JULIE MARIE WADE IN "CHAPTER ONE"

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. 

--from "Meditation XVII" by John Donne

 It's always worth revisiting John Donne's Meditations and Julie Marie Wade reminds us with her contribution to Marsh Hawk's "Chapter One" Project. You are invited to read Julie's testimony on Donne's effect over HERE.

Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize Finalist to be published by Circling Rivers!

 Congratulations to Robert Clinton!

Marsh Hawk Press is delighted to share that Circling Rivers will be publishing Robert Clinton’s forthcoming collection, WASTELAND HONEY, in Fall 2021. Robert was a finalist in the Marsh Hawk Press 2021 summer poetry book competition. More information is available at  https://circlingrivers.com/books-clinton-wasteland-honey/ but we’re happy to share the following:

 

Says poet Michael Ryan (Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize): “Robert Frost wrote, ‘If it’s a wild tune, it’s a poem.’ Robert Clinton’s WASTELAND HONEY is loaded with wild tunes. These poems, tightly and gracefully and elegantly written, make me think of the great jazz pianist Bill Evans: his riffs are essential to the presentation of the song, which is always there.”  

 

WASTELAND HONEY: POEMS offers to us the living and dying world with which we contend—or to which we surrender. Robert Clinton speaks of the devils who rob the earth, but he makes a place in his verse for the “rose-clean, vigorous, fragrant.” Contrasting tempers and riddling parables are framed by rhythms and fluency of diction that achieve a unique formal structure for each poem. WASTELAND HONEY‘s arresting and eccentric metaphors linger, like the burning touch of a thistle.  

 

More praise: 

Clinton’s language bears the stamp of pure poetry: well-wrought syntax, sudden juxtapositions, and especially a compelling musicality. These poems read as if hurtled into being by a mysterious and wondrous energy.  

—Nance Van Winckel, The Many Beds of Martha Washington

 

“Delicious paradoxes are the very texture of Robert Clinton’s refreshing and consistently surprising  WASTELAND HONEY, just as paradox and self-contradiction are all too often the texture of our oxymoronic lives. Like his “venomous anemones,” Clinton’s poems stimulate our taste buds while they unfailingly—even ruthlessly—keep our minds and hearts both off balance and alert.” 

—Lloyd Schwartz (Pulitzer Prize in Criticism)

 

With grateful nods to his biblical rhythms and fables, we enter Robert Clinton’s new collection. The speaker is in keen touch with the outdoors, both its hardships and its balm. WASTELAND HONEY is well worthy of repeated readings. 

—Sarah Gorham, Alpine Apprentice and Study in Perfect

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Robert Clinton, born and raised in upstate New York, has an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College, and has twice been a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. His poetry collection Taking Eden was published by Sarabande Books, and his poems have appeared in Wisconsin Review, Decomp, Antioch Review, Stand, Plume and The Atlantic, among other journals.

 

FEATURES ON TONY TRIGILIO

Congratulations to Tony Trigilio whose book Proof Something Happened was just reviewed in issue 88 of Pedestal Magazine. You can see the review at https://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/tony-trigilios-proof-something-happened-reviewed-by-brian-fanelli/ .

Also, Tony Trigilio was interviewed about the book by Shelagh Shapiro of WBTV-LP, 99.3 FM (Burlington, VT) as part of her "Write the Book: Conversations on Craft" podcast. You can access the podcast at https://writethebook.podbean.com/e/tony-trigilio-81621.

GAIL NEWMAN RECEIVES THE GOLD AWARD FOR POETRY FROM NCPA!

CONGRATULATIONS to Gail Newman whose book BLOOD MEMORY is a Gold Award recipient for Poetry from the Northern California Publishers and Authors! More information about her book is at the link or at https://marshhawkpress.org

For more information--including all award recipients--of the NCPA award recipients, go HERE.

SHEILA MURPY ON "CHAPTER ONE"

We're delighted that Sheila Murphy contributed an essay to Marsh Hawk Press' "Chapter One" series that presents poets discussing their early days. Here's an excerpt from Sheila's essay, but you can see it entire HERE.

I learned early that my mind works differently from others, and gradually found ways to navigate their signals while constructing and conveying what was real for me. Recalling what preceded and prompted my poetry stimulates the act of weaving. Poetry is composed of sound and silence, is made in privacy, and builds confidence.

 

MARSH HAWK PRESS POETRY PRIZES

Congratulations to the winners of this year's Marsh Hawk Press poetry prizes, as judged by David Lehman. You can see winners and finalists HERE but here are top winners:

The MARSH HAWK PRESS POETRY PRIZE

($1,000.00 Cash Prize and Publication of the Book, along with the Duotrope Prize)

“Rasa” by Joanne Dominique Dwyer

David Lehman writes: The author writes that “Intimacy means profoundly interior — / countless sets of keys and cryptic codes.” The book is intimate in this sense. The author celebrates the power of the imagination to multiply metaphors, as in “Tarzan Audade,” with its striking opening lines (“It’s never a good sign when the patron saint / of betrothed couples is also the saint of the plague.”) and “No Alphabet,” orchestrated by the reiterated “If not” that begins the poem. The poet’s fruitful exchanges with Freud, in such poems as “To Charette with a Man,” “Patron of Embalmers,” and ‘Handsome Is as Handsome Does,” delighted this reader.

The ROBERT CREELEY MEMORIAL AWARD

($250.00 Cash Prize)

“Morning Music” by Lera Auerbach

David Lehman writes: In the title poem and such others as “Beethoven’s Choice” and “The Strings,” the author reveals a deep and heartfelt knowledge of music, which is one source of the manuscript’s unity. Another is the bravely autobiographical dimension in the “Zuihitsu” poems that frame the collection. The poems have a Russian feel, as if they participate in a tradition established by Akhmatova and Mandelstam.

The ROCHELLE RATNER MEMORIAL AWARD

($250.00 Cash Prize)

“Vanished” by Richard Mullen

By my quick count there are 146 eight-line poems here, each complying with the requirements of an ad hoc form. The poems constantly keep one surprised and alert, as when “Thackeray, the author” considers himself “a nocturnal anomaly at his desk” and suddenly, without warning, we face “the field beyond the graves. “The humor is likeable and subtle: ” ‘I believe in science,’ she sobbed into a pillow.”

BURT KIMMELMAN ON THE POETS OF MARSH HAWK'S 2021 SUMMER READING SERIES

Marsh Hawk recently concluded a virtual book launch reading series featuring current Marsh Hawk titles by Jon Curley, Thomas Fink and Maya Mason, Edward Foster, Basil King, Daniel Morris, Gail Newman, Geoffrey O’Brien, Eileen R. Tabios, and Tony Trigilio. Before each reading, Burt Kimmelman presented a much-applauded, insightful introduction to the poets' works. These critical intros are now collected in a summer edition of the Marsh Hawk Review available HERE.

Summer of Emergence Reading Series: New and Recent Marsh Hawk Press Books

Contents

Introduction 

Basil King, Disparate Beasts Part 2 

Geoffrey O’Brien, Where Did Poetry Come From; Daniel Morris, Blue Poles .

Thomas Fink and Maya Mason, A Pageant for Every Addiction 

Jon Curley, Remnant Halo: A Map n’ Dice Chronicle 

Eileen Tabios, The Intervention of the Hay(na)ku: Selected Tercets 

Gail Newman, Blood Memory 

Tony Trigilio, Proof Something Happened 

Edward Foster, A Looking-Glass for Traytors 

ABOUT BURT KIMMELMAN