The Poetess Blog is Moving!

A slight change: you can now find my writing-about-writing - as well as all previous posts from The Peripatetic Poetess - over at Colleen S. Harris, Wordsmith. Hoping I'll be a bit easier to find with a blog under my name. Thank you for reading, and I do hope you move over with me and become a follower there!

Pushcart Nomination! "When You Came Home From the War"

I woke up this morning to an email from Colin, editor of Lamplighter Review, informing me that I'm one of the authors chosen to receive a Pushcart nomination for this year for my poem "When You Came Home From the War."

When You Came Home From The War

your body was a war-torn city.
We rubbed against each other
and it sounded like violins scowling.
We loved like October maples scream
and we loved like kudzu, overtaking all things.
We were lovers because there was nothing else
we could think to do with our bodies
but burn them.

I am excited - this poem is one of my favorites, and appears in These Terrible Sacraments.

I was honored to be a nominee for the Pushcart Prize for the last round - it's heady company to be in, and given the quality of what was in the collection this year, I don't envy the judges their task. Well, I do envy their getting to read all that excellent work, but trimming it down must be quite difficult. I didn't make it past the nomination last year, but I'm crossing my fingers for this new round. Congratulations and best of luck to all the nominees for this year!

These Terrible Sacraments is Available from Bellowing Ark!

These Terrible Sacraments is available now from Bellowing Ark Press! Please go check it out - the cover is a beautiful glossy thanks to the dedication of my editor, and (if I do say so myself), I hope you find it to be a powerful collection. The poems reflect the impact of war not only on a soldier, but on his family and loved ones, and I hope the book finds a wide, interested, and compassionate audience. If you are feeling extra generous this holiday, order a copy.

It's important to remember those who voluntary place themselves in harm's way to serve a greater good, and their families who do without them. Thank a serviceperson as you travel this holiday season, and remember - you may be grumpy due to crowds and long lines, but the reality of a soldier's life abroad is much more difficult than that...and they don't get to complain. Remember to ask yourself what you are grateful for. As I say in the dedication of the book, to my brother Patrick (USMC), I am grateful he came home safe. I hope all our other men and women serving are as blessed.

The Kentucky Vein moving right along at Punkin House Press!

The Kentucky Vein came back to me with suggested revisions by editor-goddess Cheryl, who has a keen eye for *everything*. (Dear all authors: you need an editor with hawk eyes. Trust me. And thank them.) I finally bounced it back today, and I think we're looking at a tentative Summer 2011 release from Punkin House!

Not that Punkin is resting on their laurels until then. If you visit the Authors page, you'll find that they are promoting their printed authors as well as the pending folks, which is very fun to see. In fact, they've even got my author page up, if you care to read it! They're busy attaching our Facebook profiles, creating author pages in Facebook, setting up writing blogs for each of us, and they will be posting video of readings from our manuscripts. I'm feeling very lucky to have been accepted by such an energetic team!

Genrebreaking II: Wandering Farther Into the Wood

I've dabbled in some creative nonfiction essays, and that has worked out more or less well, but rambling on about something I want to talk about is easy (if not necessarily graceful). I've gone much deeper into the genre woods this time, looking for refreshment and challenge. I've started a fantasy novel!

Now, to be fair, I started this novel ten or twelve years ago and stuck it in a drawer. Any number of reasons - I'm not fiction-trained; being a poet means I lack the stamina for a full-fledged novel length work; I wasn't sure where it would lead me and that made me nervous (because fiction, after all, needs a plot, whereas poetry doesn't, really).

In any case, it's been nagging me for awhile now. The poetry muse is quiet for now since I can't quiet my brain, but all sorts of fun snippets for this story keep colliding in my brain, creating interesting scenarios, sparking plot that actually moves it forward past the murk that stopped me from writing it years ago.

I fully expect the book to be god-awful, at least in its initial form. I don't know if a first draft of it will ever even get done. But I very much want to give it a go and see if I can make a real story live. A REAL book, for all the folks who lift up their noses suspiciously when I mention my other books are poetry.

