Alarie Tennille's Blog: Alarie's Poetry and Point of View, page 6

Featured on Your Daily Poem

My poem, "Volunteer Vertigo," from my book, RUNNING COUNTERCLOCKWISE, was featured as Your Daily Poem for May 18, 2014. I hope you enjoy it.

http://yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp...

Giving Autism a Voice

I've reviewed SHE HAS A NAME both on Amazon and in Goodreads, but I wanted to call it out in my blog, too. Poetry rarely finds many readers, and this is a book that needs to be read. It will especially benefit families dealing with autism or other special needs.

Kamilah Aisha Moon writes poignant, accessible, engaging poems no matter what the topic, but SHE HAS A NAME goes way beyond being another collection of good poems. Moon opens the door to her family home and introduces her sister with autism, “1 in 150 now.” She shows how the condition also affects the other sisters, father, mother, teachers, bosses, bullies and, in the end, changes our world.

In our society, it’s taboo to speak of personal heartbreaks. Moon writes, “…I’m from the South, a suburb/where Grief pulls the shades first, stays home if indecent.” Fortunately, she is also a poet and loving sibling who recognizes she must give voice to a sister “with a native tongue of one.” Moon is equally frank in telling of childhood fights (“Her honor saved,/gauze and hydrogen peroxide fizzing/in broken skin.”) and in exposing her adult guilt (“Each visit home frays me,/the price I pay for being able to drive away.”)

Moon never wallows in self-pity. Instead, she invites us to the world family reunion where we each wear a name tag, have a story to tell, and claim each other.

Keeping Cool

"Keeping Cool" is one of many poems I've written about my father, a Carolina farm boy who became a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne (WWII). I suppose after dropping from the sky into the Battle of the Bulge, sitting in a burning car seemed like nothing. This poem is in my book, Running Counterclockwise:

Keeping Cool


The used car was a steal
Daddy said. Air conditioning.
So we piled in and headed
for Richmond. Broad Street,
downtown—scalding pavement.
What did we care that traffic
crawled? We enjoyed
the novelty of not sweating.

The woman in the next car
seemed cool, too, as she
asked Mama, “Did you know
you’re on fire?”

Flames shot up from the chassis.
My brother saved himself,
watched from the corner as Mama
turned into Wonder Woman,
yanking me up and over
the front seat.

Now the three of us stood
on the curb yelling at Daddy.
The fireman with a bull horn
yelled, too, “Sir, get out of the car
NOW!” But Daddy just stayed
cool.

Alarie Tennille

© Tennille, first published in Wild Goose Poetry Review

Best Book I've Used on Poetic Forms

alt="The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms" border="0" src="https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net..." />The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms by Ron Padgett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I own at least one book of poetic forms and have used several. I've also looked up individual forms online. This handbook edited by Ron Padgett is the best I've seen. I understand there can be problems getting permissions to reprint poems. This publisher worked that out. There is nothing more frustrating than reading a dry description of a form and list of rhyme schemes (abba cddc...) with no example to make it come alive.
Padgett's book is better for other reasons, too, not the least of which is that he's an entertaining writer and gifted poet. He earned that fifth star by sharing insights on how to get started writing in a particular form, what sorts of topics or tones the form lends itself to, and lists of writers from ancient times to present who have excelled in each form. If you're a teacher or writer thinking you should buy a form handbook, this is the one.



View all my reviews

Happy Poetry Month!

Welcome to my new blog!

I've been celebrating Poetry Month the way I celebrate poetry all year, by reading and writing it. I won't be posting a lot on this blog until I get a larger following.
However, I want to invite you to visit and like my Facebook page for Alarie Tennille - Poet, where I've been posting at least one poem a day this month. Since this is my first post, I'll leave you with my most recently published poem, "Layoff":

http://kentuckyreview.org/poetry/2014...

Layoff


It feels like divorce.
While you popped open
anniversary champagne,
your spouse changed
the locks, siphoned off
the accounts, left you
for a younger model.

You’ve slipped off the axle
of expectation, skidded
into an alternate universe,
wrecked in a pileup that took
out half your friends.

You wake from that familiar
dream of going to work naked
to find yourself stripped
of skin and ego. What to do?

You imitate your smile, pump
up your résumé, and tell the mirror
it’s only a job.

© Alarie Tennille 2014

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Thanks for visiting.

Alarie