Writing the Life Poetic

Thanks to Barnes & Noble of Vancouver, Shawn Sorensen and YOU

The listener completes the circle. This is a phrase from one of my poems. It's how I feel about sharing my work with an audience. Reading from my book in the company of an attentive and enthusiastic audience is a kind of completion that feels like landing. In the receptivity of listeners, my words, thoughts and ideas come home.

Thank you to Shawn Sorensen for inviting me to spend the evening with the warm and welcoming poetry community he has cultivated at his store. Thank you to every single person who took the time to be with us and simmer in the possibilities of the poetic life. The mirror of your passion helps me better comprehend and articulate my own.

And thank you to Lane Browning, Sara Guest, Christopher Luna, Toni Partington, Shawn Sorensen and Steve Williams--contributors to Writing the Life Poetic and wise men and women of my writing tribe--for so generously sharing your time, your insights, your kind words about my book and your remarkable poetry.

When I spend an evening with other people who savor and share poems, I feel deeply at peace for the rest of the week. Thank you to all who reminded me last night that the word is the way--my way, your way, our way.

"Family Fodder Poetry" in Writer's Digest Magazine July/August issue

Want an inexpensive way to get a taste of the Writing the Life Poetic experience--and start mobilizing memories into poems?

An excerpt from Writing the Life Poetic titled "Family Fodder Poetry" appears in the Inkwell section (page 19) of the July/August issue of Writer's Digest Magazine.

Here's hoping it takes you wherever you need to go to meet that next poem on the page!

Theo of my heart

Thought for the day

"When you say yes immediately, you give twice as much." -- Ben Franklin

Interview with Colin Galbraith about his new novel *STELLA*

RANDOLPH LOWE is a distinguished British Secret Agent in the twilight of his career.

When he is handed a mission to kill one of the world’s least accessible, yet most wanted assassins, he never expected a beautiful young woman with the alias, STELLA.

Stella leads him around the world as she picks off her marks with ease, during which time Randolph grows infatuated and falls in love.

But Stella has her own dark secret. Forced into making a terrible sacrifice, she is destined to live her life as a lone killer.

The love of one man may be enough to free her, and only that man can save her now… but only if he can find her...

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Q&A with Colin Galbraith

It's so exciting to witness friends and colleagues publishing their work. I'm delighted to introduce to you Colin Galbraith, a multi-dimensional poet and writer whose new book, STELLA, is hot off the presses. After reading the Q&A below, leave a question or comment for Colin here in the comments section, and you'll be entered to win a free copy of STELLA! (Winner announced on Friday, June 12.) Enjoy!

What was the inspiration for Stella?

The idea for STELLA first came to me in 1988. I was listening to an album of the same name by Yello, and I developed a series of images to certain songs in my mind as I listened to the album. I always promised myself I would one day write these images down into a cohesive text, but it wasn’t until 2007 that I felt my writing had developed enough that I could give it a bash.

I began by writing down these images, and from that I used the music to further inspire the gaps in between. Slowly, a story began to unfold until I had a first draft. It took a lot more work to make it into what it is today and I’m delighted with how it turned out.

Why write a paranormal mystery; you’ve never written in this genre before?

It wasn’t meant to be a paranormal book. My original idea was for the book to be a spy novella, something with its roots in the mysteries of underground eastern Europe. As the ideas began to develop on paper, though, the book began to take on its own form and it made sense for a paranormal aspect to come into it. I can’t honestly see it working without it now.

Did you enjoy writing in this genre?

Very much. Looking back, my writing has diversified naturally over the past couple of years. My favoured “genre” is crime, but I have found the two other most enjoyable types of writing I have indulged in has been paranormal (through STELLA), and children’s poetry, through my e-chapbook, Silly Poems for Wee People Vol.1.

At the start of 2009 I vowed I would write more about the things that made me happy, and since making that decision and sticking to it, I’ve had more success and fun with my writing than any other year.

What research went into writing Stella?

Not as much as you might think. Most research concerned the locations in the book that I hadn’t been to, but which I wanted to appear in the book. It’s fast moving story and takes the reader all around the world, so while I could write vividly about Prague, Amsterdam and London, I knew little of San Francisco, Brooklyn NY and Fes, Morocco.

There was also a bit of research into demons and black roses, but mostly it’s all made up - the kind of writing I enjoy most.

Will we see more of Stella and Randolph?

STELLA was originally meant as a personal writing experiment and I never meant, or expected it, to ever be published. However, now it has been, and having enjoyed working with Stella and Randolph so much, I want to do more with them.

Both Stella and Randolph are such strong characters and there are so many questions I have now STELLA is behind me, that I want to find out more about them. And where the author has questions, so too I expect will the readers.