I've looked into some things to keep my eye on (like the Snowflake method of keeping track of things - this story got unwieldy fast, and became too much to hold in my head). I'm tracking a lot of craft-of-writing blogs that focus on fiction, and some cruel/funny literary agent blogs for tips and tricks. So far I have an interesting mash - we'll see what comes of it. It's far more interesting than a personal diary would be, and I dont feel the need for it to be perfect on the first strike like I do when working with a line of poetry.

And so the book, which will likely never see the light of day, is tentatively titled Warborn: Book I of the Warmaiden Chronicles, and I'm tickled to be working on it until the poetry side of my brain reasserts itself.

Manuscripts in Progress: Slow Going

With These Terrible Sacraments and Gonesongs put to bed and coming out over the next 18 months from Bellowing Ark, and waiting on the editors at Punkin House Press to tear apart the essays in The Kentucky Vein in the next year or so, all of my completed manuscripts are out and done.

**WHOOSH** <--Sigh of relief.

Now, I have two poetry manuscripts in their infancies. Madwoman City (title subject to change, it's early yet) is a collection of narratives in different womens' voices (including characters from fiction, popular figures, goddesses from different cultural mythologies, historical characters, and some random men on their interactions with women in all out lovely, burning madness). It's not taking a great shape yet, but there's a shadow of a shape there...essentially, I have to get cracking at writing new pieces, and then I can pick and choose the ones that fit the mood of the book I want to build. I've got a second infant collection, Two Apples Too Heavy for Heaven - a few poems had actually started in Madwoman but the tone didn't seem quite right...these have more of an eye towards deities, in various forms and emotion. This one, somehow, I think will be the most difficult to write and put together well; I also think it'll be an important one for me to write.

I had actually tried to mash the two books together in the hope that would work and I'd have another near-done manuscript. (I know, I know, there's no need to rush, that's sloppy, and I've already got a ton in the pipe waiting on release. I know!) In any case, it didn't work for me, at least not as the collections stand right now, with a handful of pieces in each. And I've been so tired from being sick for the past 6 weeks that I've not had the energy to do anything but try not to fall too much farther behind at work. And so what I really need is quiet time, where I can tidy my brain and get back to writing.

Between the illness that has slowed me down (still recovering from taking out my nasty gallbladder), stressing over work, meeting other writing deadlines for librarian-related publications, and not sleeping well, I've lost a bit of my creative center. Luckily, we're coming up on a holiday weekend where I will do nothing but vegetate (and perhaps a bit of homework for that doctorate I'm working on). Perhaps this will help me kick my creative side in the pants and get it going again. Truly. It doesn't get to take a vacation until *I* do.

The Kentucky Vein Finds a Home: Publishing with Punkin House

I am over the moon - in addition to waiting for the release of These Terrible Sacraments (Nov. 2010) and Gonesongs (2011) out of Bellowing Ark Press, my collection of poems and essays The Kentucky Vein (formerly titled The Green of Breakable Things in older blog posts) has been accepted for publication by Punkin House Press!

Punkin House is a new small independent publisher - they just launched their first books this summer, and are releasing in both e-book and print format (which I find exciting). They are very active in getting their authors reviewed, interviewed, and otherwise splashed around the internetspace, and I am very excited to be joining their family.

The Kentucky Vein is a very different book for me. The poetry is mostly deep-image, as opposed to my usual narrative style, which I had a lot of fun working (and occasionally wrestling) with. The collection also includes a number of essays, and because I'm not as confident in my CNF, I'm looking forward to getting comments from their editors on that section. There's no hurry on this one, as they have a number of folks they're releasing as they polish the books, so it will likely be 2011. Stay tuned!

These Terrible Sacraments Going to Print November 2010

Hooray! Just in time for the holidays, Bellowing Ark Press will have These Terrible Sacraments coming out in print. I'm excited that the book will be out in time for the holidays, and I'm hoping (hint! hint!) that folks will take advantage of it being so close to the timing and perhaps grab a copy as a gift for someone.

