Cactus Wins and Other Feral Poetry Adventures

Ceramic art: Orion James Photo: Robyn Beattie

Surviving summer? I am blessed to live on the coast with just enough of a breeze to keep us comfortable, or no breeze at all when sitting at ER with my middle child. He survived an encounter with a cactus, but let’s just say the cactus won. Traveling at high speed on his mountain bike at a fork in the trail, he hesitated, swerved, and landed with cacti clinging to his forearm, chest, neck, stomach, and hip. He even managed a cactus earring.

In this age of perpetual documentation, we have photos and video footage of him removing his jewelry and stretching his earlobe out like taffy a couple inches before the cactus let go. It took three of us with tweezers to remove as many of the spines as we could. I ended up with a plethora of minuscule spines in my fingertips, fickle jumpers all too happy to defect to the country of me. My son is mercifully on the mend, healing all those welts after taking off the temporary cast they put on his arm to support his wrist (it was simply pressing--in the monstrous heat--the remaining spines further in, right?!).

And by mosquito-ringed lamplight after the day’s traumas have settled, I’ve been participating in the Write Like You're Alive Zoetic Press challenge to draft a poem a day during the month of July. I thought I could get back in the saddle in March during National Poetry Writing Month, but I got as far as one poem. Too much emotion too close to the surface. I feel blessed to be in a more even and happy place (it helps to have seven months between now and losing my mother). I’m proud to have written twenty-five new poems this month! Zoetic Press will be publishing an anthology soon, culling one poem from each one of us twenty-five poem finish-line-weary writers, and I’ll post a link when it is live.

Upcoming Poetry Reading

I’m reading this coming Saturday, August 4 at Bookshow in LA as part of Zoetic Press and Drunk Monkey’s Reading Extravaganza for a night of reading, rumination, snacks and wine from 6-8 p.m. I’d love to see you there!

Representing Zoetic Press:  Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, Laura Reece Hogan, Tania Pryputniewicz, and Wendy Zimmer.

Representing Drunk Monkeys: Kevin Ridgeway, Joe Iraggi, Mathieu Cailler, and Ashley Perez.

Bookshow is in Highland Park

5503 N Figueroa Street

Los Angeles, CA 90042

Here’s the link to full bios for the readers: Zoetic Press and Drunk Monkey's Reading Extravaganza.

America, We Call Your Name Anthology

I’m also thrilled to announce that the poem I wrote while teaching my Election Blues: The Gift of Agency in Poetry class, "An Iris for Hillary," is forthcoming along with approximately 125 poems in America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience published by Sixteen Rivers Press 2018 with foreword by Camille T. Dungy. The anthology is available for pre-order; for more information about pre-order options, visit Sixteen Rivers Press (official release date, September 4, 2018). I’ll be participating in events and will post once I have dates and times and can’t wait to read the work in this collection; you'll find an absolute trove of poetry luminaries. Here's a partial author name cloud until I have the book in hand to do my usual word-a-poem cloud for you! I tried to keep it to just one name per alphabet letter…I tried…

Elizabeth Alexander     Frank Bidart     Lucille Clifton     Natalie Diaz     Emily Dickinson     Chiyuma Elliott     Molly Fisk     Susan Griffin     Seamus Heaney     Yusef Komunyakaa     Ursula K. Le Guin     Ada Limon     Grace McNally     Pablo Neruda     Sharon Olds     Irma Penida     Adrienne Rich     Kay Ryan     Evie Shockley     Wislawa Szymborska     Susan Terris     Ocean Vuong     Charles Wright     Matthew Zapruder     and many more….

Here's a link to a post about the making of the cento, An Iris for Hillary: Poetry Meets Tarot Synchronicity: Crafting Centos and Leaning On Your Beloveds.

Heart Fig by Robyn Beattie

Next Poetry Class: SDWI

My next class poetry class runs on Saturday, August 11, 2018 from 10-12 noon at San Diego Writers, Ink, on the theme of Museums. We write a bit on the spot and then dive deep workshopping one another’s poems. I send you home with submission targets and a worksheet loaded with exercises to keep you busy until we meet the following month. 

Drop-ins welcome; bring a friend! What better way to get to know someone, friend or lover? Come on out, put our class on your map as your first ever poetry date. To sign up, more information here: Second Saturdays: Poetry Draft, Craft, Submit!

Queen Califia and Spring Classes

Queen Califia, Nikki de St. Phalle

I spy with my little Tarot eye the sculptures of Nikki de St. Phalle. These are close-ups from the totem sculptures in Queen Califia’s Magic Circle Garden. Have you been there yet? It is tucked away in Kit Carson Park, Escondido, California. I hope these glimpses, these close-ups, encourage you to adventure there yourself. The docent told me Nikki’s wishes were to arrange the garden on the land in such a way that you’d encounter it, stumble upon it, magically.  

Flowers bloomed on the hillside as my daughter and I walked the dusty path along a low stone wall until the entrance emerged. Yes, this could be Tuscany, Italy, the landscape in which Nikki’s larger house-sized Tarot sculptures live. But if you can’t make it to Italy yet, try Queen Califia’s Magic Circle Garden.

It was lovely to be out in nature, in the sun, under clouds of such crisp contour with such vibrant blue blackdrop, as I’ve been writing, writing, writing…I still love to write poetry long hand, but as I experiment with writing longer pieces in prose, it makes for a long process. Everything by hand—then the hours transcribing—hence the need to get out from behind the computer screen and outdoors for art dates more and more.

Harvest of Poems

Thanks to guest poetry editor Robert Lee Brewer, "Hades" is live at Prime Number Magazine. Despite the title, “Hades” is very much an “above ground” poem, Hades figuring as more of a psychological destination visited by brooders (like me). 

