| August 2005 | Café Society's Poetry News Update |
| August 2005 | Café Society's Poetry News Update |
 Photo by Mike Grenville | An Interview With Annette Armstrong
Founder of the |
| I wrote a small number of poems as a child, mainly, when there was a reason to. Completing a poem then felt like some sort of magic, coming from the outside that maybe I was learning to use. I started writing poetry as an adult when I was 30 as a way of communicating how I felt (I was very inhibited) to the man I was in love with. He encouraged me. That was an explosion of magic. Since then I have written – or poetry has written me – when the poem comes, usually as a need to express intense feelings, usually love poetry and I don’t stress over not writing poetry in the way I might sometimes with other kinds of writing. After two periods of fairly prolific poetry writing in the early eighties and early nineties I’ve settled down to producing one or two a year. After training in the art of speech – including poetry recitation – my relationship with poetry has changed, deepened and now I believe we cannot fully appreciate a poem unless we hear it - like reading a musical score without hearing the orchestra. This is one of the main reasons I set up the East Grinstead Poetry Café in October 2002 and now, bringing spoken poetry into the mainstream of poetic expression has become a crusade.
|
Unfortunately (or maybe not as it was a long time ago) he couldn’t go the distance and some deep-rooted fear of losing some illusion of material and emotional security became more important to him than love and being true, so (not to underestimate the pain of it) I flew on without him!
Poetry L & T: From your bio I gather that your first poems as an adult were a form of communication with a man you were in love with. Was it a big surprise to him when he read the first one?
Annette: You know, this is really difficult to remember, that moment when I gave him the first few scribbled lines. And it takes me back into the sweet pain of that time. I was quite a naïve 30 year old doing that clandestine thing, being “wooed” by a married man when I was married, I’d never done anything like that. He was very intense (very beautiful), our lunch hour, sitting in a pretty pub courtyard, the sun warming us. He was so expressive of how he felt – an oral poet – and I felt so inadequate. I gave him the few lines: “just nonsense” I said. Watched him reading, and he said something like: “this is wonderful, really wonderful.” And gradually I stopped feeling silly and this part of me that I’d folded away in a bottom drawer started to speak. With hindsight I realise that my voice grew a soul (I meant to say that the other way round.)
Poetry L & T: What usually happens on a typical evening at the East Grinstead Poetry Café? Does everyone get a turn to recite, and is there usually a guest speaker?
Annette: OK, well, first there’s the environment. This is a really important part of the East Grinstead Poetry Café. It takes place – first Friday of the month – in the small studio theatre at Peredur Centre for the Arts. We convert the theatre into a café style environment, using the tiered seating space for performing poetry and the usual performance area is filled with small candle lit tables and chairs. The first hour is an open space for people from the floor. We ask for names of those who’d like to read at the beginning and then I draw them randomly from a hat. Yes, everyone who wants to gets to recite, and, I tell you Sara, that first hour is such a treat, ranging from those experienced in reciting their poetry to those who are doing it for the first time. The audience is always so warm and appreciative. After the break we have a guest poet. We’ve had some wonderful poets, and speakers of poetry, among them, Peter Abbs, professor of creative writing at Sussex University and poetry editor of Resurgence magazine, Ros Barber and Catherine Smith, fine poets and creative writing teachers at Sussex, Nicki Jackowska and the fabulous Jacob Sam La-Rose who teaches poetry to secondary school kids so that they really like it, and many, many more. In October we have Mimi Khalvati of the Poetry School in London (who does workshops also in Lewes). Since March 2005 we have followed up the Friday night East Grinstead Poetry Café with a creative writing workshop on the Saturday morning run by the guest poet, which has been very popular.
Poetry L & T: Do you have a web cam, and have you ever thought of recording your spoken poetry recitals either as videos or sound files?
Annette: Well, as you know now Sara, I don’t. I recorded my bird poem with you on your web cam and was totally intrigued (even if I did look as if I was on drugs), but I like the quality of the sound and will maybe be looking around for one for myself, which will also appeal to my, very cool, 16 year old niece Kate, who is a poet too.
Poetry L & T: What usually goes on at Emerson College’s “Poetry OtherWise” workshops?
