ars poetica

Phase Two of the ars poetica project is now complete. We've read through the 569 poems sent in by 251 poets and made our selections for the print anthology.

We believe, as of Friday June 12th 2009 we have contacted every reachable participant to inform them whether their work will appear in the print anthology or not.

If you submitted poems to this project, they appeared on this website, and you did not receive an email from us on Friday June 12th 2009, please contact us as soon as possible and we will re-send the communication.

The book will be available in November, and a book launch will happen at Paper Kite Press: http://wordpainting.com/

The Address Hunt

For anyone interested in how a process like this plays out, about 15% of the people who originally submitted poems to this project have changed their email address since they submitted. This is why we saved the relationship map. After going up-chain (sometimes two times), we were able to obtain working email addresses for almost everyone. At this point in time, we believe everyone who submitted poems has had those poems appear on this website, and, has received an email from us announcing Phase One is complete and Phase Two is beginning, except for the following:

Richard Denner, whose rychard@sonic.net address bounced as undeliverable, and whose upchain contact informed us that he's disappeared into a monk's life.

and

Rochelle Ratner who died on March 31st of 2008.

If you are or have current contact information for Richard Denner, please contact us as soon as possible, otherwise we will be forced to exclude those poems from consideration.

If you believe you have submitted poems to this project and you do not see those poems on this site, or, you did not receive an email from us in February of 2009, please contact us as soon as possible.

Phase One Complete

OK, everyone, Phase One of the Ars Poetica project is now officially complete: every properly submitted poem has now appeared on this website.

Now Phase Two begins: finalizing selections for the print anthology.

In the coming weeks, if you properly submitted poems, you will be receiving an email from us with more details. If you do not hear from us by March 1st, something has gone wrong and you should drop us a line.

Thanks to everyone who submitted!

Chain Poem

Important! Read carefully!
Do not disregard
this message—It is real.
When you receive this poem,
open your mind.
Write down seven thoughts
expressed as mental pictures.
(These thoughts can be on any subject:
politics and sorrow, love
and sorrow, life and sorrow…)
Do not discard this poem
or terrible things will happen:
Ideas will be abandoned unexpressed,
love will not be spoken,
a concrete image will dissolve in tears.
A man in Alabama received this poem:
within twenty-four hours of reading it,
his blindness had been lifted.
A woman in New Jersey got this poem:
within one week of reading it, she began
a journal which clarified her life.
You, too, can use this poem
to your good fortune. Here is how:
Express an idea concisely and beautifully
as you can. Write a title at the top of the page.
At the bottom, sign your name preceded by
a small, circled “c” and the date.
Read it aloud to five of your best-loved friends.
Wait for results to follow.

—Carol Clark Williams
____
previously appeared in Grandmother Earth Volume 12,
Encore 1998

Even through the summer storm

wild geese imagine the moon and
row toward it, writing
lines of poetry.

Against the gothic clouds they sketch
sestinas, every stanza
beginning with the letter “v”.

They search the lightning-punctuated sky
for words that rhyme with
“flight” and “night”.

—Carol Clark Williams
____
previously published in Mad Poets Review, Vol. 20

Poetry Lover

Eventually it stalks
the chantry of your mind
with heavy step and a proud face,
sits at your communion table,
fork and knife poised in its hands,
criticizes the elements and their presentation,
becomes the Adversary.

Eventually it demands
both sides of the bed,
total control of the television remote,
dictates what music
you can play on the stereo,
takes over the closet.

Far cry from the day
it knocked timidly
on your half-open door,
knelt at your feet,
waiting to speak. Or fled,
and you eagerly pursued it
down the merciless streets.

—Carol Clark Williams
____
previously published in Byline Feb.2007

Writer’s Block
                    To Carolyn Forché

Once at a college lecture, someone asked
how long it took to generate your poetry,
the meditative travelogues
of your soul. You replied,
“Seven years”--The span of time
from inception of the thought
to conception of the poem.

I would ask now, wish I had asked you then:
What did you do in those seven years until the words came
in acceptable rows like schoolchildren with bright faces,
to replace the constant distant ache
tapping at the corners of your mind,
repetitive small echo
of infant ghosts waiting for their medium.

How did you occupy yourself until the poems arrived:
did you stare out windows,
leaning your head against the cold pain,
did you grip your hands one against the other
and wordlessly grieve like a barren woman
praying for children to clothe in crisp white folds,
smooth out their tangles and send into the world?

—Carol Clark Williams
____
Previously published in Digge’s Choice, Shirazad, PPS Prize Poems