Gaye Gambell-Peterson's new self-published book, MYnd mAp, is described in an interview with Catherine Rankovic here: http://theconfidentwriter.blogspot.com/2009/10/talking-with-gaye-gambell-peterson-wine.html. Gaye talks about the creative process of combining poetry and visual art, in her usual precise and cross-pollinating way.
Gaye previously published pale leaf floating with Cherry Pie Press, and has created the cover artwork for some of the earlier Cherry Pie chapbooks (Breathing Out, The Permeability of Memory, Rotogravure). She has also provided support of the unmeasurable kind to Cherry Pie: humor, clarity of purpose, and indestructible nerve when I needed it most. Her poetry embodies those three qualities. Highly recommended.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
More on lunch pail poetry
Tess Gallagher, in a speech to the graduates of the 2009 Whidbey Writers Workshop, reminds us that "as a writer, one may not hold oneself above or apart from one’s hoped for readership. . . . We won’t be able to imagine in a clear-hearted way those whom we seek to reach or even that part of ourselves we court in the writing."
She also comments on the practicalities of the writing life, and the need to fit writing in -- "learning to work anywhere and under adverse conditions is a boon to staying a writer."
Read the entire commencement address here: http://whidbeystudents.com/about/2009-commencement-address/
She also comments on the practicalities of the writing life, and the need to fit writing in -- "learning to work anywhere and under adverse conditions is a boon to staying a writer."
Read the entire commencement address here: http://whidbeystudents.com/about/2009-commencement-address/
Lunch pail poetry
RATTLE has just released its RATTLE e.7 supplement to the summer print issue, and you can download it here in pdf format: http://rattle.com/eissues/eIssue7.pdf
The highlight is an interview with Bruce Cohen on his new book from Dream Horse Press, Disloyal Yo-Yo. I was impressed with Cohen's take on the place of writing in his life, and he touched on a theme close to my heart: how to balance work, life, poetry. For some, poetry as a career works just fine, and for others (me!) it does not. Cohen says, "I intuitively suspected that if my career were dependent upon poetry, my poetry might get stale and suffer." From someone who now has two books out after long years of work, and lots of balancing, that's encouraging stuff. He talks about his "anti-poetic career" in academic support programs for athletes, and how he was grounded in the knowledge that poetry was its own center: "I knew I would compose poems for my entire life; it would be a constant in my world. That knowledge calmed me, left me less anxious."
He talks about balancing his career, his wife's career, different work schedules, raising two boys and all the Boy Scouts and other activities that adds to the mix, and still finding room for poetry.
Here's Cohen on what it takes to be a writer: "But my approach to writing is not lazy; it’s blue collar, working man. I write something every day whether I feel like it or not and put my time in. I go to work sick. I’m rarely inspired and I have no patience for waiting for some sort of Muse. In fact, I don’t think I have a Muse, I just try to talk to people in my poems who I know and want to talk to. My father got up at five every morning, went to work and never complained. I try to do that—especially with my poetry. Lunch pail stuff."
The highlight is an interview with Bruce Cohen on his new book from Dream Horse Press, Disloyal Yo-Yo. I was impressed with Cohen's take on the place of writing in his life, and he touched on a theme close to my heart: how to balance work, life, poetry. For some, poetry as a career works just fine, and for others (me!) it does not. Cohen says, "I intuitively suspected that if my career were dependent upon poetry, my poetry might get stale and suffer." From someone who now has two books out after long years of work, and lots of balancing, that's encouraging stuff. He talks about his "anti-poetic career" in academic support programs for athletes, and how he was grounded in the knowledge that poetry was its own center: "I knew I would compose poems for my entire life; it would be a constant in my world. That knowledge calmed me, left me less anxious."
He talks about balancing his career, his wife's career, different work schedules, raising two boys and all the Boy Scouts and other activities that adds to the mix, and still finding room for poetry.