Annette: “Poetry OtherWise” is a delightful weeklong poetry-writing workshop, which takes place in the beautiful rural setting and gardens of Emerson College, Forest Row, Sussex. This year the workshop happens from 7th – 13th August and its theme is “Poetry, a Way of Seeing.” Around 6 – 7 poets are invited to run workshops: 3 in the mornings, 3 in the afternoons and participants work with the same poets all week. Additionally there is a time when the whole “Poetry Otherwise” community comes together to discuss and disagree on the role of poetry today!
Poetry L & T: Do you find that your speech training has been a big influence on the way you present your work at poetry slams?
Annette: I confess I haven’t yet been to a Poetry Slam. A friend, Mike Grenville set them up in Forest Row (Forestry Slam) and for one reason or another I haven’t been able to make one yet. I’ve heard they’re great fun and I’m determined to make the next one on 19 August. But I guess you mean performance poetry generally. Hummm, performing poetry at the Poetry Café, or at a reading for another poet, as I did recently, is a lot more relaxed than preparing a poetry recital on, say, Hopkins or Blake or Ted Hughes. With these I prepare them and practice, learning them off by heart of course, drawing on all the speaking skills I’ve learnt in poetry reciting at Artemis School of Speech and Drama. However, though I don’t put in the same preparation, I think the training is there, helping me to ‘give away’ the poem so that people can enjoy hearing it, much more than when I spoke poetry in public before the training. It’s a new art this, speaking poetry.
Poetry L & T: I very much enjoyed your poem “Solstice”; it has a fascinating, mysterious atmosphere of sensuality and pagan rituals. Your footnote says that it was written for the Summer Solstice ceremonies at Stonehenge, in 1999. I’d like to know more of your memories of that event; did you meet some interesting people there?
Annette: Thank you. I am a member of a druid order and we perform ceremonies at Stonehenge every Summer Solstice. Because we have set ceremonies, we don’t gather with other druid orders at noon on 21 June but start ours later at midnight. The midnight ceremony is a vigil at a mound near the stones. We have ceremonies in the stones at dawn and at noon the following day. Stonehenge is very arduous, with lots of standing and little sleep but it’s brilliant too. It’s always great to see old friends and meet new interesting people too. Anyone can come and join if they let us know beforehand. The thing I remember most about 1999 – the last Summer Solstice of the millennium – was the storms. I can’t remember which, but at either the dawn or noon ceremony the winds howled and at times it was a struggle to stay standing. I remember I was guardian of the water chalice and the wind blew it over leaving one pearl of a drop in the bottom.
Poetry L & T: Your poems “Daddy” and “Eve” are very personal, with a visceral quality. Do you find such personal poems hard to recite without becoming emotional (as many poets must do) – or has your speech training allowed you to overcome such feelings while acting them out?
Annette: This is a good question and interesting to consider. I don’t have a clear answer to it for a variety of reasons and if I were to sum up my current position would say I am ‘in process’ with regard to it. I’ve started to speak my old poetry, - which I didn’t speak when I wrote it, but gave to chosen people to read privately - in recent years and through speaking it begin to feel the emotions again, and I can become emotional. If I then practise the poem, as I did with Daddy - I performed it in a contemporary poetry programme in my training - I become absorbed in how best to communicate it to my audience and that gives me a certain artistic objectivity. However, I don’t think being emotional is necessarily an undesirable thing. I go to an Alexander Technique workshop for artists and actors in Brighton sometimes and speaking Gerard Manley Hopkins ‘Windhover’ (about the flight of a falcon) there, after responding to the suggestions of the teacher, I felt Hopkins’ love of the bird intensely for the first time, and feeling this I merged with the flight of the bird and, I think, spoke the lines more truthfully and transparently. I guess the advantage of the training is that it starts to give you the ability to translate the emotions into the voice, the speaking of the poem.
Poetry L & T: The man you describe in your poem “Pierrot” sounds a fascinating character; the poem has something of his charisma shimmering through it. Did you write many poems about him?
