04/10/13It falls unaware of number, age or sway of crops left standing. It does not wait for the funeral tent nor see the lightness of green turn to earth-brown black. It falls as fast as knees are slow to bend for palms to take root and grow moans from the ground. It takes away as it falls -- walls over hands, the sound of bones before they float, eyes among stones, the red coat of leaves -- until the mud stops, the clouds break into gray. The sky, an off-white, unseen when the tent strained and held all the black that could not stand like crops that did not un-bend, un-shake or run out of falling grains. S.L. Corsua 04/09/13 * Hello, blog. Hello, poetry. I've missed you both. 04/07/12The Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Melusine includes a poem of mine: Click here to view the full contents of this issue of Melusine. You may also go directly to the Featured Poetry list of twelve (12) poems here. The poems in this issue are remarkable; some leave a lasting impression with respect to all things female. Have a look for yourself. :) My personal favorite in this issue is Katherine D. Perry's "Beach Girls" (read here). Melusine, or Woman in the 21st Century, is an online journal of literature and art by women (but not only women) about women. Many thanks to the editor, Janelle Elyse Kihlstrom, for accepting and publishing my poem, "The Complications of Eating Adobo." This issue of Melusine came out in June 2011. I know, I know, I should have posted about this much sooner, but I was on a blog sabbatical. Work is a jealous... drill sergeant. It demands, and I give. Because like a soldier, I'm 'built' for the work that I do. That doesn't mean this workaholic isn't about to drop dead from fatigue, though. Heh. I realize that I need to balance myself before I fall and, worse, forget... that creative writing may be the kind of writing that I can't charge as 'billable hours,' but it's my kind of living and, frankly, I want to hold back the dying. 11/01/10The Oct/Nov 2010 issue of Eclectica includes a poem of mine: Click here to view the full contents of this latest issue of Eclectica. You may also go directly to the Poetry List here. Eclectica was founded in October 1996. Yes, 1996! Fourteen years later, founder Tom Dooley is still doing what he does best, "providing quality material for the appetites of a wide variety of demanding readers." (Click here and here to read more about this literary magazine.) The following are several of my favorites among the poems appearing in its past issues: The Story by Shoshauna Shy (Eclectica, Apr/May 2010 issue) Anna, Let Me Introduce Some More of Me to You by John Grey (Eclectica, Oct/Nov 2009 issue) the planes, they land with a thud by Rohith Sundararaman (Eclectica, Apr/May 2009 issue) Portrait of A Soldier by Michael Caylo-Baradi (Eclectica, Apr/May 2009 issue) Many thanks to Jennifer Finstrom, Poetry Editor, and to Tom Dooley, Managing Editor, for accepting and publishing my poem, "Gilon-Gilon (The Harvest)." Tom, I can't wait for Eclectica to hit the two-decade mark. Cheers! 10/02/10Two poems of mine appear in the Fall 2010 issue of JMWW: Click here to view the full contents of this latest issue of JMWW. JMWW has been in the publishing scene since 2004. The following are several of my favorites among the poems appearing in its past issues: Hash Browns by Amy MacLennan (JMWW, Fall 2009 issue) Garlic by Amy MacLennan (JMWW, Fall 2009 issue) from where i am, i search by CM Burroughs (JMWW, Fall 2008 issue) Flying or Falling by Cami Park (JMWW, Summer 2007 issue) Many thanks to Jenny Sadre-Orafai, Senior Poetry Editor, and to Jen Michalski, Editor in Chief, for accepting and publishing my poems, "The Fathers of Sagada" and "A Soap Opera Critic." Cheers. 07/28/10the poem saunters to you with a pack of human fingers (smooth, callus-free, unbent from not writing); the poem asks if you've got it: have you got a light? 06/26/10 * Here's an ars poetica poem, with the confessional poets (Sylvia Plath at the helm) in mind. * Time for a bit of poetry confession -- (1) I rarely write confessional poems. Too easy to get hooked on; difficult to wean one's self from. (2) I don't write poetry during periods of heightened emotions. It's a conscious choice. (3) I have a penchant for persona writing. It's more fun than omniscience. (4) I relish personification. I'm a very curious relativist. (5) Pet Peeve Numero Uno: its versus it's. 06/15/10Salvage Worker Makes a Video Log Entrymaneuvering an asteroid is no mean feat, i tell you. i've got to make sure i get it back to the yard or else mr. superior will blackhole my paycheck. but jupiter really tests the brakes, know what i'm sayin'. we've lost a couple of company cruisers to its g-belt. now, they're just junk the government won't even flick a tentacle to tow away. but i get to keep this thankless job. i just hope my brakes hold long enough while my trusty wrench and i salvage what company crap we can from these dead floats. the mechanics with their eight grimy sleeves will cuss me at clock-out, for sure. they keep tellin' i should work the bolts with