“Margaret’s Heart” by Crystal Bacon

The VPR Poem of the Week is Crystal Bacon’s “Margaret’s Heart,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2008-2009 issue (Volume X, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Crystal Bacon’s first book of poems, Elegy with a Glass of Whiskey, won the 2005 A. Poulin New Poetry America Prize from BOA Editions and was published in 2004. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Antigonish Review, Cortland Review, Marlboro Review, Massachusetts Review, Ontario Review, and Tampa Review. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.

Photo Friday: “Trees and Shadows”

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“Autobiography of a Face” by Michael Blumenthal

The VPR Poem of the Week is Michael Blumenthal’s “Autobiography of a Face,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue (Volume XI, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Michael Blumenthal’s seventh collection of poems, And, was published by BOA Editions in 2009. He is also the author of a memoir, All My Mothers and Fathers (Harper Collins, 2002). His novel, Weinstock Among The Dying, won Hadassah Magazine's Harold U. Ribelow Prize for the best work of Jewish fiction, and his collection of essays from Central Europe, When History Enters the House, was published in 1998.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.

Photo Friday: “Stopping by Woods”

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“War Work” by Pam Bernard

The VPR Poem of the Week is Pam Bernard’s “War Work,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2009 issue (Volume X, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Pam Bernard’s three collections of poetry include My Own Hundred Doors (Bright Hill Press), Across the Dark (Main Street Rag Press), and Blood Garden: an elegy for Raymond (Turning Point Books). She also has had poems published in various literary journals, such as Prairie Schooner, Spoon River Review, and TriQuarterly. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing, two Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowships in Poetry, and a MacDowell Fellowship. Bernard is an adjunct professor at the New Hampshire Institute for Art.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.

Photo Friday: “Gazebo Path”

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Announcement: Fifth Anniversary Celebration

Today represents the fifth anniversary of One Poet’s Notes, this editor’s blog for Valparaiso Poetry Review begun on January 11, 2007. Intended as a personal notebook of an editor or a poet’s journal that also presents commentary on contemporary poetry, this blog was created to complement content published in VPR and to help bring the fine works in the journal to the attention of a larger audience by announcing publication of new issues, as well as by consistently highlighting poems, essays, reviews, or interviews from the pages of VPR. In addition, the blog has often provided readers with news items and additional information relating to poetry, poetics, or various aspects of other related arts.

During the past five years, which have been eventful for VPR, this blog chronicled celebration of a tenth anniversary for Valparaiso Poetry Review with its special issue in the fall/winter 2009-2010 issue. Throughout last year, One Poet’s Notes also reported about publication of Poetry from Paradise Valley, an anthology of poems selected from the first decade of VPR, which was released at the very end of 2010 and remains available for purchase from Pecan Grove Press at its web page.

In addition, 2011 saw publication of my latest collection of poems, Tinted Distances, as well as an audio and print chapbook of my poetry, Dark Refuge. Moreover, I was pleased to note that Poetry from Paradise Valley and Seeded Light, my book of poems released in 2010, were both selected as finalists for the 2011 Best Books of Indiana award, offered annually by the Indiana Center for the Book at the Indiana State Library, which marked the first time two volumes written or edited by an individual were selected in the same year.

When I first wrote entries at One Poet’s Notes five years ago, I had no idea how many notes I might eventually add to the blog or how many individuals might be attracted to the web site. In fact, I honestly held a fair amount of uncertainty about how long I would maintain the habit of posting pieces to the blog or whether others might find the content in my offerings at all appealing.

As a result, I am amazed today to point out that there have been more than 800 posts to One Poet’s Notes over the past four years, and statistics indicate an incredible total of about 800,000 visits to the blog. Consequently, this has enhanced the number of people examining pages of Valparaiso Poetry Review, thus supplying a greater readership for the many superb poets published in the journal.

