Read Write Poem » Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour

read write poem virtual book tour: ‘underlife,’ by january gill o’neil

Read Write Poem — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 06:17:52 +0000

by Deb Scott

Underlife, by January Gill O’Neil

“Underlife is an exact eloquence, an excellent beginning.”

Welcome to the April Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. For more detail about the tour, if you are new to this series, take a look at this post.

About Underlife
O’Neil’s poems and articles have appeared in The MOM Egg, Crab Creek Review, Ouroboros Review, Drunken Boat, Crab Orchard Review, Callaloo, Babel Fruit, Edible Phoenix, Literary Mama, Field, Seattle Review, Stuff Magazine, Can We Have Our Ball Back, Cave Canem anthologies II and IV and here, at Read Write Poem. In 2009, January was awarded a Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant. She is featured in Poets & Writers magazine’s January/February 2010 Inspiration issue as one of their 12 debut poets. A Cave Canem fellow, she is a senior writer/editor at Babson College.

The publisher says of her debut collection, “The dynamics of race, family, motherhood, career, sex and ultimately, transformation are explored in this debut collection. Underlife represents the wilderness of thought and emotion hidden away from the external world. Through O’Neil’s narratives we see our lives as if for the first time.”

Tour stops for Underlife
Apr. 13 :: Kelli Russell Agodon :: Book of Kells
Apr. 15 :: Donna Vorreyer :: Put Words Together. Make Meaning.
Apr. 20 :: Joseph Harker :: Naming Constellations
Apr. 22 :: Sarah J. Sloat :: The Rain in My Purse
Apr. 27 :: Kimberlee Gerstmann :: Scraps and Sass
Apr. 29 :: Wanda McCollar :: Piping of Plenty

We are pleased to feature Underlife on our Nathional Poetry Month (April) tour.

To learn more about O’Neil, visit her blog, Poet Mom. To find more information about the book visit the publisher, CavanKerry Press.

Get involved!
Would you like to get involved in the tour as a reviewer? Just join the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour group, and then add your name to the forum thread titled “Sign up to be a Virtual Book Tour reviewer.”

Want to get your book on the tour? We’ve already set up partnerships with a number of presses, and we’re booked out several months. We also do the tour only once a month, which means we’re extremely limited in terms of what we can include. With that in mind, feel free to have your publisher send a query to virtualbooktour (at) readwritepoem (dot) org.

Deb Scott is a community director for Read Write Poem. She also co-manages this Virtual Book Tour and plays around with words and occasionally other stuff. Deb blogs at Stoney Moss.

read write poem virtual book tour: ‘anatomy for the artist,’ by molly gaudry

Read Write Poem — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:00:10 +0000

by Deb Scott

Anatomy for the Artist, by Molly Gaudry

“I take on too much, and I tend to sometimes get behind schedule, but the truth is that without all these things I’d rot, mentally.”

Welcome to the March Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. If you are new to this series, take a look at this post for more information.

About “Anatomy for the Artist”
Molly Gaudry is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s M.A. fiction program. She is the author of We Take Me Apart, a novella in verse, (Mud Luscious 2009) and is the book reviewer for East&West Magazine, based out of Hanoi, Vietnam. Her writing has most recently appeared in Lamination Colony, and she has stories forthcoming in Robot Melon, Quick Fiction, Wigleaf, Dogzplot, and Word Riot. She co-edits Twelve Stories, solo-edits Willows Wept Review and contributes to the Big Other blog. You can find out more about Gaudry at her blog.

You may want to read an interview with Gaudry at jmww: “We Take Molly Apart (and carefully put her back the way we found her).” She talks about blogging, her writing life, working on journal(s), Cincinnati, all kinds of stuff. (You do want to read it. No maybes about it.)

We are pleased to feature “Anatomy for the Artist” in our March Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour and invite you to follow along — the collection is available online through the publisher’s site, Blossom Bones.

Tour stops for “Anatomy for the Artist”
Mar. 2 :: Donna Vorreyer :: Put Words Together. Make Meaning.
Mar. 4 :: Catherine Fitchett :: Poetry Chook
Mar. 9 :: Lawrence Gladeview :: Righteous Rightings
Mar. 11 :: Ren Powell :: Babel Fruit
Mar. 16 :: Wanda McCollar :: Wanda McCollar

Deb Scott is a community director for Read Write Poem. She also co-manages this Virtual Book Tour and plays around with words and occasionally other stuff. Deb blogs at Stoney Moss.

read write poem virtual book tour: ‘a walk through the memory palace,’ by pamela johnson parker

Read Write Poem — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:01:49 +0000

by Deb Scott

A Walk Through the Memory Palace by Pamela Johnson Parker

“As you walk through a memory palace, each room holds a category of recollections assigned to the various objects lodged within.”

