David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 182
January 15, 2017
Perhaps Allan Peterson’s most accessible collection
Other Than They Seem by Allan Peterson
Perhaps Allan Peterson’s most accessible collection, these short poems brushstroke homely images into thoughtful eloquence. Musing on aging and the body, Peterson thinks “of making English out of birdsong” as natural images interplay with daily tasks and the poet tries out his meanings. Mortality lives beside the innocence of the Other as a deer eats his ivy and returns his stare with no guilt. Three horses struck by lightning lie dead, “their eyes open/focused behind us on a long thought.”
Peterson’s “long thoughts” here merit daily rereading. Living with this book is like having a thoughtful, observant friend who always finds just the right thing to say as he looks out his window at our world. .
January 13, 2017
The Voices Project will publish my poem”War of Headlines” in November 2017
The Voices Project will publish my poem”War of Headlines” in November 2017
January 11, 2017
My poem “She Asks Me Inside” is available in Dark Matter Issue #10
My poem “She Asks Me Inside” is available in Dark Matter Issue #10
January 6, 2017
Preorder my prize-winning chapbook Finite to Fail to be published this February.
Preorder my prize-winning chapbook Finite to Fail to be published this February.
Check out my interview regrading my prize-winning chapbook at GFT Press.
Check out my interview regrading my prize-winning chapbook at GFT Press.
January 5, 2017
The Wayfarer has accepted my poem “An Answer in Passage” for future publication.
The Wayfarer has accepted my poem “An Answer in Passage” for future publication.
January 1, 2017
58 Poems accepted and 1 chapbook awarded a Grand Prize in 2016
My deepest gratitude to the editors of the 32 journals who accepted my poetry in 2016 and to GFT Press for awarding my chapbook Finite to Fail its Grand Prize for publication early in 2017.
“Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson” 2016 GFT Press Chapbook Contest Grand Prize Winner
“A Last Bend in the Huron River” Red Earth Review July 2016
“Vessel” Red Earth Review July 2016
“Sugaring” Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine
“Whittling Emptiness” Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine
“Halloween” The Write Place at the Write Time
“Harrowing Hallows’ Evening” The Write Place at the Write Time
“Cutting Deeper” The Yellow Chair Review
“Blackberry Reduction-3” Three Line Poetry
“River and Father” Gravel
“The Darkening Horizon” Folia
“Becoming” GFT Press
“Song of the Sixth Extinction” GFT Press
“The Stone Bird in Exile” GFT Press
“After Bashō” Heron Tree
“Emily’s Ghost Machine” Route 7 Review
“Become a Dark Current” Touch: The Journal of Healing
“Becoming Stage Three” Touch: The Journal of Healing
“The Desert Rains” Heart & Mind Zine
“Crafting the Void” Meat for Tea: The Valley Review
“Whitman Deconstructed” Meat for Tea: The Valley Review
“Wrestling Proteus on the Beach,” Meat for Tea: The Valley Review
“Winter Moon” Poetry Quarterly Spring 2016
“Paleontology” Rust + Moth
“Cloud Chamber” in Shabda Press Spring 2017 anthology Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands
“Alamogordo – July 16, 1945” in Shabda Press Winter 2016 anthology Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands
“Nuclear Winter” in Shabda Press Winter 2016 anthology Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands
“Tanka: In a streak of blue” Tanka Journal
“The Nostalgia of Frisbees” Literature Today (Vol 5)
“Psalms in Pieces” december
“The carillon has voices” Three Line Poetry
“All Journeys are Metaphors” Dual Coast Magazine
“What is Still” Heron Tree
“Still Knowing” The Summerset Review
“Urbanity” Rust + Moth
“A Lark is Hunger in the Blood” Jazz Cigarette
“Pileated” Inwood Indiana Magazine
“Offertory” online GFT Press Ground Fresh Thursday series
“Murmuration” Aji Magazine Fall 2016
“Tradition” 50 Haikus
“Prayer of Vapor” Red Savina Review
“Dark Fathers” Arlington Literary Journal
“Defiled by Exile” Arlington Literary Journal
“The Exile is Orphaned” Arlington Literary Journal
“A last fragile cloud of summer” Three Line Poetry
“Formulary” Hurricane Review
“Absolute Zero” “Ceremony without Tea” “The Orphaned Shore” “She the Garden” Vine Leaves Literary Journal #19
“Infinity of Nothing” Light: A Journal of Photography & Poetry
“Four Measure Rest” Light: A Journal of Photography & Poetry
“Ways of Seeing” Light: A Journal of Photography & Poetry
“Submission” Light: A Journal of Photography & Poetry
“Of Bone and Limestone” Aji Magazine Spring 2017
“Past All Aging” Aji Magazine Spring 2017
“All Journeys Are Metaphors” – Into the Void: Luminous Echoes: A Poetry Anthology (Print)
“Samuel Clemens’ Cat” – Into the Void: Into the Void: Luminous Echoes: A Poetry Anthology (Print)
“She Asks Me Inside” Dark Matter Journal
December 21, 2016
Fallen away then from the present tense
Secure the Shadow by Claudia Emerson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“And I, as I have always known myself,
am fallen away then from the present
tense into reminiscence–the lucid was.”
So Claudia Emerson wrote in this fine collection published in 2012, just a few short years before she did indeed become the “was” no longer lucid. Secure the Shadows is her way of taking stills of what has died, her father, animals, and her future self, now lost to us forever, except in the wonderful poetry she left behind.
Her eloquence is in the exact word and image. Her emotion is never untrue but always real—and measured just enough to be contained within those words and images. Emerson’s poetry is very personal and autobiographical—but in her experience we read ourselves and indeed the universal human experience.
Most of the great poets writing today are women. It is sad that we lost this one so very early in her life and with so much more we wish we could have heard from her. So take the time to read this collection and the others that we have.
December 16, 2016
Dark Matter Journal will publish my poem “She Asks Me Inside” in January 2017
Dark Matter Journal will publish my poem “She Asks Me Inside” in January 2017
December 15, 2016
Reading
Reading “is one of the few things you can do alone that can make you feel less alone.” Will Schwalbe
