“Solstice Snowfall” from Autism: A Poem

As I have mentioned previously, I have created a separate 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 eventually develop toward a book-length poem tentatively and simply titled Autism.

The poem will grow as sections are 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 of the long poem.

I have now posted a new section, “Solstice Snowfall.”

Readers are asked to regard Autism as a work in progress, a partial draft rather than a finished product (even if a few selected segments previously may have appeared in print), and I request everyone realize various revisions—edits, emendations, or expansion—may be made to the posts at any time in the future.

Poem of the Week: "Reveille for a Winter Morning"

The VPR Poem of the Week is Peter Serchuk’s “Reveille for a Winter Morning,” which appears in the Fall/Winter 2008-2009 issue (Volume X, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Peter Serchuk has had recent poems appear in MARGIE, Third Wednesday Journal, Inkwell, New York Quarterly, and New Plains Review. In addition, a new collection, All That Remains, is published by MARGIE/Intuit House.

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.

SEEDED LIGHT on "Favorite Books of the Year" list

I was pleased to unwrap an early Christmas present Wednesday morning, as I received word that my recent collection of poems, Seeded Light, was included among the “favorite books of the year” identified by a panel of reviewers for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Indeed, I am delighted by the distinguished company in which I find my work, including a number of books that were favorites of mine during the past year. I am also honored that Seeded Light is the only volume of poetry mentioned.

As Bob Hoover, the newspaper’s book editor, explains:

The “best books of the year” lists were getting too predictable this year—all “Freedom,” all the time—so I’m trying something different to sum up 2010 in books.

I’ve polled a cross section of the reading public, a selection of Post-Gazette book reviewers as well as dedicated readers, seeking their favorite books of the year.

Of course, "Freedom" was on several lists, but that's understandable. It's on mine as well.

The question was simple: What did you enjoy reading this year?

Poem of the Week: "Explaining the Moon" by Kirk M. Wright

The VPR Poem of the Week is Kirk M. Wright’s “Explaining the Moon,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2004-2005 issue (Volume VI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Kirk M. Wright is a school administrator whose work has appeared in such journals as Cider Press Review, Into the Teeth of the Wind, New Zoo Poetry Review, Plainsongs, U.S. Catholic, and Thorny Locust, among others.

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.

Most Popular Posts of 2010

Following an annual tradition at the end of the year, I offer a look back at issues, literary topics, news articles, poets, poems, and commentary included during 2010 among the posts at One Poet’s Notes that proved most popular with readers. Once more, I have been pleased to notice readers’ interest in a wide array of entries, measured by the site meter statistics of viewers’ entry pages and frequently visited items, as well as the most popular subjects sought by those entering the blog through web search engines.

Amazingly, statistics indicate that during the last twelve months there have been about 150,000 visits to the posts at One Poet’s Notes, while there were approximately another 150,000 visits to the various pages in the twenty-three issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Therefore, as a re-introduction and an invitation to new readers who would like to browse through those most visited pages of the past year at One Poet’s Notes, I submit the following “top ten list” of titles viewed (determined solely according to frequency figures) by users of One Poet’s Notes beyond the usual entry points of the blog’s main page or the most recently posted item.

1. Literary Journals from Print to Online: An Update
2. Bob Dylan on Poets and Poets on Bob Dylan
3. Brian Turner Interview and a Review of Phantom Noise
4. William Stafford Video: "Every War Has Two Losers"
5. A.E. Stallings: Interview, Poems, and an Essay
6. Charles Burchfield's Luminous Tree: Cover Art for Seeded Light
7. Macintosh, Apple's Tablet, and Transitions in Reading or Writing
8. Poet of the Year: Rae Armantrout
9. Online Literary Journals: A Status Report
10. "Wake": Poetic Response to the Gulf Oil Spill

I am pleased to report that posts announcing the publication of Valparaiso Poetry Review’s two new issues in 2010 (Spring/Summer 2010 issue: Volume XI, Number 2 and Fall/Winter 2010-2011: Volume XII, Number 1) also received enough visits to qualify among the top ten, as did the post announcing publication of Poetry from Paradise Valley, an anthology of poems from the first decade of VPR.

Readers are invited to return to the lists of most popular posts for 2007, most popular posts for 2008, and most popular posts for 2009. In addition to visiting these popular pages, I urge all to browse through the archives of One Poet’s Notes and Valparaiso Poetry Review to discover other items or creative works they might find interesting and deserving of renewed attention. Once again, I thank readers of Valparaiso Poetry Review and One Poet’s Notes for their continuing support and encouragement.

