Oddly enough, it's raining outside. While that would be completely normal in my home state of Ohio, rain doesn't happen very often in Atlanta. With the wind blowing leaves off trees, clouds covering the sun, and rain covering everything else, it almost feels like October in the Buckeye State.

So for today's prompt, I'm asking y'all to write a rainy day poem. You can interpret what a "rainy day poem" means however you like--even if that means wishing for a rainy day, I suppose--or it could indicate a rainy mood even. 

Here's my attempt for the day:

"S & R"

They found you in the forest,
far from the nearest path,
hidden beneath some wet
leaves and unable to speak.

Even those with experience
never expected to find you
in the way that they did.

It was like a miracle or
an accident, this losing you
and finding you again.

 

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Lately, there have been a lot of pieces on putting together poetry from other people's words (or imagining what others would say). Here are some I've noticed:

* There Once Was a Soccer Mom From Alaska... (Actually Alice Pope led me to this one. Thanks, Alice!)

* The Poetry of Sarah Palin

* We hereby nominate Al Davis as poet laureate of Oakland

*****

Also, as an extra, here are some poems actually by Barack Obama.

 

Recently, I had the good opportunity to interview Iranian born poet Sheema Kalbasi who is also a human rights activist and translator. She's also the director of Dialogue of Nations through Poetry, director of the Iranian Women Poetry Project, and co-director of the Other Voices International Project.

Her collection Echoes in Exile (PRA Publications) was a Best Books Award Finalist by USA Book News. In addition to her own poetry, she also translated an anthology of women poets from Middle Ages Persia to Present Day Iran titled Seven Valleys of Love (PRA Publications).

One of my favorite pieces from Echoes in Exile is:

Ivy Nights

Deep in the mouth,
Ivies have grown.
It is rather tricky
To claim her as mine
Now that I have given her to you.
Take good care of her.

 

And here is the interview:

What are you currently up to?

 

I am working on the Danish to English translation of a poem by Pia Tafdrup for the forthcoming print publication of the Other Voices International Project, a collection of poems edited by my friend and literary colleague, Roger Humes, and myself. The anthology is the work by a number of poets from our UNESCO endorsed "cyber-anthology" of world poetry which is located at www.othervoicespoetry.org

 

You were born in Tehran, Iran; you are a Danish citizen; and you currently live in Washington, DC. How has your sense of place affected your writing?

 

Often when I am asked this question I reply by quoting from Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese poet and philosopher who writes: "He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty." As a person who has been displaced on more than one occasion living and experiencing life in places with such differences in the legal, social, and political system has definitely influenced my writings.

 

As a Danish citizen I have experienced social discrimination, but this is far from what I experienced and observed in Iran. The country where I was born and raised in until the age of fourteen is ruled by a regime that has institutionalized gender apartheid; has mass murdered dissidents and members of religious minorities; has destroyed holy sites and cemeteries of people of "unrecognized faith"; has denied higher education and work to Bahaies; has executed people by brutal methods such as stoning; and has arbitrarily arrested and jailed hundreds of journalists, bloggers, and other activists. 

 

In the United States where I currently live, the rights of each individual are much more protected by the legal system than in any other country where I have lived. Surely, there are human rights abuses committed by the U.S. government from time to time, but those eventually always come to light. Abu Gharib is such an example.

 

In my writings I address these issues. I know what it is to be scared of falling bombs, as I know what it is to be paralyzed by fear. I experienced it at the age of 8 when several Iranian cities, including Tehran, were attacked by Iraqi missiles. The bombings killed some seventy elementary school students, and the air raid became the topic of one of my longer poems entitled "Let's Dance Cha, cha Oil," where I write: "The concentration of oil in my body is higher than Central Asia/And this makes it even more critical/To experience life/As a human with socialization goals/Because during the school hours/I and the other students had to learn/How to hide under the desks" (Echoes in Exile, P.R.A., 2006).

 

You are the director of the Iranian Women Project. What is the purpose of this project?

 

My mother's grave is in a new land far from where she was born, raised and worked. She was the first Iranian woman with whom I had contact, a lover of literature and willful creature who encouraged me to write as a child. I created this project to honor her memory so that she and other Iranian female poets living in Iran or elsewhere receive the international recognition they deserve.

 

You've worked as a translator. Do you feel the familiarity with multiple languages has enhanced your poetry writing?

 

Perhaps knowing several languages makes my poetry more inter-cultural and inter-textual without alienating or overshadowing my background both as an Iranian born, and a voyager. 