I’ve already begun work on the sequel and am planning on making their story into a trilogy. The book I am writing just now – the sequel to STELLA - is called BACCARA BURNING.

Baccara Burning sounds interesting – what’s it about?

I’m not going to give a lot away – obviously - but it will take Randolph and Stella’s relationship to the extreme. It will be a real test of their love and trust, and through this we will get to know the real them. Both have lived dark and hidden lives, but in Baccara Burning the cloaks are gone and there is no hiding any longer.

The book starts in Sorrento, but ultimately I want to bring them to my home town of Edinburgh, throw in a local ghost legend or two and see what happens.

What else are you working on?

Other than the sequel to STELLA, I have various projects on the go. I have one novel and a novella both in the editing stage, and I’m working on a new chapbook of poetry to be released later in the year. I also have plans to complete writing a crime novel I began near the end of last year. What with all that and writing gig reviews for News of the World, it’s a busy time!

* * * * *

Colin Galbraith has published many short stories, poems, articles and reviews, in both print and online publications.

His novel, Hunting Jack, was serialised in 2004, and his chapbook, Fringe Fantastic: The Poet's Experience of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, was published by Smashing Press in December 2005 to critical acclaim. Poolside Poetry soon followed, published in March 2007.

Colin has published three e-chapbooks: Brick by Brick (2005), Silly Poems for Wee People Vol.1 (2006), and Selektion (2007). He edited his first anthology, Full Circle, in 2007 and his hugely popular children's poem, River Monkeys, appeared in the anthology, A Pocketful of Fun, published by Forward Press in 2006.

He is proud to be the Chief Editor and Publisher of The Ranfurly Review literary e-magazine, and an Associate Editor at The Scruffy Dog Review.

Colin lives in Edinburgh with his wife and daughter, two rabbits and a shoal of fish. He is a fully trained expert in the art of fake falling.

Visit his website: www.colingalbraith.co.uk
Visit his daily blog: www.colingalbraith.co.uk/blog
Follow Colin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/colingalbraith
Colin on MySpace: www.myspace.com/colingalbraith

Colin is available for interviews, guest blogs, readings and appearances. To arrange any of these and more, you can contact Colin directly at colin@colingalbraith.co.uk.

Press queries should be directed to: press@colingalbraith.co.uk

The Writing Life: Keeping Your Wilderness Alive

By Sage Cohen

"Solitude is the sense of space as nourishing. What usually happens with solitude is that people equate it with loneliness, which frightens them . . . There is a way in which we treat our relationships almost like a colonial expedition: we want to colonize the space, all the territory in between, until there is no wilderness left. Most couples who have deadened in each other's presence have colonized their space this way. They have domesticated each other beyond recognition." -- John O'Donohue

On a Saturday morning, Jon dropped me off at yoga class at ten A.M. and kept right on driving with the dogs to Forest Park where they galloped six muddy miles of trail together in the deep womb of urban wilderness. I had dressed for the walk home, and was warm and relaxed as I headed out from class into the mild gloom of a March afternoon. Digging around in my purse to no avail, it struck me that we had used my keys in the car, and that the car-and keys-were with Jon; I'd be locked out until he got home. Jon didn't have his phone with him, and I had no idea when he would be home.

With destination erased from my trajectory, I felt like a balloon cut free, floating purposeless and weightless down Clinton Street. I remembered seeing a café on my way to class and walked east another three blocks to Broder, a Scandinavian café. The café was long and narrow, about the size of a train car, and had been polished with care to a modern minimalist sheen.

The patrons had clearly emerged from a Portland other than the one I inhabit: one of high-style, where darkly framed, dramatic eyegear and strangely proportioned clothes in shades of black and brown slung over heroin-chic bony bodies. The waiters and chefs were waify, underweight young men smattered with tattoos and too-tight black pants with a slick of aloofness greasing down the errant eagerness beneath their cool façades. In my sloppy stretch pants, bunched-down wool socks, fleece jacket, and unwashed hair flopping around in a loose clip, I was blissfully out of place. In an urban environment, not looking the part is as close to invisible as you get, and I love being invisible.

I took a seat at the bar, retrieved a small pile of index cards and a pen from my purse, and started writing. Card after card, the ideas kept coming through me, through the pen. A practice established over the course of twenty years, my body needed only assume the position to turn on its free writing tap. As I wrote, a glorious mug of fragrant decaf coffee arrived with a smart glass jar of sugar cubes and a silver carafe of half and half. Then came the large, frothy orange juice. And then three aebleskivers, quarter-size Danish pancakes dusted in powdered sugar and circled in dollops of lingonberry jam, maple syrup, and lemon curd. Compliments of the chef. I had fallen through the rabbit hold to a Swedish heaven.