Poem of the Week: "Lines Composed in the Computer Classroom" by Carol Coffee Reposa

The VPR Poem of the Week is Carol Coffee Reposa’s “Lines Composed in the Computer Classroom,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2004 issue (Volume V, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Carol Coffee Reposa’s poems have appeared in various journals, including Amarillo Bay, Blue Mesa Review, Blue Unicorn, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Concho River Review, Descant, The Formalist, Southwestern American Literature, and The Texas Observer. Reposa’s books of poetry include The Green Room and At the Border, Winter Lights (both published by Pecan Grove Press), and Facts of Life (Browder Spring Books). She has received Fulbright/Hays Fellowships for study in Russia, Peru, and Ecuador. Carol Coffee Reposa teaches English at San Antonio College.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives 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.

Poet of the Year: Rae Armantrout

As has been the case since the initial year of its appearance, 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.

Once again, a number of outstanding poets have distinguished themselves during the calendar year to a degree that they earned serious consideration for this annual recognition. However, one poet’s work garnered praise for its content and quality, but also encouraged a wide array of readers to review and reconsider a lifetime of considerable contribution to poetry worthy of acclaim and applause. Consequently, Rae Armantrout deserves designation as the 2010 Poet of the Year.

Despite her long and noteworthy history as a poet of ten collections, throughout 2010 Rae Armantrout has achieved a higher level of acknowledgment from those in the literary world, and her presence as a significant contemporary poet has become more obvious. With her latest volume of poems, Versed (Wesleyan), selected earlier this year as the poetry winner of both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Rae Armantrout’s profile perhaps has finally also been elevated among a larger audience of general readers of poetry.

Armantrout, who is Professor of Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, San Diego, has often been cited as a member among the first generation of West Coast Language school of poets. She has continually produced brief short-lined poems that have consequently and contrastingly expanded the scope of poetry because of their subtle, even surprising and deceptive, use of technique, as well as her ability to fuse details of the ordinary with consideration of the extraordinary. Ron Silliman has perceptively written that Armantrout’s poetry presents “the literature of the anti-lyric, those poems that at first glance appear contained and perhaps even simple, but which upon the slightest examination rapidly provoke a sort of vertigo effect as element after element begins to spin wildly toward more radical . . . possibilities.”

In a New York Times review of Armantrout’s Next Life, Stephen Burt observed: “Her poems reject almost all the consolations we expect literature to contain: they do not tell us that love (or anger) will endure, they do not say that our lives can satisfy us, and they never advise us to trust our instincts. The poems give, instead, the invention, the wit and the force of a mind that contests all assumptions as much as it can: they say that no matter how much we doubt ourselves, at least one poet has doubted us more.”

Some of Armantrout’s previous accomplishments and awards include the selection of Versed as a finalist for the National Book Award, the naming of Next Life (2007) by the New York Times as one of that year’s most notable books, and the nomination of two collections—Up to Speed (2004) and Veil: New and Selected Poems (2001)—as finalists for the PEN Center USA Award.

In the more than thirty years since her first book of poems, Extremities, was published in 1978, Rae Armantrout has shaken up preconceptions of poetry and astonished readers with her stunning pieces written in an innovative style. With Versed, this poet in the past year continued to deliver startling work that one hopes has now reached a wider readership and attained even greater appreciation.

[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).]

POETRY FROM PARADISE VALLEY: A Holiday Gift of Poetry

With the season for delivering presents upon us, I am honored to inform visitors that Pecan Grove Press has just released a gift for lovers of poetry, Poetry from Paradise Valley, an anthology of poems from the pages of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

The table of contents for Poetry from Paradise Valley includes 50 poets whose works have appeared in various issues of VPR during its first decade of publication. A list of the poets represented in Poetry from Paradise Valley is located at the top of One Poet’s Notes.

In addition, information for ordering can be found at the Pecan Grove Press web page for Poetry from Paradise Valley. I would recommend readers purchase a copy of the book as a holiday gift of poetry for another or as a present for oneself that will provide fine reading of poems at the beginning of a new year.

Poem of the Week: "Snow Apples" by Margaret Perry

The VPR Poem of the Week is Margaret Perry’s “Snow Apples,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2000-2001 issue (Volume II, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Margaret Perry’s poetry and short stories have appeared in many journals, including Arts Alive, Forum, Obsidian II, Panache, Phylon, Short Story International, and Willow Review. She has taught Afro-American Literature at the University of Rochester and worked as a librarian in the New York Public Library and the U.S. Army at West Point. She retired as Director of Valparaiso University's Moellering Library in 1993.

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.

"Afternoon Assessment" from Autism: A Poem

As I have mentioned previously, I have created a separate 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 eventually develop toward a book-length poem tentatively and simply titled Autism.

The poem will grow as sections are 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 of the long poem.

I have now posted a new section, “Afternoon Assessment.”

Readers are asked to regard Autism as a work in progress, a partial draft rather than a finished product (even if a few selected segments previously may have appeared in print), and I request everyone realize various revisions—edits, emendations, or expansion—may be made to the posts at any time in the future.

"Hallelujah!": A Pair of Public Acts of Art to Start December