A REVIEW FOR LORNA DEE CERVANTES' NEW MARSH HAWK BOOK!

Rosa Martha Villareal reviews Lorna Dee Cervantes' April on Olympia. You can see review HERE but here's an excerpt: 

Cervantes conjures the ghosts of her literary and artistic godparents, guides of the subconscious mind’s nights of darkness, the givers of the word/logos, which orders the chaos of imagination just as the gardener organizes the fecundity of nature. The artists: Theodore Roethke, Gil Scott Heron, Billie Holliday, Federico García Lorca, Allen Ginsberg. The social warriors who shaped her sensibilities and gave definition to her indignation: César Chávez, Nestora Salgado, Carlos Almaráz. She elaborates in “River: for my murdered mother” that the inheritance of remembrance, sorrow, and the continuum of thought and passion through time are vehicles of freedom because the quest for justice takes longer than one lifetime.

ARTHUR SZE ON REVELING IN COMPLEXITY

Arthur Sze contributes to Marsh Hawk Press' "Chapter One" Project. You can read his contribution through an interview with Jim Natal HERE.

ON BECOMING A POET

Marsh Hawk Press will be publishing four new titles later this spring in its Chapter One series. Here's the cover for our anthology. (To learn more about what we're doing go to: https://marshhawkpress.org/chapter-one-series/

BARBARA NOVACK ON "CHAPTER ONE"

You are invited to read Barbara Novack's contribution to Marsh Hawk Press' "Chapter One" project that presents established poets discussing their early days as writers. You can see her essay HERE.

TONY TRIGILIO ON "WRITING WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW"

You are invited to read Tony Trigilio's fascinating essay, "Writing What You Don't Know: Poetry and the Arcane." You can see the entire essay at BIG OTHER, but here's an excerpt:

As I mention earlier, the advice to “Write what you know” reaches its limit in the presence of the arcane. To be sure, writing what you know can be empowering as a validation of the truth and wisdom of your experience. But I would suggest instead that the most productive work comes from those moments when we write what we don’t know—when, to channel Spicer again, we “interfere” with the boundaries of the known and attune our ears to what is being spoken to us from the arcane “Outside.”

More specifically, these are moments in which we interfere with the part of ourselves that doesn’t want to step out of the boundaries of common sense, that fears getting lost in the dark wood of unknowing. On the surface, it might seem counter-intuitive to welcome an alien frame of reference, a strange and destabilizing angle of vision, as we sit in front of the blank screen ready to write. But if we are to discover new ways of seeing the world, as good writing can help us do, then we might need to loosen our grip on the most familiar, ordinary parts of our everyday consciousness: “You have to, as much as possible, empty yourself for this,” Spicer says. The arcane doesn’t have to reside in outer space. Instead, it can be found among us, planted firmly on planet Earth—in gossip, scandal, and soap opera kitsch, to name a few possibilities—an affirmation of the wisdom and insight we can find when we celebrate, rather than domesticate, our most eccentric curiosities.

DENISE DUHAMEL IN "CHAPTER ONE"

For Marsh Hawk Press' December "Chapter One" Project, Denise Duhamel shares a short statement on Emily Dickinson, which you can see HERE.

DONALD WELLMAN IN "CHAPTER ONE"!

 

Donald Wellman is the latest contributor to our "Chapter One" series which presents features on a poet's early days. You are invited to read his contribution HERE.