As I wrote, my baked scramble with wild mushrooms and caramelized onions materialized on the counter steaming in its square, cast-iron baking dish, aligned with a square white plate with a perfectly spiced potato pancake accompanied by a fan of triangular slices of walnut bread. I tasted, marveled, and wrote some more. And as I did, I was transported to the life and times of Sage of yesteryear. This Sage had free time. With little income and minimal expenses, she lived for the indulgence of her weekend café breakfasts. With no car but plenty of notebooks and one divine poetry book at a time, she'd ride the streetcar and listen and look and feel and write and weep. This old Sage was spontaneous. Not yet the precariously over-committed and over-scheduled adult she would grow up to be, this young woman had room for surprises.

For a brief hour of homelessness and exquisite food, I returned to this lost wilderness of my early twenties: the Sage of open spaces. I carried her home like a pressed flower-fragile and old and new. In a flash of lucidity, I could see how I had colonized myself into my own prison of responsibility and purpose and civic duty as year after year I cut back the rich, fertile thrill of my precious solitude to cultivate a more groomed and professional version of myself. When really all I wanted was something big and impossible and gloriously alive to get lost in.

Poetry does not survive the suburbs we make of our minds. It withers in the cage of constant accomplishment. Poetry needs the wilderness of solitude to call itself up out of the verdant ashes. It needs the darkness and the light to recognize its wholeness. How have you colonized your creativity and domesticated that wildflower of your imagination that once billowed in the wind? How will you recover your lost wilderness? No matter what work you do, what relationship you have, or how busy you are, inch-by-inch it can be done. You can have your suburbs and your wilderness. Your poetry depends on it.

* * * * *

Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writer's Digest Books, March 2009) and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. She writes three monthly columns about the craft and business of writing and serves as poetry editor for VoiceCatcher 4. Co-curator of a reading series at Barnes & Noble, Sage teaches the online class Poetry for the People. She has won first place in the Ghost Road Press Poetry Contest and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sage's son Theo is the poem that has rewritten her. Learn more at sagesaidso.com and writingthelifepoetic.com.

Radio interview with Newport Library's "Book Talks"

I had a great time talking with Rebecca Cohen, Newport librarian and interviewer extraordinaire, on her "book talks" radio talk show on KCUP. The interview ran on June 1, to get listeners warmed up for my June 2 workshop with Willamette Writers of the Oregon Coast.

A live interview is an interesting experience for this writer. There are no revisions. All that gets spoken becomes indelible. It's good practice for being in the moment, then letting go.

The radio show is 23 minutes long; it was recorded in two parts. Here they are, for your listening pleasure!

Sage Cohen Newport Library Book Talks Interview, part 1
Sage Cohen Newport Library Book Talks Interview, part 2

June 10: Writing the Life Poetic book launch celebration and reading in Vancouver, WA

On June 10, (that's next Wednesday) I'll be joined by seven, oh-so-inspiring Writing the Life Poetic contributors as we celebrate the book's publication at Barnes & Noble, Vancouver, WA.

You'll hear excerpts from the book as well as wisdom and poetry from these fabulous muses: Lane Browning, Dale Favier, Sara Guest, Christopher Luna, Toni Partington, Shawn Sorensen and Steve Williams.

The event will be hosted by the one and only Shawn Sorensen, master of ceremonies. Here's what he has to say about the evening:

Prolifically talented, wise and compassionate local poet Sage Cohen has decided, as we like to say in the book business, to “write local but go global” with her new national (and international) release Writing the Life Poetic...Practicing poets, aspiring poets, and teachers of writing in a variety of settings can use Writing the Life Poetic to write, read, and enjoy poems. Plus it’s gorgeously rendered and written.

Wednesday, June 10, 7:00 p.m.
Book launch reading, celebration and signing featuring Sage Cohen and special guest contributors to Writing the Life Poetic
Barnes & Noble Vancouver
7700 NE 4th Plain Blvd.
Vancouver, WA (easily accessible from both major freeways)

For more information please email Shawn Sorensen at crm2679@bn.com.

This is one of my very favorite places to read because of the atmosphere of welcome and FUN that Shawn creates. Plus, it's an auspicious place for me--my very first book launch reading for Like the Heart, the World was held here, also thanks to Shawn.

Come on out and have some poetic fun now, y'hear?

The Poetics of Community: The Importance of Gathering with Likeminded People

By Christopher Luna

A column dedicated to Stan Brakhage and Allen Ginsberg, poetic elders whose generosity gave others permission to explore and blossom. 

How does one find community--and why is it necessary to a poet? Where does it begin? The poet is both an observer and a participant; writers are social beings, and their work exists in a particular socio-cultural context. We need other writers with whom to share ideas.

If you spend every waking moment pondering how you can achieve the sublime by capturing the perfect image, if you're addicted to the beauty of the language, if you're willing to study hard and share what you've learned, welcome to the community. Poetry-and the people who depend on it as you do--will sustain you through your darkest hours.

