Gene Twaronite's Blog, page 6

How to Stuff a Rhino

A long time ago, I wrote this children’s story about a boy’s imaginary trip to Africa. It was published in my short story collection Dragon Daily News. I was recently asked my Robert Topp, of the website Read Me a Story, Ink (https://readmeastoryink.com/) if he could record the story and set it to music. You can listen to it here:

How to Stuff a Rhino by Gene Twaronite

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https://square.link/u/wkKYSmtA

Better to Own a House

I was going over some older poems of mine for my reading tomorrow here in Tucson, and in light of today’s disturbing Supreme Court ruling I thought I’d post this poem. It cannot be said enough. Women’s reproductive rights are human rights. And none of us are truly free when women are forced to give birth.

Shopping Cart Dreams – Live!

I am excited to announce that I’ve been invited to perform an in-person reading (my first in three years!) from my new collection Shopping Cart Dreams. This live event will be at Woods Memorial Library in Tucson (3455 N. First Ave.) on Saturday, June 25, at 2 p.m. My reading will be 40-45 minutes, then open up for questions and book signing. Copies of my new book will be available for purchase.

For those of you who live in or near Tucson, having you there would mean a great deal to me. The event will be held in a large meeting room, with ample space for social distancing. Face masks are recommended though optional. Though I plan not to wear a mask while reading up front, I will be wearing one at my book signing table, and ask that anyone approaching the table also wear one (face masks will be supplied). Covid is part of the new reality we must all live with, and I want this to be a safe healthy event for everyone. Hope to see you on the 25th! Here’s the event listing:

https://pima.bibliocommons.com/events/6272e741d750209972268245

And for those who can’t attend, please pass along this info to anyone you think might be interested. Lastly, here’s the link where you can purchase my book: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/shopping-cart-dreams

Advance Reviews for Shopping Cart Dreams

Here are two more reviews of my newest poetry collection Shopping Cart Dreams.

“Gene’s craft is so airtight his poetry seems to effortlessly reveal the deeper truths that we thirst for, and they contain a gravity that our hearts simply cannot escape. He creates a complicated view of our existence, and we love how this fully engages our minds and hearts each time we return to the world of his words.”

—Jeff Sommerfeld and Jason Splichal, Editors, Sky Island Journal

“Gene Twaronite offers a mix of free verse, sonnets, sestinas, prose poems and ekphrastic poetry which invite us to look at life through different lenses.  His prose poem, “A Street Named Wherever,” warns about “what happens when you do things automatically” and you stop seeing what is actually around you.  Twaronite entices us with clever poems that deliver unexpected takes on our ordinary world.  In the title poem, the shopping carts, which once dreamed of useful and meaningful lives, now face a different sad dream where they end up discarded and filled with the “detritus of all they once carried.” Twaronite’s poems subtly suggest a choice ­­– we are free to see a unique world within a sidewalk crack or, facing an unhappy dreamscape, to choose a better, different dream.” 

— Barry Harris, Editor, Tipton Poetry Journal

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Shopping Cart Dreams: Available Now

I am pleased to annouce that my fourth poetry book Shopping Cart Dreams has just been published by Kelsay Books. A full-length collection offering an eclectic range of poems ranging from serious to quirky and absurd, this is my most ambitious work yet. Though mostly free verse, it includes a number of prose, ekphrastic, and found poems as well as several sonnets and a sestina. Two-thirds of the poems included here have previously appeared or been accepted for publication in literary journals. Read what one advance reviewer writes:

“In these poems on People, Places, Journeys, Choices, and Perplexities, our senses awaken to new ways of perceiving what has been before us for years. Gene Twaronite works sometimes in set forms (sestina, sonnets), but also in prose poems and found poems and mostly in free verse. For him, the poet’s task is to watch and listen, taste and touch, until words reveal their identities. At times, those identities are ekphrastic: Edward Hopper and Thomas Moran are decisive. At times, we meet the tenderness of a father’s love (“Yellow Fireworks”) or a stranger’s empathy (“Doppelganger”). At their best, Twaronite’s poems bring us face to face with the wounded and marginalized people we might pass by every day, making us alive to what lies beneath the surface. Listen closely, reader, to those poems that turn on the moments when there is “nothing to fear / but the failure / to see the pain / of all things” (“Surprises”).”

—Richard Newhauser, Professor   
Department of English, Arizona State University

Available here: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/shopping-cart-dreams

Working on My Signature

An author signs a book
to affirm the life within.
Written in subconscious code,
it is the soul’s imprimatur.

Note the perfectly formed letters
in Virginia Woolf’s signature, wholly legible
as if meant to show a balanced soul
never at war with itself.

What complexities lurk in the signature
of Edgar Allan Poe, who adorned his letters
with loops and dots, underlined beneath
like a swirling maelstrom.

But why write the whole thing out?
E.E. Cummings, ever the nonconformist,
signed with just his initials,
this time capitalized.

Emily Dickinson used only her first name,
her misshapen letters spaced wide apart,
the ending “y” snaking beneath like a lake of solitude.
Pity she never got to autograph her book.

See how Billy Collins simplifies,
snipping out unnecessary letters,
opening his “B” with a short vertical line
and a drunken sideways “3”

followed by more vertical lines
and occasional dots, the rest
a wave breaking gently
on a welcoming shore.   

So I’m working on my signature,
writing in code a squiggly line
I hope will give me
its blessing.

First published in Tipton Poetry Journal #52 – Spring 2022

The Dilettante

I was just going through some of my earlier poems and discovered this one, from my first published collection Trash Picker on Mars.* It reminds me of my early days as a writer when in my rush to fill the page with words I did not always take the time to find exactly the right ones. Like many young writers, I was more in love with the idea of being a writer than the writing itself.

*You can read more about this book and others on my book page.

Detroit Poetry Reading

I’ve been invited to do a virtual reading of my poetry by the  Unitarian Universalist Church in Detroit. For their monthly program, the group selects from a wide range of poets from across the country. The event is on Thursday, May 26, at 7 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, which for you folks on Arizona Time is 4 p.m.. I will be sharing poems from my new book Shopping Cart Dreams as well as from my previous collections along with two short pre-recorded musical pieces which I’ve been asked to provide. The general public is invited to attend, and no other business will be conducted during this special event, which will run for 40-45 minutes. Hope you can drop by. Here’s the Zoom link. Thanks for reading this.

https://zoom.us/j/99979852182?pwd=SW5ueTQyMnQxbjgwWVR1NWJ1QUJnUT09

 Phone 312-626-6799

Meeting ID: 999 7985 2182,

Passcode: 178251