I have mentioned at various times that the popularity of One Poet’s Notes has been assisted by the beneficial recognition and respect demonstrated by others, especially the excellent authors whose works are represented in the pages of Valparaiso Poetry Review or those members of the online literary community, fellow editors or bloggers, who have frequently and generously exhibited their support for VPR, as well as by kind readers continually recommending to others that they ought to visit this site.

The blog has evolved over the five years of its existence, including more audio or videos of readings and interviews with poets. A weekly photo entry was introduced in 2011, which has led to the development of a new photography blog initiated this week for archiving the images, and I invite readers to visit it. Moreover, despite the title of this blog, content has expanded recently to include coverage of fiction alongside the poetry with appearance of the premiere issue of Valparaiso Fiction Review released in December of 2011. I urge everyone to examine the wonderful works of short fiction in this new literary journal.

I am delighted by this chance to again communicate a statement of thanks to all who repeatedly have been readers of One Poet’s Notes. I hope you will continue to return regularly to discover entertaining and enlightening entries. I express my appreciation for the time you have taken to view this blog and for the numerous comments of encouragement I have received from visitors during the past five years. Indeed, I offer a wholehearted note of gratitude to each of you.

William Aarnes “Kindly”

The VPR Poem of the Week is William Aarnes’ “Kindly,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2007-2008 issue (Volume IX, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

William Aarnes has had two collections of poetry published, Learning to Dance and Predicaments. His work also has appeared in a number of literary journals, including American Scholar, Field, Poetry, and Southern Review. He teaches at Furman University.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it.

Photo Friday: “Hay Rolls in Late Light”

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“Winner of $174 Million” by Norman Waksler

As 2011 ended last week, so did the deadline for claiming a $77 million lottery ticket in Georgia. Someone bought the ticket during the summer, but the prize money went unclaimed for six months. Seeing this unusual item in the newspaper brought to mind Norman Waksler’s “Winner of $174 Million,” one of the fine short stories in the premiere issue (Volume 1, Issue 1: Winter 2011) of Valparaiso Fiction Review, which was released in the beginning of December. Here is the opening of Waksler’s story:

“Winner of $174 Million”

I began playing the lottery after my ex remarried. Like any man who’s been divorced because the very virtues his wife married him for became the reasons to leave him, I’d have hated to have to share possible winnings with her. This may seem small-minded, but we were married four years and I paid support four more, so I believe I fulfilled my obligations.

Not that I ever won anything substantial. Seven dollars a few times, three now and then. Once I thought I won $150, but I had read the sequence of numbers wrong. What I was hoping for was a twelve million dollar jackpot, which, taken in one lump and after taxes, would amount to about five million or so. Depending on interest rates at the time and along with my city pension, this would generate enough money to retire, buy a small house, live in comfort, subscribe to a number of concert series and travel now and then to different cities with great and small art museums, paying as well for my woman friend Margaret (don’t call me Maggie) Fisher.

Around the corner from my apartment was Calvin’s Convenient. Ostensibly a snack food, bread, milk and sudden need store, over time it had given more than half its space to a collection of inferior wines and a surprisingly decent selection of beers and ales. So every couple of weeks I bought a six-pack of Harp Lager, and twice a week a Quick Pick lottery ticket on my way to work as Assistant City Clerk in charge of birth certificates, death records, and marriage licenses for Carbury, Mass, one of the small, densely populated cities around Boston.

Not all petty bureaucrats like me are bitter, dissatisfied individuals whose only desire is to protect their fiefs and exploit to the fullest the little power they have. I considered my quiet, orderly job both necessary and useful, an essential contribution to civil society. My salary was decent, and once I had only myself to support, even comfortable, allowing me to save, then spend moderately during vacations, buy the odd book and CD, go out to dinner, join the Museum of Fine Arts. So playing the lottery was just a two dollar a week indulgence leading to pleasant fantasies and no expectation of actually winning.

Instead, I won.

As usual, I read the paper that morning with breakfast (orange juice, French Roast coffee, muesli, whole wheat toast and strawberry jam). From childhood habit I always started with the funnies, but then I went on to the editorial page, the front page, through the major U.S. and world news and on to the Metro section where the lottery numbers were in a box on the second page.