Welcome to the February Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. If you are new to this series, take a look at this post for more information.

About A Walk Through Memory Palace
Pamela Johnson Parker is a medical editor and adjunct professor in creative writing and poetry. Her debut collection, A Walk Through the Memory Palace, was the winner of Qarrtsiluni’s 2009 poetry chapbook contest. Her poems, flash fiction and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in The Binnacle, The Other Journal, New Madrid, Pebble Lake Review, Holly Rose Review, Six Sentences, MiPOesias, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal and Anti-. She is also the featured poet in the April 2009 Broadsided series of poetry and art. A graduate of the master of fine arts program at Murray State University, Parker lives in western Kentucky and blogs at Pamela’s Musings.

We are pleased to feature A Walk Through Memory Palace in February’s Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. Follow the tour throughout the month with your own copy of the collection. The work is available in print, digital and podcast formats.

Dinty Moore, the chapbook contest judge, had this to say about the manuscript:

The language is textured, clear, and sometimes disquieting, the images both sensory and sensual, and each line crafted with painstaking care. Whether writing about rich gardens, sagging breasts, or the ink of a tattoo, this poet sees through the obvious to something radiant on the other side, painting a startling portrait of an intimate world. Not a wasted word here: the nouns are like gemstones.

Read Write Poem member Elizabeth Switaj had this to say about Parker’s collection, in her review of the chapbook:

As you walk through a memory palace, each room holds a category of recollections assigned to the various objects lodged within. Pick up a vase, and you remember the meaning of stamen. Pick up a jar, and you remember the smell of a rose. The marbles in the jar hold each time you’ve smelled one. A memory palace is not a physical place but, rather, an elaborate mnemonic device in which imagined concrete objects help you to organize and recall that which you do not wish to forget.

Finally, Read Write Poem community director Nathan Moore recently interviewed Parker for our Member Spotlight series. You can read about her process and habits and other things, such as her opinion on the likelihood that poetry can save the world.

Tour stops for A Walk Through Memory Palace
Jan. 28 :: James Brush :: Coyote Mercury
Feb. 2 :: Daniel Romo :: Peyote Soliloquies
Feb. 6 :: Jill Crammond Wickham :: Jillypoet
Feb. 9 :: Lawrence Gladeview :: Righteous Rightings
Feb. 11 :: Sarah J. Sloat :: The Rain in My Purse
Feb. 16 :: Nathan Landau :: Poems About Nothing in Particular
Feb. 18 :: Dave Jarecki :: Dave Jarecki
Feb. 20 :: David Moolten :: Edible Detritus

Next month, the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour will feature Maged Zaher’s book, Portrait of the Poet as an Engineer, recently released by Pressed Wafer.

Deb Scott is a community director for Read Write Poem. She also co-manages the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. In past lives she used to borrow her friends clothes all the time. She doesn’t do that anymore, but she does steal her husband’s desserts on occasion. Deb blogs at Stoney Moss.

read write poem virtual book tour: ‘in the voice of a minor saint,’ by sarah j. sloat

Read Write Poem — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:00:40 +0000

by Dana Guthrie Martin

In the Voice of a Minor Saint, by Sarah J. Sloat

“an unwavering line from the religious to the secular”

Welcome to the December / January Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. For more detail about the tour, if you are new to this series, take a look at this post.

About In the Voice of a Minor Saint
Sarah J. Sloat lives in Germany, where she works in news. Her poems have appeared in Juked, Bateau, Court Green and Third Coast, among other publications. She is also a contributing writer for Read Write Poem. (Note: This is a role she took on after we slated her for the tour, not before.) Tilt Press published her chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, earlier this year.

According to The Literary Bohemian, Sloat’s “titles usher us to the front pew of human frailties” and “draw an unwavering line from the religious to the secular; we see the devil in the details.”

For this tour, we have the following stops scheduled, and we’re taking a more leisurely pace, given that it’s the holiday season, with one post per week.

