Marly Youmans's Blog, page 112

The ghost files

Whenever I look out the front windows, I can see a house with three ghosts... four, if you count one in the stone wall. And I not long ago heard a ghost story about my federal era house. But I've written about those and other Cooperstown ghosts before. Here's a brand new one. Last week I was sitting outside on a bench when S. came by, walking a dog. She told me that her youngest son had been

A little gift from Float Press

An interesting envelope from Austin, Texas in the mail...



Judy Jensen asked me for an August poem for Float Press.
(Click for larger versions in a new window.)




So I promptly wrote a triolet about Lammas,
the ancient festival of harvest, Hlaf-mass,
when bread would be blessed at church.



And in return I have three "postcards,"
or tiny letterpress broadsides.
Thank you, Judy and Float

How it goes in the Village of Cooperstown--

As my husband (man of hobbies and adventures) flew off to Johannesburg and then Maputo and rambled on from there a few days ago, I am about to drag a healthy young man or two out of bed and fare into the world to do things that are normally on the man-list, starting with loading the Tundra with recycling and sacks of garbage and heading off to the village dump. Unfortunately I forgot to ask where

Cassandra in word and image

Some recent images of Iceland by Elizabeth Adams.
Click for a larger view.

Book designer, artist, writer, publisher, editor and more... If you haven't taken a peek at the recent work of Elizabeth Adams, I recommend that you do. She is a wonderful example of spirit in action, moving toward the beautiful.

Beth has a lot of muscular new pieces inspired by her trip to Iceland, all discussed on

Boy tail gunner

I was glad to see this picture of my father and the rest of the crew of the Incendiary Blonde. (My father is standing, all the way to the right.) At seventeen, my father left his life as a sharecropper's son near Lexsy, Georgia, joined the Army Air Corps, and began to see the world as he trained in the West and North. I remember him telling me that people elsewhere were ignorant about the South,

Glancing down from the book heap--

I must finish reading some books for a phone conference in the morning, plus I have a ferrying job today, so . . . frolic as you like, here or elsewhere! Soon I will do a post on the recommended new(ish) poetry books, so if you have something to add, please add a book. I am surprised by how many people have popped by to read this piece, and am wondering if that is simply because I mentioned a

The gulf of night--

I wake up, three hours after I fell asleep. Someone is snoring, and one of my children has gone to bed with all the lights left burning. It is the bottom of the night, the beginning of day, the place where unease is stored. Lying in bed, I worry about all sorts of things I cannot compass. I worry about whether my husband will be eaten this fall by something that sneaks around the tent platform at

Invitation to poetry

Though sailing through hundreds of assigned books this summer, I sometimes miss a more aimless kind of reading--a reading that has no mandated goal but to wander and occasionally be seized. Most of the books I'm reading now are novels, and I'm thinking about how I'd like to read more poetry.

I came home from the West Chester Poetry Conference with a sack of books by my panelists and others. In

"Because a fire was in my head"

THE HIVE
If one is to judge by the buzz of thanksgiving that burdens the acknowledgment pages of new books, a hive mind seems to have seized the little nation of writers. But the beautiful idea or image that burns in the head is not meant to lead toward committee work.

THE HOBBLE
Whether they are accurate or not, comments can point to where something is amiss. That's fine. Nevertheless, a writer

Lady Word of Mouth, toddler-style

Pippi-blurb: "Read dis book."



Pippi, daughter of writer Danny Pelletier
and librarian Amanda Pelletier.



Eating the book...