Diane Lockward's Blog, page 46

Chapbook Spotlight: No Blues This Raucous Song

Click Cover for Amazon
It is no surprise that Lynn Wagner's No Blues This Raucous Song won the 2009 Slapering Hol chapbook competition. The collection has the unity we hope to find in a chapbook as well as consistently outstanding poems, each full of its own treasures. Slapering Hol always produces exquisite chapbooks, but this one goes beyond exquisite. It is a thing of beauty and the perfect model of the art of book-making. Each chapbook in this limited edition is hand-sewn and hand-nu...

The Benefits of Publishing Online

Now that I've posted about what I like in an online journal and which online journals I admire, I want to consider the benefits of publishing your work in an online journal.



When online journals started competing for our attention and our poems, I sort of looked down my nose at them. They seemed tentative, not sufficiently official. I suspected that they were easier to get into. I wondered if anyone actually read them. I wondered if a publication in an online journal was considered a...

Online Journals I Admire Redux

The following is a list of online journals culled from the multitude now available. The ones I've listed here all have many of the features I admire and look for. They might not be your favorites, but they'll give you a good idea of what's out there. Undoubtedly, I've omitted some that you would have included.



**indicates new to the list



Blood Orange Review

Poetry, fiction, non-fiction, book reviews, gorgeous art; a bit difficult to navigate--have to keep going back in order to go...

Online Journals: What I Want Redux

Back in December of 2008, I posted about online journals. I first blogged on the topic as a result of a conversation that had taken place on the Wompo listserv. Print vs Online was the gist of the conversation. Back then I was doing the weekly newsletter for the listserv—and still am doing—and observed that most of the journal publications each week were in print journals. Now less than two years later, that has dramatically reversed. With that reversal in mind and the continued proliferatio...

Upon Reflection

The March / April issue of The Writer's Chronicle has a great interview with Gregory Orr. One of his responses struck me especially forcefully. When asked which poets had shaped him as a writer, which ones he felt a kinship with, Orr said: "I have this theory that we're looking for stuff that's going to save our lives: poems and songs we love so much that they're a key to our own being. When we find those poems or songs, and a lot of them are lyric poems but sometimes they're songs, we never ...

An Online Poetry Anthology: Poetry.Us

Photo by Mark Thalman


I am delighted and honored to have been invited to have my work included in Mark Thalman's wonderful new online anthology, Poetry.Us. This is an evolving site which will continue to grow.  I'm already in some very good company, e.g., Alicia Ostriker, Pat Fargnoli, Marilyn L. Taylor, Barbara Crooker, Ingrid Wendt, Tess Gallagher, Floyd Skloot, and Ron Slate. There are 29 poets posted with more coming soon. I've just learned that Linda Pastan and Maria Mazziotti...

Poetry Salon: Barbara Crooker

Barbara Crooker is a poet I first met online at the Wompo listserv. We soon met in person when we got together for dinner prior to a reading I was giving in Pennsylvania where Barbara lives. We've met numerous times since then—at poetry retreats, AWP, and conferences. We've also read together and attended each other's readings. It is my pleasure to now host a poetry salon for Barbara's third book, More, recently published by C&R Press.



Barbara will now talk to us about her book.



Diane...

On the Internet This Week

Poet and blogger, Adele Kenny, recently invited me to guest blog at her site, The Music in It (a poetry place). She asked me to write about food poems. I'm extremely pleased with the way Adele did the post. Lovely introduction, good-looking post design, and a number of links. I like the way she put all of the links after the post instead of inside it. My poem, "Linguini," is also included. Read it here. Then go back again as Adele will be posting a prompt based on the guest post. Be sure to b...

The Poet on the Poem: Nancy White

Today's featured poet is Nancy White, a very talented poet and a delightful person. I had the pleasure of meeting Nancy this past June at the Caffe Lena Poetry Festival. I loved her poetry and her presentation of it on the stage. After reading her latest book, Detour, I knew I had to have her here.



Nancy White is the author of two books: Sun, Moon, Salt (winner of the Washington Prize, The Word Works) and Detour (Tamarack Editions). Further poems have appeared in The Antioch Review, Black ...

Fashions, Features, and Farmers

Here you see the latest addition to my wardrobe. I recently purchased business cards from vistaprint.com. To create those, I uploaded my book cover. If you've used vistaprint, you know that once you place an order for one item, you start receiving offers for other items. I try hard to resist, but I was helpless when it came to the free t-shirt offer. I felt like I had to have it. I'm glad I capitulated. I am now a human billboard. The shirt came within days, the brand is Anvil, and the...