La Fovea

I was invited by wonderful poet Pamela Hart to join in the fun on La Fovea, an online literary magazine with an intriguing concept. Editor Frank Giampietro just posted two of my prose poems, "Tortoiseshell" and "Bride Number Two." If you want to read them, simply click on this link:

La Fovea

Then make sure to travel on and explore this expanding community of poets!

I was fascinated by the unusual way this publication works. Here is a description from the Web site explaining "the rules":

•Each nerve editor (found on the main page) is in charge of a nerve. The nerves are made up of poets who are invited to submit to La Fovea. Click on the editor's name to see all the poets and poems in his or her nerve.

•The nerve editor asks a poet to submit two poems. After that poet has had his or her poems published on La Fovea, he or she will ask another poet to submit poems.

•If the last poet on the nerve does not find a poet to submit poems for whatever reason, the nerve is called "dead." It's okay to have a "dead nerve." The important thing is for the nerve editor to notice that a nerve has died and begin a new nerve from their first page of poems.

I also enjoyed the inspirational quote from a letter Frank O'Hara wrote to Kenneth Koch, which explains the title, La Fovea. Here are O'Hara's words:

"Kenneth you really are the backbone of a tremendous poetry nervous system / which keeps sending messages along the wireless luxuriance / of distraught experiences and hysterical desires so to keep things humming / and have nothing go off the trackless tracks"

--Frank O'Hara

And now, a brief biology lesson about the eye from La Fovea's editor, Frank Giampietro:

The fovea is the place on the back of the eye where the nerves gather and take signals from the eye to the brain. Ironically, the fovea is the only place on the back of the eye that does not imprint an image. Instead the brain fills in the image based on information around it so that we don't have a small spot in our vision.

We think the term is, well, poetic and sums up in a metaphor a lot of what it means to find, and "to see," excellent poems.

The poets whose work appears on this website agree in part or in whole with the following manifesto:

1. We believe that it makes no sense to say one form of poetry is more valid or more artistic than any other.

2. We believe that the old model of submission/rejection is but only one way for finding and publishing the best poetry.

3. We want poets rather than poet/editors to have more editorial authority in general. Poets should be able to champion people they love and have their opinions "matter."

4. We think La Fovea will encourage poets to read each other's poems because they will want to know who else is on their nerve. They will want to ask, "With whom am I related?"

Thanks to Pam for inviting me to join her nerve on La Fovea, and thanks to Frank for posting the prose poems. Stay tuned to find out who I invited to join the nerve.

Oh ... the wildly gorgeous eyes above belong to a very laid-back ragdoll cat, Poodiddy, who belongs -- sort of -- to my younger brother and sister-in-law. He didn't even seem to mind my camera right up next to his whiskers. Click on the image to enlarge.

Light on the Water

Yesterday, hiking around Alder Lake in the Catskill Mountains of Ulster County, New York, my younger daughter and I (and her malamute) were treated to this serene and glittering scene with that dark finger of shadow pointing at the center. The image matched a quote I had found a couple days earlier, while skimming through The Harper Book of Quotations:

Happiness is the light on the water. The water is cold and dark and deep.

-- William Maxwell

Pang.

On the way home, I drove toward the full moon -- bright gold, huge, balanced low on the horizon. At one point, a black band of clouds bisected it, then wafted off, like an unveiling. I was listening to Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks. Have you ever noticed how, on rare occasion, lyrics and song mood magically match your own setting and state? I felt dreamy and pensive; I was reliving the past while admiring the sky and the indigo hills. As I cruised along, mesmerized by the shifting lunar show, "If You See Her, Say Hello" came on:

Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, it all went by so fast ...

-- Bob Dylan

This particular old "album" plays like a collection of flash fiction and prose poetry. For example, read this vivid scene from "Idiot Wind":

I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars.
You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies.
One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin' around your eyes,
Blood on your saddle.

Or how about these lines from later in the same song:

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I'm finally free,
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.

The songs get inside your ribcage and tangle your heartstrings. I don't ever tire of certain pieces, of that knotting sensation that wakes, pains, and pleases the heart.

The initial quote was found on page 194 of The Harper Book of Quotations (Third Edition), edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry and published by HarperPerennial.