Ordinarily I’d compare the winning numbers with my pink and white Quick Pick slip, see one, perhaps two uselessly matched numbers, accept the expected with a nod or a shrug, once in a while with a sigh.

This morning the numbers matched. All six. And below, the words and numbers: Jackpot $174,000,000. One Winner....

I encourage all to read “Winner of $174 Million” by Norman Waksler, and I urge everyone to examine the other excellent works in this initial issue of Valparaiso Fiction Review.

Kim Bridgford: “Iceland”

The VPR Poem of the Week is Kim Bridgford’s “Iceland,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2006 issue (Volume VII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Kim Bridgford directs the West University Poetry Center. She is the author of five books of poetry. Her works of poetry and fiction also have appeared in Christian Science Monitor, Iowa Review, Massachusetts Review, North American Review, Redbook, Witness, and many other publications. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.

Photo Friday: “Touch of Winter”

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Poet of the Year: Kay Ryan

As has been the case since the initial year of its appearance in 2007, each December One Poet’s Notes designates a “Poet of the Year.” At the close of each year, a poet whose notable work merited attention during the previous twelve months is selected for acknowledgment and appreciation.

As in the past, a number of outstanding poets have distinguished themselves during the calendar year to a degree that they deserved serious consideration for this annual recognition. However, one poet’s work garnered praise for the content and quality of poetry not only of the present, but also for poems throughout her career and for the promise of work to come. Therefore, Kay Ryan earns designation as the 2011 Poet of the Year.

Readers of One Poet’s Notes are aware of my appreciation for Kay Ryan’s poetry. In the opening of my 2007 review for Ryan’s collection The Niagara River, I wrote:

When I read Kay Ryan’s poetry, I am sometimes reminded of my first visit to a Jasper Johns retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum nearly three decades ago. I recall my initial reactions to all that artwork with images, symbols, and signs that seemed so ordinary upon a quick glance. The paintings of targets appeared merely as concentric circles on a square canvas, the different depictions of American flags or bronzed beer cans seemed nothing more than clever alterations of reality, and the stenciled letters spelling out “red” or “yellow” in colors at variance with their wording represented only an obvious attempt at irony. However, upon closer scrutiny the banal suddenly became a more complicated set of symbols or signs, each inviting viewers to see beyond an icon’s surface meanings and to seek deeper readings in its unconventional appearance. I concluded an additional aspect of wit made the experience linger and even more enjoyable. As John Ashbery has written of Jasper Johns, “One may puzzle over his pictures, but one does not escape them.”

Similarly, Kay Ryan’s work proves puzzling upon opening her new book, The Niagara River; nevertheless, the brief and spare style, familiar from her past collections, remains with the reader and seeps into one’s thoughts about poetry in much the same way Johns’s art has become a reliable part of contemporary consciousness. Ryan’s deceptively straightforward yet complex and smart poems arise from a seemingly simple pattern of slender, usually unbroken, stanzas written in a plain and accessible vocabulary. Despite line breaks that sometimes seem haphazard or normally might create jerkiness as one reads through the poem, this poet appears always in full control, and the lines display a surprising fluency aided by subtle alliteration or other lyrical devices, often including nearly-hidden internal rhymes or near-rhymes.

Like Jasper Johns, Ryan frequently focuses upon objects or language with which we are so familiar that we may have forgotten to pay much attention any longer, forcing a fresh look. Perhaps no other poet, except Ashbery, brings back to life dull and overused terms or platitudinous sayings as often and as well as Kay Ryan. In Ryan’s poetry, clichéd and hackneyed phrases become sources of inspiration. Poems in The Niagara River arise from reexamination of chickens coming home to roost, the elephant in the room, the other shoe dropping, one’s being green behind the ears, and other elements of well-known expressions. However, Ryan manages to infuse new blood into these dead idioms so that they exist with a sense of lively eloquence, clever wit, and original imagery within the lines of her poetry.

