d. ellis phelps's Blog, page 9

what she holds, Glint Journal #review

Photo by Hanna Postova on Unsplash

The editors of Glint Journal have kindly published Leslie Ferguson’s review of my second collection, what she holds in Issue 12, Winter 2021. Ms. Ferguson is a poet, memoirist, and editor. Her new memoir, When I Was Her Daughter (Acorn Publishing, 2021) is available here.

In her intelligent and compassionate commentary on my work, Ms. Ferguson begins:

In this striking, unforgettable book, d. ellis phelps’ simple form and language create a kaleidoscope of the poet’s memory of growing up as the daughter of an abusive man. Ultimately, by doing the heart-breaking work of sifting through her trauma, phelps hopes to discover healing and peace.

As if peeling back layers of a life lived, phelps employs imagery that returns us to the speaker’s childhood again and again, dredging the depths of a past the speaker has tried but failed to forget. In the book’s first poem, “uninvited,” phelps provides a heart-wrenching glimpse into what it means to ache by merely existing in this world—to be born already needing too much—

Leslie Ferguson

Read the entire review here.

Thank you, Leslie, for your careful, close reading. & Thanks to the Glint editors who chose to publish this review.

Namaste,

d

we’re contributing 1% of our revenue to climate action: you can too; it’s easy

Removing CO₂ from the atmosphere is critical to counteract climate change, but it’s behind. A fraction of every purchase from formidable Woman sanctuary helps new carbon removal technologies scale.

Stripe

Photo by Ja Kubislav on Unsplash

Use Stripe to receive payments on your site, in your business. Join their climate action movement. See how they are making a phenomenal difference here.

Please. Do. This.

Namaste,

d

write with d. ellis phelps this spring

Photo by Leonardo Baldissara on Unsplash

Dear Writers:
Happy New Year! I pray this finds you well and happy. I will be facilitating three ongoing writing workshops this spring beginning Jan. 8th.  Following are brief descriptions and links to registration.  The first two are free and the third requires tuition.  All three are on Zoom.  I hope to see you at one or at all three workshops! Also, please share this post with your audience!

1.  The Art of Writing:  poetry, memoir, & creative non-fiction  (Adults, any level)

During each two-hour workshop, we’ll look at writing samples, generate new work based on a facilitator-provided prompt, share our work and give soft feedback.  This is a friendly space for writers with any level of experience.  Sponsored by the Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne, Texas, the workshop is free but registration is required. Writers may attend any of all of the sessions, but space is limited to ten participants, so claim your seat early! 

Please note:  Dates alternate between the second Saturday afternoon and the second Thursday evening, Jan. 8-June 9, 2022:

Saturday, January 8, 2022, 1-3 PM CST
Thursday, February 10, 2022, 6-8 PM CST
Saturday, March 12, 2022, 1-3 PM CST
Thursday, April 14, 2022, 6-8 PM CST
Saturday, May 14, 2022, 1-3 PM CST
Thursday, June 9, 2022, 6-8 PM CST

RSVP to the librarian, Robin Stauber at stauber@boernelibrary.org to register.

2.  Bits & Pieces:  the art of writing memoir (Adults, any level)
Join us as we practice the art of memoir writing. During each two-hour session for six consecutive months, we’ll look at writing samples from published memoirs, access memories through facilitator-provided prompts and writing exercises, and share our work, giving soft feedback. No one else can tell us what it’s like to be you. You must do it. Come on! It will be fun. I promise.   This workshop is being sponsored by the Dripping Springs Community Library.  It is free, but registration is required (see link below). Writers may attend any of all of the sessions, but space is limited to ten participants, so claim your seat early!   

Dates:  Every fourth Friday beginning January 28, 2022, 1-3 PM through June

Friday, January 28, 2022, 1-3 PM CST
Friday, February 25, 2022 1-3 PM CST
Friday, March 25, 2022 1-3 PM CST
Friday, April 22, 2022 1-3 PM CST
Friday, May 27, 2022 1-3 PM CST
Friday, June 24, 2022 1-3 PM CST

Register for the memoir workshop here.

3.  wordplay: poems for fun (Adults, some writing experience)Join us as we explore the light-hearted side of poem-making. We’ll use sound, rhythm, rhyme, wit, humor, poetic license, and more to generate new work that is fun to write and fun to read.  In each session, we’ll look at writing samples, write to facilitator-provided prompts, share our work and give soft feedback.  Time will also be given to hear and give feedback for work that is generated by attendees between meetings. Writers must register for and agree to attend all six workshops as this will facilitate a more cohesive, supportive group dynamic. Feel free to contact me with questions!