The Poetics of Space

By a forgotten, meandering path through the Web, I arrived at a quote from The Poetics of Space, by Gaston Bachelard, the French philosopher. It’s strange that I no longer remember this specific passage, because I was electrified by his words. I immediately ordered a copy of the book, which has proved to be a thrilling and enlightening read. I haven’t been reading this book in sequence. Instead, I open it at random, read a page or two, then shut the book and blink in awe. I need to replay the language, the observations and brilliant insights. I am slowly letting the words quench a thirst I didn’t know I had. I seem to siphon such large, rich drafts with my small sips. Bachelard’s wisdom expands inside my mind, flooding the recesses with something effervescent. I can feel my brain, buoyant, shifting to rebalance. Then I reopen the book, almost holding my breath in anticipation of sampling more revelatory lines. I can tell that I’m almost done with the book, because it’s almost entirely filled with Post-Its.

Some of the chapter titles will give you an idea of Bachelard’s creative style of thinking: “Intimate Immensity,” “Miniature,” “House and Universe,” “The Dialectics of Outside and Inside,” and “The Phenomenology of Roundness.” I was immediately absorbed by “Miniature,” since I love all things minuscule. (In my family, we share a hereditary condition my aunt refers to as tinyitis.) In my own poetry and hybrid writing, I can find myself entering the smallest possible worlds, sometimes shrinking to observe my surroundings. To me, details open expansive worlds. They are beautiful in themselves, but that pointed focus, that scratching at the surface, provides a door into a deeper, wider place. Just like the door of the poem opens elsewhere.

In discovering Bachelard, I was quite taken by reading essays that could describe my personal writing experiences, my observations about poetry. (He values poetry so highly that it seems to validate my calling.) He says “…the minuscule, a narrow gate, opens up an entire world. The details of a thing can be the sign of a new world, which like all worlds, contains the attributes of greatness.” “Miniature is one of the refuges of greatness.” He states that the “man with the magnifying glass – quite simply – bars the every-day world. He is a fresh eye before a new object. The botanist’s magnifying glass is youth recaptured. It gives him back the enlarging gaze of a child.” (Do you remember Horton Hears a Who, by Dr. Seuss? Long ago I loved that children’s book, where a whole other complex world existed on a speck of dust.)

Today I was again wandering about in the “Miniature” chapter, when I came across Bachelard’s discussion of a “prose-poem” by Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues, “The egg in the landscape.” (That title.) The excerpt from this piece felt wildly familiar to me. It describes looking through a flaw in a window, “one of these kernels that are like cysts in the glass, at times transparent little knucklebones, but more often, befogged or very vaguely translucent, and so long in shape that they make you think of the pupils of a cat’s eyes.” The “introduction of the nucleus into the landscape sufficed to make it look limp…Walls, rocks, tree-trunks, metal constructions, lost all rigidity in the area surrounding the mobile nucleus.” “The outside world in its entirety, is transformed into a milieu as malleable as could be desired, by the presence of this single, hard, piercing object, this veritable philosophical ovum which the slightest twitch of my face sets moving all through space.”

Bachelard adds to this: “every universe is concentrated in a nucleus, a spore, a dynamized center. And this center is powerful, because it is an imagined center.” “…we see the center that imagines; then we can read the landscape in the glass nucleus. We no longer look at it while looking through it. This nucleizing nucleus is a world in itself. The miniature deploys to the dimensions of a universe. Once more, large is contained in small.”

This struck me, not just because it’s a truth I also feel, but because I’ve recently been taking pictures using wavy, bubbled glass to create distorted worlds, hopefully creating an atmosphere of disorientation and surprise, and finding a little magic by peering in through those “glass nuclei.” I also like to imagine the dolls/people, looking back out, observing both their own world and the larger “real” world through those clear but warping lenses. Creating these miniature scenes, experimenting with light and reflections and atmosphere, are wonderful forms of play and discovery. It seems I always end up taking a picture of something different than what I first imagined. Led by the original inspiration, I let the idea evolve, taking its own mysterious course. (Additional meandering.) In turn, the photograph ends up telling me a new story, opening other doors, inviting poetry inside. This afternoon, energized again by reading Bachelard and the excerpts from de Mandiargues, I got out my camera and took some more photos using glass. The above picture is one of the results of the same continuing experiment.

Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) inhabited a different era, lived in a different country, and wrote in a different language. Even so, I feel a kinship bridging time and translation.

The Poetics of Space was originally published in French in 1958 by Presses Universitaires de France. The Orion Press, Inc. published the English version, translated by Maria Jolas, in 1964. Beacon Press published it in 1969, then added a foreword by John R. Stilgoe in 1994.

The above photo was taken this afternoon, 6/30/08. Click on image to enlarge. I posted two earlier watery-glass-world photos on the blog on May 7th and June 3rd, parts of which were later used on Mental Contagion, along with a few prose poems from Stirring the Mirror. You can view the previous blog posts by clicking on "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page and scrolling back in time.

Never Talk Back to the Water

The deepest water employs a more serious tone. It uses a guttural form of interrogation. As you move through its body, it questions your presence. Holding your hair in its cold hands, it examines your face. Keep your lips sealed. Although it has the magic to turn you weightless, to keep your thumping heart suspended, unburdened as a fish -- beware. Its true desire is to steal your breath, to swallow you whole. Never talk back to the water. Mind your manners, keep your thoughts to yourself. Always remember the grassy shore. Float.

Excerpt from "Never Talk Back to the Water," a prose poem from Stirring the Mirror. The photo was taken 5/7/08.

Pod People and Poets House

All this week Poets House is holding its annual showcase of new poetry books in the Willa Cather Room of the Jefferson Market Library on Sixth Avenue at W. 10th Street, NYC. The organization's goal is to showcase every book of verse published in the U.S. in the past year. There are more than two thousand titles available for viewing through April 19th. My publisher, Bitter Oleander Press, has sent along A Cage of Transparent Words by Alberto Blanco, Gold Carp Jack Fruit Mirrors by George Kalamaras, and Stirring the Mirror, my new collection of prose poetry and flash fiction.

See the previous post for information about tomorrow's reading at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY.

The pod people pictured above are made from -- you guessed it -- pods, a strange pine cone, and vintage prints sealed with acrylic varnish.

Inventing New Bodies

....
Our nights grow infinite, blossoming into secret days. Flowers and leaves are our only lanterns. Veins of roses glow like forked lightning. Maple leaves furl and unfurl, beckoning fingers. We are always hungry. The stars call us to dinner.

Trailing silvery paths across brick walks and patios, we slip into gardens and flowerpots. We paint patterns, leaf to leaf. We fasten our mouths to petals and stems and swallow, knowing nothing but sweetness. We are lost, eating your invisible world.
....
Excerpt from "Inventing New Bodies" from Stirring the Mirror.
This is for EIK and the rocking chair. The plant is from the south facing kitchen window. I need to identify it.
Yes, Baby Muse is just a few posts away...scroll down to find her...

March Poinsettia

March morning, silent. Unexpected snow keeps coming, white clumps falling from trees like frozen apple blossoms. Seasonal confusion. Spring is out there, somewhere, approaching. Today there are four crows again, wary, even after all of these offerings. We keep a respectful distance. They wait, two each on two branches, then land on the railing. Go back to the tree. Return to the railing. Each time they move, more white flowers drift down. Eyes and beaks glitter. In these moments, the snow's music changes from empty hiss to the wet sounds of the roof dripping, of invisible runnels coursing under snow. The porous membrane between seasons is leaking.

Excerpt from "Human with Little Sun in Her Hands," one of the prose poems from my new book, Stirring the Mirror, f rom Bitter Oleander Press. (First published in No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets, edited by Ray Gonzalez, Tupelo Press.)

I love this camera. Thanks, TLK.

***If you are here searching for Baby Muse and her magic words, simply scroll down to the previous post.

Baby Muse

For a long time I have been wanting to share Baby Muse's mystical powers with other writers and artists. She has a certain something that is so mysterious and inspiring. Since she is only a head, I bought a little wood and glass display case for her, but captivity didn't work out too well. Instead, I ended up using the case as home for a tiny doll couple who sit inside on a bed of moss, staring out into the room from their eternal picnic. I'm still searching for the right setting for Baby Muse. Perhaps she's more of a wanderer, like the creative process. This afternoon I took her outside in the glittering snow for a photo shoot. I picked her a bouquet of icicles. She was awestruck. Just look at that radiant face!

