Vanessa Shields's Blog, page 41

Poem 105 – Anisoptera & Event tonight!

Anisoptera from Greek – uneven wing

Clothes on the line catching wind in lieu
of the broken dryer
the dragonfly lands on my grey tank top
gripping the neckline like a prehistoric necklace charm

The kids marvel
my mom asserts it’s Nonna
come to visit
I feel a tug in my chest in that
deep place that reminds me
I’m an alien – a foreigner on
a planet I know little about

The dragon fly’s eyes take up
most of its head so it can see
everywhere but directly behind
imagine having no past

Yet its past is remarkable
zipping on earth for 300 million years
what’s more – its fossilized wingspan
measured two feet

I crouch close
examine its long abdomen
its four shimmering wings
mere inches on each side now
where did they go – the rest
of its wings?

A kind of miracle this creature
with no past & shrunken wings
dusty like wishes on stars existing
somewhere I can’t see but can feel
in my rhomboids twitching in the
memories of my own disappeared pinions

TONIGHT AT 7PM EST! JOIN US!

In discussion with YA author Danielle Younge-Ullman and Emily Anderson. This event is organized by Literary Arts Windsor. I’ll be introducing these fabulous literary gems!

EVENT PAGE AND ZOOM REGISTRATION HERE!

NPM RATTLE

Rattle is a literary magazine and online powerhouse of poetry. They have incredible contests for writers, including a spectacular anthology for youth poets. From writing about the news to ekphrastic contests, Rattle is poet’s dream hub for learning and love the craft of poetry.

Poem 104 – Grand disaster & Thimbles Updates

Grand disaster

learning how to fold into the
spaces between words is
the deconstruction of ego

I put on my pretty yellow dress
with the white stripes & spaghetti straps
ready for the heat of undoing
these shoulders hold heaps of thoughts
as constant as the sun

I want to eat the darkness between the rays

where I’m going it’s all blood & bone
it’s kneecaps & palms in prayer
the voices in my head marching
into a million flute-sided ramekins

a recipe for guilt’s grand disaster

How exciting is this? My favourite writing magazine, Poets & Writers, has a section for ‘New Releases’ and so I did this…

Squeeee! It feels good to see ‘Thimbles’ in my favourite magazine! If you’re interested, this volume is filled with exciting ‘free’ writing contests. Do have a look-see!

NPM – Dream Poet for Hire – New Haiku Collection

Dream Poet for Hire Marshall James Kavanaugh, who will be sharing a live event with me in June (deets below), sent me a package of goodies including his latest haiku collection that was virtually celebrated in a grand display of music, poetry, philosophy and advocacy. The collection is a wild jaunt through the desert as experienced by different poets. When the world isn’t in a pandemic, Marshall is a modern-day nomad traveling the globe with his typewriter and cue cards spreading love one poem on demand at a time!

Do join us as we share our passion for poetry and how we write our poems on the spot!

Vanessa and Marshall will discuss writing poetry on demand, and showcasing exactly how they do it! Also, they’ll discuss writing poetry, and will read from their books. Marshall is in Philadelphia.
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
7:30PM EST
Via Instagram Live @dreampoetforhire – Marshall and/or @shieldsvanessa – Vanessa

Thank you to the League of Canadian Poets for a grant for this event!

FEEL THE LOVE

Thank you everyone who is so generously purchasing copies of ‘Thimbles’ and sending me kind messages on social media or delightfully special gifts in the post that simply burst my heart into a trillion joyful pieces! I feel the love and I bounce it right back atcha!

Poem 103 – Friendships & Travels By Books

Friendships & Travels By Books

Friendships & Travels By Books

last night was Paris WWII the American Library books on shelves books in hiding. jealousy & love & death & broken everything: buildings, windows, wrists, legs, hearts, hearts, hearts Odile our heroine quotes Hurston so she’s whose soul I’m reaching for next to meet Janie & feel her story to find out whose eyes were watching god & what god was doing about it

JOIN US FOR A GREAT CONVERSTAION!

Literary Arts Windsor and BookFest Windsor welcome writer Danielle Younge-Ullman in conversation with Emily Anderson this Thursday evening at 7pm via Zoom. I’ll be there kicking off the event!

CLICK HERE FOR THE EVENT PAGE & ZOOM REGISTRATION INFO

SO, ARE YA COMIN’ TO MY LAUNCH?

Do let us know! Links and info are on the Palimpsest Press event page. LINK IS HERE!

For all things virtual book launch, please see my Official Launch page – CLICK HERE

Books are selling like hot cakes! Thanks everyone! If you’d like a copy before the launch, please order via Palimpsest Press or me.