Growing up on Long Island, I sometimes felt completely alone. It seemed highly unlikely that there were others who shared my interest in the arts, and less likely that I would meet anyone else who had chosen the same path I had, the path that had chosen me: writing. But slowly, over time, it happened. In my twenties, I worked in a head shop, where I came into contact with the first of many musicians with whom I would collaborate. Because the store attracted members of various subcultures, I had daily opportunities to converse with likeminded people.

Later, I became part of the community of writers associated with the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, two poets who spent decades publishing, performing, teaching, and community-building.

For nearly twenty years since my first collaborations, I have engaged in the alchemy of community. When I found myself in the Northwest several years ago, many miles from home and feeling melancholy, I was reminded of the refrain that I knew to be true: "find my tribe." In 2004 I founded an open mic reading in Vancouver in order to create a safe, supportive, fun environment in which writers could gather, share information, and try out new work. Then I started sending out a monthly email newsletter and blogging to inform poets about events in Portland and Vancouver.

There is a glorious anarchy in coming together with other poets. I am continually awed by the talent, wisdom, and luminous intelligence of my fellow seekers. We have so much to learn from one another. Many of our poetic elders are first recommended by friends, for example, and many publishing and educational opportunities are passed on by others. Why not find a local reading event or writer's group and give it a try? Just talking to or listening to the poetry of one other poet could take your life and your writing in a new direction. And if you can't find such an event in your community, you can do what I did: start one.

* * * * *
Christopher Luna is a poet, editor, artist, teacher, and graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Publications include Cadillac Cicatrix, eye-rhyme, Exquisite Corpse, and the @tached document. Chapbooks include tributes and ruminations, On the Beam (with David Madgalene), and Sketches for a Paranoid Picture Book on Memory. GHOST TOWN, USA, which features poems and observations of Vancouver, WA, is available through Cover to Cover Books and Angst Gallery, or from the author.

Email: christopherjluna@gmail.com
Blog: www.christopherluna-poetry.blogspot.com

The Cook, The Writer, The Gardener, The Business Woman: My Hands

By Brittany Baldwin

 Many poets write poetry for love and do other types of work for money. This column explores the interplay of multiple identities as one poet works and lives and writes a poetic life.

Right where my arm meets my body, between the bones in the front there is a pinch. Sometimes it grows in lumps of knots up my neck to my ear. Sometimes it tingles down into my elbow, a numb tingling in my pinky finger. Hours clutching a pen, a knife, a shovel, a calculator.

In the grocery store I stretch while they check my groceries. I stand square lifting the bags with my left hand. Inside homes I unwrap my knives and set out the vegetables. For hours my knife conducts the kitchen into steam, fire and dishes to be washed. All the while I am writing in my head, quietly listening to my headphones.

During the commute I keep a cassette recorder in the seat next to me, writing while I drive. When I get home after cooking all day I cook for myself, feed my pets, then the businesswoman gets the hands. She climbs up to the office and emails, returns calls, fills the calendar, writes menus and adds numbers against bills, projections and budgets.

In the summer there's an hour in the garden watering and pulling the next days' order. I weed the rows and spray down the aphids and ants. Then after the dog has been walked, the computer shut down and the grocery list written, the cook, the gardener and the businesswoman let the writer have the hands.

I tell myself balance. I pull out a blank calendar and draw up a schedule. This day I will have two hours to write and revise. This afternoon I will send out submissions. This night I will go to a reading. These are the hours to read, to study. Winter affords more time for the writer to take classes, go to readings and take the hands on vacation to the coast. Each dances their creative service in seasons, winter at the coast writing, summer in the garden weeding.

In the meantime the poet draws pictures inside, adding extra color to stuffed peppers, adding poems to chicken lined up in the meat case. For a moment just before I blink the chickens are rocking back and forth. It's like in the Fisher King when all the people are dancing in the train station. We all dance in the grocery store. There is a man juggling organic tangelos. But then I blink and the businesswoman orders five boneless skinless chicken thighs, a pound of salmon and a shoulder roast.

The poet listens for winter, for Saturday afternoons, for balance.

* * * * *

Brittany Baldwin runs a small catering and personal chef company that maintains its own organic garden. She has written poetry in Portland for eight years while starting her own business and self publishing her own poetry collection, Broken Knuckles Against Knives, Cutting The Food To Feed Me Through This (2005). In 2002 she received a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado. Her poetry has appeared in the poetry collections Ephemeris and Broken Word: Alberta Street Anthology Volume 1 and 2. She has appeared on KBOO's Talking Earth,  won an honorable mention in the Oregon State Poetry Associations fall 06 contest and was featured in the 2006 and 2007 Silverton Poetry Festival.