Annette: He was, and yes I did. He was the same man I spoke about in your first question, the one who encouraged me to write. That was a very significant relationship and he opened a doorway, released me to beauty again. Well, as he would say, we both did, we created that thing between us, a third thing. That relationship was the start of me working with symbols and mythology, weaving them into my own life. The butterfly I associated with him. It started as a sort of joke because he was very good looking and had a reputation for moving from woman to woman and when the attraction first happened between us I called him a ‘superficial butterfly’ moving from flower to flower but, as I got to know him, and the depth of his soul, the butterfly became a symbol of what we were together, and ultimately, my own journey of transformation.
Poetry L & T: In one of your emails to me, you mentioned that “contemporary poetry is something about turning our insides outside” – I would like to know more of your thoughts on that...
Annette: Well, when I started to think about this and discuss it with other poets (I think it was in a Poetry OtherWise forum), I realised that contemporary poetry, especially women’s poetry is very personal/intimate, and you used the word in question 7, “visceral”. Yet we turn that intimate experience over to a public audience, either through having our work published, or with even more immediacy, by speaking it to an audience, such as in the Poetry Café Open Space. That first leap is huge. I remember thinking, when I first started the Poetry Café, can I really speak my personal poetry on front of all these strangers? And I would have bottled out except that, at the second Café (November 2002) one of the guest artists, a gifted storyteller, Ashley Ramsden, recited his poem about going to the toilet, and it worked and was OK and I thought yes, if he can, I can. And that’s the amazing and moving thing about the Open Space at the Poetry Café, people get up and tell you their most intimate secrets, and you feel deeply moved and privileged and welcomed into their inner life in what is clearly a very public environment. And I think this is a peculiarly modern phenomenon: turning our most inmost experiences out, to the wider community, through poetry.
Poetry L & T: What would you like to do to bring spoken poetry more into the artistic mainstream?
Annette: A number of things really: continue to build on the example of the Poetry Café. I’d like to see more Poetry Cafes around the country and more and more people speaking their own poetry. A big area where I’d like to see a change is in schools. My nephews and niece love poetry but they were/are exposed to very little spoken poetry in their education. I want our young people to have the opportunity to hear and speak the rhythms of poetry when they are preparing for their GCSEs and A levels. There are a lot of people working with voice and movement, giving workshops – I feel we are on the threshold of something – but voice workshops tend to be singing rather than speaking. I want to give people, in all manner of contexts, voice workshops in speaking poetry. That is something I definitely want to do, and also speech coaching for poets who would like to speak their own poetry more powerfully. Also performances of choral poetry: I remember the first time I heard a chorus of speech students speaking T.S. Elliot. I was bowled over. It was like being at a Mozart concert, so alive, and I thought ‘everyone deserves to be able to hear this’. I want everyone to have the opportunity to hear performances of spoken poetry.
Poetry L & T: What, in your opinion, makes a poem good or memorable?
Annette: I can ‘feel’ when a poem is good, and find it so difficult to express that in words. Sometimes it’s like eating sherbet lemons when I was a kid, and the sherbet breaks through the sweet shell and fizzes up your nose & through mouth and gums, an unexpected turn of phrase bursts in your mouth, an exquisite explosion. It is when the poet ‘sees’ something afresh in language, breaking through the staleness of how we have stopped seeing - he/she comes at the familiar from a different angle and wakes us again to the essential nature of that thing. I like a poem to be complete in itself, a satisfying meal. Jacob Sam-La Rose talks about how good it is when an audience makes ‘mmmm’ sounds, what a good barometer that is. And it’s true how so often that can be a communal response in an audience. Poetry really works when it says many things in one like Penelope Shuttle says in her poem ‘Artist in Ink’, “The octopus, artist in ink, impulsively draws eight pictures at once,” The Metaphysical poets were the first to excite my admiration with their ability to travel in space, from the small, perfect world in a drop of dew to the infinite; and their sexy directness: John Donne’s impatient “Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?”
Poetry L & T: Finally, Annette, what are your main ambitions for the future?
Annette: I think to continue what I’ve been doing for the last 5 to 6 years and that is to live out of and be moved to action by what gives me joy. I’ve been doing a fair bit of speech and voice work teaching since Easter and I love it! I want to do more of that. And performing – drama, storytelling and poetry – I’ve been doing a fair bit and want to do more. But somewhere in there is the still place. Actually somewhere in there I’d like to settle down to some serious writing!
