It's true, it's true

Sarah Crown, of the Guardian and September IBPC Judge wrote when reviewing my poem The Chewer :: "In contrast with the oppressive silence of the first section of the poem, the final declarative lines sing out freely, with great power. The plate and the flies may be silent but, it seems, she’s no longer going to be."

Sarah judged by poem First - quite an honor and it is true (the singing out part). Her full review:

As with all my favourite poems, this says little and speaks volumes. Through the poet’s painfully clear description of a single incident, I was given a picture of a whole relationship, a lesson in the depths of feeling that lie behind silence. The profound impact of the opening statement on the speaker is there in the litany of ugly adjectives with which she describes her – I decided it was ‘her’ – reaction: the apple is “poisonous” (Snow White, anyone?), the piece in her mouth is a “slug”, her shadow perches “gargoyle-like”, unrecognisable even to herself. The lines on her struggle to swallow the apple noiselessly are masterful, full of sticky, clogging half-rhymes –"mush”, “suck”, “push” – and the lack of punctuation makes it impossible for us to tell whether it is her throat that’s “half closed, unwilling”, or she herself. In contrast with the oppressive silence of the first section of the poem, the final declarative lines sing out freely, with great power. The plate and the flies may be silent but, it seems, she’s no longer going to be. Wonderful stuff. –Sarah Crown

Thank you Millard of South Carolina Writers Workshop for submitting my poem.

What am I reading these days?
Goodness, I wrote a whole three paragraphs here and it all disappeared. Sad! Now I'm out of time so it just has to be a list:

The Burnside Review (with excellent interview with Kim Addonizio.) The Review has one of the best journal websites, clean, easy to navigate, lots of good white space, and fonts that are consistent, easy to read and lined up properly. They are calling for submissions right now ...

On another note, Kim's blog notes that she will no longer be maintaining a blog, after 5 years. Sad for me, having just discovered the site!

The Making of a Poem, A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland - beautiful beautiful book - gives new hope for poetry. A gift for me from In The Writers Studio where I won their contest in August. This month's contest is still a go - well worth an entry! See my entry Contests for fun for more information.

Musgrave Landing, Musing on Writing Life by Susan Musgrave. Lots of great little essays on the life of a writer and a poet, many hilarious stories, and a liberal sprinkling of quotations from all sorts of fascinating people. Copyright 1994, this is a classic.