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.]

Jeff Knorr: “Winter Turkeys”

The VPR Poem of the Week is “Winter Turkeys” by Jeff Knorr, which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2003-2004 issue (Volume V, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Jeff Knorr is the author of two books of poetry, Standing Up to the Day (Pecan Grove Press, 1999) and The Third Body (Cherry Grove Collections, 2007), as well as a collection of essays and poems, Keeper (Mammoth Books, 2004). His other works include: Mooring Against the Tide: Writing Poetry and Fiction (Prentice Hall, 2000), which he co-authored with Tim Schell; an anthology he edited titled A Writer's Country (Prentice Hall, 2000); and The River Sings: An Introduction to Poetry (Prentice Hall, 2003). He is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Sacramento City College.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review with the recommendation that readers revisit it.

VPR Pushcart Prize Nominations: 2011

Since 1976, editor Bill Henderson has brought added recognition to the many fine small presses and literary journals publishing quality material with his annual anthology, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. In recent years, the nomination process for the Pushcart Prize has been opened to online journals and their editors. I have been pleased to see this acknowledgment of the quality of writing found in many electronic publications. Therefore, I am honored to offer the half-dozen works listed below as the 2011 nominees from Valparaiso Poetry Review for the Pushcart Prize. I hope readers will again view this action as an expression of VPR’s endorsement for the inclusion of literature from online magazines in the long-standing tradition of this fine anthology.

As I have continually mentioned when nominating works from Valparaiso Poetry Review for the additional recognition of an award or further publication in any “best of” anthology, I value all the poems and depend on all the poets in VPR; therefore, such decisions are not easy. Yet, I welcome the admirable efforts of the Pushcart Press and Bill Henderson to bring attention to the excellent literary works found in small presses and journals, in print and online. Moreover, I am grateful when an opportunity arises for a few of VPR’s splendid poets to reach an even larger audience and find the greater recognition they deserve through possible inclusion in such an anthology.

I am proud to announce the six following poems represent the 2011 nominations from Valparaiso Poetry Review to be considered for inclusion in the next volume by the Pushcart Press, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses XXXVII, which is scheduled to be published in 2012:


PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEES FROM VALPARAISO POETRY REVIEW

Walter Bargen: “Prague Flood, 2002”

Deborah Bogen: “Dakota Schism”

Jared Carter: “War”

Carol V. Davis: “Singer and His Sewing Machine”

Patricia Fargnoli: “The Weight”

Mary Makofske: “In the Braille Garden”

I congratulate each of these poets, and I wish to express my appreciation to all the contributors whose works have appeared in VPR.

Photo Friday: “Waterfall Under Sunlight”

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National Endowment for the Arts and National Book Award Winners

Today, the National Endowment for the Arts announced this year’s creative writing fellowships granted to the following 40 fiction writers:

Bergstraesser, Paul
Bernard, Sean
Biss, Eula
Boggs, Belle
Chambers, Veronica
Clement, Jennifer
Czepiel, Katherine Leonard
De Robertis, Carolina
Dermont, Amber
Fisher, Karen
Haigh, Jennifer
Harper, Jean
Heathcock, Alan
Hendrickson, Paul
Holeton, Richard
Hoque, Abeer
Jones, Nalini
Jones, Tayari
Kalman, Nadia
Khakpour, Porochista
La Farge, Paul
Lancelotta, Victoria
Lychack, William
Manseau, Peter
Matson, Suzanne
McCallum-Smith, Susan
Murray, Sabina
O'Neill, Joseph
Percy, Benjamin
Percy, Jennifer
Ponce, Pedro
Ray, Shann
Sanders, Ted
Sheffield, Elisabeth
Soileau, Stephanie
Spatz, Gregory
Strickley, Sarah A.
Tel, Jonathan Vasicek
Vasicek, René Georg,
Wieland, Mitch

Last night, the National Book Award winners for fiction and poetry were announced with the following results: Jesmyn Ward won in the fiction category for her novel, Salvage the Bones, and Nikky Finney won in the poetry category for her collection of poems, Head Off & Split. The finalists in fiction were Andrew Krivak for The Sojourn, Téa Obreht for The Tiger’s Wife, Julie Otsuka for The Buddha in the Attic, and Edith Pearlman for Binocular Vision. The finalists in poetry were Yusef Komunyakaa for The Chameleon Couch, Carl Phillips for Double Shadow, Adrienne Rich for Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010, and Bruce Smith for Devotions.