Palimpsest Press LINK HERE. If you’d like your copy signed, please let us know! If you’d like your copy signed ‘live’ at the event, please let us know!

To order directly from me, please email shieldsvanessa@gmail.com. Etransfers, paypal, cheque for payments are welcomed.

What are you reading? Where are you traveling to and with whom?

I’ve been in Paris for several books…the pull to go there is strong.

To go to Paris too, here’s the link to this book or order from your local bookstore!

Join me and Janie…

To learn more about Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, CLICK HERE. Purchase at your local bookstore!

Poem 102 – Durkheim & The Flat Globe

Durkheim & The Flat Globe

we talk about Durkheim
religion suicide pathos
research affect causality

academia is a swiffer duster
cleaning out cobwebs in my brain
flipping on switches of electric

pulses – zaps like skipping ropes
pounding concrete repetitious exercises
that hurt a little because it’s 

all so big the information 
the implications 
the lightning-bolt terms

makes my brain do that thing
when it visualizes a globe &
cuts a line down the ocean 

then lays the world flat so
my heart can see how we’re
all connected how water & land

air & sky are languages
that everything is covered
in stardust & centred with heat

Poem 101 – Suburban gulls

Suburban gulls

two gulls wail on afternoon wind
pulling my eyes & ears to the tender blue sky
curiosity moves my mind – why are they here?
these parts are roofs & concrete cars & grass
fishless water hides under tightly closed tarps
nothing here for a frenzy

more screams pierce the calm
are they warnings or desperate love songs?
perhaps this pair is on an anniversary trip
a monogamous movement for food & fornication?

soon only their siren echoes remain on maple’s 
plump red buds on daffodil’s pouty lips & the
sassy blue jay puffs his feather-fat chest – relieved

PODCAST INTERVIEW – WOOT!

Thank you to Kim, Sarah and Irene, the three creatives behind All Write in Sin City, a podcast highlighting writers in Windsor/Essex and beyond. We met on Zoom for a talk about ‘thimbles’. Their questions were poignant and thoughtful. Made me think and dive deep into my writing process and creative motivations. I appreciate this very much! I’ll let you know when the podcast will air. Thanks gals!

HOW I PREP FOR A VIRTUAL EVENT…

Firstly, I still get nervous before any virtual event…even when I’m simply attending. My does a flutter and I feel shy…but I guess I felt that way before attending live events too. In any case, there are things I think about from what I wear to how I sit to what’s in the camera shot. I pay attention to what is in my background, and make conscious choices about what can be seen. I try to include books and/or art in the shot. Colours are important to me. I had some flowers (thank you, Lin!) that I included in the zoom yesterday because I wanted something ‘alive’ near me. I wore a yellow dress with white polka dots, though no one would know it was a dress because I never stood up! In any case, I wanted my clothing to match the ‘spring’ feeling the flowers, I hope, gave off. I had my book, some tea (in a swag mug, of course!), and other things in arms’ reach that I could use for props if needed. I did end up showing some of the things I had around me…a thimble, some sketches, and hand-written versions of drafts of poems. I chose several poems ahead of time and marked them with sticky notes. I put mascara on my eyelashes and lipstick on my lips. I Nair-ed my mustache and plucked my eyebrows. I wore jewelry and had my funky new glasses around my neck. A round light was stuck to the back of laptop to help brighten my face. I’m still working on how to get the glare of out of my glasses/eyeballs which at times, may have me sitting in weird positions in an attempt to keep the glare away. I’m also still working on where I look. My eyes want to look at me! The voices in my head screaming at me to stop moving around, to smile, to sit straight…blah, blah, blah. It’s hard to not look at yourself on these calls! So, I did my best to look at the others on the call, to look into the camera and when I was reading, to look up from the book into the camera. Bottom line: I do think about what I see in the view of the screen.

NPM – POEMS ABOUT SPRING

Here’s a link to ten poems about Spring.

Poem 100 – Duplex for Childhood

Duplex for Childhood

Childhood waits in a long line.
The door is mostly closed.

The door opens on its own time.
A little girl scoots forward. 

My little girl is eager & afraid. 
The past is jagged shadows.

Her shadows live in the present.
I see my hand knock on the door. 

There was no door in the bathroom.
His anger swelled skin. 

Skin that swells tells a story.
Even when it’s not your own skin. 

The door is made of skin. 
Childhood waits in a long line.

NPM – 100th POEM!