Here's Cohen on what it takes to be a writer: "But my approach to writing is not lazy; it’s blue collar, working man. I write something every day whether I feel like it or not and put my time in. I go to work sick. I’m rarely inspired and I have no patience for waiting for some sort of Muse. In fact, I don’t think I have a Muse, I just try to talk to people in my poems who I know and want to talk to. My father got up at five every morning, went to work and never complained. I try to do that—especially with my poetry. Lunch pail stuff."
Monday, October 05, 2009
gaye gambell-peterson at The Big Read
This just received:
Ta da! gaye gambell-peterson announces that her next chapbook of poetry + art is out into the world!! The newest is MYnd mAp (Agog Press), resplendent with 14 FULL-COLOR illustrations, joining pale leaf floating (Cherry Pie Press), also with illustrations.
Your first opportunity to get MYnd mAp ($15) is this coming Saturday,
October 10th, at The Big Read in Clayton.
At The Big Read Festival on Saturday, October 10, 2009, from 3:00 - 3:30pm, gaye gambell-peterson will sign copies of both her books at the St. Louis Writers Guild booth.
The festival runs from 9:00am-4:00pm at Clayton High School, Mark Twain Circle & Topton Way, Clayton, MO.
The Big Read is free and open to the public. The festival features publishers, book-sellers, national authors, readings, book signings, panel discussions, workshops, demonstrations and an interactive children’s area. The St. Louis Writers Guild will be represented at two booths--one for SLWG info-sharing, one for book sales and book signings. A schedule for workshops and lectures by "bigger names" is available on www.bigread.net/schedule.htm.
See www.gayegambellpeterson.com for more details and other chapbook events.
Ta da! gaye gambell-peterson announces that her next chapbook of poetry + art is out into the world!! The newest is MYnd mAp (Agog Press), resplendent with 14 FULL-COLOR illustrations, joining pale leaf floating (Cherry Pie Press), also with illustrations.
Your first opportunity to get MYnd mAp ($15) is this coming Saturday,
October 10th, at The Big Read in Clayton.
At The Big Read Festival on Saturday, October 10, 2009, from 3:00 - 3:30pm, gaye gambell-peterson will sign copies of both her books at the St. Louis Writers Guild booth.
The festival runs from 9:00am-4:00pm at Clayton High School, Mark Twain Circle & Topton Way, Clayton, MO.
The Big Read is free and open to the public. The festival features publishers, book-sellers, national authors, readings, book signings, panel discussions, workshops, demonstrations and an interactive children’s area. The St. Louis Writers Guild will be represented at two booths--one for SLWG info-sharing, one for book sales and book signings. A schedule for workshops and lectures by "bigger names" is available on www.bigread.net/schedule.htm.
See www.gayegambellpeterson.com for more details and other chapbook events.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Poets House - new digs!
Poets House, where some of the Cherry Pie chaps happily reside, has new digs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/books/25poetry.html?_r=1&ref=books
It sounds like a magical place.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/books/25poetry.html?_r=1&ref=books
It sounds like a magical place.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Resources for Poets
A blizzard of manuscripts have come to Cherry Pie Press in the last few months, a result (I think?) of the increasing readership for the nine chapbooks now in print, and of the unexpected and welcome publicity from a review in Prairie Schooner of Nan Sweet's chapbook Rotogravure, and finally the attentions of Poets & Writers in highlighting Cherry Pie in their recent articles on chapbook publishers.
Welcome, poets! I'm a little slow at responding to manuscripts because of the welcome flood (and also because of the demands of the non-poetry office job, taking up much of my mental powers and many of my weekends now as we wind through yet another corporate merger -- but hey I LOVE THAT JOB just in case my boss is reading). The range and quality of the poetry is wonderful to see. My process, as always, includes reading through a manuscript at least three times. If it retains spark and complexity after three readings, it's a serious candidate or, at minimum, receives a serious and detailed response, and whatever encouragement is possible through the venue of an email.
