael will receive a copy of Ann E. Michael's The Capable Heart . My hearty congratulations to you both, and my deepest gratitude to all of you who participated. I hope you'll come back next year...

Feeling in Forms

A good book for

learning about the

evolution of

American verse.
The past century or so saw the rise of free verse and, if not the decline of Formalism, a definite rethinking of it (especially in the US). Formalism, in short, is the practice of writing in form, established patterns of poetry such as the sonnet or haiku (read more here). Because of its reliance on tradition, formal poetry turns off hard-core free verse poets who find form too constrictive or perhaps prefabricated...

Ekphrasis: Exercises in Ecstasy

I'm not the biggest fan of "poetry prompts," little exercises meant to stretch your poetic muscles, such as writing down random words and making a poem out of them on an equally random topic. Some people respond to these really well, and some people just don't, and I'm one of the latter (it might have something to do with my overall allergy to exercise of any sort). Occasionally, a prompt will move me to write something funky I would not have thought of before, but more often my attempts at...

Advice to a Young Poet from a Not-So-Young-Anymore Poet

There's been a rash of advice given the month. Jeannine Hall Gailey has an excellent post at her blog, with links to a few more. Here is mine. It's not intended for poets who are mainly thinking of poetry as a hobby, although you might get something out of it if so. Mostly, I'm thinking of the YP (Young Poet) who wants more—a "career."

1.       Overcome the amateur circuit.

For some, cutting your teeth at the local open mic event is a catalyst. You wrote a few poems you were unsure anyone...

How to Meet Your Muse

"I meet the muse in the poems of others and invite her to my poems. I see over and over again, in different ways, what is possible, how the perimeters of poetry are expanding and making way for new forms."

—Denise Duhamel, from CHIMERA: an interview with Denise Duhamel by Karla Huston



The Shadow of Sirius,

the latest book from

current US Poet Laureate

W. S. Merwin
Do you know who the current US Poet Laureate is? Of your state? (Or, if you are one of my mysterious Denmark readers...