Goodness! Can it be? I’ve written one hundred poems so far?! Thank you to poet master Dorothy Mahoney for giving me the skinny for today’s poem on a newer form of poetry called a duplex. Created by poet American poet Jericho Brown mostly by accident, the duplex forms takes its styles from a mish-mash of the sonnet, the ghazal and the blues.

“Jericho Brown introduced the poetry world to the duplex form with the publication of his 2019 collection, The Tradition, which includes several poems written in this style. In an interview, Brown revealed that the form came about when he was trying to “gut the sonnet,” as he wanted to create a “disparate couplet” and move the repeating lines of the sonnet closer together. In the end, the duplex became a sort of hybrid between the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues.

The poem starts with a couplet, then the second line repeats and the poet adds a new line, following this structure until seven couplets form the poem. The last line of the poem repeats the first, with an increased or changed resonance that the rest of the poem’s context provides.” Info from this link.

To write ‘Duplex for Childhood’, I printed out a copy of Brown’s ‘Duplex’ and made some arrows to figure out what he did. Then I tried to mimic the super strong first line that Brown conceived, and went line by line to try to use the proper form. I’m not sure it’s correct?! But, it sure was a good challenge. I like thinking ahead to the fact that the beginning of the poem is also the end. It puts a circular, infinite kind of pressure on the words.

I also struggled with the pronouns. A shift in the pronouns from line to line made a huge impact in Brown’s poem. I tried to do the same in mine. If you’re up for it, try writing a duplex poem today!

Poem 99 – 4AM Dream & Resilience Poems

4 AM dreams

I hang upside down
an unseen monster
claw-gripping my ankles
I silent scream until I can’t breathe
my voice dies first

I witness a man hurtle his child
pummel his wife
every phone I use to 
call the police does not work
I don’t know how to help

It’s 4:54am when I look at the clock
on my cell the white-light numbers
in and out of blurs
I get out of bed
pee a long pee
crawl back into bed
my body’s warmth still baking in the sheets

I’m afraid to close my eyes
repeat over and over
It’s not real
It’s not real
It’s not real

but it is

NPM: Windsor’s Resilient Voices

The City of Windsor put out a call to poets to write six-line poems about resilience for National Poetry Month. Poems chosen will be posted in vaccination facilities and on buses throughout the city. Congratulations to the poets whose fine work will now grace our city and offer hope and love to the community.

To read the poems and see who wrote them, CLICK HERE.

Thank you to the City of Windsor for creating this literary gem!

SUBMISSION WHIMS

Sometimes I submit my writing on a whim. That is…I see a submission call or the name of an agent and something inside me squeezes me to a stop, says: submit to this. Yesterday as I was attempting for the millionth time to get a handle on my inbox, I read quickly through an email from Brian Henry at Quick Brown Fox. A literary agency in New York is looking for YA manuscripts. I scanned the names, saw the word ‘poetry’, and thought, hold on, this agent is a writer and she has poetry published too? It was enough to get me deep-searching in the bowels of my laptop for my Hangman manuscript. Haven’t submitted it since 2019. In any case, I tightened up my synopsis, revised my query letter, and without thinking too hard about it, I sent my query and 10 pages of the manuscript off to this agent who is also a poet/writer. The trigger was ‘poetry’. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to turn an ember of courage into a flame that moves you into action. Follow your whims. They’re part of the living the dream, no matter what the outcome.

Poem 98 – A Spider and I in my Basement

A Spider and I in my Basement

A spider
falls purposefully
from the ceiling
legs jazzy with descent
its invisible thread
of web extending
like hope

I watch because I’m afraid
also open to accepting
the spider’s place in our home
I don’t want to kill it & that
feels good in a weird way

This spider
lands gracefully on the floor
its invisible web still invisible
hope clinging to dust mites

This spider is still
watches me
watching it
we are spaghetti-western-stand-off

I make the first move
slide my back against the wall
side-step past the spider
not wanting to disturb 
its traveling accomplishment
not wanting to feel the stick
of web on my face 
even if that’s what 
hope feels like

Bookfest Windsor & Literary Arts Windsor Upcoming Event!

Please join us on Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 7pm for an exciting book talk discussion and Q & A with novelist Danielle Younge-Ullman, and host Emily Anderson. I will be introducing these fine folks!

To learn more about this event and register for the Zoom event, please CLICK HERE!

The zoom registration link directly is HERE.

Write a letter today.

Write a letter to someone you know. Or to someone you don’t. You can search an address anywhere in the world, and send a letter to a person.

Include joy and love in the letter. Perhaps include a poem. Handwrite this letter.

You can even write a letter to yourself.