Following publication of The Niagara River, Kay Ryan was selected as the U.S. Poet Laureate, a position she held for two terms. Upon closing her service as Poet Laureate in 2010, she released The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (Grove Press), a volume that was widely praised by critics and was named a finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle award in poetry, as well as the 2011 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. The citation for the Pulitzer Prize notes that her new book reveals a poet who has produced “a body of work spanning 45 years, witty, rebellious and yet tender, a treasure trove of an iconoclastic and joyful mind.”

In a New York Times review of the book, Dwight Garner described Ryan’s poetry: “Kay Ryan’s poems are as slim as runway models, so tiny you could almost tweet them. Their compact refinement, though, does not suggest ease or chic. Her voice is quizzical and impertinent, funny in uncomfortable ways, scuffed by failure and loss. Her mastery, like Emily Dickinson’s, has some awkwardness in it, some essential gawkiness that draws you close.” Adam Kirsch commented for The New Yorker: “Melancholy lucidity is Ryan’s greatest gift, and it can be heard in all her most successful poems. But her most startling discovery is that melancholy, with its tendency to brood and spread, is best contained in a form that is tight, witty, almost sprightly sounding. Her poems are often built on the logic of the pun, taking an ordinary word or dead cliché as a title and then jolting it to unexpected life.” In The Hudson Review David Mason contributed: “Kay Ryan is so disarming, so fresh and original, that she has earned her recent reputation as one of the very best poets among us.”

In addition to the praise for her recent book and the critical recognition for her accumulation of remarkable poetry over the years, Kay Ryan also received a MacArthur Fellowship this year, an honor that indicates continuing support for her future writing as well, as Ryan notes in the video above. The MacArthur Fellowship cited Kay Ryan as “an accomplished poet whose immediately distinctive and tightly woven verse is grounded in incisive explorations of seemingly familiar language, ideas, and experiences. Independent from schools of poetry and literary fashion, her mode of expression is a disarmingly clear and accessible style, characterized by concision, rhyme, wordplay, and wit.” Speaking to the future, the citation goes on to remark: “Drawing from the puns and implications of everyday speech to achieve a wide range of effects, Ryan conveys emotional intensity and intellectual heft in poems that are rarely longer than a page. This inventive poet has already created a distinguished body of work and will continue to compose deceptively simple verse of wisdom and elegance, surprising us with the possibilities of the medium.”

Kay Ryan published her first major book of poetry in 1985 at the age of forty. In the past 25 years she has released a half dozen other books. Over the past quarter century, readers and critics have discovered her delightfully disarming poetry. In addition to this year’s honors, Ryan has received a number of commendations in the past decade, including a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Maurice English Poetry Award. She was also elected as a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets in 2006, where she continues to serve.

Upon her recent completion of two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate, publication of a volume of new and selected poetry, nomination as a finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award, selection as the winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, and designation as a 2011 MacArthur Fellow, Kay Ryan has achieved a greater and greatly deserved level of critical acclaim as well as a wider, more appreciative readership, with a promise—as stated in the accompanying video above—of more wonderful work in the future for readers to anticipate.


[Readers are invited to visit posts at One Poet’s Notes in the past that have announced the “Poet of the Year”: “Poet of the Year: John Ashbery” (2007), “Poet of the Year: Mark Doty” (2008), and “Poet of the Year: W.S. Merwin” (2009), “Poet of the Year: Rae Armantrout” (2010).]

Helen Frankenthaler 1928-2011

Upon learning the news about Helen Frankenthaler’s death yesterday at the age of 83, I thought I would remind readers that her woodcut triptych, Madame Butterfly, served as the cover artwork for the Fall/Winter 2001-2002 issue (Volume III, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review. Since this issue of VPR was released only a few weeks after the 9/11 events, I believed a light and promising image was ideal for the cover as a contrast to the daily scenes seen on television and in newspapers at that time.