Poetry L & T: Thank you for the interview, Annette.
Annette: Thank you so much Sara for giving me this delightful opportunity to speak about the things I care about.
 | NEW - in our merchandise store: the Poetry Life & Times Poetry Journal... click image to find out more.
|
| Dear Poets, Welcome to the August 2005 issue of Poetry Life & Times (For those of you reading this on a mirror site and not poetrylifeandtimes.com, click here).
This month's interview features Annette Armstrong, druid, poet and founder of the East Grinstead Poetry Café. A video poetry recital by Annette is also featured.
Featured Poets include: Ryfkah, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Jim Dunlap, Jean Hull Herman and Aurora Antonivic.
Resident Poets feature Robin Ouzman Hislop, Richard Vallance, Jan Sand and Sara L. Russell. See below Featured Poets for the link to this page.
|
 |
|
In the Vallance Review for August 2005, Richard's Review No. 48 discusses "Sonnetto Poesia,
From E-Zine to Print Journal - Pros and Cons". This gives useful insights for any editor who may be thinking of making a literary ezine into a printed magazine.
Fans of The Perils of Norris cartoon: You can buy Norris merchandise for home and office, including apparel and stationery... Click here to visit the store at CafePress.com. More goodies will be added as soon!
My own poetry can be found on AuthorsDen, these days. The links in the left-hand column of my pages include books and articles as well as poetry. Some of the articles give advice on making chapbooks, or finding publishers - and there is even an item on ghosts.
My latest e-book: Worlds Inside The Head, is now available, featuring animated poetry pages, short stories, video & audio recitals, plus pages in PDF format. Click here to scroll down to the animated ad at the bottom of the page, and click the link to find out more.
NEW - Poetry Life & Times Mobile Phone Pages + Free Ringtones & Wallpapers! We now have new mini-sized Poetry Life & Times supplement pages for mobile phones, which include information on the main site, occasional interviews, short poems + free ringtones and wallpapers. If you have a WAP-enabled mobile phone with a colour screen, point your mobile's browser at these pages (on your mobile you can usually omit http//:):
www.poetrylifeandtimes.com/pltmobile/index.htm
Ringtones are both classical and new original music (my own). Wallpapers are mostly from The Perils of Norris cartoon.
Any comments on this issue or back issues can be emailed to me on the link at the bottom of the page. Announcements are always welcome (brief if possible), you can also promote poetry books here.
Poetry submissions should be in plain text in the body of an email, with a small jpeg author picture attached, also a bio, with the URLs of any ezines mentioned, so that they can be shown as links. This increases the chance of inclusion, especially for late submissions. Pictures are best at a maximum of 520 pixels across, otherwise they take ages to arrive by email, especially in bitmap or TIFF format. I recommend that poets click the submissions link on our main page, for full guidelines, and please, always use a spellchecker.
Poets can submit previously-published work here. If another editor likes it, there's a chance we'll like it too.
Best Regards,
|
Richard Vallance reviews sonnets, both classic and modern.
Featured Poets this month include Ryfkah, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Jim Dunlap, Jean Hull Herman and Aurora Antonivic. Many thanks to all contributors. See below Featured Poets for our Resident Poets' page link.
Click title below for this month's Vallance Review feature
RYFKAH
ROCHITA LOENEN-RUIZ
Poet / fiction writer Rochita Loenen-Ruiz was born in the Philippines and moved to Holland in 1998 to marry Jan Loenen, her Dutch Fiancée. They now have a son, Joel Jan.
Rochita was originally active on the Aylad newsgroup, writing and commenting, now she writes for The Sword Review, contributing short stories, columns and interviews. She last appeared in Poetry Life & Times way back in February 1999, so it's great to have her back after all this time.
NOTE: Rochita recently interviewed Poetry Life & Times Editor, Sara Russell, for The Sword Review. Click here to read the interview.