 

In Seven Valleys of Love, you translate the works of women poets "from Middle Ages Persia to present day Iran." Did you notice any threads tying the poems together throughout the ages?

 

The thread tying the poems together is the anthology’s historical overview.

 

Your English-language collection Echoes in Exile contains poems of loss and pain, but also poems of desire. What do you feel ties this collection together?

 

My experiences as an individual, a woman, a lover, a human rights activist, a mother, and an exile.

 

Do you have any sort of writing routine?

 

Yes. I have disciplined myself to write every day. Sometimes I start as early as 5 a.m.

 

Which poets are you currently reading?

 

I am reading Fahmida Riaz, a Pakistani feminist poet, and of course one of my all time favorites whose poetry I can never get enough of, the Iranian-Canadian poet and filmmaker Naanaam (Hossein Martin Fazeli). Your readers may want to familiarize themselves with this poet's writings and watch one of his latest films at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=O02yAAmU3Ww.

 

If you could pass on one piece of advice to fellow poets, what would it be?

 

I don't like receiving advice when I haven't asked for any and don't see why other people, including poets, would be any different than me.

 

*****

 

For more information on Kalbasi, check out www.frontlist.org.

 

Today is the first day of October. We're also more than a week into my favorite season of the year--Autumn!

For today's prompt, I'd like you to try writing an Autumn Poem. That is, write a poem that evokes autumn for you. For different poets, this will mean different things.

Here's what it means for me:

"Ohio Autumns"

Homecoming queens and kings parade
through the city streets as the cross
country runners splash through the mud.

Quarterbacks play action pass their
way to the hearts of every
available cute cheerleader

without a date on Saturday
evening. The Drum Majors lead
their bands to cohesiveness so

the audience can applaud one
more successful halftime--one more
getting from here to there, and red

cards fly at the soccer games. Those
cross country runners follow white
lines to find the place to finish.

 

Okay, this question has been coming up a lot recently in the comments section of this blog: What counts as previously published? And, in relation to this blog, does posting a poem in the comments of this blog mean it's "published"?

Before I begin, I think it would be beneficial for you to read this post from former co-blogger and Poet's Market editor Nancy Breen about the whole publishing question in "Published is Published!"

For Individual Poems

Many editors consider anything published anywhere at any time under any circumstances as published. This can even include public readings. And if a publication specifies what they consider published in their guidelines, it would behoove a poet (or any writer really) to respect the editor's considerations.

With such editors, a poem posted anywhere counts as publication, whether it's posted in a public forum or blog, or even a private, password-protected location online. In such cases, poems posted on this blog would be considered "previously published." However, there are editors who take a slightly different view.

Some editors consider a poem unpublished if it only displays on a personal blog and/or is in a "draft" form in a forum or blog. That is, if your poem on Poetic Asides is only a rough draft and not the final version, it would not be considered "previously published." If editors do not specify what they consider previously published, there's a good chance they fall into this camp.

For Poetry Collections

Except for rare cases, most editors/publishers of poetry collections accept previously published poems as long as the collection itself has not been previously published. Actually, the fact that poems are previously published usually helps in getting the collection published. That said, do NOT try to use poems posted on a personal blog or public forum as a publishing credit. Such credits hold little weight, since there is usually no screening process, because eveyone can get published.

My main point here is that individual poems that are considered published by journals can still be considered unpublished as components of a poetry collection. And that even individual poems that are considered published are welcome in "original" collections of poems.

In fact, "new collections" can be made from selecting poems from previous full-length collections and chapbooks.

So, How Should Poets Proceed?

Armed with your knowledge of what is and is not considered published, you've just got to pick your battles and act accordingly. For instance, most of my poems are not published on my blog, because I want to have as many publishing options available to me as possible. I share drafts of these "unpublished" poems with close poet friends to solicit feedback for revisions.

The poems I post as parts of prompts, I consider "published," though I would not use it as a publishing credit if I tried including any of them in a collection, because I also consider my poems on this blog to be "vanity publication credits." I make an informed decision to write a poem a week just for the act of creation.

Considering how much money most published poets make anyway, I don't view this as such a bad decision. But every poet has to make this decision on their own.