Once upon a time there was going to be a Baby Muse "machine." I planned to put her and her accompanying assemblage somewhere where she could offer beautiful words and phrases to interested parties. I planned to write the intriguing words she whispered in India ink, on slips of pale gold parchment. I have lovely old-fashioned dipping pens which make gorgeous deep black lines. Maybe I'll still do that.

Meanwhile, here's part of the original directions/prose poem that were to accompany the Baby Muse machine:
----------

Baby Muse!

Transfuse Her Energy.

Her cracked fontanel

is an infinite well

of electricity.

Steal a spark of her creativity.

Inspiration guaranteed.

You may bask in her aura for FREE.

You may inhale her essence for FREE.

You may absorb her blue gaze for FREE.

Baby Muse’s First Words

To Amuse and Inspire

A Wee Spark to Start a Fire

in Your Brain

Select One, Do with It What You Will

One Precious Word per Human

----------

Do you think this could work online? I mean, you're right here, reading this -- you're probably a writer in search of inspiration yourself. Or an artist looking for a way into a new piece. Let's try something. If you send me an e-mail with "Baby Muse" typed in the subject line, I will e-mail you back one delicious and free word from Baby Muse's four page (so far) list. I know it won't be written in India ink on parchment, but let's see where it takes you. My contact information is listed in the sidebar.

Are you ready to be inspired? Happy Leap Year.

The Heady Hive of the 2008 AWP Conference

Here are a few definitions of heady from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition:

1.a. Intoxicating or stupefying
1.b. Tending to upset the mind or the balance of senses
1.c. Serving to exhilarate

And beyond the obvious definition of hive, here's another:

1.b. A place swarming with activity

I think all of the above accurately describe my overall impression of the 2008 AWP Conference just held in NYC. It was an excellent experience for me, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes dizzying, but fascinating in so many ways. I found many intriguing readings and panels to attend, including the majority of those on my wish list in the preceding post. I was delighted to see so many offerings on the topic of hybrid writing, a love of mine: prose poetry, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, lyric essay, and the crossbred offspring of hybrids. (I'm not big on pigeonholing writing, but I'm happy to see acceptance of good work regardless of genre. ) One of the most memorable events was A Tribute to Russell Edson with Russell Edson himself modestly listening and reading some of his riveting works, and Robert Bly, Charles Simic, and James Tate honoring him. I loved that. I now am the proud owner of signed copies of The Rooster's Wife by Russell Edson and The Monster Loves His Labyrinth: Notebooks by Charles Simic. What great titles!

The three level book fair was totally packed and buzzing like the above-mentioned giant hive. (Last I heard, there were 7,500 people at the conference. ) One had to summon courage, slip into boy-in-the-bubble protective gear, pause to find an opening, then enter the flow of literary humanity. But it was wonderful to meet other writers and editors, to match faces and names, to briefly chat with people who have supported and published my work. I found it so interesting to see the three-dimensional versions of invisible e-mail acquaintances. Being surrounded by so many people who are excited about poetry, fiction, publishing, reading, and writing generated an uplifting form of energy.

The two editors of Bound Off were terrific and fun to get to know. Thanks, Ann and Kelly, for hosting my Stirring the Mirror signing Saturday morning! Nick Antosca, author of Fires, signed his books at the same time. We traded books, so I'm really looking forward to reading his.

Staying right at the Hilton was convenient and gave me a quick and easy place to hide and refuel when necessary. I felt that the social bits blended well with the scheduled events, and that I was able to balance the hive-like craziness with some laughter with writer friends or restorative solitude. The days were filled with positive chance encounters and good conversation. There are politics and big egos at work at these massive gatherings, for sure, but I generally operate outside the machine, outside academia. I felt a welcome sense of community at the conference. (Perhaps the glow is due to this being my initial conference experience?)

When I left on Saturday night, I had way too much to carry to the train. And I was exhausted! But on the ride home a single adjective kept popping into my mind: transformative. The experience felt transformative. I'm still processing it all. I'm curious to see what will blossom from this literary frenzy.