Corner Coffee Shop
© Ryfkah
Old men hunched over
counter like birds on a wire
order daily specials
dessert included
Old women sit in booths
stare in bare thought
Neither old man nor
old woman I day
dream and eat
the daily special
see the ballet of clouds
the old men the old women
My black cape cascades
a dark waterfall
The waitress smiles
wraps it on my shoulder
I float away to pay
the bill Old eyes follow
Day To Remember
© Ryfkah
She lights a yarzheit candle to mourn love
Their small bout of disagreement lost to regret
he left in a bittersweet bubble bursting
black and gray like a summer storm
The woman feels dampness on her face
The soldiers stole him away
Juden he was like some rodent
to exterminate to eradicate
So many years and still her severed heart
All the borough Jews disappeared
like ghosts corkscrewing through our minds
His jade eyes taut and blank
She wants to whisper I’m sorry come back
The train jammed with humanity
heaped as sticks in a hearth
he vanished with the engine whistle
She sits for a day to remember
Taste of The Garden
© Ryfkah
Loons wade the lagoon
Mountains still snow crowned
loom the near horizon
A few mallard skim by
Invited
we share Indian food
Our eyes water spices
laughter bares tears
The camellia copse lies
flowerless pausing another year
The roses in plumb boom
their fragrance embraces
Our host tells how it was
after 9/11 with the glares
raghead taunts the rocks
thrown at her Sikh sons
The verandah steams green
tea Trees shade
from summerlike heat California
poppies regale with hue
One son cut his hair
The mother sighed
drove him to school
flying American flags
Buddha sits with heavy
happiness in the garden
The sun drops a rainbow
upon the glassy water
Rochita (right) with fiancée
Jan Loenen, in 1998
FINDING ME...
© Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
From a distance
comes the sound of the surf
Calling with a voice
I remember from long ago
"Come down to the waves
to the white topped waves
Come dance in the sweetness
of our embrace..."
How sweet the water is on the skin
How generous the warmth of the sun
Spreading on our faces
Embracing our bodies
Engulfing us in the wonder
of cares flung away
of new love found
of memory renewed
Like finding a missing piece
I find myself
singing the song of the waves
Laughing into the spray of the ocean
Gulping down the
sweet sea air
Becoming myself again
In your embrace...
WHAT I DID THIS SUMMER
by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
© Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
My great grandfather's house
Which he built beside the sea
Still echoes with the footsteps
and memories of yesterday
In this sleepy town
That seems to not have changed
From long ago
When I first came
To visit...
The narra floor still gleams
Yellow and brown
from the rays of the sun
that stray in through the open door
and the hush-hush
of the coconut husk
echoes through the silence
of a lazy summer morning...
I remember waking up
To the glow of sunlight
spilling in through
the open window…
sound of
voices and laughter...
early morning ritual
of polishing floors
and tables and chairs.
From the walls
My grandparents look out at me
Their eyes gazing into a time
that belonged to them
When the granary under this great house
was filled to overflowing
with the harvest that came in
from the fields
When tenants came to pay tribute
and cousins and kin
came to practice their waltzes
on the smooth floor...
All is quiet now
Within these walls...
The floors echo
with the sound of my footsteps
As I peer into nooks and crannies
trying to recapture
Pieces of yesterday
Memories of a golden age
When grandfather still lived
And this house
overflowed
with music and songs
dances and laughter...
I try to see into the distant past
Into a time
That lives inside my mind
In pictures and stories
that my mother loves to tell...
"What are you looking for?"
My little cousin asks me
His eyes filled with questions
as he peers into my face
How do I make him understand
That I am searching for the key
to myself...
That in looking back at what has been
I can remember who I am
and where I truly belong...
For Joel
© Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
When you grow up
do not let life
rob you
of your great imagination.
No matter what other people say
hang onto
that child inside you
Remember
the dreams that you dream today
They are what really matter.
Do not let
Life dictate to you
What it doesn’t know…
Only you can know
how the wind that whispers
through the tall grasses
comes from afar
Only you can hear
the tales carried
on the white spume
of the waves…
Only you can see
windows in clouds
that lead to other worlds
where people walk on their hands
and the impossible
is possible
You can believe
that red is white
and black is blue
Because you are still free…
to see behind what is invisible
Stars trembling in their glory
Suns and moons of other worlds
Planets rotating in chaotic wonder
Angels weeping
Demons howling
Do not let them tell you otherwise…
your truth is what you are….
from Mama.