Tour stops for In the Voice of a Minor Saint
Dec. 8 :: Joseph Harker :: Naming Constellations
Jan. 5 :: David Moolten :: Edible Detritus
Jan. 12 :: Dave Jarecki :: Dave Jarecki
Jan. 19 :: Jill Crammond Wickham :: Jillypoet: Mom Trying to Write
Jan. 26 :: Ren Powell :: Babel Fruit

To learn more about Sloat, visit her site, The Rain in My Purse. To order her collection, visit the Tilt Press site.

Next month, the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour will feature Pamela Johnson Parker’s collection, A Walk Through the Memory Palace, winner of Qarrtsiluni’s first chapbook competition.

Dana Guthrie Martin is the founder of Read Write Poem. She writes things and stuff. Most of the time, her things and stuff happen to be poetry, or at least they call themselves poetry. She has a robot named Feldman. He’s writing a book of poems.

read write poem virtual book tour: ‘mister skylight,’ by ed skoog

Read Write Poem — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:00:04 +0000

by Deb Scott

Mister Skylight, by Ed Skoog

“The phrase ‘Mister Skylight’ is an emergency signal to alert a ship’s crew, but not its passengers, of an emergency.”

Welcome to our third Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. For more detail about the tour, if you are new to this series, take a look at this post.

About Mister Skylight
Ed Skoog was born in Topeka, Kan., in 1971, and is a high school teacher in Seattle, Wash., after living for many years in New Orleans. He earned degrees from Kansas State and the University of Montana. His poems have been published in Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, The New Republic and Ploughshares. Mister Skylight is his debut collection from the esteemed publisher Copper Canyon Press. Skoog contributes to the Ward Six blog, where you can read some of his poetry, opinions and musings.

According to the publisher, “Ed’s debut collection, is an alert to disasters and to the hope of rescue. Interior dramas of the self play out in a clash of poetic traditions, exuberant imagery, and wild metaphor.”

In The Stranger, Julie Larios says, “Ed Skoog’s poetry is so ambitious it takes my breath away. In it, he creates dense narratives, sees patterns, sees dissimilitudes, knows how to fishtail with images and turn with ease, knows how to braid pop culture into small personal melancholies and into large generosities.”

We are pleased to feature Mister Skylight for this month’s Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour.

For more information about how to get your own copy of Mister Skylight, go to Ed Skoog’s blog.

Tour stops for Mister Skylight
Oct. 29 :: Dave Jareki :: Dave Jarecki
Nov. 3 :: Nathan Moore :: Exhaust Fumes and French Fries
Nov. 8 :: Jill Crammond Wickham :: Jillypoet
Nov. 10 :: Carolee Sherwood :: Carolee Sherwood
Nov. 12 :: Kelli Russell Agodon :: Book of Kells
Nov. 17 :: Sarah J. Sloat :: The Rain in My Purse

Next month, the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour will feature Sarah J. Sloat’s chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, new from Tilt Press.

Deb Scott is community and news director for Read Write Poem. She is also co-coordinating the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. In her other life she plays with words, her pets, bugs and her husband, in a random but rotating order. She blogs at Stoney Moss.

read write poem virtual book tour: ‘apologies to an apple,’ by maya ganesan

Read Write Poem — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:00:21 +0000

by Dana Guthrie Martin

Apologies to an Apple, by Maya Ganesan

“Maya seems unable to get through a single day without writing poems.”

Welcome to our second Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. For more detail about the tour, if you are new to this series, take a look at this post.

About Apologies to an Apple
Maya Ganesan, a poet who lives in the Seattle area, finished this collection up when she turned 11 years old. At this age, poetry was already the center of her life.

“Maya seems unable to get through a single day without writing poems,” writes Katherine Grace Bond, author of The Legend of the Valentine and Considering Flight. Bond, who has worked with Ganesan privately on her poetry, also has this to say about her:

I had only to give her a few pointers and her already resonant work took a leap forward. Soon she was devouring issues of Poets and Writers, as well as the work of Mary Oliver, David Wagoner, and Li-Young Lee. It wasn’t long before I could speak to her as a fellow poet, trusting her instincts for revision (and occasionally indulging in mutual fits of giggles).

We are thrilled to feature Apologies to an Apple for this month’s Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. When you sit down with these poems, you realize age really doesn’t matter. What matters is that this poet has a gift, one we can’t wait to open again and again. And besides, how could anyone resist a poet who describes her occupation on her Read Write Poem profile as: “having a blast.” I know I can’t.

