Sealey Challenge Eve

 Is this crazy? Possibly. As I close out another Plastic-Free July challenge, I am gathering 31 (slim!) poetry volumes to read in the month of August. In keeping with the guidelines of The Sealey Challenge, I would read a book a day. But I am learning—late but learning— to be gentle with myself. 

So in a month where work is presenting unique challenges - a new ILS software! Branch closures due to remodels and poor AQI! - and home is offering me plenty to do (prepping for a gathering at the “farm" at the end of the month), I am picking up the poetry gauntlet mindfully. This means that rather than rushing through a book a day, skimming and not doing the book or poet the courtesy of my full attention, I intend instead to read at least some of a new book every day, and do so with care. This will give me more time to write. Time to weed (my favorite thing). And time to take care of myself and my family and the land in which we are blessed to live. 

Review of Erica Goss’s Landscape with Womb and Paradox

I was delighted to be asked by editor John Amen to contribute a review of Erica Goss's Landscape with Womb and Paradox to the final issue of the wonderful Pedestal Magazine. Goss herself has published at least a hundred reviews, and has also written a very insightful and helpful article on how to write reviews of poetry books, so I was both inspired and, frankly, intimidated, by the challenge of writing about her collection. But the book itself made the task a joy; it is beautiful, and as generous as the poet herself in terms of taking the reader into the poems. Much of what she had to say really resonated with me. Here is a very accomplished poet reminding us all: pay attention. Every moment has its story, its own poetry. 

 

Review of Scott Ferry’s Sapphires on the Graves

I’m late in announcing here that this review came out in Pedestal Magazine. I’m so grateful to editor John Amen for publishing my reviews. Scott Ferry’s latest book (one of many in only a few years - he is very prolific) is formatted in a very specific way, and I enjoyed diving in to his experiences in his prose poetry, with slashes instead of line breaks, with its wild leaps of imagination and dreamscape. 

Review of Irene Blair Honeycutt's Mountains of the Moon in Pedestal

 I'm excited to have another review up at the wonderful Pedestal Magazine. Honeycutt has long been something of a leader in the literary world in and around Charlotte. Her book reminded me of the importance of noticing. Noticing everything, and noting it. Also, I appreciate that she keeps her dead close (but not too close), as do I. 

Honeycut's poems are almost deceptively accessible. But the more I read them, the more I could sink into them. It was an honor to have a place to speak a little about her new collection.

Reveiw of Matthew E. Henry's The Third Renunciation in Pedestal Magazine

 I am once again indebted to editor John Amen and his team for including one of my reviews in Pedestal Magazine. This one was a challenge because the author is outspoken and active on social media, and his work is passionate, personal and informed. I always want to do a writer justice when I share my experience and interpretation of their work, and I felt like the stakes were higher to get it right in this case. Matthew E. Henry is a black man; I am a white woman. I cannot truly understand the racism he has faced, especially in his career as a teacher in a mostly-white school with mostly-white faculty and staff, because I have not lived that experience. But nor would I ever use my gender and whiteness as an excuse for not trying to see what he has seen, hear what he has to say. I can appreciate anyone who looks at the injustices and pain in this world and asks not "why" but "what if?" What if.

Besides, how can I help but admire a book of radical theological sonnets? As usual, there was more I could have said and wanted to say, but the 1000-word limit meant I had to omit exploring how The Third Renunciation contrasts with Mark Jarman's Unholy Sonnets, among other things. 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 30: Best Barbarian by Richard Reeves

I read this one digitally, but requested the physical copy from the library as well, to experience it, and better see and understand the lineation. This title was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award. As I noted elsewhere, I found myself breathless more than once while reading this collection. Incessant, like waves lapping stone into the earth or fire sweeping the land. And this was not the first book I've read in August that features wasps. Interestingly, a few days after reading this, I had my very first unpleasant encounter with a wasp on our property since we moved here almost two years ago - just a single wasp, very interested in a meal I was eating outside. But still, they seem to be a recurring motif in my life at the moment.

The Sealey Challenge, Day 29: Beasts for the Chase by Monica Farrell

I realized that I misrepresented the title of this book on X when I posted about it. My notes for this book, as well as so many of the others I read in August, are forthcoming.

The Sealey Challenge, Day 28: Sturge Town by Kwame Dawes

When you read a book of poetry in a single day, if not a single sitting, you are more likely to appreciate that poet's particular cadences and diction in your head than if you just read a poem here or there. 

In this case, because Kwame Dawes was my thesis advisor and teacher at Pacific University's MFA program, I have the advantage of already knowing what his actual voice sounds like, the timbre and slight accent. The same man whose praise bolstered me for years and whose, "I don't believe that you believe that," about a particular line here or there still has me questioning anything I write that might be (even if I don't realize it at first) less than sincere. Sturge Town is my favorite Dawes book to date. I love it for that very trait that Kwame encouraged in me: honesty. Honest self-reflection, and a sense of one's place in the world, his or her personal history.

 

My Conversation with Nancy Miller Gomez is live!

It was truly a joy to speak with Nancy about her poetry and her process, about the power of naming a thing, and leaning into writing what most frightens you. I loved learning more about the ways in which Nancy as a child was already a writer, and exploring what I see as the power of sharing with others our own vulnerability.  As Nancy says, "We’re all just human. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all said and done things we wish we hadn’t. We all just want to be accepted, and we all just want to be loved."

Much thanks to David Roderick and the editorial staff at The Adroit Journal for publishing our interview.

The Sealey Challenge, Day 27: Information Desk by Robyn Schiff

I've had this book recommended to me more than once, and more than once in response to a draft of one of my own poems. I'm happy to have finally read - or, really, experienced the book. I was able to listen to about half of it, which gave me a great sense of how to hold that voice, and thought, in my head from line to line. So many jumps and shifts. I, too, have worked an information desk of sorts - reference at an downtown public library - and have experienced both startling and repetitive requests, and may have been tempted once or twice to provide wildly inaccurate or ironic answers. I, too, have a bit of a fascination with insects. But what I know about art and history is amounts to a fleck of paint compared to Schiff's knowledge.

Definitely one of the best reads of the Sealey Challenge for me this year.

The Sealey Challenge, Day 26: Train Dance by Jonathan Wells

 

As I noted on social media, this particular title was, admittedly chosen for it's slimness and availability because today was very busy for me. 

I am not suggesting that those two attributes are, generally speaking, ideal reasons to chose anything, however.

The Sealey Challenge, Day 25: The Good Thief by Marie Howe

 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 24: The World to Come by David Keplinger

 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 23: frank:sonnets by Diane Seuss

 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 22: The Bell and the Blackbird by David Whyte

 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 21: Fugitive/Refuge by Philip Metres

 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 20: Ghost Variations by Elton Glaser

 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 19: Don't Sing to Me of Electric Fences by Dave Seter

 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 18: Gay Girl Prayers by Emily Austin

 

The Sealey Challenge, Day 17: With My Back to the World by Victoria Chang