The editors of Valparaiso Fiction Review and Valparaiso Poetry Review congratulate all these deserving writers. In addition, I would like to add a personal note of appreciation to my former teacher, John Ashbery, who also received an award last night from the National Book Foundation for his lifetime achievement in poetry.

Poem of the Week: “Singer and His Sewing Machine” by Carol V. Davis

The VPR Poem of the Week is Carol V. Davis’s “Singer and His Sewing Machine,” which appears in the Fall/Winter 2011-2012 issue (Volume XIII, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review—the 25th issue of the journal—that was recently released.

Carol V. Davis won the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize for Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg (Truman State University Press, 2007). Twice a Fulbright scholar in Russia, (1996-7, 2005), she was the 2008 poet-in-residence at Olivet College, MI and teaches at Santa Monica College, CA. Her poetry has been read on NPR radio and on Radio Russia and has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, Natural Bridge, Crab Orchard Review, Mid-American Review, etc. She read at the Library of Congress in Nov. 2010. Her new book, Between Storms, will be published by Truman State University Press in 2012.

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.

“November Morning: Two Crows” 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, “November Morning: Two Crows.”

Readers are asked to regard Autism as a work in progress, a partial draft rather than a finished product (even if some 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.

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.

Photo Friday: “Autumn Sun”

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Poem of the Week: “Through Ends of Autumn” by John A. Nieves

The VPR Poem of the Week is John A. Nieves’ “Through Ends of Autumn,” which appears in the Fall/Winter 2011-2012 issue (Volume XIII, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review—the 25th issue of the journal—that was recently released.

John A. Nieves has poems published or forthcoming in journals such as Redivider, Fugue, Minnesota Review, Cortland Review, Adirondack Review, New Mexico Poetry Review, California Quarterly, and Florida Review. He is currently in the Creative Writing Ph.D. Program at the University of Missouri.

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.

Review of David Orr’s BEAUTIFUL & POINTLESS

The new issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review, released a few weeks ago, includes my review of David Orr’s critical commentary on poetry, Beautiful & Pointless.



A LABOR OF LOVE: DAVID ORR’S BEAUTIFUL & POINTLESS: A GUIDE TO MODERN POETRY


Regularly, during the past quarter century, a number of books have been published announcing or debating “the death of poetry” in contemporary culture. The reports and arguments concerning this issue seem to have sparked energetic conversations or engendered a degree of conflict among many poets and academics, particularly since the discussion has coincided with a steep rise in the number of graduate creative writing programs at American universities and the enormous growth of membership in AWP (The Association of Writers & Writing Programs). Indeed, on the surface, some might suggest the greater enrollments in our nation’s MFA creative writing programs—whose merits also always appear to be subjects of an ongoing controversy—and the evidence of overflowing crowds at annual AWP conferences in recent years would seem to contradict any claims about a downward spiral in attention to literature and writing, particularly poetry.

In addition, occasionally observers in the literary community offer further indicators they say speak to the health of interest in poetry, such as the sudden and tremendous presence of poetry in online journals or other Internet venues during this century’s initial decade. Others point to the popularity of spoken word poetry in live performances or on cable television specials, as well as in thousands of YouTube video presentations readily available to all. Opposing voices may acknowledge, and even welcome, these developments, but they recommend such activities at best represent evidence of a transition away from printed volumes of poetry and a migration from what might be perceived as serious art prevalent in the tradition of the poetry canon. They would accept every attention poetry receives, but would also compare most of the products in these new forms of delivery to an ordinary kind of pop poetry that, like pop music, has more in common with current fads than classical works.

