Poetry Lovers Here: Sign-up Now for the Big Poetry Giveaway 2014 X 3

I'm happy to be participating in this year's creative event which sends poetry into the hands of the people (worldwide). Thanks to my friend, Kelli Russell Agodon for curating this year's Big Poetry Giveaway. I was the curator last year and I know how much time it takes to organize this.

One thing about me (per Poetry Giveaway request) is that I like to record poems. In a parallel life I would be a radio announcer. In this life you can hear me read "Blue Grapes" on Diane Lockward's wonderful feature the Poet on the Poem and "Mr. Saturday Night" about my former student, Khalid, right here in the Seattle Times. 

Since I have a new book this year I am happy to offer Cloud Pharmacy published by White Pine Press as one of my giveaways. I've just written about the book launch at Open Books (10 Tips on How to Give a Book Launch) and so it only seems right to feature it here.

At times surreal, often leavened with a wry black humor, echoing Elizabeth Bishop, these poems create an "ecstatic theology" in which ambivalence--does this passionate heady speaker want to live "jig-sawed together" or "lonely as brooms"?--is both song and argument. 

---Catherine Barnett, Game of Boxes

Of course the best way for you to see if this is a book that you'd like to own is to read one of the poems. Here is the title poem.

Cloud Pharmacy 

How many apothecary drawers 

could I fill with these deliberations? 

The pharmacist’s paper cone 

parsing out a quarter cup 

of love’s resistant drug, 

spoons measuring new prescriptions 

for my uncertainty, heartsway, gesture. 

Give me cobalt bottles 

leftover from aunt iska’s cures, 

albastrons of ointments, resins to resolve 

the double-helix of desire inside of me. 

Where is the votive, the vessel, 

the slide rule calculation— 

to know how much good love 

alchemically speaking is 

good enough? 

I want spindrift nights on swimmer’s 

thighs. I want an Egyptian 

elevator inlaid in camphor wood and ivory; 

a West African drumbeat, an eggnog, a god. 

I want waves and summer all year long. 

I want you. And I want more.

*

For a brief interview (5 questions) and to hear me read "Blue Grapes" you can check out Diane Lockward's blog right here. For Amazon reviews check here. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the Great Poetry Giveway is the project of giving away a book that I read and loved in the last year; a book that I just need to share.

This year I'm offering the new award winning collection by Madison, Wisconsin poet, Susan Elbe. I picked up a copy of A Map of What Happened at this year's AWP Conference and am falling in love poem by poem. 

The Nature of Memory

You must be a child of shadows, but not
rain, which erases everything.

You must be full of flit and vinegar, willing to
pull light from broken splinters in your palm.

You must be young and willing to be ruined,
in search of someone who will leave you.

You must love the green, sexy smell
of water, the wind of it,
blowing night across a city, no stars,

only tiles of light wavering in a black mirror,
and standing next to you someone

who knows hunger and arson, but nothing yet
about distance, heartbreak,
or the stark light which settles in the winter face.

You must be all hurry, sweat and borrowed sleep,
full of time to change your life.

You must grow old, having learned it takes stone
to break the water's dark, finally

realizing you're a northern country, full of forests
and lost ways, the moon so orange and torn
and heavy, you're not sure if it will ever rise,

the shadows with their needles and their sugar
creeping out to offer you themselves again.

                      Susan Elbe

Finally I thought I would offer a third giveaway of The Cartographer's Tongue / Poems of the World published by White Pine Press which won the PEN USA Award and the Peace Corps Writers Award.

Here is a poem from this, my first collection.


Love in the Time of AIDS


You are afraid
of a moist toothbrush, disposable razor,
fearful of the inside
of your lover's mouth.
Too terrified to pose an inquiry in short hand
positive, negative?
You imagine your date's response
I don't know.

Remembering the scent of one man
the finger tips of another
triggers the inevitable moment
when your eyes
search this new body, stop
and check for signs ---
like a pilot before the flight
records temperature and distance
knowing even this cannot ensure a safe journey.

The lovers he's had before
are now your lovers
and yours are his
their health and habits as migratory
as your own blood.

In the morning
you telephone for the test
anonymously. No way to study or plan.
The voice at the end of the line
gives you the number you will use
as your identity, sets a time and place
where you meet a man named Manuel.

No hint of this, no mark
will mar your records.
You bargain with yourself.
You'll give up kissing ---
no more dancing
of tongues. You promise to become
a condom connoisseur. Take six month tests
for HIV as if they were multiple choice.
As if the pilot knows whether or not the plane
will crash or glide across the sky
as if the sky knows what is written underneath its skin.

                                          Susan Rich

National Poetry Month is around the corner and for those of us who love poetry, poets, and their books, it's time for us to share our favorite books (and our own books) with you.
Anyone with a blog can giveaway 2 books of poems. Anyone with an email address can enter any or all of the giveaways. Yes, poetry is that easy! You can give it away and you can also sign-up to receive it! You don't need a blog to participate, you just need to visit different participating blogs.

To enter and win one of these books you just need to leave a comment in the comment box. You don't need to have a blog nor will you get any spam mail. This is one of the ways we can connect poems with poetry lovers or soon-to-be poetry lovers. There may be no such thing as a free lunch but there is such a thing as free poetry~ If you don't do gmail, you can still leave a comment as "anonymous" but you must  put your name and email in the comment box.