Melissa Eleftherion's Blog, page 10

Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange reading & discussion at San Francisco State University

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https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/poetrycenter/bundles/231137

 

Reading “little stem” at the SFSU Poetry Center, April 2017

field guide to autobiography is now available from H_NGM_N Books

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I’m thrilled to announce that my first full-length poetry collection, field guide to autobiography, is now available for pre-order from H_NGM_N Books! This book has been a labor of love, & has changed and evolved in many ways since I first began writing poems toward it 5 years ago. In many ways, field guide truly began as part of my MFA thesis back in 2006. How does a person begin to enumerate the many fragments & fractals that comprise a life? field guide is an attempt at memoir through the lens of various animals & minerals including katydids, wrens, abalone shells, and apple trees.     
 
Here are a few things others have said about field guide to autobiography:
 
“This isn’t conventional nature poetry; it’s a poetry that helps us understand the future and the world that embeds us.” – Juliana Spahr


 
“Here are whorls, and bursts of light, where to fly is to sing is to fly, where “soft noises” compose a listening to instruct your ontological imagination. Following Eleftherion’s exertion towards classification, we are led to its (im)possibility. Read this book! You never know what form you may be compelled to assume.” – Elise Ficarra
 
 
If you’re interested in reviewing a copy of field guide to autobiography, please let me know! I will have copies in hand shortly.


 
Thanks so much for reading.

Melissa

every once in a while it goes the other way too

Feeling rich with poetry gems right now (which is great cos we’re broke & the world at large is feeling more friable than ever). You write these poems & wonder where they came from & then sometimes they are published in great journals like Vector & Flag+Void who are great to work with, & have consistently been producing interesting work for years. This past week saw the release of my poems in both of those journals simultaneously. Amazing.  (Copies are available at the links provided.)

In other poetry news – after much planning, I’ve gone ahead & started a new reading series for teens and adults at the Library. We will meet every other month & feature a visiting poet, followed by an open mic. While funds are limited, I have a modest budget for paying performers, & am currently seeking grants as well. I’ll be releasing an open call for submissions soon – so please write me if you know a poet that would like to be considered. Here’s a write-up the local paper did of our first reading in the series featuring MK Chavez!

The Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange is also still open for chapbook submissions through August 1st so send some work our way!:

Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange

Open Reading Submission Period: June 1st – August 1st

The Poetry Center invites emerging and established poets to submit work to the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange. The PCCE is a community-curated chapbook archive created in 2010, by poets recommending other poets using an each one-invite one model. See http://poetrychapbooks.omeka.net

We aim to provide and maintain open access to small-press and out-of-print chapbooks to promote readership of contemporary poetry as well as encourage its value and availability for use as free, educational, teaching resources.

Send us your work that plays, sings, risks, interrogates, provokes, and moves beyond.

Guidelines:

Length: 10-40 pages

Currency: New work (written within the last 5 years); published work that’s fallen out of print.

Aesthetics: seeking a range of forms, approaches, hybrids.

There is no reading fee.

Please email submissions to chapbookexchange@gmail.com.

 

Hope you’re all well & finding some strength in poetry.

 

field guide to autobiography

I am so incredibly excited to announce that my first full-length book, field guide to autobiography, will be published by H_NGM_N Books next year!!

This book has been a labor of love, & has changed and evolved in many ways since I first began writing poems toward it 3-4 years ago. In many ways, the book truly began as part of my MFA thesis back in 2006. I’ve been submitting this manuscript for the greater part of a year in its current iteration, & it had been rejected 15 times. I was beginning to feel very discouraged.

As a nearly-42 year old human who has been submitting & publishing poems for the past twenty (20) years, it’s been a long time coming. This is all to say – dear reader, please don’t ever give up on your creative self. If my elderly ass can get my work published, you can too. 

Thanks for reading.

A bit about the book:

The book explores the inter-relatedness of various species through accreted fragments toward autobiography. How does a person begin to enumerate the many fragments & fractals that comprise a life? field guide to autobiography is an attempt at memoir through the lens of various animals & minerals including katydids, wrens, abalone shells, and apple trees.

I Made it Through the Wilderness

I Made it Through the Wilderness

Thanks so much to the editors of cahoodaloodaling for publishing three collages from my series “I Made it Through the Wilderness” in their Trigger Warning issue. You can view the entire issue as a PDF here. Brave & incredible work lies within. Love & hugs to all the contributors.

ditch poem #20

it was the wildness

everything was singing and

you tried to protect me

i resisted it was pitch

and forest it was the trenches

i washed my mud and

donned its mother i slept

among the trees my golden guilt

it was the wild nests of

Brooklyn summer it was the

Cyclone everything was grit

and sunshine a glitter

of dun sand. What is protection

he asked under the boardwalk

who rides the Wonder Wheel

i resisted it was milk

or the ditch

so i started digging.

ditch poem #6

we’re all becoming animals here

our scaly skins showing through the stained glass

why now why slither

the rainbow gate beneath suit sleeves

beneath chiffon and tweed

the rainbow plexus in our throats

once a wren ever an abalone shell

we were whole once

wander detritus wonder

the furs in the soft air

gentle browns of wood and bark

as the furs gallop by

identify me

call me into

curiosity pinwheel

i make little sparks

in recent lavas

we were the hands holding

tectonic/footstep

we were the under

and beneath

to speak in soil tongues

to be called into ditches

to be summoned

venal wing

wet black eros melt

leaf matter and dirt cake

the cavity of I root

small declivities of teeth

along the rim

how the mouth knows

we were once rose quartz

we were agate

smashed and smashed

among the rock

your smooth body a reminder

Galatea Resurrects

Eileen Tabios has just released the 25th issue of Galatea Resurrects, which features over 80 new poetry reviews – wow! I’m pleased to note that my recent chapbook Pigtail Duty is among them, alongside reviews for Carrie Hunter’s ORPHAN MACHINES & Margaret Bashaar’s Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel.. You can read her “engagement” here.

Goodreads Giveaway for a signed copy of Pigtail Duty!

I just launched my first Goodreads giveaway! If you’d like to enter to win a signed copy of my chapbook Pigtail Duty, recently released from dancing girl press, have a look see & add it to your TBR. The winner will receive one free copy mailed to their home with a special handwritten note on a vintage library return card.

Begun over eight years ago, Pigtail Duty is an attempt at piecing together fractures, at reassembling an identity. Identity being a continuous state of becoming, it marks the nodes & portals of transformation through the lens of a feminist suddenly married & mothering.