Breathing Poet has very nicely featured one of my poems on her site. Thank you again.
Take time to read more of her blog while you're there!
Pris
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Meatloaf still brings out the magic in me
Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell has to be one of the best albums of the late seventies's. I love his music. He faded from view after this album to appear again playing small theatres in the late eighties. I saw him then in a theatre over in Palm Beach. He still had the magic, but no new material. I don't know what caused his burnout, but would've loved more albums like this one. This song....well, it's super! So is 'For Crying Out Loud' and 'Paradise By The Dashboard Light' (a classic)
What's your favorite from that album/now out in CD? Hard choice.
I couldn't resist adding Paradise By The Dashboard Light.
What's your favorite from that album/now out in CD? Hard choice.
I couldn't resist adding Paradise By The Dashboard Light.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Recovering from the flu
I'm over the main thrust of it, but am left weaker than usual and dopey, meaning I've not been around to visit many blogs over the past week, plus.
In the meantime, the editor of Lummox tells me that my chap that they published as part of the Little Red Book series is getting close to being one of their best sellers. Want to help me take it over the top? You can buy Hesitant Commitments for only six dollars, including postage (in the U.S., more out of country) at Lummox Press. Just click on my book cover for the list of recent books there and the paypal button.
I shall return!
In the meantime, the editor of Lummox tells me that my chap that they published as part of the Little Red Book series is getting close to being one of their best sellers. Want to help me take it over the top? You can buy Hesitant Commitments for only six dollars, including postage (in the U.S., more out of country) at Lummox Press. Just click on my book cover for the list of recent books there and the paypal button.
I shall return!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
'Pretty' Forwards
Maybe I'm a grump today since I'd been feeling pretty good, then was exposed to flu when I went for my fasting bloodwork last Wed and came down with it myself Saturday. I could crawl into a hole and not come out until this passes I feel so lousy. This is one of my five minutes awake, so decided to air a gripe. Mass forwards!
If I go the rest of my life and never see another 'You're my friend, because..' or 'This flower is just for you....' or 'Cute kitten and antelope...', you name it, followed by 'Send this on to all of your friends and one back to me, too' or by 'Something wonderful will happen if you pass this on to 10 friends within the next five minutes' or 'Bad luck will follow you if you don't send this on'. Jesus Louise. And jokes. If I wanted to read that many jokes, I'd buy a joke book.
I never mind a close friend very occasionally forwarding me, individually, something he or she feels is something I'd like to see. My close friends don't mass forward to me, nor me to them. I mean, how many flowers, cute puppies, reindeer, kittens, children doing funny things can one person look at, especially if it's a video you have to sit through if you're tempted to look.
So, I'm saying, if you're my friend, take me off your cute things/ joke forwarding list. Warn me of a virus ONLY if you checked it out at SNOPES first and if it ends with 'this will destroy your entire C drive' please make EXTRA sure you check it out. 99 percent of these types of warnings are fakes. Yes, I know about the e-card virus. That's real. Most stuff that's sent around is an urban legion, including the little boy needing money disparately that dates back to a hoax five years ago. I repeat...MAKE SNOPES YOUR BIBLE.
Okay, I'll take myself back to bed and hope I don't find another handful of forwards waiting for me when I again check email.
One hint: If you use a program that allows sorting, create a folder for forwards and direct them all there using FW as the subject key word. Double check to see if any are from that rare friend you might get something you want and delete the rest.
The grump
Pris
If I go the rest of my life and never see another 'You're my friend, because..' or 'This flower is just for you....' or 'Cute kitten and antelope...', you name it, followed by 'Send this on to all of your friends and one back to me, too' or by 'Something wonderful will happen if you pass this on to 10 friends within the next five minutes' or 'Bad luck will follow you if you don't send this on'. Jesus Louise. And jokes. If I wanted to read that many jokes, I'd buy a joke book.
I never mind a close friend very occasionally forwarding me, individually, something he or she feels is something I'd like to see. My close friends don't mass forward to me, nor me to them. I mean, how many flowers, cute puppies, reindeer, kittens, children doing funny things can one person look at, especially if it's a video you have to sit through if you're tempted to look.
So, I'm saying, if you're my friend, take me off your cute things/ joke forwarding list. Warn me of a virus ONLY if you checked it out at SNOPES first and if it ends with 'this will destroy your entire C drive' please make EXTRA sure you check it out. 99 percent of these types of warnings are fakes. Yes, I know about the e-card virus. That's real. Most stuff that's sent around is an urban legion, including the little boy needing money disparately that dates back to a hoax five years ago. I repeat...MAKE SNOPES YOUR BIBLE.
