Holly Walrath's Blog, page 27

NaPoWriMo Day 8, 9, & 10

i got a bit behind on NaPoWriMo in the past few days because LIFE and also the release of my latest chapbook, forgive me for I am not a robot. Wish I were. Anywho here is one complete haiku and two other snippets from things I’m playing around with. I love haiku because it’s such an ancient form but it’s also fun to stretch and play around with, to break the form.

Pre-Orders For GlimmerGlass Girl Now Open

​“Tensile and luminous as a glass-winged butterfly, Glimmerglass Girl chronicles the passions of a woman’s heart and its multifarious musings with a marvelous mix of toughness and tenderness. In a shimmering world at once ‘honey-brimmed and buzzing,’ where ‘blueberry coffee’ and a ‘kissing prayer,’ or a ‘quiet mess of a body of light’ offer diurnal delights, this wildly chimerical gathering of hybridized fairy tales and fabulous meditations on womanhood might carry Emily Dickinson’s admonition of epistolary intimacy, ‘open me carefully.’ Indeed, readers should open Walrath’s slender volume carefully, hold these rare poems up to the sun, then lean in quietly to hear each one sing in flight.”
 
—Karen An-hwei Lee, author of Phylo of Joy, Ardor, and In Medias Res. ​ Pre-Order Today My first chapbook of poems, Glimmerglass Girl, is now available from Finishing Line Press for Pre-order! I am beyond thrilled (and a little bit terrified, tired, overwhelmed, and awed) to share this book with you. 

Glimmerglass Girl is about feminity and feminism, how we negotiate our past as women and our present, how we other ourselves into creatures and what we pass on. The lead poem in Glimmerglass Girl is from the Greta Oto or espejitos butterfly. Although this little butterfly looks delicate, it can carry up to 40 times its weight. Some of the poems are introspective and personal narrative and others are imaginary. Some are disturbing. Some are illustrated and cross-genre. All are but pieces of myself.

"Washing the dishes, peeling an onion, wearing a bra, all these details of life become immersed in magic in Holly Lyn Walrath's gorgeous poems.  In Glimmerglass Girl, the questions of how to be a woman and how to reconcile the different sides of our bodies and selves is brought into startling focus. Walrath's writing takes your breath away and then sucker punches you, but I mean this in the best possible way--these poems devastate, destruct, and then bring you back to life."

—Chloe N. Clark, ​author of The Science of Unvanishing Objects​

Special Pre-Order Promotion: 

All pre-orders are eligible to receive a free, limited edition, butterfly lapel pin. These pins are 1.25" wide, custom-printed and epoxy-coated, featuring a brass butterfly clasp. Only 50 pins are available, so get yours before they sell out! 

To receive your pin, simply pre-order the book at Finishing Line Press, send me your address so I can mail you your pin! Pins will be mailed at the end of the pre-order period in June/July. Books ship August 3, 2018.

​

NaPoWriMo Day 6 + 7

Wrote two poems today to play catch-up. Above is inspired by a line from a poem by Ursula K. Le Guin, “Twilight was a Sound of Water”

Sometimes I write tiny poem-like creatures like this snippet. They are mostly wandering stray thoughts.

NaPoWriMo Day 5

I’ve been playing around with Instagram lately, adding images to photo. It’s fun to try out. This one was inspired by Blade Runner and K’s Baseline test.

NaPoWriMo Day 4

This is a short piece that’s part of a larger chapbook of Very Small Poems I’ve been working on. The violence here is an extension of my own struggles with depression and violent thought patterns.

Day 3 of NaPoWriMo

For this poem, I was struggling to get something down. So I picked up the New York Times in my coffee shop and made a found poem using phrases from articles.

I like the result. It’s a fun method to break out of my normal phrasing.

NaPoWriMo Day 2

one of the reasons I like doing poetry challenges like #NaPoWriMo is that it shows we’re all human. This one has all kinds of scratch outs but it will get revised later and be awesome, I can just feel it sizzling.

NaPoWriMo Day 1

I’m posting this late due to the fact that my schedule is basically insane right now. Enjoy this creepy ode to Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl.

New Subscriber-Only Post at Curious Fictions: Odd Jobs and Past Selves

I've been posting some subscriber-only content on Curious Fictions, a new platform similar to Patreon. You can read them by subscribing to my author page. 

This latest is about the odd jobs of writers and how we negotiate our past selves. Hope you enjoy reading! 

New Curious Fictions Story!

I have a new reprint up at Curious Fictions: Mermaid Hunt. This story first appeared in Pulp Literature. It's a flash fiction based on a world where gender roles are flipped, featuring a bad-ass lady submarine captain. 

Stay tuned - I'll be updating this story to my website in free audio and text versions soon! Also be on the lookout for the glorious artwork that I commissioned to go with this story.  Read Mermaid Hunt