This is a top five contender question in all of the Creative Writing and Author Facebook groups I'm in. So do you? Well.... Yes! Does it have to be from a University? No. Do I need an M.F.A.? Depends. But, no. Do you have to continually keep learning? Yes!!!! Do you need to take workshops and classes and listen to poetry podcasts? Yes!!!! I'm experimenting with classes. I want to take control of my creative life and I've signed up for a myriad of classes and workshops from pr

My good friend Tyler Chadwell is a librarian in Frederick County, Maryland. I am participating, with great excitement in the Read A Book Ball. I live in Prince George's County, Maryland--so I feel like a bit of a traitor--but for reading and a good cause--I'm all in. Tonight and tomorrow I will be reading Highlander The Series: An Evening at Joe's. I should say--rereading. (It is not poetry, so it doesn't count as my Sealey challenge.) This book has changed my life, my idea o

I was introduced to this book about three weeks ago in class. Our class featured using the moon in poetry. This collection is the perfect example. Not every poem has the moon, but most do. The moon sometimes is very feminine, sometimes a voyeur, a friend, a lover. The moon is a character most of the time with the idea of watching (both ways), and appearing as a natural mysterious presence. The poems are lyrical with a narrative. There are jazz riffs, prose poems, there is a l

I suppose enough readers, editors, internet enthusiasts have seen my picture. I am, of course, very female. Surprise! Well, perhaps not now. When I first started my career women were not well tended or treated as writers and poets. And while the thought of being a poetess was appealing, I heard appalling unfairness, very sexist things--and was made to believe if I was a woman I would never be published by the "right" journals. I am happy to say that the industry is changing.

I read Talking to My Body a bit a few months ago. I was amazed then (it was in the 800 books) am still as I continue to read at how simple, or at least informal lines, resonate completely. This is a translation from Polish. Czeslaw Milosz (one of my favorite poets) and Leonard Nathan beautifully translate. I am going to discuss the poems on page 120 and 121. I found the rest just as complete--but the two are reason enough to enjoy and read the rest of the collection. "A Woman

Ready for the World is edgy and very modern. There are selfies, laptops, faux witches and real ones, the idea of playing pretend and role technology plays in relationships. I'm sure many would argue with me, but I did not hear as much lyricism as I have in other chapbooks and collections. Do not get me wrong, there are plays on words and repetition, and beat--but it is not "pretty." There seems to be no attempt to make the poetry "stylized" and "classic" and of course, that's

I want to first say that I was introduced to this book and to Joy Harjo by Grace Cavalieri in her podcast Poem and the Poet. I immediately ordered a copy. The one note I will add, is that the poems are left margin capitalized. I found when reading out loud I faltered--mostly do to my misreading the lines. "We were there when Jazz was Invented" is its own riff. The first stanza is amazing! "I have lived 19,404 midnights, some of them in the quaver of fish dreams" is a stunning

Unending Blues has great images, but I feel as if I am left out. Most of the poems are written to or inspired by someone--and I'm not classy and didn't even try to look it up. This is an older collection (part of the gift!) and it still feels edgy. Couples are stared at by the narrator voyeuristically and simply. Every image strikes--but I call it striking slant. It's evocative, but I'm not sure what is exactly going on. It's poetry--I don't need to understand to know it's po

My copy is inscribed "To Carol, with best wishes"--but this is not one of the 800 books I was gifted. I was "assigned." "suggested" to read this for class a few weeks ago. There are vast ties to the land described and that is something in my personal writing I want to go. In Oar, the land becomes a character. The reader is invited to see the speakers perspective--how the land is loved, how they interact with land. The hills and valleys are all artfully portrayed--usually thro

In "The Kindness" the narrator creates vivid place and emotion: I am walking in the psych hospital in Pittsburgh, feeling broken & stripped down-- a hand on the door from around my body & I looked up to see the body of a man... .... I had been blind to my own beauty. I wrote and quoted in my journal a lot more--but, I think that Beatty creates narrators that are real and sympathetic, vulnerable--and reflect us. I think to say more would be to posture that I can articulate tha