As I began reading David Orr’s Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry, I wondered how his commentary would contribute to the present perceptions of poetry among readers, poets, critics, and academics. Immediately in the volume’s introduction, Orr acknowledges recent concerns with the state of American poetry and its readership: “For decades now, one of the poetry world’s favorite activities has been bemoaning its lost audience, then bemoaning the bemoaning, then bemoaning that bemoaning, until finally everyone shrugs and applies for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.” I must confess I was heartened to notice the tone taken by Orr in the book’s opening pages—and his hint that the debate over “the death of poetry” had reached a certain level of tediousness—as well as his belief that “such arguments are interesting only to (some) poets.”

The book’s introductory comments also reveal that its subtitle, A Guide to Modern Poetry, might be a misnomer, since Orr’s intentions do not include the sort of survey and study of modern poetry one might expect from a textbook or critical treatise. Indeed, Orr’s use of the term “modern poetry” is not limited to those poets of the modern era, such as Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Williams, etc. Instead, the author usually speaks of more contemporary poets whom he freely groups under the “modern” label. He also advises readers: “this book will try to give you a sense of what modern poets think about, how those poets talk about what they’re thinking about, and most important, how an individual poetry reader relates to the art he usually likes, always loves, and is frequently annoyed by.” Orr confesses to an avoidance of strict critical or academic standards in his explorations and explanations of poetry....


I invite visitors to examine my entire review of David Orr’s book, as well as to read the rest of Valparaiso Poetry Review’s Fall/Winter 2011-2012 issue, the journal’s 25th issue.

Beginning of Basketball Season

A number of times I have written posts for this blog that discuss basketball, usually in relation to poems about the subject. I have repeatedly expressed my fondness for the sport, particularly on the college level. Indeed, for decades I have had season tickets to Valparaiso University basketball games, and I have always looked forward to attending exhibition games at the end of October, as well as the official beginning of the season at the start of November. In addition, I have described how basketball has remained an activity I enjoy with my son.

As anyone who has viewed the film Hoosiers understands, basketball in Indiana exists on all levels as more than a sport. The game is an element in the state’s history and culture, part of the profile defined by numerous basketball nets in driveways and backboards nailed to garages or barns, as well as the busy courts in playgrounds or schoolyards in all of the 92 counties. As I have mentioned in one of my posts about literature and basketball: “for many in Indiana the winter months are more closely associated with basketball than any literary conference. With its location in Indiana, Valparaiso University’s identity in sports naturally focuses on basketball. After all, throughout the state, communities have long regarded winter as the season when news of high school basketball games dominates not only the sports sections of local papers, but sometimes also front page headlines. Although most often attached to high school basketball, especially before the state made its misguided shift to class categories, Hoosier Hysteria and the legend of the underdog team additionally extends to Indiana college basketball, particularly those smaller programs in Division I that are called the mid-majors,” such as Valparaiso—known for the dramatic Bryce Drew game-winning shot replayed on television again and again during every NCAA tournament—or Butler—the surprising runner-up team in the NCAA championship game each of the past two years.

Notably, due to the ongoing labor dispute leading to a lockout in the NBA, which has closed out the first two months of professional play and threatens to derail an entire season, the college game will likely receive added attention this year from the television networks and all basketball fans. Therefore, now that the exhibition games are over and the official schedule begins this Monday with opening contests that include a very tough visit to 16th-ranked Arizona by Valparaiso, I thought I would celebrate the new season by reminding readers of a few past blog posts, some with video of action effectively evoking the exciting atmosphere of college basketball: “AWP Conference, Basketball in Indiana: Metaphors and Made Shots,” “Memories of March Madness and the AWP, Basketball and Poetry,” “Basketball with Alex,” “March Madness and B.H. Fairchild’s ‘Old Men Playing Basketball,’” and “Indiana Basketball, Homer Drew, and ‘Jumpshots in the Dark.’”

