David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 166
January 13, 2018
Still a poem that must be read and reread
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As is true for most readers, when I first encountered The Waste Land in the 1960s, I found myself in a very foreign poetic land. I read the annotations and explications. I listened to my professors. I reread and mad innumerable margin notes. I felt the poem’s power and despair. But its meaning seemed hard to parse.
Now, decades later, rereading yet again, I know the poem and the poem knows me. We still live in The Waste Land. The loss of all mooring after WWI still remains a debris we drift with. But the poem itself seems very approachable now, its discordant ballet of voices powerful as ever, but its sense much more apparent to me.
You must read and reread this poem. My critical opinion of it had moved over time to it being overrated—but now, no. It is a seminal poem of the last century. And its relevance today is profound.
January 10, 2018
HereABook author site
Here is the HereABook site for my books.
January 3, 2018
A vacant mirror looking at itself
Rayfish by Mary Hickman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“There are no feelings in this piece–there is nothing but instinct.” So writes Mary Hickman in one of her prose poems in this collection. There seems a craftlessness that is perhaps intended. These seems more stream-of-consciousness essays than prose poems, but I must be wrong. The collection won the Laughlin award after all. “I generally know I am sick the moment I take the photo,” she writes, weaving medical procedures with art works, foreign stays with family matters. We wonder what is biographical and what is fantasy–but I do not wonder enough to reread. For me, something is missing. A phantom limb perhaps. A vacant mirror looking at itself?
The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry (Vol. 5, Issue 2) contains one of my poems
The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry (Vol. 5, Issue 2) contains one of my poems
January 1, 2018
In 2017 my poetry was accepted by these 32 journals and e-zines
In 2017 my poetry was accepted by these 32 journals and e-zines:
50 Haikus
Aji Magazine
Allegro Poetry Magazine
Burningword Literary Journal
Chantwood Magazine
The Deadly Writers Patrol
Dual Coast Magazine
Foliate Oak Literary Magazine
Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review
GFT Press One in Four
Glass: A Journal of Poetry
Gravel: A Literary Journal
Heron Tree
The Hungry Chimera
Into the Void Magazine
Inwood Indiana
Literature Today
The Muse: An International Journal of Poetry
The Mystic Blue Review
Piedmont Virginian Magazine
Poetry Quarterly
The Ravens Perch
Red Earth Review
The Sea Letter
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine
Summerset Review
Temenos Journal
Three Line Poetry
Two Cities Review
The Voices Project
The Wayfarer
The Write Place at the Write Time
My thanks to all the editors.
December 29, 2017
Gravel has released its Winter issue which includes two of my poems.
Gravel has released its Winter issue which includes two of my poems.
The Muse-an International Journal of Poetry with publish my poem “A Mist path” in their next issue.
The Muse-an International Journal of Poetry with publish my poem “A Mist Path” in their next issue.
December 22, 2017
An Honest Attempt at Speaking the Absence
The Abridged History of Rainfall by Jay Hopler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jay Hopler’s “The Abridged History of Rainfall” is a collection of good poetry: many fine lines and phrases, imagery that is true and right. Many of the poems have a clear voice that is one we want to listen to. Others play with archaic voices or the stylized voice of Wallace Stevens. Sometimes the poet seems to undermine his own poetic eloquence:
“A squadron of dragonflies is darning the darkening/yard” is a fine line, but the poet then says:
“Correction: a squadron of dragonflies is darning the air above the darkening/Yard” —- not as strong an image or conceit.
Given that these are poems mourning the loss of his father, some seem a bit precious and others a bit cold. Hopler is at his most eloquent in simplicity, as in lEpitaph”:
I cannot tell you
How many years I have done
This.
Last year when I did this,
My father was alive.l
Still and all, I recommend the collection. It is honest more than effete, precise more than ironic. How do you effectively speak the absence. “Abridged” is a game attempt.
December 19, 2017
Aji Magazine will publish my poem “Anchises” in their spring 2018 issue.
Aji Magazine will publish my poem “Anchises” in their spring 2018 issue.
