d. ellis phelps's Blog, page 10
July 5, 2021
pen for pennies, d. ellis phelps
After another lengthy and exhausting conversation with a non-poetry lover about what I have been doing with my time lately; after many such discussions with the same person on this subject over time; after his misunderstanding again, again.
After receiving my copy of Animal Tales 2021, “an anthology of respectful poetry dedicated to the two and four-legged, furred and flying creatures, wild and domestic, that we all love,” an anthology edited by Spirt Thom of Austin, Texas and published by Tablerock Festival of Salado, Inc., Salado, Texas, an anthology whose profits are intended to support some worthy cause or another like caring for the local feral cat population or restoring a beloved local park fountain, has this year, according to the editor, only suffered “losses.”
I wrote:
There is an unseen presence we honor that gives the gifts...I can't stop pointing to the beauty..."~Rumi pen for pennies ah! the losses of poetic aspirationnever outweigh the gainsyet many questionwhy have you done thiswhy pen for pennieswhen silver & gold can be found~what is gold but metalshiny cold for which souls are soldwhy dig for value undergroundwhen all around these words hurling~this beauty
image courtesy of Bernard Spragg, NZ via Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.Many fine Texas poets are represented in Animal Tales including Don Mathis, Nancy Fierstien, Sandi Horton, Chris Billings, and me, alongside many poets from many states across the US and elsewhere! Here is my poem, washing my breakfast cup, with original music reprinted here with permission and originally published as the last monarch.
To support the Tablerock Festival’s efforts and to read some fine/fun poems honoring creature beings, purchase your copy of Animal Tales 2021 from Jackie Mills of Tablerock Festival for $10 US plus shipping here: tablerock1@aol.com
Namaste y’all!
June 10, 2021
Red Admiral by Cindy Huyser
Photo by Łukasz Rawa on Unsplash
Please help me welcome poet, Cindy Huyser, to fws.
I have been privileged to hear Ms. Huyser read her poem, “Red Admiral,” several times. Each time I hear its intriguing language, feel its cadenced rhythms written in its mysteriously inviting form, the grief and wonder it carries, I am enamored anew. Here, I offer both the poet reading her own work and the poem in it’s “concrete” form, for the poem is even more powerful and meaningful as one considers it visually.
Here is what the poet herself says about the form she employs and about the endearing reference she makes within the text:
“Red Admiral” is both a concrete poem (roughly in the shape of a butterfly) and a contrapuntal poem, meant to be read in three parts: the left column, the right column, and the text reading across the two columns. The poem’s form was initially inspired by some of the poems in Section Five of Lauren Haldeman’s collection Instead of Dying (The Center for Literary Publishing, Colorado State University, 2017), where pairs of poems using similar language face each other across the pages. This poem retains the strategy of related language in the left and right columns.
At the end of the poem, the speaker utters Hello, Debster, a reference to my late wife, poet, biographer and publisher Debra L. Winegarten.
Cindy Huyser
& here, is the poet reading her work. Be sure to open the PDF of the poem’s text below the recording so you can read along:
Red Admiral by Cindy HuyserMy prayer is that this work will touch your spirit the way it has mine and bring you hope, perhaps even increase in your faith, faith in “The verge…scent of rain and earthworms,” in the power of the natural world to heal. Perhaps it will turn your heart to “birdsong.”
Cindy Huyser’s poems have received Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations, and appear in many journals and anthologies. Her chapbook, Burning Number Five: Power Plant Poems, was co-winner of the 2014 Blue Horse Press Poetry Chapbook Contest, and her first full-length collection, Cartography, is forthcoming from 3: A Taos Press. She has edited or co-edited a number of anthologies, including Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems (Dos Gatos Press, 2016) and several editions of the Texas Poetry Calendar. Cindy lives in Austin, Texas, where she hosts the monthly BookWoman 2nd Thursday Poetry Reading and Open Mic series. Please visit more of Cindy’s work here.