Dates:  Every first Thursday, beginning February 3, 2022-July 7, 2022
Thursday, February 3, 2022 7-9, PM CST
Thusday, March 3, 2022, 7-9 PM CST
Thusday, April 7, 2022, 7-9 PM CST
Thusday, May 5, 2022, 7-9 PM CST
Thusday, June 2, 2022, 7-9 PM CST
Thusday, July 7, 2022, 7-9 PM CST

Your paid tuition and registration will hold your spot. Please note: Tuition is non-refundable but may be used toward a future workshop series. The workshop size is limited to ten participants, so reserve your spot now!

Tuition:  $150 USD Click the wordplay tuition button below to register & pay.

wordplay tuition

Please note: your credit card statement will show a charge from “formidableWoman.”

I’m really looking forward to playing around with you and your words!

Namste,

d

review of what she holds in Newfound

https://newfound.org/current-issue/reviews-what-she-holds/An Act of Kindness

It is always fascinating to know how one’s written words affect others. I know what I mean when I write what I write, but what I write may mean something entirely different to the reader. This is especially true of writing in the poetic form.

Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah demonstrates this in his review of my collection, what she holds, my second full-length collection, a memoir in poetic form. What he finds in the work elucidates and highlights the story being told, while holding an even broader vision of its place in the culture & assigning the reader an auspicious task. He writes:

The direct and unapologetic prose does not invite the reader to act as an interpreter of the imperfect characters—her aging mother, her estranged father—the reader acts as a preservative to this memory and messy depiction of life. This is an act of kindness.

Jacob Kobina

Mensah, himself, performs this very act of kindness in each of his various reviews of what she holds. It is a precious thing to be heard and this writer has considered this collection completly: a very rare gift indeed. He writes:

The different materials of pain and joy mesh successfully. At each poem, the book defines and re-defines what this collection can mean. There is freshness, imagery that tests typical cultural norms, a persistent, though at times absent, voice that resonates far beyond the impact of the individual lines.

Jacob Kobina

Deep Bow

It is with deep gratitude to this writer that I make this post. Thank you, Jacob, for reading, but more than that for seeing…for echoing…for extending, for “preserving” this history, the work of “writing conflict” and the healing that brings. As you say it so exquisitely in your review:

…when we write our conflict, we open the door onto our primary relationship with conflict; we write with the whole self: the ears, the eyes, the hands and the body, the nose, and tongue; we write the space we inhabit: the nest, the ambiguity, the spirit of the place, a new angle of vision, the voice of the place; we write the irony, the paradox, the satire; we write the tension and the energy, cutting everything to the bones.

Jacob Kobina

Please enjoy reading the whole review here.

And also, enjoy Kobina’s contribution to the Renga edition of fws 2020 here.

Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah, who is an algebraist, artist, and author of several books, works in mixed media. His poetry, songs, prose, art and hybrid have appeared in numerous journals, including JMWW, Constellations, Trampoline, 1-70 Review, and many others. He lives in the southern part of Ghana, in Spain, and the Turtle Mountains, North Dakota.

Namaste Y’all!

Tell Me Something Good: zoom poetry workshop, Nov. 3, 1-3PM CST

Photo by saeed karimi on UnsplashHow to Poems

Join me as I facilitate this two hour zoom workshop in which we’ll stretch our writing muscles to write a “how-to” poem.

Use story, metaphor, or humor to elucidate the “how-to’s” of living. Whether it is a recipe or a list of do’s and don’ts; an extended metaphor or a simple life story; a thing you know very well or a mystery, writing will take you and your reader deep into the well of understanding. Join us for some writing fun as we craft poems that may tell “how to” be a grandmother, catch crickets, count stars, or be happy. What will we discover? Wouldn’t you like to know?

from the workshop blurb

Workshops include a writing warm-up, a look at other published writing samples, brief discussion, pointers, prompts, writing time, sharing and soft feedback. Here’s your chance to meet other writers/poets and have some fun, too!

No matter what your experience level, you are welcome. Even experienced, published poets benefit from a new perspective. I’ll bring that. You bring the talent!