Okay, I'll take myself back to bed and hope I don't find another handful of forwards waiting for me when I again check email.
One hint: If you use a program that allows sorting, create a folder for forwards and direct them all there using FW as the subject key word. Double check to see if any are from that rare friend you might get something you want and delete the rest.
The grump
Pris
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sea Trails
The following is an excerpt from my just finished collection of poems based on my 1977 six month trip in my 22 foot sailboat. I've begun submitting now. It's a combination of log notes and poems in hopes there'll be crossover appeal to both sailors and poets.
Coming out of the East River in preparation for anchoring at Sandy Hook, N.J., then sailing down the Jersey Coast. You can see the twin towers behind me.
My poem, Streaking, about that leg of the trip is currently in Empowerment4Women.
Pris
Little Adventure: Fitting out the boat. June 1977
Little Adventure is a Tanzer 22 fin keel sailboat, purchased second-hand in Marion, MA, in late 1974. No standing head room in the cabin.She came with two regular jibs (Genoa for light winds and standard size), one small storm jib made of thick canvass, and a compass. R and I add a depth sounder, odometer, ship to shore radio and, before our trip, a second five gallon gas tank and homemade spinnaker. We purchase an Avon to serve as combination dinghy and life raft to replace the fiberglass dinghy we owned the first two years. A supply of paperback books are stored on a shelf in the main cabin where one quarterberth cushion slides back and a pop-up table comes up for meals and for chart space for course plotting.
As the trip’s leave date nears, jeans and tee shirts are packed into two duffel bags and warmer clothes combined into a third, smaller duffel bag. Nets in the V-berth hold our toiletries. Wet gear hangs from a hook. Canned goods are stored in plastic bins beneath the quarter berths. Potatoes and onions hang from a net in the cabin. Block ice goes into a small front-opening ice chest built into the boat below the stove and sink. We have no hanging locker, no head. A porta potty will have to do. Our cat Monster’s litter box sits under the lip of the V-berth where we’ll sleep. A two-burner kerosene stove is mounted next to a sink too small to do dishes in. A bucket will do for that. Our goal is to make it to Florida, then across the Gulf Stream and down the Abacos, possibly ending up in New Orleans, a city we feel will be similar in spirit to Boston.
Sea Fever Redux
I must go down to the sea again…
John Masefield
I board the tiny sloop that has carried me
twice to Maine with its deep
silent harbors and moaning buoys.
I'm ensnared, trapped by increasing
longings to ride that magic carpet
into places different from my own
narrow world of nine to five rewind.
Saltwater rises through my body,
is transformed through its heat
into golden mist. I expand
without Alice's cookies,
become a gull dropping clams
on the rocks to crack them,
a molting lobster, a leaping dolphin,
a man watching the sky from a deserted dock.
The sea is my cradle and it rocks me,
birthing me into new ways of seeing.
My arms unfurl into sails.
I let the wind take me.
Pris Campbell
©2009
A gas stop.
Coming out of the East River in preparation for anchoring at Sandy Hook, N.J., then sailing down the Jersey Coast. You can see the twin towers behind me.
My poem, Streaking, about that leg of the trip is currently in Empowerment4Women.
Pris
Little Adventure: Fitting out the boat. June 1977
Little Adventure is a Tanzer 22 fin keel sailboat, purchased second-hand in Marion, MA, in late 1974. No standing head room in the cabin.She came with two regular jibs (Genoa for light winds and standard size), one small storm jib made of thick canvass, and a compass. R and I add a depth sounder, odometer, ship to shore radio and, before our trip, a second five gallon gas tank and homemade spinnaker. We purchase an Avon to serve as combination dinghy and life raft to replace the fiberglass dinghy we owned the first two years. A supply of paperback books are stored on a shelf in the main cabin where one quarterberth cushion slides back and a pop-up table comes up for meals and for chart space for course plotting.
As the trip’s leave date nears, jeans and tee shirts are packed into two duffel bags and warmer clothes combined into a third, smaller duffel bag. Nets in the V-berth hold our toiletries. Wet gear hangs from a hook. Canned goods are stored in plastic bins beneath the quarter berths. Potatoes and onions hang from a net in the cabin. Block ice goes into a small front-opening ice chest built into the boat below the stove and sink. We have no hanging locker, no head. A porta potty will have to do. Our cat Monster’s litter box sits under the lip of the V-berth where we’ll sleep. A two-burner kerosene stove is mounted next to a sink too small to do dishes in. A bucket will do for that. Our goal is to make it to Florida, then across the Gulf Stream and down the Abacos, possibly ending up in New Orleans, a city we feel will be similar in spirit to Boston.