 

On Monday, I'm going to be making the "big move" down to Atlanta to live with my wife and stepson. Luckily, F+W has been really supportive of allowing me to telecommute from my new home office. Still, it is a big move and will create a huge change in my typical routine.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem about a big change in your routine. Everyone experiences them. For instance, big changes could be getting a job, having a child, surviving a traumatic event, first day of school, making a friend, etc. If you want, you could even write about a series of big changes that are kicked off by a small change.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Ohio"

I've always thought about you, the way you
greet people with an "O" and "o," as if
you're at first impressed and then deflated.

I know the feeling. We all do with our
buckeye necklaces and assembly line
hangovers, our empty factories where
our mothers and fathers used to march, signs
clenched in their hands, firm lines across their mouths.

If it seems that I am leaving you, please
don't think I'll use an "o" to explain you
to others. For me, you're always an "O."

 

So as part of my upcoming move from Southwest Ohio to Northwest Georgia, I've been interested in what the poetry scene is like in the Atlanta area. And lucky for me, there is a website dedicated to poetry events in the area.

The site is called Poetry Atlanta, Inc., and it was created by Dan Veach, editor of the Atlanta Review. If you're interested, check it out at http://www.poetryatlanta.blogspot.com.

So that got me wondering about other areas, and here's a short list of calendars from particular cities:

For NYC, there's the ultimate NYC poetry calendar by Marc Rubin at http://www.poetz.com/calendar.

For Chicago, there's C.J. Laity's http://chicagopoetry.com.

And then, there is the Poetix poetry calendar for Southern California at http://www.poetix.net/calendar.htm.

*****

If you have up-to-date poetry calendars from other areas, please share them with everyone in the comments below. Thanks!

 

This interview came about from an earlier interview with poet and actress Hélène Cardona. Sometime in June, Hélène mentioned that John M. FitzGerald's most recent collection, Telling Time by the Shadows (Turning Point), was actually a collection of secret love poems written by him to her.

"These are the poems John wrote when we first met," says Hélène. "We met at a reading he did at Beyond Baroque in Venice. After that we communicated through poetry, sending each other poems by mail or e-mail for the longest time before we even had a date. It's a very 18th century story."

Needless to say, I was definitely intrigued. John originally sent his poems to Hélène as "prayer poems," so as not to let on they were to her. Eventually, the secret broke, and they both went on to live happily ever after.

FitzGerald, a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland, has published in numerous journals and anthologies. Spring Water, a novel in verse, was a Turning Point Books prize selection in 2005. His other collections include The Mind, The Charter of Effects, Question Creation and The Zeroth Law. He recently completed his first novel, Primate, and turned it into a screenplay.

Here's a poem from Telling Time by the Shadows:

"Magus"

I would be one of the wanderers,
with heaven watching.
Observe, you reflections, I glance away.

Notice the wonder spring forth in ancientness,
steep the spell held in spices, hypnotized.
In dreams I descend twenty steps at a time,

am afraid how I'll land if I fly too high.
I try not to say I, and claim myself,
a sign of consciousness uncovering.

Who calls me, from such transience?
We will ourselves into vastness,
like children at graves,

a wind with just one chance to blow,
both toward and away from itself in surprise,
or life is waste.

There are shooting stars, then that which lingers,
even hovers like a hawk, a halo, a messenger.
None can bear looking straight into the sun.

We see it reflect off the ocean by day, the moon at night.
Imagine someone's sun fly away.
What must it search for, in its burning?

Galaxies witness it bursting through silence.
May it hover to the end in spite of where it finds itself.
Let innocence cling to the universe, swirling,

get high and go hungry, distill our minds
till we can't control what pours from inside,
and at heart remain addicts, ever humble.

 

And with that, let's get into the interview:

What are you currently up to?

 

I recently finished a new manuscript of poetry, The Zeroth Law. It's actually more of a cross between poetry and literary nonfiction that compares the beliefs of the world’s major religions to history, myth and science.

 

You're in a relationship with poet Hélène Cardona. So I'm wondering if you could share what it's like to be in a relationship with another poet?

 

Hélène is great. She is the love of my life and my best friend and a pleasure to be around. People say we're joined at the hip. I'm not so sure that being in a relationship with another poet is so different than being in a relationship with a person in any other occupation. You have to make time for both the vocational and creative aspects of life, while continuing to recognize the things that brought you together in the first place. I was used to being alone to write and it took some adjustment for me. But it helps that we have a lot of the same interests and can bounce things off of one another. And it helps that she is brilliant, too.

 

Your collection Telling Time by the Shadows is actually a collection of "secret" love poems you wrote to Cardona, which you called Prayer Poems at the time. Could you re-cap a little on how this developed, including when/how Cardona finally learned their actual purpose?