This poem speak workshop series is being sponsored by the Dripping Springs (Texas) Public Library and continues through December, 2021. The workshops are free but participants are limited to ten and registration is required.

And, for the November 3rd workshop, there are only four seats left, so register now!

Register here.

#everydaymiracles: a reading

Six Poets: what is a miracle anyway?

The miracles poetry reading series: sponsored by the Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne, Texas, has been happening since April 2021 and continues through this December.

It is an extension of the work I have done as editor for the easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles (forthcoming, 2021) anthology which is a project of the Friends of the Boerne Public Library of Boerne Texas and the brainchild of librarian and Associate Editor, Robin Stauber.

October’s reading featured Kip Stratton whose work is not included in the collection and five other writers whose work is included in the collection, so as you listen, know that from the half-way mark, you are listening to a reading from the forthcoming anthology.

The October 7, 2021 reading is recorded and posted here for your listening pleasure, featuring KW “Kip” Stratton, Sandi Stromberg, Chris Billings, Martha K. Grant, Kendra Leonard and Rachel Jennings.

Hear what these six poets have to “say” about what constitutes the everyday miraculous. Enjoy! Then, leave a comment below.

Tell me: what miracles have you experienced today? Have you noticed?

Namaste Y’all!

d

Scarecrow Dreams by Robert Okaji

Photo by Mateusz Raczynski on Unsplash

Boo! Spooky considerations here in more fine examples of the persona poem. Big thanks to Robert Okaji for allowing me to reprint his poems: Scarecrow Dreams, first published in Eclectica 2017 and Scarecrow Remembers, first published in The High Window, 2016.

Robert Okaji reading Scarecrow Dreams Scarecrow Dreams If by night I move without aid, what then? Precious flesh, precious bone, never mine to lose - the difference between nothingness and no thing. Apity that my friends fly at the merest movement, but when the air’s breathstills, they sing and rattle among thegrain, writing their days in songand footprints, seeking the availableon the ground. And what scrolls lowerthan the sound of sunflowers turning? The laughing daughter runs aroundmy lattice spine, scattering joy like somany seeds, and when my hollowfingers clench, the earth quivers, orso it seems. Then midnight returnsand I disengage and stalk about, scaring rodents and their predators,hooting in harmony with the owlsreveling in the night air, rememberingthe holy shirt, a yellow glove, corn silk’s gleam at noon and the warmth of your fingers against my burlap skin. I do not breathe, I say, but I exist. Bymorning what joins me but the tune of yet another bird, unseen, melodious, the pulse of morning’s dew. Eternity. How my straw tongue longs to sip it.Robert Okaji reading Scarecrow Remembers Scarecrow Remembers I recall nothing before my eyes captured the horizon and the looped whorl of night’safterglow, the first crow-plumescrossing from left to right, awakened toeverything but my history and whatpreceded the morning. By midday I had mastered the secret language of corvids and learned to interpret the wind’s folly. When the sun eased below the hills, I divined the angle of declination and tiltedmy head to true north, thinking this is my calling, to point the way. But how fewof us bottle our life’s cause to sip asneeded. Later my dark friends whisperedthe truth, and we laughed among therustling stalks as I pointed the waynot to the Alhambra or even Wichita,but to the choicest kernels. Placed herefor one purpose, another claimed me.I am the future without past, the presentdecaying, tomorrow’s joke, impermanentand shadowed. I am anomaly, risen.Read also "Scarecrow Dances" by Robert here.

Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. He holds a BA in history, served without distinction in the U.S. Navy, once won a goat-catching contest, and is the author of multiple chapbooks, including the 2021 Etchings Press Poetry Prize-winning My Mother’s Ghost Scrubs the Floor at 2 a.m. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Book of Matches, Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, Buddhist Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Purifying Wind, Wildness, easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles and elsewhere.

Breasts by Victoria Dym

Photo by Eibner Saliba on Unsplash

Tender love. Rowdy love. Exquisite beauty. Body part. Food. No matter how you see them, every woman has them. Please help me welcome Victoria Dym to the pages of fws! Victoria attended a recent workshop I facilitated on writing from the point of view of the body. This poem is her response to the workshop prompt. No need to say more. Her body speaks:

Breasts We start to sing, through training bras,eighth grade gym class. We are sopranos hittinghigh “C” in the locker room. As we are first to sprout, the other girls giggle and twitter.We mature into black lace, mezzo-sopranos. At high-school dances, the boys ogle us.We constantly remind them that eyes are uphigher; although, some see us as windows, too.After pregnancy, we bellow, a swollen tenor song,nursing bra, performing solo shows at restaurantsand parks, wherever and whenever baby is hungry.In these later years, at the opera, alto we, wearinga minimizer triple “D”, vocalizing mammary memories, the low, low, low notes.Listen to Victoria reading her poem here.

