Dear Poets,
At a time when so much (distressing) news is filling our media feeds, I hope you are faring well. Despite the impossibility of shutting out worry about the world, I look forward to the creep towards the end of October. These days often seem like a ligature—hinging early to late fall, pre-holiday warm up to full-on blitz (though most stores seem to be there already), but more so, there is an ephemerality offered—the chance to costume, disguise, play within a little sanctioned mayhem on the 31st, followed by the openness and rituals of Dia De Los Muertos. I bought marigolds for the first time and want to visit my community’s ofrendra.
I’ve gone back to my books by Louise Gluck, both in tribute to her recent passing and because she is such a model of how to write about the liminal. The closing line from “All Hallows” always haunts me: “And the soul creeps out of the tree.” This personal essay by Glück on the Nobel Prize website revealed more about her path than I had known—she lived in Paris as a child, her passionate love for school, honesty about her anorexia, struggle to write while a single mother, periods of silence and of prolificness. The essay ends with: “Except when it is insanely easy, writing remains elusive. Always I am someone longing to be a poet, to make something never heard before, to be taken out of myself. That it happened at all is a wonder.” It makes me think of the closing line (below) from “The Wish”—“I wished for another poem.”
My former classmate, Mark Wunderlich’s observations also struck me as so spot on. He describes hearing her voice: “…flat, a bit nasal—and then…those poems changed the atmosphere of the room.” And, “The spell these poems cast is something the best poems achieve: they collapse time, they assign language to that which is ineffable, they present the interior life as speech acts capable of achieving intimacy with strangers. They also build within the reader a kind of room—one can live in and move through.”
I kvell for friend and extraordinary poet Lisa C. Krueger on her latest, beautiful book, Floriography Child just published by Red Hen Press. “Floriography Child is a book about salvation: what gives people strength in the face of adversity, not just to endure, but to move through and beyond our myriad human sufferings.”
And kudos to former student Emily Bernhardt on her publication “Little Yellow Pot” which she wrote in my ‘Season of the Witch’ class a few years ago. 🧙
While self-promotion is never easy for me, I’ll gladly share this Q&A up on the Ms. website since it is about Elizabeth L. Silver, my former colleague at WWLA and an amazing fiction writer.
On Sunday at the Skirball in L.A. there is a wonderful mini-conference to celebrate Ms.’s new book: The Feminist Fight Forward: Lessons from 50 Years of Ms. Since I’m now publishing this late, look for other events yet ahead.
A prompt for the end of October: What is haunting you these days? What past ghosts might you invite to visit? I have been reading about the figure of the witch, thinking about things like grimoires, spells, folktales and fairy tales and I just learned about a figure called the tilberi. Take ten minutes to write to ghost in your life — or to invoke one. Feel free to email me the results or post below. 🧙
Sharing with you 👻:
In the spirit of the season, I am considering attending this “Creative Coven” offered through Typewriter Tarot. Samhain—Monday, October 30/4:30-6:30pm (PT) /free/ Zoom link.
I’m still reading this dispatch, “Dreamfall” by writer/poet/cartoonist Will Dowd about ‘hypnagogic dreaming’ which he explored while in residence at Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room but it seems like a source for these upcoming days. I’ve enjoyed his Substack, “The Lunar Dispatch” which arrives on the full moon. 🌕
And this Academy of American Poets interview with October Poem-a-Day editor Vanessa Angelica Villarreal also spoke to me, particularly her comments about “hauntology”: “…defined as this nostalgia for lost futures…grief as a sort of mourning of or as a relationship to history. Hauntology is…archival anxiety for what we’re forgetting, what has been forgotten, or is being forgotten…and specifically longing for what could have been.”
This class, “Writing Through the Four Queens of Tarot” starts on November 13th and looks very tempting.