May 24, 2021
call for submissions: deadline June 1
Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash
Dear Writers and Poetry Lovers:
Check out the new writer’s corner on the Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne, Texas where you’ll find links to all of the events and happenings mentioned below:
While you’re there you can:
submit to the forthcoming milagros anthology (deadline June 1): Everyday miracles is the theme. Submit to boernepoetry@gmail.com. See guides below.register to attend the June 3rd Miracles open mic reading 6:45PM CST via zoom. Anyone, from anywhere may read or attend, but registration is required and poems are juried. (every first Thursday evening on zoom) sign up to read at a future miracles open mic listen to past Miracles open mic readings on youtube. It’s fabulous!No matter what else you do, please do share this, especially the call for submissions, with your list and on social media!
Ciao Bellisimos!
Call for submissions:
Milagros: everyday miracles (working title)The Patrick Heath Public Library in Boerne, Texas, seeks submissions of poetry or prose, for publication in an anthology to be published by the Friends of the Boerne Public Library. d. ellis phelps will serve as managing editor. All profits from the sale of the book will benefit the Patrick Heath Public Library.
Distribution: This perfect-bound anthology will be distributed to local book sellers, sold at local readings and online and placed in the Patrick Heath Library collection. Contributors (within the Continental US) will receive one complimentary copy and contributors outside the continental US will be sent a digital copy unless the contributor agrees to pay for shipping charges. All contributors wil be given the opportunity to purchase copies at a discounted rate. Select contributors may be invited to read work from the anthology at the Boerne Book & Arts Fest, October 2021.
Submissions: We seek writing that uplifts, encourages and inspires, work that tells the story about the best that human beings can be, stories and poems that showcase the good and the true, stories and poems about the best things life has to offer us, writing especially focused on the miraculous, the wonderful, the beautiful, the compassionate things that happen every day, right under our noses, the world that often goes unnoticed amid chaos and unrest.
Our goal in this effort is to bring about awareness of everyday miracles happening everywhere so that those who write about it, those who read that writing and those who hear the words may experience the resonating presence of compassion, love, tenderness, hope, joy, calm, harmony, peace and other strong, healing emotions associated with compassion and thus be more willing to act in compassionate ways.
Submit previously unpublished poetry, prose, or creative non-fiction, Work previously posted on a blog is considered published. As an attachment and not within the text of the email, submit writing in a Word Document (not PDF) in Times New Roman 12 pt. font using single spaces, except in the case of line breaks and spacing needed for creative emphasis in poetry. For poetry, submit 3-5 poems of any length within one document, using page breaks between poems; for prose, etc., please limit submissions to 1,500 words.
Please remove all personal identifiers from the submitted document as well as the file name, as editors will use a blind review process. Please no simultaneous submissions. Include all submitter contact information, the title of your submission (using the same title as your file name), and a short bio (100 words or less) within the body of the email.
Deadline for submissions: June 1, 2021.
Notification of acceptance: September 1, 2021.
Publication date: Oct. 1, 2021.
Send queries and submissions to boernepoetry@gmail.com. Please do not query regarding your submission until after Sept. 1, 2021.
March 26, 2021
Book Review: Adele and Tom by Chella Courington
Adele And Tom: The Portrait Of A Marriage by Chella CouringtonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
In her book, Adele and Tom, the author brings us all the way in to her head-space, sharing intimate details of a long-term marriage in “flash-moments.” Reading these short chapters, some only one page long, felt, to this reader, like sitting down at the kitchen table, flipping through a photo-album with the main character who, in first person, narrates various scenes depicted in randomly chosen order.
I did not sense a narrative arc here, and that felt purposeful, almost as if, in leaving out that element of story-telling, the author pointed straight toward one of the book’s central themes: long-term marriages don’t have a neat story-arc and are often inhabited by intense longing for more “something,” full of ambiguity and a strange kind of inexplicable discomfort.
I read this novella in one sitting and within a couple of hours but the solidarity I felt with the author/main character has stayed with me. My take away thought, “Huh. Will you look at that. A woman being honest about how long-term marriages really look and feel.” I suspect any woman who’s been married more than a few years will find this book, as I did, highly relatable.
If you need happy endings, don’t look here. If you can stand to read the truth, this is the book for you.
View all my reviews
March 19, 2021
Cibolo Creek Addresses Humanity by Maria Illich wins a prize!
