Poetry Friday: Reading A Poet New to Me & Anthology Update

My sister-in-law gifted me this poetry book for Christmas. She bought it in Italy when she was there with our son in October. The book has poems in both English and Italian – side by side inside.

She knows I’ve been trying to learn Italian using various apps. I’m currently using Babble now. I used Duolingo for quite a long time but Babble is definitely better for learning to speak the language. I found that’s what I was weakest at – speaking. Reading is okay – I can figure it out.

It was an unexpected and personalized gift that took thought to come up with and I appreciate that very much. The gift also introduced me to a poet that I was unfamiliar with but also one who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2020. In 2003, she was the U.S. Poet Laureate and over her lifetime (1943 – 2023) won many commendable recognitions for her work, including fellowships, medals, and awards.

If you want to learn more about her work, I’m linking the page from PoetryFoundation.org, here.

If you’d like to listen to Louise talk about her Poetry and her experience writing it. (I highly recommend this.) You can click on the link below.

https://www.loc.gov/item/2021687663/#

Since Ms. Gluck just passed away this past October all of her work is still in the public domain. The PoetryFoundation.org page offers many of her works.

The poem I like best (so far), Snowdrops, is not on that website. However, it can be found on the Hello Poetry website. I also like All Hallows which is on the Poetry Foundation page.

She was not a children’s poet. And much of her work seems dark, having to do with death, loss, and disappointment. But she also notices nature, and what is occurring around her, like many of us in this group do as well.

If you know of her, I’m not telling you anything new. But, if Ms. Gluck is new to you, I highly encourage you to take an hour of your time and listen to her read her poetry. She also offers some insight into her life as a writer.

I believe I’ll cherish this gift for the rest of my life.

Okay…enough of finding a poet new to me! (There are thousands….)

Anthology Update

One of the reasons I wanted to post to Poetry Friday this week was to give an update on the Ekphrastic Nature Poetry Anthology, Picture Perfect Poetry, for children that will be published this spring.

I have entered fourteen of the twenty-five poets’ to be featured in the anthology. This includes the photograph they sent for each poem. It is shaping up nicely.

You might be wondering why you haven’t gotten the signed first rights poetry agreement back from me yet. Well, there’s nothing wrong – I just haven’t done it yet. I am waiting until I have all the poems entered in the layout and will recheck the titles against all of your signed agreements. It shouldn’t be too much longer. But, please know, all is well.

The book is progressing nicely.

I really felt like a publisher, editor, and author today by the time I finished working!

After I have all the poems entered, including a few by me (which has not been done yet), I will send it to the editor for suggestions. I am not sending your pages to you before I send to the editor because if there are suggested changes, I want you to see the page as she sees it. 

We’ll go from there.

Here is my philosophy. It is a book of poetry. Yes, there are things I want to be consistent between the pages and the poems. But, I also very much want to retain each individual poet’s words. So, in short, I don’t expect to have too many changes.

In essence, this is just a small reassurance that I am working on the book and it is going along well – according to schedule! If you have questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. I try to respond in a timely fashion.

Poetry Friday is being hosted this week by Marcie on her blog. Please stop by to visit her post and links to more great poetry! Thanks for hosting Marcie! Her post is chock full of optimistic goodness about growing – something I think we all strive to do!

Lastly, I’m working on a year-end round-up for my travels this year and documenting them through my photography. This is a WordPress post, not a Medium post. I hope to have it up sometime soon. But here’s a preview…