Of special note, poetry of extremely high quality has come in from exactly the type of poets Cherry Pie was meant for -- women in the midwest (or, stretching it a little, the west) who are excellent writers, with fresh viewpoints and use of language, active in their local poetry communities and in many cases giving back significantly to that community with their time and talents, and a little separated from the mainstream well-funded well-supported larger world of poetry in the city or poetry in the academy. I am encouraged, and not surprised at all, to note that some of the finest poetry I've seen in the recent flood comes from places like a feedstore owner in Nebraska, or a mother home-schooling her children when she's not out working the ranch. (Ladies, you know who you are -- please keep writing!) Poetry is essential, but there's a real life there too in the balance. Children or an office job or some other kind of ballast is frequently a very good thing.
Submissions have also come in from Chicago, Michigan, Missouri -- many of them compelling, surprising in the best way. Thank you all!
With only one or two chapbooks a year, I send out more rejections than acceptances, and wanted to highlight some resources for poets looking for encouragement and a way to keep up their daily obligations but still get some wider connection to poetry. One well-categorized and very useful resource is http://resources4poets.homestead.com/index.html, from Bernadette Geyer. It's a series of how-to guides and articles and recordings of readings that is easy to dip into or to take a long nosedive into, as time allows.
One more slot filled in the tool-belt, girls!
Welcome, poets! I'm a little slow at responding to manuscripts because of the welcome flood (and also because of the demands of the non-poetry office job, taking up much of my mental powers and many of my weekends now as we wind through yet another corporate merger -- but hey I LOVE THAT JOB just in case my boss is reading). The range and quality of the poetry is wonderful to see. My process, as always, includes reading through a manuscript at least three times. If it retains spark and complexity after three readings, it's a serious candidate or, at minimum, receives a serious and detailed response, and whatever encouragement is possible through the venue of an email.
Of special note, poetry of extremely high quality has come in from exactly the type of poets Cherry Pie was meant for -- women in the midwest (or, stretching it a little, the west) who are excellent writers, with fresh viewpoints and use of language, active in their local poetry communities and in many cases giving back significantly to that community with their time and talents, and a little separated from the mainstream well-funded well-supported larger world of poetry in the city or poetry in the academy. I am encouraged, and not surprised at all, to note that some of the finest poetry I've seen in the recent flood comes from places like a feedstore owner in Nebraska, or a mother home-schooling her children when she's not out working the ranch. (Ladies, you know who you are -- please keep writing!) Poetry is essential, but there's a real life there too in the balance. Children or an office job or some other kind of ballast is frequently a very good thing.
Submissions have also come in from Chicago, Michigan, Missouri -- many of them compelling, surprising in the best way. Thank you all!
With only one or two chapbooks a year, I send out more rejections than acceptances, and wanted to highlight some resources for poets looking for encouragement and a way to keep up their daily obligations but still get some wider connection to poetry. One well-categorized and very useful resource is http://resources4poets.homestead.com/index.html, from Bernadette Geyer. It's a series of how-to guides and articles and recordings of readings that is easy to dip into or to take a long nosedive into, as time allows.
One more slot filled in the tool-belt, girls!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
I guess she didn't like the plot much...
A postcard just in from one of our favorite pugs, Squirt. Her mother reports: "I guess she didn't like the plot much."(Disclaimer: Squirt was raised here in Cherry Pie land and frequently heard poetry being read as a pup. Obviously some of that literary influence proved lasting. The power of poetry...)
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Why a small press?
Why am I doing this? The opposing twin of this question is, Why are you sending your work to Cherry Pie for possible publication, instead of to someplace else?
It's never simple. Kate Gale, co-founder of Red Hen Press in Los Angeles, does a good job of explaining what a small press is -- the 'why' of it.
It's never simple. Kate Gale, co-founder of Red Hen Press in Los Angeles, does a good job of explaining what a small press is -- the 'why' of it.
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