To learn more about Ganesan and her collection, visit her site, MayaGanesan.com and her blog, Allegro.

Tour stops for Apologies to an Apple
Sept. 24* :: Kelli Russell Agodon :: Book of Kells
Oct. 1 :: Donna Vorreyer :: Put Words Together. Make Meaning.
Oct. 6 :: Amulya Rajan :: Piper in the Desert
Oct. 8 :: Kimberlee Titus Gerstmann :: Scraps and Sass
Oct. 13 :: Ben Lawless :: Pencilied in Designs
Oct. 15 :: Dana Guthrie Martin :: My Gorgeous Somewhere

* This is also Ganesan’s birthday.

Next month, the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour will feature Ed Skoog’s Mister Skylight, new from Copper Canyon Press.

read write poem virtual book tour: ‘at night, the dead.,’ by lisa ciccarello

Dana Guthrie Martin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:00:05 +0000

by Dana Guthrie Martin

At Night, the Dead., by Lisa Ciccarello

“I want to keep telling you about the dead. They write the same word over & over again.”

About the tour
Welcome to our first-ever Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. Like every new thing we are trying out and sharing here at Read Write Poem — we don’t know *exactly* how this is going to go. This column is especially complicated because it happens on several members’ blogs and stretches out over several weeks.

What the heck am I talking about? I don’t know. Let me just give you the skinny, and then we’ll see if it all makes sense. (If not, you can ask questions in the comments section and we’ll be happy to provide answers.)

The skinny

This post is your home base for the tour. This is where we will post the book that’s on the current tour, the names and blog/site URLs for every member taking part in the tour, and the dates that you can go check out their response to the book currently being discussed. (Think of this column as a conversation among members, with the conversational ball being thrown into the air and caught by another member all month long.)
If you ever want to remind yourself who is talking about the collection next and when to look for a tour post on each participating member’s blog, you can always come right back to this post, where all the information will be at your fingertips.
We’ll also post news items in the Read Write Poem newsfeed when a response is up at someone’s blog, so you will always know when the tour has stopped someplace new, simply by checking out our news or checking your Read Write Poem RSS feed.

Get involved
Want to get involved as a reviewer? Just join the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour group, and then add your name to the forum thread titled “Sign up to be a Virtual Book Tour reviewer.”

Want to get your book on the tour? We’ve already set up partnerships with a number of presses, and we’re booked out several months. We also do the tour only once a month, since it takes so much time to coordinate, which means we’re extremely limited in terms of what we can include. With that in mind, feel free to have your publisher send a query to virtualbooktour (at) readwritepoem (dot) org.

About At Night, the Dead.
This darkly delectable poetry collection was written by Lisa Ciccarello, one of the winners of the 2009 Blood Pudding Press chapbook contest.

Here is an excerpt from the collection:

At night, the dead:

the dark is a black bag where the eyes are kept. In the dark you walk with arms outstretched. I want to keep telling you about the dead. They write the same word over & over again. They make it like a path to walk by.

Poet and editor J. Michael Wahlgren says, “Anyone who uses words like thrice & tautology deserves 5 stars. This is a hot chapbook, production top notch!”

Like all work from Blood Pudding Press, every copy of this collection is handmade. At Night, the Dead. is bound with a small expanse of luxurious velvet ribbon. (Ooh! Aah!) The cover art was designed by artist Emma Trithart. I happen to own this collection, and I can say that it’s stunning — a work of art, both in terms of the content and the presentation.

For information on ordering At Night, the Dead., visit the Blood Pudding Press Etsy shop.

Tour stops for At Night, the Dead.
Aug. 27 :: Julie Jordan Scott :: Julie Jordan Scott
Sept. 1 :: Jill Crammond Wickham :: Jillypoet
Sept. 3 :: Emily May Anderson :: Rice in the Cupboard
Sept. 8 :: Pam Olson :: Amputated Moon
Sept. 10 :: Heather Strang :: Heather Strang
Sept. 15 :: Catherine Fitchett :: Poetry Chook
Sept. 16 :: Keith Wilson :: The Robotto-Mulatto
Sept. 17 :: Elizabeth Pickett :: Elusive Ellipsis
Sept. 22 :: Ren Powell/Babel Fruit :: More Babel

Next month, the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour will feature Maya Ganesan’s Apologies to an Apple.