I also was able to make a sound file, which can be listened to here: Hades MP3.

And for Neptune-blessed lovers, I have written a poem about abalone diving, marriage, children, and waiting for the beloved to surface. I’m honored that Silver Birch Press published “Kolmer’s Gulch” as part of their Lost and Found Poetry and Prose Series. You can listen to the sound file here: “Kolmer’s Gulch MP3”.

Upcoming Tarot and Poetry Classes

Have you been taking advantage of the prompts offered daily this month at NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month)? Every day during the month of April you'll find a new poetry prompt! Even if you don’t write 30 poems in 30 days, what if by month’s end you draft five new poems? Even one new poem? Each prompt comes with links to the work of other poets participating in the challenge as well as links to interviews with established writers and example poems.

Here are my latest class offerings, starting already April 24.

by Tania Pryputniewicz

Entering the Tarot Garden: An Introduction to the Tarot: Are you ready to explore the Tarot? Go for a gentle tour through the structure of the Tarot? We will go over the basics:

• The four elements (earth, air, fire, and water)
• The daily life cards of each suit and the story they tell as they progress from numbers One to Ten,
• The Court Cards—Kings, Queens, Knights, and Pages
• The Major Arcana

We will use a hands-on approach to studying the Tarot including becoming familiar with the deck of your choice and journaling to prompts.

If you are interested, but have questions, and would like to know more about my particular approach to the Tarot, I am offering free simple 3-card readings over Zoom (video call, or Skype if you prefer). Contact me through the form on this website or IM me on Facebook through my Wheel of Archetypal Selves Tarot page to sign up.

Here’s the full course description for Entering the Tarot Garden.

Poetry Draft, Craft, Submit: I’m so excited about teaching this class, especially on the heels of National Poetry Writing Month. We will be starting right at the tail end of the month, so some of you will likely have a new crop of poems to craft and revise. If not, join us, and write to the prompts I’ll be giving you based on specific calls for submission. This online class is for poets ready to draft, craft and submit work. In addition to weekly craft lessons and prompts, we will support one another in sending work out to live submission targets.

Here’s the full course description for Poetry Draft, Craft, Submit.

I will most likely also be am teaching a version of this on-line class in-person at San Diego Writers, Ink. It will run Second Saturdays of the month, 10 am-12 noon, starting May 13, 2017. Here are the upcoming themes: 
May 13: Spirituality
June 10: Childhood / Children
July 8: Destinations
August 12: Architecture
September 9: Livestock and Pets
October 14: Omens

Here's the link to sign up for my in-person class at SDWI, Second Saturdays: Draft, Craft Submit. Cost is $30 a session for SDWI, and $36 for non-members.

Happy Spring....

Photos were taken by yours truly, all at Queen Califia's Magic Circle Garden.

October Poetry News

Photo by Jamie Clifford

Extract(s) Interview: Three Questions

Thanks to Jenn Monroe at  Extract (s): Daily dose of lit, an interview is up based on the poems in the Camelot Section of November Butterfly:

The manner in which Guinevere haunted me, questions of sentimentality, and the way my husband found me among other topics covered. Here's an excerpt:

Guinevere found me again just after graduate school in the heartland, when a childhood friend proposed to me. He saw Sir Edmond Blair Leighton’s drawing, “The Accolade” (which we construed to depict Guinevere knighting a kneeling Lancelot) in my home, which I’d brought home from the crystal and gem store where I worked part time in Iowa City. He playfully suggested that we marry in costume. What poet could refuse?

Read the rest of the interview here: Three Questions, Tania Pryputniewicz  (Oct 2016 update: I've re-run the interview here on my main site: Thirteen Prompts for November Butterfly and Three Questions.

Excerpt(s) also ran Veil, Veil II, and Transport from November Butterfly in May of this year.

Photo by Robyn Beattie

Poetry Play: A Tour of the Forms, In Person at San Diego Writers, Ink

This class is a joy to teach and according to my students, a joy to take; please do join me for this four-hour workshop coming up:

10-2

Tuesday October 20, 2015

$60 members, $72 non-members

Do you haiku? Ever written a haibun, aubade, or villanelle? Want to try your hand at a sestina or a sonnet? During this one-day workshop we will fearlessly and playfully write our way towards working drafts of as many of the forms as we can.

We’ll start with the deceptively simple but evocative gem of haiku. Then we’ll breathe into the slightly pithier prose lead required of the haibun with its haiku chaser. Next up: dawn songs (otherwise known as aubades) for a love lost or left at sunrise. And then, hearts astir, we turn to the gift of intricate form and the unusual word choices form often invites. We will draft sestinas, sonnets and villanelles.

To sign up and read rest of course description visit Poetry Play: A Tour of the Forms

Poetry Movie Screenings for November Butterfly in Sonoma County

My poetry movie collaborator Robyn Beattie will be presenting a film screening of five of our poetry movies as part of the Guerneville Library Fall Art Show that opens Friday, October 2 at 3 p.m. Robyn will be screening our poetry movies from 6:30-7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 7 and Wednesday October 14. Robyn will read the poems, show the movies, and discuss her images. Movie titles:

She Dressed in a Hurry, Lady Di

Amelia

Mordred’s Dream

Thumbeline

The Corridor, Guinevere to her Mother

If you are unable to attend the screenings, you can access the movies and learn about our collaborative process on my main website: Photo Poem Montages. Guerneville Library is located at 14107 Armstrong Woods Rd., Guerneville, CA, 95446.

Coronado Writers Workshop

Just got the heads up that the Coronado Writer's Workshop is this weekend, as in tomorrow. For more information, try this link: 2015 Coronado Writers Workshop.