This book is particularly important to me (though of course to writers, they all are, I'm sure). It contains a number of stories my brother related to me about his time as a US Marine in Iraq & Afghanistan, and back home on base, but it also contains poems from the perspective of those of us left behind - mothers, sisters, and lovers. I worked very hard to neither demonize nor romanticize war and its effects - this book is simply my testament of experience, and I hope our service members and their loved ones find that it does justice to the topic.

My editor, the esteemed Robert Ward, is sending me the manuscript with some reordering later this week, and I am looking forward to seeing his vision for the manuscript (he always seems to know the shape of the book better than I do). I can't wait to share the cover image with you all, and, of course, the final printed copies!

First Draft: Persephone

I'm liking this one a lot, though I have the feeling I'll be revising her a bit. I've heard it said often one should never love one's own work - pah, I say. You had better love your work. Sometimes that's all that gets you through rejections, revisions, and the long haul from poem to manuscript. That said, I would venture to say that you need to be able to take your lumps and critics seriously, too, or you'll never learn to improve your craft.

In any case, I offer you a first draft of "Persephone," and I'll admit to liking the last few lines quite a bit more than is proper. Here's to hoping this one grows into a keeper!

.

Persephone by Colleen S. Harris

There is nothing so faithless as
a girl left on her own among the other
green and growing things. Brimming

with life, carelessly killing the field’s
flowering army so she can wear
ribbons of bluebells in her hair,

she has no need of forgiveness
or prayer, no sense of life’s fraying
hem. She has no idea she’s dancing

over death’s own head, bare feet
knocking at his soil door until he rises
hungry from the pit, the field a gaping

maw, his sudden hand a vise
on her ankle as she falls. Landing
in a heap, tangled in her own long

locks, trapped between his body
and the earth, she looks up
at him and finds the need for faith.

Now she believes, and prays.
When the dark hand of a god slips
up your skirt, how is a girl to say no?

Aaaaauugh! it's the Blob Blurb!

So, my first book, God in my Throat: The Lilith Poems, was unblurbed. On the back it's just a pic of (a much thinner) me and my bio. Easy-peasy. The only thing I worried about was making sure I caught everything in the galleys, and then promoting the hell out of her.

This go-round, I asked my editor if he'd like for me to beat the bushes for some blurbs for These Terrible Sacraments. He enthusiastically replied yes, and that he could put my "About the Author" bio and pic inside the book at the end. It sounded like a grand idea at the time.

And now here I am realizing that I haven't the foggiest idea how to go about begging a blurb. Because I really think what I am asking for is for a well-known poet that i admire to read the manuscript, and *then* if they like it, if they wouldn't mind saying so in a short quote. I feel very foolish, having just sent out my first "I really admired your books X and Y, and used them in a lecture I gave on Z. I was wondering, since you are someone whose work I admire greatly, if you would have the time to read my forthcoming manuscript. I very much hope you'll enjoy it, and I would appreciate your time."

And there are poets I know well who I have workshopped or otherwise known well - should blurbs be only from folks who don't know you personally? I don't know. I do hope that if I gave my manuscript to someone that they'd be honest no matter how I knew them and just say "No, thank you, no comment" if they didn't adore the book and want their name on it. I know it's not personal - there are a lot of writers I like a lot whose writing I'm not enamored of, and your name in print is a funny thing. It's awfully permanent. I want whomever is willing to blurb me to be proud to have their name on the jacket.

I should have kept my mouth shut and just left my author info on the back of the book. Pppfffflllllbbt.

Let-tuce Buy Books!

Karen Gowen, author at Coming Down the Mountain: From Reclusive Writer to Published Author, has a great contest going on right now. Let her know about your published book, and you're in the running for her to read, review, and publicize it! A great opportunity, and very generous. All of us should be so happy to promote our sisters and brothers-in-ink!

Caveat Scriptor: PublishAmerica Scam

Ah, writers. We're like puppies. We're so accustomed to rejection and the hard road that when someone offers us praise, or that great golden ring of book publication, we're likely to leap first and look later. Today, I urge you to beware the PublishAmerica scam, with shady contact info, shady contracts, and shabby treatment of both authors and their work.

