Dempsey’s “Two Candles” poetry collection reviewed by Riehlife

Click here to read an earlier Riehlife post relating to Dempsey’s writing process for “Two Candles.”
Ernest Dempsey uses the defining image of light as the threading metaphor through his collection of 74 selected poems contained in 84 pages. Light as an archtypal image is the perfect connecting theme as Dempsey’s mind roams classic philosophic territory [...]

Blog Action Day: Poverty in the Great Depression. “The Kind of People that We Are”—a poem by Erwin A. Thompson

Blog Action Day is today, with a focus on Poverty. Currently 9,394 Sites with an audience with more than 10,612,112 readers are registered in Blog Action Day 2008. Last year, I participated when bloggers focused on the Environment.
Read my post on how it’s “Easy to be green at the Carelton Hotel in San [...]

Writing Tip emerges from “Two Candles”—Ernest Dempsey’s new poetry book

Two Candles by Ernest Dempsey
My writing pal Ernest Dempsey is also known fondly on Riehlife as “our man in Pakistan”—you can find many blogposts about his work on Riehlife under “Read On” and read his poems under the “Writing Matters” archive categories. I asked him to tell us the story behind the creation of his [...]

Artaud: Poetry layer beneath the poetry

“Beneath the poetry of the texts, there is the actual poetry,
without form and without text.” -Antonin Artaud, poet, essayist, playwright, actor & director

Riehlife Poem of the Day: Nabokov’s Butterflies

Painting by Joseph Lamarque (see profile under Art Matters)
Vladimir Nabokov’s poem was suggested by my friend Leigh Davidson as our poem of the day.–JGR
Nabokov’s Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings
No, life is no quivering quandary!
No, life is no quivering quandary!
Here under the moon things are bright and dewy.
We are the caterpillars of angels; and sweet
It is [...]

Riehlife Poem of the Day: “November Idyll: After the Still Life,” by David Lee

Click here to read about the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in Soccorro, New Mexico
November Idyll: After the still life
Leviticus 7:12-15
by David Lee
(from Orion Magazine, November/December 2007)
Above the grain field stubble
a lift of cranes
like a great table cloth
shaken.
_____________________
“The poet’s job is to somehow find a way to capture [...]

Snowbound: Filling the Feeder (a new poem by Janet Grace Riehl)

A foot of snow atop our bluff: Evergreen Heights, Jersey Township, SW Illinois.

Mother, that which you filled and then emptied,
we fill again as best we can.
Your chair hold us at the wheelhouse hub,
yet a glance windowward unfolds and holds worlds beyond.
This morning’s world insulated in a snowy rug.

Cardinal families flit-flash at the new-fangled feeders
Daddy fills [...]

Aaron Belz’ Poetics of Distraction: A technologically hip way to publish our work. How cool is that?

Sketch of AaronAaron Belz –website & blog logo–copyrighted
Riehlife readers last heard from Aaron on January 23rd of this year when we enjoyed his poem “Swan Song” written just for us! You can read it again under Write Pen! Aaron is a modern man of letters, a university teacher, poet,reviewer, essayist, and organizer of St. Louis’ [...]

Sorting upon the return home…Soyinka on my mind

I have returned from a journey. This journey has moved me further along my journey.
Winter Woods. Then creeks and ponds. Rolling Illinois borderlands. More winter wood flash past. Small Illinois towns where one could stop awhile and spend time in geneological research.

I could say I got lost. I could say I missed the turn. [...]

Aaron Belz’ brand new poem “Swan Song”

Among just one of my pleasures at the St. Louis Writers Guild Loud Mouth Open Mic last week, was meeting Aaron Belz and becoming introduced to his “gravely hilarious” poems, as Denise Duhamel describes them. I bought a copy of “The Bird Hoverer” spent some enjoyable time with his hovering birds over several afternoons.
Aaron Belz [...]