 

Yes. It's a collection of poems of love and longing. I first met Hélène when she approached me after a reading I did at Beyond Baroque, in Venice. She told me how great my poems were, and of course, I was immediately stunned by her presence. As time went on, we kept meeting again and again at local poetry events. We talked and exchanged poems.

 

But Hélène is an impressive person. I was always certain that it was only the poetry she was interested in, rather than me in a romantic sense. We began to meet and take very long walks along the beach, from Santa Monica to Malibu, almost daily. During these walks we would hardly speak at all. We would then each return to our separate homes, and send each other poems and letters by e-mail and post.

 

At that time, as it happened, I was working on what I then referred to as "The Prayer Poems." These were prayers in the traditional sense, that they were directed toward a deity. But in these poems, God is really a woman.

 

In your own opinion, what makes for a good "secret" love poem?

 

I think a good secret love poem is one that is universal. You cannot give yourself away completely. Hélène actually began to hope the poems were about her.

 

 

You work as an attorney, which I'm sure eats up a lot of time and can be psychologically draining. How do you balance your poetry with your day job?

 

I write every night. It's just a matter of habit. I wouldn't feel normal if I didn't do it.

 

 

Could you explain what inspired Spring Water (Turning Point), a novel in verse about the life of a serial killer?

 

When I was in law school, I read a number of cases in criminal law and criminal procedure, in which defendants being tried for murder raised the defense of insanity, stating that God, or the devil had told them to kill. But the case that stuck with me the most did not arise in the context of crimes, but in the context of wills and trusts. It was the infamous Tylenol case, to which we now owe the tamper-proof cap.

 

In this sad case, a newlywed couple was called on their honeymoon in Hawaii, and informed that the groom's brother had suddenly and unexpectedly died. The couple cut their honeymoon short, and returned for the funeral. After the ceremony, there was a reception held at the home of the deceased. Both the new husband and wife took the very same Tylenol, and died within an hour of one another. Since they both had wills leaving everything to the other, the issue was which one to enforce. The killer was never caught. That really stuck with me.

 

You have lived in England, Italy, and Santa Monica. I'm going to put you on the spot and ask which is your favorite place to live and why?

 

Santa Monica. I love it here. I was born here. But I'm also a citizen of Ireland. I lived England 2 years and couldn't wait to come home. But now I sort of miss it, and will make it a point to go back – for a visit. My mother's side of the family has a vineyard in Amorosi, near Naples. It's pretty great there too. But since you said "live," I'm sticking with Santa Monica, for now. Who knows, I might feel the need to move to Ireland, depending on who wins the election.

 

As a follow-up question, do you think travel helps with the poetic writing process?

 

I'm sure that anything outside the ordinary, everyday experience must help with the creative process. As beautiful as Santa Monica is, you can only write about the beach so many times before you bore yourself to television.

 

If you could share only one piece of advice with other poets, what would it be?

 

Read, read, read.

 

*****

 

Check out Turning Point Books at http://www.turningpointbooks.com.

 

Check out John's website at http://jmfitzgerald.com.

 

And finally, check out Cardona's website at http://www.helenecardona.com.

 

*****

 

Poetic Asides is loaded with great poet interviews. To view them all, go to: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/CategoryView,category,Poet%20Interviews.aspx.

 

As mentioned in an earlier post, Southwest Ohio was beat up by a wind storm that had hurricane force winds. Earlier in the weekend, I assured my sons that Ohio never experiences hurricanes (we just have twisters to contend with usually), but by Sunday evening daddy was proved wrong (once again).

Anyway, for this week's prompt, I want you to write a poem about something that would make you happy. For me, that would be getting electricity at home again (been without since early Sunday afternoon). For someone else, that may be a trip to Paris or a visit from a loved one or a teleportation machine (with the gas prices these days, it would sure come in handy).

Here's my silly attempt for the week:

"Electricity"

Without you, I'm propping a flashlight's glare
into the corner above the shower
to clean myself in almost warm water
before charging my cell phone in the car
on my way into work. I am sorry
I took you for granted. Please come back soon.

 

Okay, I've been in hiding recently because so many poets have been hounding me over who is the winner of the first ever fake bio contest on Poetic Asides. The great thing about this contest is that writers didn't need to have any "real" credits to enter--just a great imagination of what they'd like to have in their bio notes. That said, the competition was fierce--with many entrants owning impressive "real" bios.

Anyway, the judging was