I urge you to read books by a prospective publisher, talk to their other authors about their experience with the publisher, and do your research. Not sure where to start with research? Talk to your local librarian. We're *very* friendly, and we're dying to help you find answers.

Neutering “Poetess” – Why Calling Myself a “Poet” Doesn’t Fix the Problem

Recently, a generous reader (Rosemary N-W) commented on a post:

…

Oh yes, and there is that *shudder* word 'poetess'. Do you hafta? The old feminist in me cringes; we in my generation insisted on being given equal status, arguing that one doesn't, for instance, say 'doctoress;' or lawyeress'. You are SUCH a briliant poet, why not claim it? Self- denigration is inappropriate for your talent, believe me.

I will admit, as I replied to Rosemary, that

I hadn't considered the word "poetess" as at all denigrating - hardly anyone uses it anymore, truth be told. I don't consider it an unequal term - perhaps an antiquated one. No, we don't say "doctoress" or "lawyeress" - everything is sexless nowadays. But I had many, many years of romance language training, and I'm rather enamored of the richness of a language that allows you to gender nouns. I don't mind being gendered - I'm a woman, I'm happy to claim that, despite whatever judgment comes with it.

I understand that a large part of this is that I missed the years of struggle for the measure of equality I *do* have, which it sounds like you were engaged in. I certainly don't take it for granted, and I do know there's still a long way to go. If a woman poet is going to be considered unequal, in my opinion, it's not the word "poetess" that does that.

I’ve been chewing on this comment-conversation for awhile now. My first (admittedly ungenerous) reaction was that calling oneself “poet” is hardly setting oneself up for admiration and grandeur. It’s a (very) wobbly few steps above “homeless” when claimed as a profession, and less prestigious than any number of other professions. In fact, I’ve rather had to beat myself out of mumbling it, and I work VERY HARD, when folks ask what I write, to stop at “poetry” or “I’m a poet,” and not add “but I am also a librarian. You see that? Full time job and contributing member of society. I HAVE A REAL JOB.”

Society (and parents) may prefer the “I have a job” admission addition, but to the poet (as I imagine it might be for any artist), that job that pays the bills is, in itself, an admission of failure. “Yes, I am a poet, but I’m not a rich or famous or even middle-class poet. In fact, if I were to try to make a living with my writing, I’d get thinner than I did on the South Beach Diet and ask you if I could have the box your new computer came in so I could add a dormer to my homeless un-house.” That’s no way to impress a crowd.

And so I don’t think “poetess” is any worse off than the word “poet” itself. There’s enough baggage these days that comes with being any kind of creative sort that poeting isn’t any more prestigious or less value-laden than its sisterly form. Personally, I am enamored of the way romance languages gender their nouns, and I like the chance to get a bit frilly on occasion. I’m not particularly interested in neutering my title for form’s sake, and it has no impact on the quality of my work – you either like my work, or you don’t. I don’t take offense. There are many fine poets I can’t quite stand to read, though I appreciate their contribution to the craft. And I’m happy that they write, and consider them family of a sort, even if it’s the crazy drunk uncle kind of family.

Other poets don’t look at me sideways if I say the word “poetess.” They might think I’m a bit wonky or unnecessarily flamboyant, but, please. That’s NORMAL in the writing world if you hang around poet circles. It’s practically a competition. And to be quite frank, I didn’t like the swallowed stop of “Peripatetic Poet” – I much preferred the rhythm of “Peripatetic Poetess” as the title of the blog. In true poet form, I eschewed propriety in favor of what I considered a better mouthfeel of phrase.

It may also have been the case that "Peripatetic Poet" was taken as a name on Blogger (and hasn't been posted to since its inception in 2005), so I had to do something so as not to lose my lovely phrase as a blog title.