As always, Gregg Hertzlieb, the Director of the Brauer Museum of Art, kindly provided a commentary complementing the artwork, the opening of which I include below:

Helen Frankenthaler (born 1928) is a world-renowned abstract artist whose work heralded in painting’s next significant phase after abstract expressionism in the 1940’s. Rather than apply paint in a thick, gestural manner, Frankenthaler chose to stain her canvases with broad expanses of veil-like color that give her finished works a transcendent, mystical glow. Her work is seldom about a distinct figure-ground relationship; instead, the expanses of color immerse the viewer in a space where each passage is of equal weight in a shimmering, decentered field. Frankenthaler’s early efforts would eventually inspire more austere approaches in the 1960’s and 1970’s, where painters would suppress painterly gesture even further to focus solely on color relationships.

Frankenthaler’s Madame Butterfly, a woodcut triptych printed in 2000, is a large work (41 3/4 x 79 1/2 inches) of remarkable complexity. . . .

I encourage visitors to remember Helen Frankenthaler by viewing her works of art, and I urge everyone to read the rest of Gregg Hertzlieb’s commentary.

Michael Lavers: “One Version of a Dream”

The VPR Poem of the Week is Michael Lavers’ “One Version of a Dream,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2010-2011 issue (Volume XII, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Michael Lavers completed an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and he has poems published in various literary journals, including Tar River Poetry, River Styx, and Birmingham Poetry Review.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.

Remembering Vachel Lindsay at Christmas

I will light the candles now.

Vachel Lindsay—a Midwesterner from Springfield, Illinois, who was born in a home once belonging to an in-law of Abraham Lincoln and where the just elected president received his farewell party before departing for Washington—lived a life that could provide Hollywood with an interesting script chronicling an engaging character. Throughout most of his adult years, Lindsay sought to present poetry in an entertaining fashion. Perhaps a predecessor to today’s performance poets, Lindsay traveled all across the country for long stretches of time, journeying mostly on foot in stints throughout the Midwest and along the West Coast, as well as hiking through Glacier National Park—an experience that resulted in a thematic book of nature poetry (Going-to-the-Sun, 1923).

He usually survived by singing or chanting his poems, written with characteristically strong rhythms, sonorous sounds, and distinctly incantatory language. As he traveled from town to town, he also traded printed copies of his pieces for food or a place to sleep. Indeed, he has been linked to Langston Hughes in their popularizing of musical lyricism based upon the rhythms of blues or riffs of jazz, and readers will find on the University of Pennsylvania’s PennSound site (located at the Center for Programs in Creative Writing) a treasure of audio recordings in which Lindsay can be heard performing his poetry.

This populist poet, often compared with fellow Midwesterner Carl Sandburg, viewed himself as a critic of contemporary society. In fact, Vachel Lindsay’s most famous and most infamous poem, “The Congo” (1914), represented his attempt to promote awareness of African Americans. In other poems he exposed the poverty and the plight African Americans faced under the social conditions they endured in the early twentieth century throughout the United States. Unfortunately, stereotypical depictions and racially offensive language (especially by today’s standards) included in the poem caused Lindsay to receive much harsh criticism, particularly from some in the black community.

However, Lindsay saw himself as an advocate for civil rights and would champion African Americans in other poems as well. He sent a letter to the chairman of the board of directors of the NAACP defending his poetry: “The third section of ‘The Congo’ is certainly as hopeful as any human being dare to be in regard to any race.” In fact, considering the work and the author’s intentions more favorably, Langston Hughes (whom it is said may have been discovered and promoted by Vachel Lindsay) later chose to anthologize the controversial piece. (Lindsay’s rendering of “The Congo” is one of those preserved among the samples at the PennSound website.)

After beginning college with a desire to follow his father’s footsteps as a doctor, Lindsay found more pleasure and personal satisfaction in painting. Therefore, like William Blake, he then turned to a career as an artist, studying at the Chicago Institute of Art and the New York School of Art, and as Blake had done, Lindsay sometimes claimed to have mystical visions he attempted to transform to images in his drawings.