Victoria Dym is the co-founder and a co-facilitator of The Metanoia Retreat for Writers, Well-Being and Right Whales which will take place in Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, FL on Earth Day weekend April 22-24, 2022. The participants in this retreat will find community in poetry, awareness about Right Whales, conversation, the ocean, amazing cuisine, laughter, inspiration for their writing, and a final public performance. For more information and submission guidelines, email Victoria: metanoiaretreat@gmail.com .

Victoria is a graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College with a degree in Humility, a Bachelor of Arts, in Philosophy, from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Masters in Fine Arts, Creative Writing-Poetry from Carlow University. Her two poetry chapbooks, Class Clown, and When the Walls Cave In were published by Finishing Line Press in 2015 and 2018.  Ms. Dym was cast for the Risk! Live from Orlando storytelling show and her story, One Shot was selected for the podcast. Her short story, The Linzer Torte was published in The Scribe Magazine, January 2020 issue. Victoria is currently submitting her full-length poetry manuscript, The Hatchet Sun, and two new chapbooks, Shaving the Yak, and There Are No Dogs on Mars, and Other Sermons from the Dog Chapel for publication. She lives in Tampa Florida, where she hosts the annual Haiku Challenge, teaches Poetry, Storytelling, and facilitates Laughter Yoga workshops for Cano Health.

Read more by Victoria here: “Florida Reincarnation,” page 37.

sandhill-review-volume-22-2021Download

writing persona poems: workshop Oct. 6, 1-3PM CDT via Zoom

Photo by Matthew Henry on UnsplashJoin us. But hurry!

There is only one seat left!

What do you think this little pug is thinking? I hate that bath thing she does/she thinks i stink/so she soaks me in suds/yuk/now i smell like perfume/not like a dog at all…or, ???what.

I’ll be facilitating this two hour workshop on crafting the persona poem. In other words, be what you want to be and say what you want to say about being that! Shift your identity. Speak your mind!

This series of workshops is being sponsored by the Dripping Springs Community Library and is happening every first Wednesday of the month through December (so far). The library will decided whether or not to continue the series depending on popularity. That’s where you come in!

The workshops are intimate, limited to ten participants. They are free but registration is required. We’ll do a writing warm-up and some sharing. We’ll look at some writing samples. We’ll write. We share again and give soft feedback. It’ll be super interactive and fun. I promise!

I’ll bring the prompts. You bring the talent! Join us.

Here’s the link to registe r .

Namste,

d

new work: Boundless 2021 Anthology

Get your copy on Amazon here.with a passion

Boundless 2021 is the project of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival. Within the pages of this complex, four-hundred page collection:

we sing to the hombre de raza cosmica with Carmen Tafolla, PH. D.: to the man of the cosmic race.

we call out with Kamala Platt: Now let us shift.

we ask with Loretta Diane Walker: Ask the eagle if it’s lonely to be majestic.

we hear the lullaby of doves; we are called with the faithfull: y entre el arrullo de palomas/y sonidos de las campanas de la iglesia/a la distancia/llamando a los fieles… (Paul Pineda).

we greive the heavy handed with jo reyes boitel: Until I am all hand and all hurt. Until my hand begs that I stop.

we feel tricked by the minutes and remember that we cannot stop time with Sarah Joy Thompson.

and with d. ellis phleps, we understand that if we don’t look deep there will be/nothing to keep/nothing to guarantee

This is a collection of bold resistance. It is an act of defiance. These are poems meant to rattle us out of our denial, words meant to devour our complacent, entitlement, poems meant to bring us to our knees.

The anthology features poets writing in both English and Spanish from inside of and beyond the borders of the United States, poets from Mexico, Cyprus, El Salvador, India and Nigeria are included.

Thank you

to co-edtiors Sarah Joy Thompson, Gabriel Gonzalez Nunez and Edward Vidaurre for bringing this powerful collection into being and for choosing to include three of my poems: barefoot on the beach, maybe i can, and mouth of madness. It is an honor to be present here.

Get your copy here.

Namaste y’all!