care. i've been savin' up bolts for their birthdays. nuts. i'd better remember to pocket a green tube from the old fission reactor for my kid's diorama homework. he's doing this bit on outdated hardware. i tell him, why don't you just snap a hologram of me while i haul myself and this screeching rock out of the garage? he just snorts (my own flesh and goo, what can i tell you). green, daddy, green! don't forget! i didn't. i'll get him all the colors i could yank from the messy board even if it mottle-fries my arm. that kid better be wishin' hard my brakes don't die. i got saturn next on my list, and that's overtime pay for the missus. S.L. Corsua 11/04/08 * I don't remember now what prompted me to write this poem, but I do know that when I finished it (and when the laughter had settled) I decided to dedicate it to Douglas Adams, in memory of his gifted imagination, sharp wit, and unmitigated humor. Hats off to you, DNA. "So long, and thanks for all the fish." * Do visit the Tuesday Poem site, and read the featured poem picked by this week's editor, Mary McCallum. Once you're there, you might also be interested in checking out the poems posted by the contributors; the direct links to said poems are indicated in the sidebar. Cheers. 06/08/10He called me modernas though his hair greyed faster than mine. When sullen he would mutter Poe's last four lines in "Alone" under his breath, thinking me deaf for rhyme. But I who fell for his Yeats (when he was but shy in his boyhood, slipping love letters in my purse) would lead his conscious measuring lips to my breast -- where trails that curve and drawl whet his attention for my free undulating verse. S.L. Corsua 11/25/07 * Edgar Allan Poe's "Alone" is one of my favorite classic poems. Here are its last four lines: From the thunder and the storm, And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view. The "demon in my view" line cracks me up whenever I imagine the conversation of the (fictional) married couple in the first stanza of "On Marrying a Poet." To those who read and/or write and appreciate both formal poetry and free verse: cheers. * Do visit the Tuesday Poem site, and read the featured poem picked by this week's editor, Kay McKenzie Cooke. Once you're there, you might also be interested in checking out the poems posted by the contributors; the direct links to said poems are indicated in the sidebar. |
Poetry and Site DesignWriters and Readers
An Affair With Line BreaksNow, here's a bonus: a link to a portion of the handbook, Dictionary of Poetic Terms by Jack Myers, Jack Elliott Myers, and Don C. Wukasch, pages of which are available for viewing online, via Google Book Search. (Tip: Once the page loads, hit the 'refresh' button. Oh, and don't be deceived by the title of the book; it functions more like an encyclopedia than a run-of-the-mill dictionary.) The topic I've highlighted here is that of "The Character of Line Endings" with an explanation of the three types of line breaks (according to the effect thereof), namely: (1) anticipatory, (2) transformational, and (3) emphatic.I have always loved playing with words. Reading stories, telling stories, writing scripts, acting them out before an audience, directing and/or performing them onstage, writing endless pages of narratives, learning jargon in different fields, and arguing/debating 'with' them and 'against' them. When I crossed over from prose to poetry, I discovered something else that I loved instantly: playing with line breaks -- a fitting complement to my fascination with the utility of words. I was enjambing lines even before I learned what in blazes enjambment meant in poetry. This technique gave me room for experimenting not only with the effect of end-words (visually, and by way of sound) and of pauses, but also with layering meanings (that of a line read separately vis-a-vis that of two or more lines read together). In addition, enjambment paved the way for fluidity, for seamless continuity of sense from one line to another (which appealed to me for I had been used to the rigors of prose writing). Where I break lines is thus something I consider from Line 1 and so forth, and which I rethink while editing the poem. Moving words from the end of a line to the beginning of another -- to change or add meaning, and to strategically create effect -- is thus an incredibly useful, flexible means for purposes of how I say what I intend to say, and at what pace, with a considerable latitude for 'reader interpretation.' Do have a look at the relevant portion of the book. I highly recommend it (not just the emphasized topic of line breaks, but the whole handbook) for writers of poetry. It is, after all, an exhaustive collection of poetic terms, notably with a fair ease in providing explanations without the heavy bombardment of jargons explaining jargons, and yet without being vague or simplistic. And it's available for online viewing via Google Book Search which has a nifty "search in this book" feature; cross-referencing of terms is just a click away.
S.L. Corsua
11/11/08 
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