Giant and Ear

The latest issue of Snow*Vigate, an online journal edited by Doug Martin, is now out. I am so pleased to have a couple of prose poems, "Wingless" and "Borrowed Mirror," as well as the above collage, "Giant and Ear," in this second collection of writing and art. According to the editor's blog, Snow*Vigate is "interested in publishing poetry, flash fiction and drama, non-fiction, short essays on critical theory, prosody, and poetics. We want to see genres coming together and huddling in a blizzard to keep warm. We want to see verbs slapping the hell out of lazy nouns. We want to see God's syntax in snow. The unconscious is sexy. So are the tails of barnbirds, I am told...."

Just click on the above link to read new work by Joanna Howard, Mark Tursi, Robert Lopez, Peter Conners, Ann Panning, Daniel Grandbois, Matthew Brennan, George Looney, Jared Sexton, Jessica Dyer, Robert S. King, Corey Zeller, Daphne Butler, Christopher Barnes, Rebecca Eggleston, Sarah Long, and Derek White. There is also a review of Anthony Tognazzini by Doug Martin, as well as a conversation with Cooper (Esteban) Renner by Brian Beatty and Doug Martin. And lots of intriguing art!

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!

Stirring the Mirror Book Launch

Please join me at the official book launch for Stirring the Mirror from Bitter Oleander Press this Thursday, December 6th, at 7:00 PM at Ruth Keeler Memorial Library in North Salem, New York. (Click for directions.) I'll be reading prose poetry and flash fiction from the book, as well as a sampling of even newer poetry. Signing to follow. Happy December!

Aqua Phrenology

Here's another collage, "Aqua Phrenology," again created from antique illustrations. Now that I have your attention, I'll invite you to upcoming readings and book signings!

Please come to the Riverine Anthology Book Launch at SUNY New Paltz tomorrow, November 13, 2007, at 5:00 PM, in the Honors Center (part of College Hall, a two story building on the quad). Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers, edited by Laurence Carr, is published by Codhill Press. This will be a celebration of the collection's release with readings and signings by authors. One of my prose poems, "The God of Falling Objects" (first published in Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics) is included in this anthology. It's also part of my new collection of prose poems and flash fiction, Stirring the Mirror from The Bitter Oleander Press. (Additional book information in postings below...scroll way down to my first entries.)

Also, come enjoy the galleries and shops of Catskill, New York, this Saturday, November 17th, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. I'll be signing copies of Stirring the Mirror at Bowerbird from 7:00 to 8:00 PM as part of their Saturday Studios, a gallery stroll on third Saturdays of the month. Bowerbird is located at 393 Main Street. Questions? Call lovely owner, Kate Altman, at (518) 943-5776. She is also carrying my Shrunken Worlds paper sculpture ornaments. (Think ship-in-a-bottle...)

For those organized souls who can see past Thanksgiving, please come to my own book launch for Stirring the Mirror on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 7:00 PM at Ruth Keeler Memorial Library in North Salem, New York. I'll be reading selections from the collection as well as new work, and signing books. More information will be posted as the date races closer.

I look forward to seeing you soon!

Space Doll

Writing and art enhance one another, but I rarely use my own art as inspiration for poetry. For a while, I got a kick out of making collages using fragments of antique illustrations. It was fun to experiment with strange juxtapositions, to create new miniature worlds with their own swirling atmospheres. (Of course, I also loved the meditative act of cutting paper with tiny scissors.)

Something about this collage, "Space Doll," triggered a prose poem. I later made it into a tiny dark blue booklet that I gave to friends and passed out at a reading. It became part of Stirring the Mirror, which is a collection of prose poems and flash fiction.

SPACE DOLL

Loneliness launched her toward a far-flung planet. Now she endlessly circles, looking down at the pointed rock fingers and craters of a dusty orb. She still wears patent leather Mary Janes and the fingerprints of humans. This is all she retains of civilization. The only life forms below are ones she imagines, humanoid or avian, startling with boredom or beaked hunger. She keeps her arms to her sides. When she turns her head, her crisp orange curls flow like rocket flames. However, neither blink of blue glass eye nor kick of jointed leg can change her orbit.

She coasts in silence. The only sounds at all come from inside. She listens to the shell of her pink plastic flesh to hear the faint whoosh of pulse, the gurgle of a thimbleful of oil. How easily her inner gears spin. How effortlessly her useless metal heart beats with nothing to weigh it down.

(Fittingly, this piece first appeared in Flights.)