For those local in L.A., Lummis Day is taking place Oct. 29th (depending when I get this out, visit anyway) at the historic Lummis House hosted by poet extraordinaire Suzanne Lummis, granddaughter of its founder. I read there a few years back and enjoyed learning about this gem. I see a page on Facebook with the lineup: George Drury Smith Award recipient and host of poetry.la's They Write by Night, Suzanne Lummis, Lynne Thompson, and David Kipen.
Here is Suzanne’s article “Is Climate Change Transforming Literature and Poetry” published in the series “Poets on the Beat” through the journal “Capital and Main.”
Below, seasonal offerings from the collection at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts.
There are a clutch of opportunities with October 31st/November 1st deadlines:
The George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature is for “an individual who has demonstrated exceptional generosity to writers by excellent work in one or more of the following activities…Teaching creative writing and literature; serving as a mentor, supporter, or guide to writers….” Award to be given at AWP. Deadline Oct. 31st.
Last call on the Altadena Poetry Review (Oct. 31st deadline).
The Anaphora Arts Publishing Program is not free, but looks comprehensive and likely worthwhile: “…a year-long intensive that helps writers working in fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry to carve out pathways for publication.” FAQs here; deadline Oct. 31st.
Rare in the contest world—the award for the Changes Book Prize is $10K. Also rare is that this is for a first or second book. Judge is Eileen Myles, deadline Nov. 1st.
The Kenyon Review Developmental Editing Fellowship for Emerging Writers is specifically for “a writer who is not currently enrolled in a degree-granting creative writing program.” The application fee is only $18.00 and deadline Nov. 1st.
A new poetry cohort starts in the series “Mapping the Maze” on Nov. 3rd. Offered through Poets & Writers this series offers guidance about publication. $225.
Annie Finch, self-proclaimed Poetry Witch, is offering the “Meter Spiral Fellowship which affords full access to Meter Magic Spiral Plus..including all regular and special events, plus a monthly honorarium.” She writes, “Apply to meterandmagic@gmail.com by attaching your cv or resume to an email describing your interest in the fellowship…” Deadline is Nov. 15th, free to apply.
Writing Between the Vines offers two writing retreats on Napa Valley vineyards—a wonderful sounding combination. 🍷 Nov. 14 deadline for residencies in Feb. 2024.
The Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize is “given to honor exceptional poems that help readers recognize the gravity of the vulnerable state of our environment.” Deadline Nov. 15th.
Join Maya C. Pope for the series Five Things I’ve Learned “about the ways that poetic form both organizes and conveys our essential emotions and insights.” Nov. 19th, $60.00.
What’s this? A six-member women’s whistling group, The Crowing Hens, performing alongside the wonderful L.A. Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson. “We’re Here! What Now? is conceived as an assertion of survival in the face of compounded loss—whether it is the loss of a homeland, civil rights, glaciers, or the loss of shared ethics, purpose, truths, and facts. The project takes inspiration from a family whistle—used to gather family in public—passed down to Silton through multiple generations by her father, whose family fled Nazi Europe in 1938. Wild Up will present a workshop concert followed by a conversation with the artists.”
On Nov. 2nd, Lynne Thompson will be in conversation with Ada Limon out at Scripps College. Register for free tickets here.
I enjoyed this recent interview with poet and nonfiction writer Cathy Park Hong, “Not Really Disciplined About Disciplines” which touches on identity, documentary poetics, archives, and more.
And I meant to post this sooner — a summer article about poet Joseph Fasano’s breakaway success posting prompts on Twitter (er, X) and his subsequent book. “Healing and coming together’: How a poet is encouraging writing of poetry by sharing prompts online.”
Finally, “Autumn Has Always Been Poets’ Season.” “Who doesn’t love an autumn night? Aren’t we all just counting the days to October, to the wool sweaters and the burning leaves, to when we’ll be happy?” More to meditate on.
I hope you find some time for your writing. As ever, be in touch! ✍️
What a generous gathering of resources, Elline — I don’t know where you find half of them!! Love your words about Glück’s death, especially, and what her poems have meant to you and so many others through the years. Thank you… and into November we go.🍂🍁