Throughout his life, Vachel Lindsay exhibited eccentric behavior and held to idealistic thinking, hoping his work would eventually be well received and exert a powerful influence over many, leading toward social and cultural changes benefiting the weak and the forgotten. In 1913, Harriet Monroe published in Poetry magazine perhaps his most successful poem, “General William Booth Enters Heaven,” in which he elegizes the founder of the Salvation Army who had died in 1912. Composer Charles Ives made the poem even more famous when he set the it to music in 1914. (This poem also can be heard at the PennSound website.)

However, later in life when finally faced with intense pain of personal adversity and the prospect of professional failure because of an inability to attract great popular or critical attention for his newer poetry, Lindsay’s story came to a tragic end. In December of 1931, at the age of 52 and having returned to live in the same Springfield home where he had been born, suffering poor health and depression, he committed suicide by drinking a bottle of poison. Lindsay’s stature at the time was such that Edgar Lee Masters wrote a biography of him in 1935, but Lindsay’s importance as a poet has declined over the decades since then.

Nevertheless, in this December 80 years after his death, I invite readers to take the opportunity to recall Vachel Lindsay’s life with one of his works offering a more cheerful and festive spirit:

THIS SECTION IS A CHRISTMAS TREE

This section is a Christmas tree:
Loaded with pretty toys for you.
Behold the blocks, the Noah's arks,
The popguns painted red and blue.
No solemn pine-cone forest-fruit,
But silver horns and candy sacks
And many little tinsel hearts
And cherubs pink, and jumping-jacks.
For every child a gift, I hope.
The doll upon the topmost bough
Is mine. But all the rest are yours.
And I will light the candles now.

. . . . . —Vachel Lindsay

Photo Friday: “Late Autumn at Twilight”

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“Winter Pentimento” from TINTED DISTANCES

With the official arrival of winter overnight tonight, I offer a wintry poem from Tinted Distances (Turning Point Books, 2011), my current collection of poetry:

WINTER PENTIMENTO

The black clot of an empty nest rests
. . . . . in one fork of this winter tree, all its

thin branches now white and bending
. . . . . under the weight of a new snowfall.

Spots of cloud cover still fill the ridge
. . . . . line, their lengthening shadows drawn

across a hill’s little drifts or flat patches

. . . . . of brown lawn that had been exposed

by this morning’s wind like vivid traces

. . . . . of an earlier layer of stain. Before long,

the vague sunshine finally fails to filter

. . . . . through even these few remaining knots

of cumulus and gives way to gradually

. . . . . changing shades of gray, as if the faded

landscape has been painted over once

. . . . . more, the stripe of horizon taken away

by feathered edges brushed under soft

. . . . . strokes in pigments granting a darker tint.

I invite readers to discover more about the poetry in Tinted Distances, and I remind everyone that the volume is available for purchase.

E.G. Burrows: “The Beach at Moon’s Resort”

The VPR Poem of the Week is E.G. Burrows’ “The Beach at Moon’s Resort,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2006-2007 issue (Volume VIII, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

E.G. Burrows was the author of various poetry collections, including The Arctic Tern and Other Poems, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. In addition, he wrote a verse play and five chapbooks. His poetry also appeared in many literary journals, including Asheville Review, Comstock Review, Grove Review, Pebble Lake Review, River Oak Review, South Carolina Review, South Dakota Review, and Sulphur River Review. Edwin G. Burrows passed away last month at the age of 94.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.

Photo Friday: “December Pond”

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Athena Kildegaard: “In the Kirkegaard, December”

The VPR Poem of the Week is Athena Kildegaard’s “In the Kirkegaard, December,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue (Volume XII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Athena Kildegaard has had work appear in Faultline, Drunken Boat, Poetry East, Puerto del Sol, Cream City Review, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. Her first book, Rare Momentum, was published by Red Dragonfly Press, as will the forthcoming collection, Bodies of Light.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.