Click here for August 2005 Featured Poets page 2 -->
JIM DUNLAP
(Rhyme Master)Jim is in the Marquis, Who's Who In America and will be in the Marquis Who's Who In The World in it's next edition as well. He is also in the Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers.
His list of publications include "Candelabrum", "Plainsongs" and the "Paris/ Atlantic"; and he is now (or has been) online at "Die Niderngasse", "Poetry Repair Shop", "Midnight Edition" and Poetry Life & Times". He is a resident poet, and an Alpha poet at the Poet's Porch, and has had about six hundred poems published to date. He has been in the Writer's Digest top 100 three times, although he doesn't usually enter their contests any more, as their entry fees have gone out of sight. However, he has decided to send a single poem this time. He is currently the newsletter editor for the Des Moines Area Writers' Network.
His work also appears online at:
authorsden.com
http://www.thepoetsporch.com
http://www.aceonline.com.au/~db/
http://www.valmagnuson.com/
on Describe_Adonis in the Yahoo groups,
poetryrepairs.com
and in a number of other places as well.
The fine, straight mast leans down and down To nearly brush the swelling waves; Its loose sails trailing in its wake, While the storm about it raves... Riding on the foaming crest Of a rolling water wall, The stout, small ship rose up To start its fateful fall. Its young Captain groaned and sighed As the driving wind swept in his face, And shivering, recoiled in shock When lightning lit a fiery trace. The driving force of the roaring squall Threw the young man to his knees. His retinas ached, and his ringing ears Heard lungs begin to gasp and wheeze. "Perhaps it's best if the ship goes down," He thought with abject despair. He groaned again as the mast pulled loose And uttered a last, beseeching prayer. Then through the dark, his mother called, As the toy ship shuddered and fell apart -- The thunder rolled as he turned for home: Tomorrow he'd make another start. No More Equivocations © Jim Dunlap
The gauntlet's been thrown down -- Prepare to meet your fate! Disheartened dawdling may improve Your chance of being late. Yet it's too late to panic, So go bravely to your post; But pinch your pallid cheek a bit, Or they'll think you've seen a ghost. You forgot, your Daddy told you, As you sat upon his knee, "There's no need to buy the cow If the milk is yours for free." But all pales before the purpose That's noosed you in this halter: Your fate is now upon you, lad: She's waiting at the altar. Point Of No Return © Jim Dunlap
Palm and fern, Slash and burn -- We seem to know No other way. We're destroying miles Of rain forests, Insanely, day by day. Our food crops, Such as corn and wheat, Are all from the same stock Yet Nature's shown Hybrids are stronger -- But we can't turn back The clock. We can't crossbreed Our food crops, if There are no wild Breeds left. But destroying them Seems something At which we're Rather deft. If a new and virulent strain Of crop disease arises, And it's likely that one will, How many of our food crops Could it decimate Or kill? We're smarter than the animals, Or so we like to claim; But birds don't foul their nests, Or horses kill the lame. The human brain's a Masterpiece -- In function, and design; But we've reached the Point of no return. Let's use it -- Before we cross that line.
Radiance by Barbara Crooker
ISBN 1932339914, $17.00, 84 pages.
“The poetry of Barbara Crooker revels in the sensory pleasures of living on this remarkable earth yet acknowledges the hard shadows that fall across our joys. It is poetry that is as vibrant as the beloved French painters whom she salutes and honors.” — Baron Wormser
Questions: Email Lori: bookorder@wordtechcommunications.comWinner of the 2004 Word Press First Book Prize:
©2005 WordTech Communications, LLC
Also available from your local bookstore through Ingram.
Click here for more information.
 |
AVAILABLE NOW - Sara Russell's new e-book on CD ROM: WORLDS INSIDE THE HEAD ISBN 1-878431-47-1 / Kedco Studios Inc., Las Vegas with poetry, short stories, videos, animations, music, wavs and 3D art throughout... Only $9.95 - CLICK HERE to find out more... or Mail us here at Poetry Life & Times.
|
 | OUT NOW - CANADIAN SPIRIT VOICES by Richard Vallance...
