The Big Poetry Giveaway 2012 has begun!

I'm taking part in the Book of Kells  2012 Big Poetry Giveaway created by the fabulous poet Kelli Russell Agodon for National Poetry Month. I'm giving away a copy of my book The Alchemist's Kitchen, published by White Pine Press as well as a copy of Catherine Barnett's heartbreakingly gorgeous collection Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced published by Alice James Press . Want to win? Just leave a comment on this post now through April 30 and I'll pick winners for each book during the week of May 1. To see the full list of poet bloggers taking part in the giveaway, visit Kelli's blog, Book of Kells.

Here's a little bit about the books:

Alchemist's studied revelation in ordinary matter; they conceived their purpose as transformation -- not of ordinary metals into gold, rather they were experimenting to save their souls. These poems take ordinary life --- the life of a 19th century woman photographer and a 21st century traveler and try to understand them in new ways. Tulips, Bosnia, and sailing ships are also included. Here's one brief poem:

The 4 ‘0’ Clock News @ House of Sky

                                                     

In the beginning we wanted

to cast ourselves

as opera stars, to break apart

like gorgeous women

palm reading at the piano bar ~

music stinging like salt from the sea.

We were spiraling ridges, dust-darlings

and dangerous.

We were peonies ~ cut

and arranged like astronauts

in flight. We soaked in syllables

not water; rode the Southern

drawl of the wind

over cobalt glass ~

backlit by a disc of sun.                                          first  published in Diode Journal

 



The Alchemist's Kitchen was a finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Prize in Poetry and the Washington State Poetry Award. It has one shiny sticker -and I will happily sign it for you.

(If that's what you want.)

Book 2






Catherine Barnett's book will leave you breathless. Here is praise from Linda Gregerson:

If death could be undone by love ---that deathless human wish -- if death could be undone by formidable mindfulness and immaculate craft, these poems would revive the dead. The miracle they do work is nearly of that scale: they forget, and forge on our behalf, a model of the soul.



Aubade

Irregular song, irregular heartbeat,
anaphora’s

stutter that neither
warns nor comforts:

I thought it was a man’s voice
all this time, calling for help.

I thought it was a man
calling scared from the ditch.

Hopeless barking it was, a dog trapped
somewhere, and lonely—

then suddenly quiet.
Someone must have hitched her collar up,

stitched her mouth down,
or shot her dead—

how else break such pitch.


                                           Catherine Barnett

Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced won the Beatrice Hawley Prize from Alice James Books. Barnett's second book, The Game of Boxes: Poems, will be released from Greywolf Press in August.

The Alchemist's Kitchen drawing is open from now through ALL OF APRIL, National Poetry Month!


If you'd like to be entered, please leave your name and email address by midnight, APRIL 30th, 2012 in the comment section of this post and I'll be randomly choosing 2 lucky winners for the books during the week of May 1st, 2012.


Good luck & Good Reading!