Photo Friday: “Chapel Façade”

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W.F. Lantry: “Requiem”

Usually on Tuesday readers find here a Poem of the Week from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review. However, as a celebration of the new literary journal, Valparaiso Fiction Review, which was launched this week, today’s highlighted piece is W.F. Lantry’s “Requiem,” a short story that exists as a brief work of poetic prose from the contents of VFR’s inaugural Winter 2011 issue, where the story is also available as a pdf download file.

W.F. Lantry, a native of San Diego, is the recipient of the Paris/Atlantic Young Writers Award, and in 2010 won the Lindberg Foundation International Poetry for Peace Prize, the Crucible Editors’ Poetry Prize and the CutBank Patricia Goedicke Prize. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Anemone Sidecar, Literal Latté, Istanbul Literary Review, Blip, and Aesthetica. He currently works in Washington, DC and is a contributing editor of Umbrella: A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose.

I invite everyone to examine this introduction of Valparaiso Fiction Review to read the fine stories in its initial issue.

VALPARAISO FICTION REVIEW: Inaugural Issue

I am delighted to announce release of the Winter 2011 issue of Valparaiso Fiction Review, published by the Department of English and Christopher Center for Library and Information at Valparaiso University. This inaugural issue of the journal contains compositions of short fiction by Andrea Dupree, Clifford Garstang, W.F. Lantry, Meg Tuite, Norman Waksler, and Dallas Woodburn. I encourage everyone to examine this introduction of VFR and read these fine stories.

I want to thank co-editor Jonathan Bull for his wonderful work that made appearance of this literary journal possible. I am also grateful for the tremendous efforts by our assistant editors: Emily Bahr, Ethan Grant, Rob Onofrey, Ellen Orner, and Jeremy Reed.

Valparaiso Fiction Review (VFR) is now accepting submissions of original short fiction by new, emerging, or established writers for the Spring and Winter 2012 issues. Authors are encouraged to visit VFR and follow the guidelines for submission.

Poem Today at VERSE DAILY and Other Sites

I am pleased to note that “Midnight Winds,” a poem from my most recent collection of poems, Tinted Distances, is featured today at Verse Daily. In addition, there is a bio and bibliography page at the site that contains a number of links to nearly 20 other poems of mine available for viewing at various locations online. I invite everyone to browse the poetry, and I extend my thanks to the editors at Verse Daily.

Photo Friday: “November Leaves”

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“Fall Walk at Forest Park” from Autism: A Poem

As mentioned previously, I have created a separate and temporary blog site as an open experiment of poetry composition, perhaps a glimpse at an emerging manuscript as it matures. The contents represent portions of an ongoing personal project with a particularly narrow focus intended to develop toward a book-length sequence of poetry with the tentative working title of Autism.

The sequence has grown as sections have been added. The individual pieces are designed so that they may be viewed as independent items; however, I have consciously carried themes, images, and language through the extended sequence with the hope that connectivity and continuity will be preserved among numerous sections.

I have now posted a new section, “Fall Walk at Forest Park.”

Readers are asked to regard Autism as a work in progress, a partial or rough draft rather than a finished product (even if some selected segments previously may have appeared in print), and I request everyone realize various edits, emendations, or expansion may be made to the individual posts at any time in the future. Moreover, at some point the entire sequence will be removed to undergo a complete revision.

In addition, I would like to remind readers that a portion of this poetry series in progress was released in March as Dark Refuge, an audio chapbook by Whale Sound. The dozen poems in that chapbook represent a narrative designed as a poetic sequence, part of this overall project of poetry I have been composing about particular observations or impressions concerning the characteristics and consequences associated with autism through a poetic chronicling of personal experiences with Alex.

Dark Refuge is available for readers to experience in differing formats: as online audio, online text, free downloadable mp3, pdf, e-book, print edition, and cd. Therefore, I also urge readers to visit the main page for Dark Refuge.