I just went upstairs to find a copy of an interview with Paul Roth, editor of The Bitter Oleander, where we discussed the parallels of art and writing. I felt that his "comparison of my writing to painting fit[s], especially with reference to visual emphasis, to imagery." I continued:

In fact, I draw in a way very similar to the way I write. I never have the whole picture/idea in mind at first; it is a gradual building up from one small image, a series of leaps from thought to thought. I might start with a single curved line, a tiny eye, or a splayed claw, then see where it takes me, what each added line suggests. You might compare some of my poetry to collages, the seamless placement of disparate images side by side. With luck, a surprising/vivid juxtaposition elicits a mood or idea, like a good metaphor. Writing metaphors is my passion. They give old concepts a jolt, more color, a sense of newness. I enjoy the density of images working together, playing off one another, sending out sparks.... You want imagery to be meaningful and energetic, not just a decorative surface hiding a vacuum. You want to inspire intense thought and emotional connections.

The best poems might be most like living sculptures, Frankenstein "monsters" carefully stitched and glued from unlikely bits of flesh, with transplants of pieces of the creator's own heart and brain. Sometimes these creations achieve a form of grace, a clear voice and unexpected intelligence. Other times they are awkward and tongue-tied, or can't be jump-started. Each time, you hope that your monster will be able to stand up and walk on its own out into civilization, singing, embracing people without crushing them.

(The Bitter Oleander, Fall 2001 author feature, interview and interior chapbook)

Although it's most beneficial to order directly from the publisher, Bitter Oleander Press, Stirring the Mirror is also available through Amazon.

Stirring the Mirror Signing at Katonah Fall Festival

For those of you in the area, please join me for a book signing at Awakenings during the Katonah Fall Festival and Street Fair this Saturday, September 29th. I'll be there, pen in hand, with copies of my new book, Stirring the Mirror, from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM, possibly later if the crowds are promising. Awakenings is at 215 Katonah Avenue. I'll have copies of my first book, Teaching Bones to Fly, also from Bitter Oleander Press, available as well. Scroll down to the August 13th entry for a photo of the cover and blurbs for Stirring the Mirror.

Here's an excerpt from "Giving Away Bones," a prose poem in Stirring the Mirror:

GIVING AWAY BONES

I stood at the corner giving away my bones. My ribs went to the little girl who needed a cage for her ferret. My toe bones went to a gambler to replace his unlucky dice. My spine went home coiled around the neck of a snake charmer. As I plucked out each one, I felt delightfully emptier, translucent as breath. I simply stepped out of my ivory corset.

The only piece I had trouble leaving was my skull. It stared at me with cavernous sockets like twin black wells. I appreciated the way it had cradled my brain, holding my thoughts in its bowl. But at last I kissed its brow, placing it on the desk of an artist, something to hold her bouquet of paintbrushes.

You might think my organs were left lonely and cold, but they were already gone by then -- untangled, shriveled by sun, then pinkish-gray dust blown away on the wind. Inhaled by passing clouds. All that remained of me was something like a peeled mirror, a human image without dimension, distilled to particles of light. Like a paper doll, I turned sideways and disappeared....

(This piece first appeared in The Bitter Oleander, then in No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets, an anthology from Tupelo Press edited by Ray Gonzalez, 2003.)

I look forward to seeing you at the Fall Festival!

BookCrossing Adventure

Intrigued by the 8/31/07 posting about BookCrossing on the Newpages Blog, I thought it would be fun to release "into the wild" a copy of my new book, Stirring the Mirror. The idea of bookcrossing is to share books with the world, tracking their journeys on the Web site. You first register the book, receiving a BCID number, then label the book and leave it somewhere for an interested reader to discover and take home. Hopefully the finder will go to BookCrossing and note that she/he found the book, along with her/his home location. Later the finder can leave a journal entry about the book (if read), then pass it on by releasing it again. Book on an adventure around the world...I love this idea!

Yesterday was a glorious, clear Sunday. The exact place I wanted to go to release the book popped into my mind. I printed out and attached labels from BookCrossing inside the cover, hand wrote a note to "Dear Reader" on the title page, popped it in a freezer bag, and gussied it up with a lime green ribbon and a neon orange Post-It marking it as a FREE BOOK. Another BookCrossing label with their yellow walking book symbol was the finishing touch. (It shouts "Howdy! Hola! Bonjour! Guten Tag!") We picked up my mother-in-law and drove to Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY. I remembered a particular nest-like sculpture from past visits and pictured the book contentedly resting there, waiting for someone to find it. I stealthily slipped Stirring the Mirror into the hollow of "Momo Taro," a granite sculpture by Isamu Noguchi. (#52 on the walking map, as pictured above.)

