Review of Ada Limón’s ‘The Hurting Kind’

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I join good company in reviewing poet Ada Limón’s The Hurting Kind — reviews have appeared on NPR, in The Guardian, and The New York Times. I’m honored that EIL (Escape Into Life) offered me an opportunity to add my voice.

To read the review (and visit the wonderful EIL site), click on this link: https://www.escapeintolife.com/book-reviews/book-review-the-hurting-kind-by-ada-limon/

You can read my 2021 blogpost about Limon’s Bright Dead Things, here.

While I’m here, I also wanted to remind people that I’ll be reading, along with several other Madrona #3 contributors, at FinnRiver Farm & Cidery, 6:30 p.m., July 14. One day soon, I promise, I’ll have a real blogpost for you.

I have been writing up a storm

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…taking a Creative Non-fiction class, working on a big revision, writing book reviews and poems (everything but blog posts). And I’ve been sending things out — here’s proof: https://www.escapeintolife.com/poetry/birds-in-poems/

At EIL you’ll find several poems about birds (scroll down to find mine). And gorgeous images.

Art by Tifenn Python

Upcoming Readings

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I admit, Everett Poetry Night keeps slipping away from me — but there it is, at Sister’s Cafe, every Thursday at 5 p.m. This week I’m the featured reader, and I would love to see you there.

And, on July 14, I’m trekking to Chimacum to help celebrate the third edition of The Madrona Project. It’s an awesome line-up of poets, and I’m excited to be one of them.

When:
Thursday, Jul 14 2022, 6:30pm – 8:00pm PDT. copy to my calendar, iCal export
Where:
Finnriver Cider Garden, Cidery Taproom & Orchard 124 Center Road, Chimacum, WA 98325, United States (map)

Human Communities in Wild Places
from Empty Bowl Press
with a Reading by Contributing Writers

Thursday, July 14
6:30 – 8 pm in the Hay Barn

https://www.finnriver.com/farm-music-event-calendar

As Music Isn’t Just Notes on a Page

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I love this quote, which I found over at The Poetry Department, so I’m sharing it with you. I’ve been working on a new book of poems, many of which touch on music in some way — a result, I’m certain, of taking piano lessons for the last several years and practicing daily. (No, I will not play for you.) I would love to write a blog post comparing playing music to writing poems, but I’ve never been able to hang onto the fleeting insights that sometimes come to me. Something about notes and rests and counting (also repetition!).

I know that being a complete newbie learner at something is very useful in understanding people’s process in learning anything. But, as I said, it’s a bit elusive; maybe that’s because I’m not trying to write music, only to play it. Garret Hongo says it better:

“As music isn’t just notes on a page or within an improvisatory passage, poems are not simply individual words on a page. They are collections and sequences of language that strike both familiarity — whether that be in meaning or a recognition of its form, its rhetorical scheme — and work a notable change or transformation of meaning and its scheme that defamiliarizes that which had been previously known, that makes it new, as Ezra Pound said poetry had to.”

Garrett Hongo
(b. May 30, 1951)

Meanwhile, I have two fresh publications to share with you, and both are available on the Web. I have a poem, “Pear,” that just posted today at Rust and Moth, and I have an essay, “My Mother’s Birthday in Ireland,” at Chautauqua Journal.