Laura Lee Washburn: “Cheyenne Valley, Autumn”

The VPR Poem of the Week is Laura Lee Washburn’s “Cheyenne Valley, Autumn,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue (Volume XII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University, an editorial board member of the Woodley Memorial Press, and the author of This Good Warm Place (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Carolina Quarterly, Quarterly West, The Sun, The Journal, and Clackamas Review.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it.

Photo Friday: “Black (& White) Friday”

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Thanksgiving Notes and a Poem

On this eve of Thanksgiving, I pause to offer my gratitude for all of the good fortune that has occurred in the past year, and I once again express my appreciation to each reader of Valparaiso Poetry Review who has happened upon the valuable works included in the current issue of VPR, the twenty-fifth, as well as the marvelous materials accumulated in the journal’s pages of archived issues throughout its publication.

Additionally, I am thankful to the large number of individuals who have visited this site in the last year and examined the articles at One Poet’s Notes, the editor’s blog for Valparaiso Poetry Review. I am amazed and honored by the tremendous growth in readership for this blog since its initiation in 2007, as the accumulated number of visits to the pages of One Poet’s Notes surpassed 500,000 this year, with monthly statistics now averaging more than 20,000.

I am especially thankful to the many readers over the years that have sent messages containing complimentary comments and continually constructive statements about the content or form of both Valparaiso Poetry Review and the VPR blog. Consequently, I would like to acknowledge again the fine contributions by the hundreds of authors who have had their works appear in VPR since its initial publication in 1999. I wish all those writers, as well as each reader who generously decided to spend some time considering posts at One Poet’s Notes or browsing the poetry and prose among the thousands of pages of Valparaiso Poetry Review, best wishes for an enjoyable holiday season.

In addition, I would like to express appreciation to my co-editor at Valparaiso Fiction Review, Jonathan Bull, as well as the assistant editors (Emily Bahr, Ethan Grant, Rob Onofrey, Ellen Orner, and Jeremy Reed) who have worked diligently to initiate this new literary review for quality short fiction. Now that Valparaiso Poetry Review has published twenty-five issues, appearance of a new sister publication devoted to fiction seems overdue. I am pleased to note that the debut issue of Valparaiso Fiction Review is scheduled for publication on December 1, and I will include on this blog an announcement of its availability at that time.

As always, I am thankful for the kindness and consideration often offered by friends or family, and I am especially grateful for the love of my wife Pam and my son Alex. I wish everyone a happy holiday weekend, and I hope all will continue to visit in the future to find interesting and informative writings. Finally, on this special occasion I offer a Thanksgiving poem of my own:

THANKSGIVING: BEFORE LEAVING FOR HOME


. . . . . I

At first, one row of clouds fell below that nearby
. . . . . mountain ridge and we could feel the swift wind

of winter’s initial cold front suddenly sweeping
. . . . . across a gray field, still darkened by their stain,

or throwing about those leaves blowing like snow
. . . . . into drifts along the ground all around our rented

house; even today, we know there is no way this
. . . . . day will ever recede very far from our memories.


. . . . . II

Not much more than a few hours earlier, you
. . . . . and I had again awakened long before morning’s

sunrise, though our windows were then whitened
. . . . . by moonlight, to the sound of our young son’s

cries for someone to come to him. As if those
. . . . . roaming shadows that had emerged were thieves,

he’d felt loss move through his room from dresser
. . . . . to desk to chest; an absence had already taken place.


. . . . . III

Who knew the hospital would be so far away?
. . . . . Beneath black branches, wind-thinned and arching

overhead, almost as dark as those cavern walls
. . . . . we’d visited earlier in our vacation, a stark road

wound around the edge of town, coiling toward
. . . . . some distant hint of morning light just beginning

to glint up ahead; at last, with each shallow swallow
. . . . . he’d breathe, we now could see how close we were.

[“Thanksgiving: Before Leaving for Home” is among the poems included in my collection, Seeded Light, published by Turning Point Books.]