After strolling and admiring some of the towering sculptures gracing the green, green rolling landscape for about ten minutes, I couldn't control my curiosity. I circled back to sneak a peek into the hilltop hiding place. The book was GONE.

Stirring the Mirror

Stirring the Mirror, my second book from Bitter Oleander Press, just came out! I have been floating next to the ceiling since its arrival from the printer. It's a collection of prose poetry and flash fiction, with an extraordinary, eerie cover image by Malgorzata Maj, a Polish artist. The photograph is a wonderful match for both the title and the atmosphere of the book.

Again, I must thank my wise and compassionate editor and publisher at Bitter Oleander Press, Paul B. Roth. Another thank you to my generous blurb suppliers, the gifted writers Peter Johnson, Mary A. Koncel, and Ray Gonzalez. Here's what they had to say about Stirring the Mirror:

In Stirring the Mirror, Christine Boyka Kluge displays a mastery of metaphor, gliding effortlessly between myth and reality until these two states are indistinguishable. Her focus is on the paradoxical nature of our lives, which seem alternately fueled by loss and possibility. In one poem she writes that the "heart [is] the part that refus[es] to settle down" - a perfect description of the engine guiding Stirring the Mirror, a book characterized by wit, craft, but, most of all, heart.

- Peter Johnson

Stirring the Mirror is a collection of contemporary myths to live by. Traversing the boundaries between poetry and prose with her usual grace, Christine Boyka Kluge generously invites us to reflect on what makes us human. Her vibrant language and unfettered narratives, her cast of archetypal and everyday characters, her wit and wisdom - all delightfully combine to create a book of immense pleasure.

- Mary A. Koncel

As a poet of the earth and the imagination, Christine Boyka Kluge returns these gifts of creation through poems that redefine what it means to be in the world. These poems involve a private sense of vision and exploration as they encompass the outer existence of human understanding. To read this book is to know that Christine Boyka Kluge is writing poetry that touches us all.

- Ray Gonzalez

Pieces in Stirring the Mirror won the 2006 Hotel Amerika Poetry Prize and the 2003 Creative NonQuiction Contest sponsored by Quick Fiction, Brevity, and Del Sol Review. Two works received Pushcart Prize nominations. Selections from the book were finalists in the 1999 Dana Award in Speculative Short Fiction competition, Quarter After Eight's 2000 Prose Contest, and both the 2002 Tupelo Press Chapbook Contest and the 2002 New Michigan Press/The Diagram Chapbook Competition.

Writing from Stirring the Mirror has appeared in many anthologies: No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets (Tupelo Press), PP/FF: An Anthology (Starcherone Books), Sudden Stories (Mammoth Books), Diagram: Selections from the Magazine (Del Sol Books), and Text: Ur - The New Book of Masks (Raw Dog Screaming Press). Some of the prose poems will be reprinted in the forthcoming Online Writing: The First Ten Years (Snowvigate Press) and Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers (Codhill Press).

Last week I received an e-mail from Marion Roach, who does The Naturalist's Datebook program on Martha Stewart Radio Network. She will be reading "The Eye of the Beached Whale" from Stirring the Mirror on Friday, August 17th. I believe it is broadcast at intervals all day long. So, if you have Sirius Radio, listen in!

If you are interested in ordering Stirring the Mirror, here's a link to Bitter Oleander Press. My first book, Teaching Bones to Fly, a poetry collection, is also offered here.

Order Form

If you click on "Books" and scroll all the way down, there is a description of Stirring the Mirror and a sample prose poem. If you are inspired, you can click on "Orders" to print out an order form. You may also find Stirring the Mirror on Amazon. Thank you!

Here is a link to "Guilt," an interactive online collaboration I did with artist/designer Rick Mullarky on The Diagram. "Guilt" is one of the pieces in Stirring the Mirror.

Guilt

You will need to turn on your sound. Click "Launch in a new window," then "Start." Progress through the piece by clicking on the small white arrows. Enjoy Rick's amazing art!