Susan Rich's Blog, page 96

5 Star Citizen-Poet: Eloise Klein Healy

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Eloise Klein Healy gets my first 5 Star rating as a citizen-poet. She has been my boss, my friend, my role model for the last fifteen years, but her work in the writing community goes back further than that. I first met Eloise at AWP in Atlanta in 1996. I was a graduate student presenting on the politics of the graduate MFA workshop. At the end of my presentation a woman in a black leather jacket approached me and gave me her card. "Keep in touch. " Eloise introduced herself and  said she was...

A Poem for Saturday: "What You Want Most ..."

The Rules of Evidence

What you want to say most
is inadmissible.
Say it anyway.
Say it again.
What they tell you is irrelevant
can't be denied and will
eventually be heard.
Every question
is a leading question.
Ask it anyway, then expect
what you won't get.
There is no such thing
as the original
so you'll have to make do
with a reasonable facsimile.

The history of the world
is hearsay. Hear it.
The whole truth
is unspeakable
and nothing but the truth
is a lie.
I swear this.
My oath is a kiss
I swear
by everything
incr...

A Food Poem for Friday: Linda Pastan ~ Dedicated to Mary and Ruby

[image error] I've always wanted to write a poem about my regular weekend visits to the Haymarket in Boston with my father. For some reason I don't remember, it was a ritual for just the two of us. I'm old enough to remember a Boston that was depressed from the end of shipbuilding and not yet a technology mecca. Instinctively, I knew the two of us were visiting a magical world of the past. Fresh produce markets all but disappeared before they made their fashionable comeback -- at least in Boston. Here's...

The Writer's Life: Cool Quote, Great Photograph

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                     The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.
                                                                              - Edwin Schlossberg


I found this quote tonight on Julie Lario's blog, Drift Record.  I just had to share it. This one sentence is what I try to teach my students to do in their essays and what I try to do in my poems, but I have never thought of it in just this way before. It's perfect.

Happy Month of Poetry - A Whirlwind Begins

The fun officially begins today. I will be doing many readings and workshops this month, but mostly I want to be reading new poems, meeting new poets, and celebrating the community that we are all part of. If you are reading The Alchemist's Kitchen Blog then you are part of the community! For this morning, I want to send out a reminder that there is a poetry book giveaway all over the internet. If you click on the image above you will go to Kelli Agodon's blog and you can see on the upper lef...

The Soundtrack of Our Lives

Alright, maybe it does looks a little strange to be embraced by the page -  but in a good way. The following is a quote by Ed Byrne, founding editor of the Valparaiso Poetry Review.  Diane Lockward interviews him this week on her blog and I'm taken with how this applies to all good writing, not only poetry. I'm in the first week of Spring Quarter and I so want to instill in my students a passion for writing, an understanding that communication with others takes a certain kind of attentiveness...

Escape Into Life

I love this photograph that the editors of Escape Into Life chose to accompany my poems. They've been kind enough to ask for a collection of poems from my new collection. It's strange, but seeing five of my poems together one after the other seems almost like overkill. Maybe it's similar to eating too much cake at the party. Better to keep a little behind, that way we leave wanting more. I like reading poems on line, but I tend to only need a taste of a writer. Call me old fashioned, but I ne...

New Book: A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood - by Allen Braden

Allen Braden's book has arrived and it's deserving of praise! Here's a favorite poem of mine. I admire how Allen's casual voice seduces me into thinking that poetry pulses from then pen to the page, but it's clear these are finely wrought poems, deserving of attention.


Taboo Against the Word Beauty, Epistolary Version Riding the Chicago Loop

Dear Kevin:

The elevated train's not called "El" but "l"
As in Lucky, Lonely, or Love. In a posh bar
Beauty kept reaching across her husband
To stroke my arm. ...

The Art of Revision: President Obama's Recent Speech

I just couldn't resist this from Nicholas Kristoff's recommendation. On flicker you can see a larger image that shows specific word changes. I also am completely enamored with that slightly curved index finger. I want to show this photograph to my students (after spring break) to show them that even President Obama has to revise. Actually, "has to" is the wrong sentiment. It's the joy of getting it right, picking the gorgeous word in a line of adequate words. Nobody gets it right the first ti...

Hungry for Poetry? Favorite Food Poems

I've had an idea for awhile, that if I were to write poems about mouth watering meals, I may not need to eat as much. Tempting as it is, I have yet to put the "Poems Instead of Profiteroles" diet to the test In the meantime, I am interested in hearing about your favorite food poems -- or better yet -- challenging you to write a food poem during the next month as part of National Poetry Month. For awhile, every poem I wrote had dark chocolate or Russian black bread show up. One reason this hap...