Sketchbook Call for Poems; Mr. Davis, Mr. Roethke, & Mr. Gilbert

Miles Davis

A call for poems opens things up today from the online publication Sketchbook. Carefully read the guidelines and I would suggest you go to their website to get a feel for what they use and an idea of all the many things they do.


*****************************


Sketchbook
A Journal of Eastern & Western Writing Forms

Announcing May / June "Sunflower(s)" 2009 Kukai

The May / June 2009 Kukai theme is "sunflower(s)" . Use the exact
words "sunflower(s)" in the haiku. No more than a total of three
haiku may be submitted. Haiku submitted to the kukai should
not be workshopped, appear on-line in forums, or in print.


Haiku

Author, Country

To: kukaieditor@poetrywriting.org
Subject:sunflower(s) kukai

Submissions: Friday, May 01, 2009 – Saturday, June 20, 2009
Midnight.

Voting: Sunday, June 21 - Sunday, June 28, 2009, Midnight.

The results will be published in the Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sketchbook.

Recent letters to the Sketchbook editors and discussions on
various forums indicate that some assumptions about a kukai
must be spelled out. From now on (April 1, 2008), Haiku
entered in the Sketchbook kukai must be previously unpublished;
they must not be workshopped; they must not appear on any
ist, forum, group, blog, or in print. In short, if the haiku has
appeared on the internet or in print we consider it to have been
published. The voting in a kukai is anonymous and publication
anywhere voids anonymity. Any haiku found to be previously
published will be disqualified.


*****************************



Celebrate Theodore Roethke's birthday reading his poems here

In addition, Garrison Keillor gives an overview of Roethke and reads a great poem from Jack Gilbert's Refusing Heaven, entitled "Happily Planting the Beans Too Early" in today's Writer's Almanac. I tried embedding it without any luck, so here's the poem:

Happily Planting the Beans too Early

I waited until the sun was going down
to plant the bean seedlings. I was
beginning on the peas when the phone rang.
It was a long conversation about what
living this way in the woods might
be doing to me. It was dark by the time
I finished. Made tuna fish sandwiches
and read the second half of a novel.
Found myself out in the April moonlight
putting the rest of the pea shoots into
the soft earth. It was after midnight.
There was a bird calling intermittently
and I could hear the stream down below.
She was probably right about me getting
strange. After all, Basho and Tolstoy
at the end were at least going somewhere.

Jack Gilbert

It's also Miles Davis day and I'm unabashed fan, of all periods. So here's something newer, live in Munich in 1987, with apologies to classic fans; my feet are, however, moving now.

spring breeze--
where my feet are pointed
I'm on my way

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

Happy Birthday, Theodore Roethke

Today is the birthday of American poet Theodore Roethke. He wrote some incredibly resonant short poems, including My Papa's Waltz (← this is Roethke reading it) and Root Cellar. Here is another that might be thought of as a companion piece to Root Cellar.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Cuttings

This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?
I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones, I feel it --
The small waters seeping upward,
The tight grains parting at last.
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------



Dark enough for ya? If ever there was a description of the process that is spring (along with Root Cellar), this is it.


best,
Don


Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues), just make a suggestion at the Near Perfect Books page. How about Roethke then, eh?