Photo Friday: “Walden Pond: Valparaiso, IN”

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“Snow Squalls” from TINTED DISTANCES

Last weekend as I watched television reports about the unusual early snowstorm moving up the East Coast and barreling through New England, I was reminded of the weather transitions I have witnessed in northern Indiana each year during autumn months. Following comments on social media by friends and relatives caught in the path of the storm or observing news stories about how the late-October combination of wind and snow toppled trees still heavy with leaves, causing extensive electrical outages, I thought of similar scenes I have seen here in the past. Although this fall has been mild by normal standards for the region, there have been a number of times when snowstorms arrived in northern Indiana during the end of October or beginning of November. One memorable Halloween storm caused a terrible airplane disaster when a passenger jet plummeted into a soybean field whitened by sleet and snow at a nearby farm in 1994. All 68 on board died in the crash.

Nevertheless, more than anything else, the first half of November often seems simply a reminder of the continual need to adjust for change, whether that merely be trading the lawn mower for the snow blower in the storage shed or more grandly involve recognizing the temporal yet cyclical nature of life itself through the shift in seasons and the returning images of bare trees or empty gardens in an increasingly wintry looking landscape. Though I often imagine living in a tropical climate where the days are always warm and sunny, I must acknowledge the enduring fascination I hold for the four seasons and the characteristics they display in my part of the world every year, an interest frequently reflected in my poetry. Despite the frigid snowbound January mornings when I confess to an envy of those I know inhabiting more temperate regions of the country, I confide a certain pleasure derived from the variety of climate conditions exhibited during the course of a quartet of distinctly different seasons.

When I lived among the western mountains for four years, I looked forward to and valued the cold dry snow that often powdered trees and covered ski slopes on late autumn mornings, but the adhesiveness of heavy wet snow accompanying November squalls with winds whipping off Lake Michigan offers another sort of beauty, which also can be appreciated and present a lesson concerning transformation or acclimation. Consequently, as November begins again and I anticipate the first snowfall that surely will occur sometime this month, signaling another notable change in seasons, I offer the following timely poem from my recently released collection, Tinted Distances:

SNOW SQUALLS

Early November and just a few fitful leaves
. . . . . still linger on thin fruit trees leaning beside

our back fence, though lifting in that wind
. . . . . drift bringing shifting rows of snow squalls

over an empty stretch of meadow. Already,
. . . . . all across this landscape seems bleached out.

Each of these features now appears changed
. . . . . to a paler shade of gray the way deck wood

weathers in winter or rich colors of printed
. . . . . images often will blanch under summer sun.

By tomorrow morning, this short storm also
. . . . . may fade away, the skeletal shapes of bared

branches will be the only things that remain
. . . . . to frame those frozen fields yet whitening

beneath brightening skies and the far scarves
. . . . . of clouds darkening the line of the horizon.

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

Poem of the Week: “China Poem” by Liz Robbins

The VPR Poem of the Week is Liz Robbins’ “China Poem,” which appears in the Fall/Winter 2011-2012 issue (Volume XIII, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review—the 25th issue of the journal—that was recently released.

Liz Robbins’ new manuscript, Play Button, won the 2010 Cider Press Review Book Award, judged by Patricia Smith. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Cimarron Review, Greensboro Review, MARGIE, New Ohio Review, Puerto del Sol, and Rattle, and are forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Bayou, Gargoyle, and Poet Lore. Poems from her first book, Hope, As the World Is a Scorpion Fish (Backwaters Press), were featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily. She’s an assistant professor of creative writing at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, and presented her poems this past April at a New York Institute of Technology conference in Nanjing, China.

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.