It’s not a matter of differential status based on womanhood. Well, perhaps it is – I have the choice of calling myself a poet or poetess as I please, whereas I imagine a man would have a harder time getting away with the feminine form. In any case, it’s a status I chose, as I named the blog, and to me, it is a source of pride. Hell, anyone can get a job. But me? I am a writer. I am a poet. I break off little pieces of myself and my truths and offer them in the hope that someone will find them interesting, useful, or songlike enough to remember.My name is in print, I am in the Library of Congress, and I have an ISBN. That's about as successful as it gets for a poet of any stripe, unless you hit the Really Awesome Jackpot of Writerly Life and get Billy Collins or Kay Ryan famous.

So feminists, fear not. I’m not reverting, I promise. Hell, if I could get away with it, I’d call myself a bard, but I’ve neither the instrumental nor the metrical talent to go that far.

In any case, I’m just very happy someone reads the blog, and gives me the opportunity to think these things out loud.

On Stretching the Poet-Brain with Other Writing

Lately I have been swamped with work-writing. As a tenure-track faculty member, and not in a creative writing or English capacity, I have a responsibility to contribute to my field (which happens to be librarianship). This means that I choose to present at conferences on the work I do, and often, I write about it, or of other areas of librarianship that interest me.

It's a wonderful opportunity to stretch my brain in different ways than my creative writing stretches it. I think more about structure, and most of the time it requires more in-depth research, since scholarly articles and research-based book chapters have a longer bibliography than my poetry does. It also requires that I grapple with reality, as opposed to what I can create with brain gymnastics. I would argue that it is not less creative, it is just very different. Given the prescriptions we tend to follow for peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and even newsletter articles, to me it is akin in poetry to writing in strict form, without the occasionally-making-words-up part.

In any case, I consider it the flip side of the coin of my writing life. You'll mostly hear about my creative writing on this blog, but I am also thrilled to report that my first-ever peer-reviewed academic journal article is forthcoming from Journal of Access Services. "Matrix Management in Practice in Access Services at the NCSU Libraries" is slated to be out in the October 2010 issue. I also have a book review for Cliff Landis's A Social Networking Primer for Librarians in the same issue. For the November Brick & Click conference, I've just sent in the write-up of my presentation "Leveraging Technology, Improving Service: Streamlining Student Billing Procedures" for the conference proceedings. And finally, I sent in " "The First Thirty Days: A Playbook for the New Library Manager" which will appear as one of the LISCareer newsletter articles in October.

And so, though I've been feeling guilty about not writing any new poems (I've just been doing some last minute fiddling with These Terrible Sacraments), I have been writing. I've also been reading - Marilyn Hacker and Joy Harjo are the poets of the week on my coffeetable, beside some reading on leadership I have to do to prep for my doctoral program that starts in August. I haven't fallen off the poetry wagon, I'm just percolating, and hoping to get back to my more creative side this weekend.

"Confession" appears in New Verse News

I am thrilled to report that another piece from These Terrible Sacraments has been picked up. "Confession" appears here in New Verse News.

This morning I tinkered with the "finished" manuscript a bit more and sent it back to my editor. I need to stop looking at it at some point, just wait for Robert's suggestions and then fiddle with it.

Identity Crisis!

As a librarian, I'm pretty well versed in social networking, and the possibilities for creating different persona for different pursuits. Until now, I've made the choice to essentially blur everything together - professional libraryland life, personal life, and writing life. As the newest book releases approach, however, and as I succumb to the draw of drowning in web 2.0-ness and alienating all of my audiences (though everyone is relatively good natured about seeing posts they care not much about) as well as cross-postnig to the point of ridiculousness, I've decided to try to separate things a little bit.

As ever, this is the writing - mostly creative writing, though I'm bound to mention my professional nonfiction stuff occasionally - blog. However, if you were following me as "warmaiden" on twitter but would rather just see tweets about writing, you can follow me as colleensharris there.

And because I was feeling froggy, I set up an author's page on Facebook. You can become a fan and get the latest announcements about publications, book progress, and more if you go here.

Thanks for your patience as I experiment with unraveling the threads of myself!

Read Pieces from These Terrible Sacraments, and More Publication News!