Sea Fever Redux
I must go down to the sea again…
John Masefield
I board the tiny sloop that has carried me
twice to Maine with its deep
silent harbors and moaning buoys.
I'm ensnared, trapped by increasing
longings to ride that magic carpet
into places different from my own
narrow world of nine to five rewind.
Saltwater rises through my body,
is transformed through its heat
into golden mist. I expand
without Alice's cookies,
become a gull dropping clams
on the rocks to crack them,
a molting lobster, a leaping dolphin,
a man watching the sky from a deserted dock.
The sea is my cradle and it rocks me,
birthing me into new ways of seeing.
My arms unfurl into sails.
I let the wind take me.
Pris Campbell
©2009
A gas stop.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Playing For Change
Doug Lang sent me the link to this mind-blowingly wonderful video from the growing collection of songs for change, by singers all over the world.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Two of the best scenes from Tommy..Clapton and Elton John
If any of you remember, the entire musical was originally on a LP by The Who. Roger Daltry played in the movie, as well. Worth renting and watching. Beneath the videos is a poem I wrote a few years back about my own experience seeing the movie in Boston in the seventies at a time when this movie was on a fast track with Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. Either you get it or you don't.
Tommy In The Sky With Diamonds
Stars blinked in the sky
that was us, high
in blackened theatre seats,
Roger Daltrey screaming,
seeeee me, heaaaaar me.
Clapton strutted down the aisle
with his MM crazed crowd
banners waving, blood of the
scotch bottle bled for thee--
Elton pin-balling that Wizard
in three foot laced shoes.
Pot so thick you could
slice the air.
Tommy, in rock opera glory,
resurrected across
that hazy Boston banned screen.
Tommy, Tommy,
sing us up the mountaintop.
Tommy, Tommy
lead us to the revolution.
We fell into each other after,
grasping and frantic,
eager to stretch
that fire into forever.
~
I rented the video years later.
My neighbor napped right through it and
my husband cracked lousy jokes, but
I slipped back with Daltrey
to the commune and you,
our bodies sweat-tight,
reliving the night when Tommy
lit up the theatre on Beacon Street.
Tommy In The Sky With Diamonds
Stars blinked in the sky
that was us, high
in blackened theatre seats,
Roger Daltrey screaming,
seeeee me, heaaaaar me.
Clapton strutted down the aisle
with his MM crazed crowd
banners waving, blood of the
scotch bottle bled for thee--
Elton pin-balling that Wizard
in three foot laced shoes.
Pot so thick you could
slice the air.
Tommy, in rock opera glory,
resurrected across
that hazy Boston banned screen.
Tommy, Tommy,
sing us up the mountaintop.
Tommy, Tommy
lead us to the revolution.
We fell into each other after,
grasping and frantic,
eager to stretch
that fire into forever.
~
I rented the video years later.
My neighbor napped right through it and
my husband cracked lousy jokes, but
I slipped back with Daltrey
to the commune and you,
our bodies sweat-tight,
reliving the night when Tommy
lit up the theatre on Beacon Street.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Submitting Poetry
How many journals have you submitted to in the past six months? A rough estimate is fine. Do you submit simultaneously? I've been terribly lax lately in submitting my own work. I don't submit simultaneously, btw, unless the journal says that's okay. My own feeling is that, while I wish that was kosher in the same way that novels are submitted simultaneously to agents (or we'd be 80 trying to get THOSE seen), since turn around time tends to be reasonably fast it's easy enough to submit poems that are all different to several journals.
How important is publishing your work in journals? Do you prefer chapbooks?
I need a good boot to get me going again. I did submit to two journals this morning, but it's been a while. Part of the problem is the sheer volume of work involved in comparing my available poems to my list of submitted and rejected to make sure they're still free (no, at this point I don't remember) and then trying to match a group of poems with the tone the journal tends to take.
How important is publishing your work in journals? Do you prefer chapbooks?
I need a good boot to get me going again. I did submit to two journals this morning, but it's been a while. Part of the problem is the sheer volume of work involved in comparing my available poems to my list of submitted and rejected to make sure they're still free (no, at this point I don't remember) and then trying to match a group of poems with the tone the journal tends to take.
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