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JUST A TASTE

9/1/2016

by Sarah Kohrs, Managing Editor

Welsh poet and writer, Dylan Thomas, once conveyed: "Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own." It takes courage to share your poetry, and yet every poet yearns to do so.

On August 13, 2016, forty poetry-lovers gathered in the exhibit hall of ShenArts, a non-profit arts council located in Winchester, Virginia, to enjoy a poetry reading by American poet, Ron Smith. An array of cakes, cookies, and fruits delighted our palettes, while we sat listening to a variety of poems from his published collections. "The track star who hasn't done his homework / wants to argue again. His opinion / is his opinion and mine is only / mine," began Smith, reading the opening lines of his poem, "Objectivity," published in Moon Road: Poems 1986-2005. The audience became captivated by words woven to ensnare us in the magic of poetry. It was like a Pied Piper moment, only instead of following the tunes of a flute, our minds were caught by the voice of a bard sharing his own poetical devices. And that is the beauty of A Taste of Poetry.

This year, Carrabba's Italian Grill donated a delicious chicken alfredo pasta dish, Caesar salad, and fresh bread for our Dinner with the Poet. Eighteen people gathered for the catered meal prior to A Taste of Poetry. Elegant stemware. Ebony-clothed tables. Lively conversation. Glasses of shimmering wine. Dinner was a treat. In addition to Carrabba's, Country Inn & Suites provided accommodations for our guest poet and his wife. The evening would not have been a success without the partnership of ShenArts, Carrabba's, Country Inn & Suites, and those who donated, dined, or drew near to hear poetry read by its very own acclaimed poet,

Imagine an evening surrounded by an exhibit of fine art, conversation inspired by an engaging poet that loves his or her craft, delicious food, and an opportunity to connect with poetry in tangible ways. If you missed the August Taste of Poetry, don't miss the next one. Keep your eyes open for publicity surrounding our next Taste of Poetry!

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"Advice to a Painter"

1/27/2016

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Ron Smith, current Poet Laureate of Virginia, served as the judge for our 2015 Poetry Contest, which drew in over 400 submissions. Smith chose "Advice to a Painter" as the winning poem, written by James McKee, a resident of Astoria, NY, Here is a look at why "Advice to a Painter" caught our poetry judge's eye.

"Unlike Renaissance advice-to-painter poems, this one is gentler and more inclined to the aesthetic than to the political. Or, to put it differently, our 'Advice to a Painter' is not angry satire, but (it seems to me) anti-satire. It’s an intelligent meditation on matters both inside and outside the painter’s control and necessary focus. In this, it’s an old-fashioned poem, I guess, openly unwilling to sacrifice the aesthetic for the narrowly partisan. I’ll bet some will feel its form is old-fashioned, too, though it’s a variation on Venus & Adonis stanza that I can’t recall seeing before, tetrameter lines instead of pentameter ones — and it is beautifully executed (though one strategically enjambed stanza might have improved the effect). The form is handled with pleasure and confidence, as if to say, Let’s remember the best things about the Renaissance, the incomparable verbal and visual arts – rather than the wars, the torture, and the persecutions. Our 'Advice to a Painter' is aware of such things, in the past and the present, but chooses art over remonstration. Is it possible I’m missing some of the poem’s irony? Maybe. This fine poem, lush with detail and rich with sound, can savor its thematic cake and still have it later, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t we, too, prefer the 'impeccably impure' in art over the righteous dogmatism of even a Waller or a Marvell?"

Look for the Poetry Contest finalists and winning poem in our Summer 2016 issue.

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A Taste of Poetry

10/13/2015

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by Kristin Zimet, Editor

A Taste of Poetry returns on October 24, and I can hardly wait to welcome our poets. Stanley Plumly is a leading light in the world of poetry, with many books to his credit. We are so fortunate that he is coming. Elisabeth Murawski is a marvelous poet whose work appeared in The Sow's Ear Poetry Review in the Summer issue and will appear again in our Fall issue. Our community of contributors is far-flung, so it is a treat when one is close by to share their work in person.

We choose poems as alive as possible for our pages, and art that helps them leap off the page. But poetry is meant to live in the mouth. A Taste of Poetry lets us go "all the way" - straight to ears and hearts.

This is one reason the event came into being five years ago. In Winchester, Virginia, and the region around it I saw few opportunities to hear fine poetry and to meet poets dedicated to a life of craft. And if people do not hear poetry, they might never learn to love it - to turn to it for pleasure and sustenance. If people do not hear poets in person, they might miss that poetry is not dry stuff on a page, but the water of life.

A Taste of Poetry - we nearly called it A Taste for Poetry - pairs delicious food with words that feed you, addressing mind and body. Some of our audience are connoisseurs of words, and dessert is just a bonus. Some come for the food, and discover they love the poems.

