R. Garcia's Website
  • Home
  • Documents
    • Fiction
    • Poetry and Poetry-Related
    • Humor
    • Essays
    • Photographs
  • Blog: The Eclectic Life
  • Quotes
  • Books
    • The Sun Zebra
  • : ^ )
    • Fun Quotes
    • Rolando's Official Web Mascot
    • Cool Videos
    • The Power of Words
    • Odd and Fantastic Pictures
  • Contact

My Review of "Like, Love, Hate" by A. D. Joyce

11/24/2012

4 Comments

 
Picture
In the introduction to this book, the author Adrienne Joyce wonders if “like,” “love,” and “hate” are the basis of every other emotion there is, and then she sets out to examine them in a quartet of poems.

She first does this by viewing these emotions as a whole in the eponymous poem “Like, Love, Hate.” This is the sort of poem that challenges the word-association ability of poets. The author wrote down a list of several things that she likes, loves, and hates, and then proceeded to string them together. This is how she comes up with phrases like “hope sundae,” “the ocean oozing from the sides of a karma sandwich,” or “sweeping up the dust, lies, and Tuesdays.” I love it when poets do this but still succeed in conveying a clear meaning with the resulting poems, which is something Adrienne Joyce manages to do very well.

After giving us the bird’s eye view, the author then proceeds to dissect each of these emotions and consider them in isolation. A girl shopping at a store with her mother (Victoria’s Dress) represents “Like,” a lover reflecting on the many faceted enigma of love (The Buddha of Questions) represents Love, and my favorite, “The Beginning and the End,” represents “Hate” and for a very good reason. I finished reading this last poem and it must have been almost a minute before I realized I had stopped breathing.

The book is very well made and formatted. All the links work and the cover (which is related to one of the poems) is simple but effective. My only qualm is that it was too short: I wanted more!


                                    ***
If you like this blog you can have links to each week's posts delivered to your e-mail address. Please click here.

4 Comments

WOULD EMILY DICKINSON HAVE SELF-PUBLISHED?

4/13/2012

16 Comments

 
Picture

This is a guest post by Barbara Alfaro. She is the author of "Mirror Talk," "Singing Magic,"  "The Sirius Interview and Other Short Plays," and her most recent book of poems "First Kiss." I first met Barbara on the document sharing site Scribd.com where her documents have by now accumulated more than 100,000 reads. Her work is always a delight to read, and she is a great friend. So with no further ado here she is, our poet!

                                                   
***

“What do you write?” someone asked recently. “Poetry,” I answered. “And I suspect only professors and other poets read poetry, but it’s what I love – so there!” I had just met this man and I was already so-there-ing him. Poetry is what I love. When I’m not reading or writing poetry, I’m thinking about poets. Would Emily Dickinson self-publish if she were alive today? I need to read “the love poet,” e.e. cummings, again. Where did I put my copy of The Complete Poems of Randall Jarrell? These thoughts are interrupted by mundane concerns – should I vacuum the whole house or cheat, and just the living room? Did that woman in the designer suit notice my ensemble is a careful blending of L.L. Bean and Walmart? Many people feel toward poetry the way I do when I see all the hoopla about various shaped balls. Years ago, Tom Wolfe suggested everyone in the country who loved sports should move to Arizona. I don’t think everyone who loves poetry ought to move to Arizona; there would be too many desert poems.

Poetry makes me feel glad. Whether I’m reading something as exquisite as Mary Karr’s “For a Dying Tomcat Who’s Relinquished His Former Hissing and Predatory Nature” or as pure fun as Hans Ostrom’s “Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley in Heaven,” there is that gladness, ineffable and exact, poetry brings. Pulitzer Prize recipient Mark Strand suggests readers can experience a poem without understanding it. Poet Kathleen Norris says often poets themselves do not know the meaning of a poem they have written until years after it is written. How do I go about writing this thing that neither I nor my readers may fully understand but will hopefully enjoy?

The creative impulse can surprise me anywhere. On a commuter bus in Maryland, I look out the window and notice the trees. Writers always sound a bit daffy when they say things like this but the first two lines of a poem are given to me, they simply appear in my mind, already written:

Trees amaze me most in winter when
stark against slate skies.

I know it’s my part to complete the rest of the poem. Other vivid images – a black cat beside a rosebush, three finches rollercoastering by, a funny but wonderful hat – spark other poems. Anger at social injustice is a strong source for poetry but something as simple as a charming memory can cause a poem. When she was a child, my mother-in-law thought she could stand on a hill and touch the stars.

LA BELLA

for Isolina Alfaro

This is the time, during the war,
la bella started wearing rainbow dresses.

To some they looked like ordinary clothing
but to those who loved, the dresses

contained all the colors of the rainbow.
When the beautiful one was a child

she thought she could touch stars from a hilltop
and they would feel sharp and warm.


The first stanza of “First Kiss,” the title poem of my poetry book, came from a dream:

Teddy O’Connor, I dreamed of you last night
You were the age you would be now
and still handsome in your quiet way.”

The poem suggests its form. A very structured form might be used for a poem about a strict Catholic childhood and free verse for one about wild mustangs. Once I begin a poem, it will not leave me alone – that’s me scribbling stanzas at three a.m. Creativity is like a snoring husband, it won’t let you sleep.

Again, my poetry and that of other poets, makes me feel glad in a way no other genre of writing does. And when I feel that quiet gladness about a poem I have been writing, I know it is complete.

Would Emily Dickinson have self-published? I think so. She would have been mystified by marketing and promotion but delighted that her poems were being read, as am I.


                                                                                                          ***

To learn more about Barbara visit her website, follow her on Twitter @BarbaraAlfaro, or like her on Facebook. You can also read my review of Barbara's poetry book "First Kiss" here.

16 Comments
    Picture

    I am a tinker, tailor,
    soldier, sailor,
    rich man, poor man,
    beggar-man, thief!

    Follow Phantomimic on Twitter

    RSS Feed

    Blogroll

    Laura Novak
    Barbara Alfaro
    Suzanne Rosenwasser
    Sunny Lockwood
    Christine Macdonald
    Jennie Rosenbaum
    Kristen Lamb
    Joe Konrath
    Sweepy Jean
    Ingrid Ricks
    The Jotter
    Robert David MacNeil
    Molly Greene
    The Passive Voice
    Third Sunday Blog Carnival
    Marilou George
    Laura Zera
    Jeri Walker-Bickett
    Lia London

    Categories

    All
    Advice For Writers
    Amazon
    Art
    Author
    Ballet
    Bloggers
    Bluegrass Music
    Book Promotion
    Book Review
    Cats
    Censorship
    Clopper Mill
    Coffe
    Cool Places
    Coral Castle
    E Books
    E-Books
    Enchanted Highway
    Fair
    Fiction
    Glenstone
    Goodreads
    Grammar
    Guest Post
    Harry Potter
    Indie
    Interview
    Issues
    Kdp Select
    Kindle
    Milestone
    Milestones
    Muses
    Nell
    Novel
    Nuclear Missile Sites
    Painting
    Picture
    Poe Toaster
    Poetry
    Politics
    Prague Quadrennial
    Print Books
    Quality
    Reading
    Restaurant At Patowack Farm
    Science
    Scribd
    Self Publishing
    Self-Publishing
    Short Story
    Song
    Spirit Women
    Spotlight
    Sun Zebra
    Supernatural
    Theater
    The Sedlec Ossuary
    Video
    Women
    Words
    Writer
    Writers
    Writer's Block
    Writing

    Archives

    April 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2015
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    October 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.