Be sure to date, sign and send it.

NPM – SPOKEN WORD & SLAM POETRY

Discover the wild world of spoken word and slam poetry. Dive into the rich poetry of Canadian slam poet Shane Koyczan. Funny story: the first feature film I worked on in Kelowna, British Columbia, Shane was one of the actors! #smallbutamazingworld

Consider Andrea Gibson or Amanda Gorman, Olivia Gatwood or Harry Baker or Rudy Francisco or Saul Williams.

Consider yourself. Writing a poem and preaching it in your kitchen. Embrace the alive-ness of spoken word poetry!

Poem 97 – We are

We are

Changes comes in swift punches & the kids, well, the kids are still learning how to swivel & duck & exhale. I heard ‘We are the world’ on the radio this morning & I remembered watching the crowd of singers wailing it live in an effort to raise money for starving kids in Africa. I thought: kids are still staring in Africa. Micheal Jackson is dead. I thought: we are the world. We are the children & few of us know how to pivot with any kind of grace or confidence. The body of protections changes too. Sometimes it fails. We all flail. Trip. Land hard on our knees. Look at our hands & wonder where the hell our gloves are. I’m in the ropes, tangled. My palms are as naked as my fear. Change is winning & I don’t want to fight. But we are the world. We are the children. The world is different & the world is the same. The kids, well, the kids are masked miracles hopping now, their big eyes looking up at us to show them how even when we don’t know how.

Feeling fear today. It’s in my belly and pulling inward. The sun is warming the earth and air. Soon I’ll go outside in the yard. Work on my novel. I hope the warmth melts the fear down to seed.

Here are some poems about fear and anxiety because knowing that others feel fear too and that they write poetry about it…well, it helps. CLICK HERE FOR POEMS ABOUT FEAR.

NPM: Virtual Book Launch for Bruce Meyer’s tonight!

Bruce Meyer’s newest collection of poetry, Grace of Falling Stars, launches this evening. The book was published in the University of Windsor’s Editing & Publishing Practicum.

Here is the link to the Facebook event page. All zoom info is available on the link. Congratulations Bruce & team!

Poem 96 – Robin & Zoom Registration Links!

Robin turdus migratorius

feather sweater vest
red-orange thrush rush songbird
the early bird gets my heart

ZOOM REGISTRATION LINKS UP & RUNNING!

The registration links for all virtual zoom events are up and running. For each virtual event, there is a registration link to click on which will then allow you access to the actual Zoom webinar link. You have to register before you get the Zoom webinar invitation. Thank you for your clicking abilities!

To register for my hometown virtual book launch hosted by Charis Cotter, on Thursday, April 29, 2021, here is the info:

Register in advance for this webinar:https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2tEPlPPzSx-j9YbJUwJOFA

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

To register for Poetry & The Family reading and discussion on Thursday, May 20, with Margo Wheaton, here is in the info:

When: May 20, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this webinar:https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0jwxSVYiRK-rOoIfNo_6ww

To register for The Joy of Editing reading and discussion on Thursday, June 3, with Abigail Roelens (my editor for ‘Thimbles’!), here is the info:

When: Jun 3, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this webinar:https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ORzI_8mcTxyeaWHISQhbjA

To register for The Business of Dreams on Thursday, June 10th, 2021 featuring Vanessa Shields and Stephanie Steinberg, hosted by Jillian Berman from 7:00PM – 8:30PM EST, CLICK HERE FOR THE EVENTBRITE TICKET & REGISTRATION INFO

BOOKS ARE FOR SALE, BABY!

If you’d like to order a copy of Thimbles before the launch, you can order a copy from me via email (shieldsvanessa@gmail.com) for $15.00 payable by e-transfer/cheque OR you can purchase a copy via Palimpsest Press – LINK HERE.

I will sign books and mail them out whether you order them from me or the press. If you’d like me to sign your copy ‘live’ at the hometown launch, please send an email to let me know (shieldsvanessa@gmail.com).

Thank you!! Oh, and if you’d like, it’d be *wonderful* if you shared your thoughts on Goodreads or Amazon. Thank you!

NPM – The League of Canadian Poets

If you haven’t yet taken a look at their website, perhaps it’s time! The League of Canadian Poets’ site is filled with hundreds of Canadian poets to learn about and adore. They list writing submission information as well as their own contests and awards. They even have a Poetry Pause program whereby you can sign up to get a poem a day in your inbox….heeee…so that would make two! This is also a great asset for educators as it is a hub for Canadian poetry and they have student poetry writing contests.

Visit their website: www.poets.ca