Photo © by Richard Vallance, 1993 (Northern Ontario)
Canadian Spirit Voices is now available from Kedco Studios Press (Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.)... in a full multi-media CD book, consisting of poetry, prose, the essay, original MIDI music and plenty of splendid artistic illustrations. The CD-ROM book is the equivalent of a hard-copy book in excess of 500 pages!
For more detailed information on this book, please click here:poesieslaissezfaire.homestead.com.
|
 | An amazing new e-book published by Kedco Studios Inc. Curious? Click the picture link! |
 | SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1705-4524 (Canada) Vol. 4. no. 2 spring 2005 is going to print. Featured in our first ever print issue are several well-known contemporary sonneteers including Eric Linden, Joe Ruggier & Richard Vallance from Canada; Robin Ouzman Hislop and Sara Russell of the UK; and Sondra Ball, Esther Cameron, Jim Dunlap and Carrie Ann Thunell of the USA. Subscription rates are $4.00 per issue/ $10.00 per year = 4 issues/Quarterly in C$ or US$. |
laissezmoienpaix@coolgoose.ca
Please do not send your submissions inline in the body of your e-mail. We will contact you only in the event any of your sonnets are accepted for publication.
Richard Vallance,
Editor, SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1705-4524
dmoz open directory
Listed in The Poet's Market 2006 (August 2005)
Click the above banner to discover our free weekly market e-zine and searchable database of writer's guidelines with 1,000 publications - 200 that publish poetry.
Poetry Life & Times won The Prix Poesie's laissez-faire Grand Prize in 2002
- thanks Richard!
[Click the banner to learn more about this award.]
 |
Q U I C K I E S - an e-book of erotic/humorous stories for women |
|
Come Meet our Poet Friends!
Check out the poetry sites of some of our friends and
Voulez-vous recontrez de nos amis poètes et rédacteurs Meet my literary friends! Rencontrez mes amis littéraires!
|
Visit Crystal Rose's Place
Val Magnuson Galactic Poet Award
New, full colour illustrated A5 poetry chapbook by Sara L.Russell
An exciting new anthology, by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press,
The Crystal Rose © Ice Shard
Ballads of Myth & Magic
currently Poole (Dorset), Tunbridge Wells (Kent) and East Grinstead (West Sussex).
Plus - a limited number of signed, complimentary review copies are available for
poet friends in the USA or Canada.
Special Features: Vellum cover, 28 pages of poems, with colour illustrations & line drawings.
Poems on the theme of legends and lost worlds of fantasy and magic.
OUT NOW! CRYSTAL DAWN
ISBN 1-878431-71-9.
Award-winning poetry, a full novel, 10 Shakespeare plays plus free photographs for any use. Contributors: Robin Ouzman Hislop - Richard Van der Draaij - Cara Alson - Gillian Stokes -Jasmine
Dienes - Tyler Wiseman - Doctor C. S. Shaw - Vladimir Orlov - Monica Smith - Nick Zegarac
- Aurora Antonovic - C. S. Snow - K. V. Davis, full novel.
THE PERILS OF NORRIS, #61 - After being magicked into the body of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning by the Absinth Fairy, Norris must now try to act naturally for one day and one night, until he is returned to himself.....
 |
The image of the Hill's Absinth bottle in this episode of The Perils of Norris cartoon was used by kind permission of Dan Hill at hillsabsinth.com. For more information about this exciting bohemian drink, plus Vicky Vixen cartoon and info about Hill's Absinth cocktails, click the bottle link on the left to visit their fun, interactive website... |
NEW: The Poetry Life & Times Store
Buy Perils of Norris Merchandise online, including mouse mats, clocks, tote bags and postcards. |  |
The Perils of Norris started in August 2000. To catch up on past episodes, click the links below.
The Perils of Norris Page 6 (Current adventure)
The Perils of Norris Page 5 (page 2 of earlier adventures)
The Perils of Norris Page 1 (early stories, start page)
Click here for BACK ISSUES page
Email us
with poetry, articles or poetry news, by 22nd August for the September 2005 issue.