For those of you interested in a taste of what These Terrible Sacraments looks like, you can read four poems from the forthcoming collection online at Public-Republic:
"Patrick Speaks of Wealth"
"Doubting Thomas"
"This Poem Takes Liberties"
"Language Lessons"

Two more poems, "These Terrible Sacraments" and "The Postscript She Doesn't Write" will appear in Minnetonka Review. The poem "Violet Petals", a poem from the unpublished book manuscriptThe Kentucky Vein, will appear in volume 3 of Hawk & Whippoorwill.

Books Like Fields of Flowers: Manuscript News

Good news on multiple manuscript fronts! I completed These Terrible Sacraments and sent the book off to my editor earlier this week. For that book, now I just wait to see what recommendations he has for reordering or recasting some pieces, but I think it's pretty close. I'll be consulting with Peter Hammarberg, the same genius who helped create the cover for God in my Throat: The Lilith Poems. I'll be excited to hear his ideas for the cover art.

These Terrible Sacraments is a collection of poems that stems from the stories my brother has told me from his time as a US Marine in Afghanistan & Iraq. I am very, very excited about this collection coming into print, and I very much hope that it does justice to our folks in uniform, and those they leave behind as they serve.

The Gonesongs manuscript was actually completed, combed over by my editor, and re-ordered before my May move to Chattanooga, so that manuscript is already bagged. I have cover art planned for this one already, so she should prove simple, despite being the book that will come out later. The bulk of this manuscript is poems of experience - family, growing up, losing loved ones, love and love lost. It is essentially my MFA creative thesis with a great deal of work added to it to flesh it out. A lot of work went into this one, by a number of different people, and I'm proud that all of that effort will find a home in print.

Both These Terrible Sacraments and Gonesongs are forthcoming from Bellowing Ark Press. If you haven't subscribed to their mag, read any of their books, or (if you're a writer) submitted work to Robert Ward there, I highly recommend them. I am, of course, biased, since I've received a great deal of personal attention and encouragement from them.

Regular readers of my blog (or my twitter, friendfeed, or facebook streams) may remember mention of another manuscript, The Green of Breakable Things. After a bit of revision, she is now titled The Kentucky Vein. Salt Publishing in the UK asked for the whole manuscript after a query, which I was excited about, but have since been silent. Punkin House press sent a positive reply when I cut it down to a chapbook and submitted it, and we are currently discussing turning it into a poetry and CNF essay genre-mixed book. I think this would be a dynamite project, and am waiting on word back. I have high hopes - cross your fingers for me!

More genrebreaking

In fun news, I just got word from Withersin that a recent rejection was an accident, and my flash fiction horror piece is actually on the short-list. I'm crossing my fingers that it makes it to publication, but in any case, I'm chalking this off as an "I don't suck!" triumph for working in another genre *grin*

The Best Rejection

You wouldn't believe it, really - especially if you're a writer - if I told you that last night, a rejection letter made my day.

But it did.

I sent in a creative non-fiction piece to Copper Nickel. Untrained in CNF for the most part, I expected flat rejection (and perhaps some snickering), but I quite liked the piece and thought I might get lucky. Last night, the generous editors of Copper Nickel sent me this rejection:

"We think this piece has potential and that it is relevant because of the many people searching for meaning and struggling with religion as an institution. Having said that, we don't think it is fully fleshed out and complete. It could use more. We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else, or a rewrite."

It gives me something to hang my hat on. It's not an acceptance, but it shouldn't have been - I'm a novice at this sort of writing and the piece needs work. But the fact that the editors actually encouraged me to work on it at greater length - or to send them something else! - was a very real boost to me. It proved they read my piece. It proved that the piece was salvageable with work, editing, and redrafting. (This is where I, and most other writers I know, insert the happy "I am not a failure" dance.) It proved I wasn't wasting my time. It reminded me of something I do occasionally forget: rejection and failure are not end-points. They are rest-stops where I can pause, take a closer look at what isn't working, and rethink things a bit.

So this morning, I am pleased with thinking that I don't have to stop writing CNF, I just need to get better at it.

It's the most encouraging rejection I've ever received.