George Witte's Blog, page 8

Audio of "The Way Back" on The Antioch Review blog

The Antioch Review asked me to record "The Way Back" for its blog. I am still learning how to read this poem aloud, as it seems to change each time I present it. Here it is, with thanks to my older daughter for a swift tutorial on how to record on my phone:

https://antiochreviewblog.com/2016/04...

Calling all doll owners: The Doll Collection anthology

Diane Lockward's new venture Terrapin Press publishes The Doll Collection, a robust anthology of poems--moving, funny, creepy, dramatic--that touch on dolls and what they mean to us.

I'm proud to have my poem "The Stolen Girl" (first published in Does She Have a Name?) included in the book. Anyone who owns, values, remembers, or wonders about dolls will find much to enjoy in this book.

The Doll Collection

new poem The Way Back on The Antioch Review website

Thank you to the editors at The Antioch Review for posting "The Way Back," which appears in the new Winter 2016 issue:

http://review.antiochcollege.org/way-...

Boston Globe reviews Rabbit Ears

What a great review for the Rabbit Ears anthology:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/tele...

Congrats to NYQ Books and Joel Allegretti!

Rabbit Ears: TV Poems

Rabbit Ears: TV Poems is published by NYQ Books

If you are a poetry reader, tv watcher, or both, then this new anthology of poems is a delight. Editor Joel Allegretti came up with the ingenious idea of asking poets to write and riff about the medium that in many ways still defines our lives (despite the internet's encroachment). Rabbit Ears features a wide range of contributors, including Billy Collins, Ellen Bass, Tony Hoagland, Dorianne Laux, and many others and ranges over televised programs past and present, with poems serious, humorous, and inventive.

My own contribution, "Test," is an anomaly. When Joel asked me for a poem I drew a blank. My tv watching these past few decades has been confined to a few Super Bowls and those all-too-rare Mets playoff appearances, Duke basketball NCAA championship games, occasional news events...oh, and an inexplicable obsession with "America's Most Wanted," which finally waned, for the good of my mental health. My knowledge of what's on tv stops at roughly 1978. So I chose to write about the tests of the emergency broadcast system, which used to interrupt my array of childhood shows and movies of the week. The grave announcer's voice, the caution not to panic, and then the loud, penetrating high-pitched drone that presumably tried the system...now THAT was great tv.

More details here: http://books.nyq.org/title/rabbit_ears

Rabbit Ears: TV Poems

This Broken Shore--new poem and review of Does She Have a Name?

The just-released new volume of This Broken Shore (edited by Daniel Weeks) features a robust selection of poems by New Jersey authors, including Thomas Reiter, Robert Pinsky, Michael Waters, Susanna Rich, Joe Weil, and Daniel Weeks; I'm proud to have a new poem in such company. There also are two long, thoughtful reviews, one of my book Does She Have a Name? written by Linda Johnston Muhlhausen (who also has a delightful poem in the issue), and one of Mihaela Moscaliuc's terrific first book Father Dirt, written by Weeks himself.

No links to content, it's available in print only on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/This-Broken-Sho...


Father Dirt

Does She Have a Name?

Cate Lycurgus poem "There Are No Garbage Days" in 32 Poems

Another example of why 32 Poems is so consistently worth reading: this poem by Cate Lycurgus on the contents, destinations, and mysteries of our daily disposals:

http://www.32poems.com/issues/cate-ly...

God's Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher publishes today

Howard Frank Mosher is one of our most beloved authors and his new novel, God's Kingdom, publishes today. Readers in search of a treat (which, in this case, means a beautifully written and moving book leavened with humor and deepened by history) will find one in this book.

Here's a newsletter that Howard shares with readers, which links to his website:

http://howardfrankmosher.us10.list-ma...

God's Kingdom

Powerful Jonathan Weinert poem in Copper Nickel

I like to share strong individual poems as I find them, and here's a memorable one from Jonathan Weinert, Tilted City, published in the recent issue of Copper Nickel:

http://copper-nickel.org/tilted-city/

On teaching and becoming a writer

Erik Fassnacht's Bookish piece on being a high school teacher and how that experience influenced the writing of his first novel is well worth reading, and inspiring for teachers everywhere:

https://www.bookish.com/articles/five...

A Good Family: A Novel