We have hosted two poets a year since 2011, in Summer and Fall. Among them were Michael Collier, Rose Solari, Kelly Cherry, and other luminaries. Our perfect partner is the Shenandoah Arts Council. This adds another dimension to the event, one which is close to my heart. On each page of the poetry review, we marry visual art with literary art. And at each "Taste" the room where the poets read is filled with art.

On October 24, you may choose an extra treat! For $30 per person, you can come early, at 5:30, and have "Dinner with the Poets." Come, sit down to a family-style dinner with Stanley and Elisabeth. You will be doing your part to keep this event financially secure.

Please make a reservation by October 21, as seating is limited. Of course, if you come at 7, we welcome you as always to the reading and dessert.

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And, the 2015 Chapbook Contest Winner is . . .

8/27/2015

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Kim Garcia's Tales of the Sisters is The Sow's Ear Poetry Review's 2015 Chapbook Contest winner.

by Sam Rasnake, Associate Editor and Chapbook Contest Judge

There’s a poetry so close to the bone I’m afraid to look into a mirror, a poetry so razor-edged I know it will find my core, a poetry with such an authentic voice I can’t help but listen. Kim Garcia’s writing affects me this way. Her chapbook Tales of the Sisters unfolds a dark map of childhood – in the vein of Transformations by Anne Sexton and The Father by Sharon Olds. The child’s world created here is a modern echo of the shadowy and disturbing landscapes of the Brothers Grimm. As I read the many entries to this year’s contest, I kept finding my way back to her words.

Garcia’s chapbook is a force and difficult to put down. Readers as witness won’t be able to avert their eyes from the intense tangle of loss and pain and memory. This is a book about juxtaposed worlds, about innocent trust at war with darkness: a “scuffled place in the snow, // one red glove where black asphalt showed through,” “the whole stink of his rage,” the “smell // of rotten leaves, where the toads hid,” “as he bludgeoned rats, big as small dogs, / and threw their bodies into the furnace,” and “red cherry lights swirling the white plaster ceiling”. With the filmic ease of a gifted pen, Garcia sweeps us into a brutal reality that does eventually settle into mercy and silence. What remains is the story.

Two long poems – the title piece, divided into seven parts throughout the pages, and “The Little Golden Books” – represent the collection’s emotional center. All urges of relationships, guilt, and memory connect with these crucial works, transforming a childhood home into an almost magical world so intense one dare not look too closely. It’s “a place no one can see,” but Garcia takes us there, and we’re glad she knows the way. Tales of the Sisters is a remarkable, stirring read .

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Preparing the Winning Chapbook for Publication

8/13/2015

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by Larry Richman, Associate Editor

I welcome a certain amount of collaboration when I work on a chapbook. The authors I work with are upbeat—happy to be published and to receive a check for $1,000 from The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review. Besides, I have always thought poets in this un-poetry American culture deserve cordial service. Of course, I have no objection to doing the whole thing myself if the winning poet wants me to.

Here is an example of interaction from American Libretto. Danielle Cadena Duelen’s poems fit on 8 ½" x 11" sheets, but with the standard 6" x 9" chapbook page we prefer, a good many of them required two pages, moving our ideal 32-36 pages up to 48. So I sent her a pair of samples, 6" x 9" and 6" x 10" pages, and asked for her preference. She liked the longer one and so did I, though I hadn’t told her that. Back to 36 pages. I think her longer page balances the poems better.

In my third decade of designing books, I still go about creating each as a unique enterprise. I do have two personal rules, Richman’s Rules of Poetry Design, one absolute and one relative. Absolute, NO BOLD. Bold is for selling groceries! Using bold fonts for titles, as many designers do, suggests a reader’s dilemma: Oh, where could the title be for this poem? I don’t seem to see it. Why couldn’t the designer put it where . . . Oh, now I see it, up at the top of the page!

My relative rule is based on an analogy, title as head, poem as body. How would you like it if whoever designed you had put your head four or five inches left of center? You’d get used to it, I suppose, but for kissing and sex it might be a little awkward. It’s awkward on the page, in my opinion. Putting titles flush left is sometimes best, though. For example, if poems in a collection have wildly varying line lengths, centered titles call attention to themselves and look wrong.

The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review authors often enjoy creating their own covers or call upon an artist friend. Meanwhile I work the text in WORD, choosing fonts that support the author’s tone, expanding and contracting letter spacing and line spacing so that poems settle in comfortably on the page. Sometimes this fine tuning occurs dozens of times on a page, as it did with Danielle’s line breaks in her Montaigne poems.

Her chapbook, opening our 25th anniversary year, had to be as good as I could make it. I have tried to give my best to all the chapbooks I’ve done—including all of The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review winners. The fact that The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review is a volunteer project, subsidized by the volunteers and by reading fees but not by a college or university, gives me great pleasure, a sense of finding, cherishing, and passing on the words that build meaning, that will last a while, like good barns and yurts and owner-built houses.

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JUST A TASTE

"Advice to a Painter"

A Taste of Poetry

And, the 2015 Chapbook Contest Winner is . . .

Preparing the Winning Chapbook for Publication

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