Image: Boerne Nature CenterPlease join me in congratulating Maria King Illich, a contributor to Through Layered Limestone: a Texas Hill Country Anthology (2019) and to purifying wind (2020) both anthologies for which I served as managing editor.
Maria won a prize for a poem that appeared in Limestone entitled “Cibolo Creek Addresses Humanity.” The poem won 2nd Place in the 2020 Press Women of Texas Communications Contest, the same contest for which MSSP has won a prize this year, 2021!. Judges comments included, “Powerful, imaginative, and concrete. Powerful imagery. Very nice!”
Congratulations Maria! I feel very proud to have chosen this poem for Limestone in collaboration with the other editors. Below is the poem. Read and enjoy!
Cibolo Creek Addresses Humanity I remember the shallow sea Ifed eons ago when sea liliesswayed in my belly and trilobitestickled my throat. The dipper pouredmilk then, and Orion bore fourstars in his bright belt.The sea receded. I diminishedinto a river. Ferns and cycadsoverwhelmed my banks, and titanspounded prints into my soft spine.Stars flared and fell.I dwindled into a creek. Ginkgoesswept the sky with tremblingleaves as winds chilled my waters. Mammoths appeared. And camels.And you. Tamer of fire, namer of the seenand unseen. You persist, but for howlong? Before you go, drink of my watersso you might recall from my manynames the one we share, the name of aconstellation of stars caught in muck.And this just in, Maria's short story from purifying wind entitled "Dark Phoenix" took second place in the 2021 NFPW competition. This short story is designated as an Editor's Award winner within the anthology as well. Great work, Maria!Look for Maria on FB here.
MSSP is a Prize Winning Press!
Photo by Mor Shani on UnsplashI am delighted to announce that two 2020 publications of Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press have won prizes!
purifying wind, an anthology of poetry for nature lovers, has claimed first place in the editorial category and at the state level in a 2021 contest sponsored by the National Federation of Press Women. NFPW represents professionals and students working across the communications spectrum in the United States. The title has advanced to the national competition with winners being announced in June.
I am grateful to contest judges for choosing the work and to the many contributors whose writing made the book possible. Congratulations to you All and Thank You for trusting Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press with your work!
I learned of this contest through a purifying wind contributor, Maria King Illich, also a contributor to the anthology, Through Layered Limestone for which I served as managing editor. Her poem in that anthology entitled, “Cibolo Creek Addresses Humanity” won second place in this same contest in 2020. And, Maria’s short story, “Dark Phoenix,” that first appeared in purifying wind, won second place in the short story category of this contest this year! Congrats, Maria! Well done!
Also, my new book of poetry, what she holds, a memoir in poetic form, has won second prize in the books of poetry category in a contest sponsored by the same organization!
I am grateful for the recognition and affirmation that winning a prize like this gives my work both as an editor and as a poet.
If you haven’t read either of these offerings by MSSP, please do! Both books are available at The Twig Bookshop in San Antonio. what she holds is available from Book Woman in Austin and both are available on Amazon. Just click those links provided above to buy from any source. However, if you want a signed copy, send me a message here and I’ll put one in the mail to you!
Just for fun, here I am reading “Passage” by Chella Courington (author of the novella, Adele and Tom) from purifying wind to entice you.
Thanks for reading and for listening! It is a precious thing to be heard.
Ciao!
d
March 4, 2021
A Reading & An Interview of me by Cindy Huyser
head shot courtesy of Chuck Gibbons PhotographyI’ll be the featured reader, reading from my new book, what she holds, Thursday, March 11, 2021 beginning at 7PM for BookWoman of Austin (via zoom) at the invitation of Cindy Huyser, who hosts a monthly reading there. Big thanks to Cindy for asking me! Here’s Cindy’s blog for more about Cindy!
After the reading, there will be a short Q & A and then an open mic. Register inside the invite if you want to read, too!
I would be honored to have you listen and or read with me. It is such a precious thing to be heard. You can find the invitation link inside Cindy’s interview here.
Or, here is the direct link to the invitation for your convenience.
Mark you calendar, grab a seat and get ready to rock and roll!
Ciao! Bellisimos!
February 3, 2021
#sutra
image credit: Sheila Joy via unsplash
