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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

On Tuesday we continue our series of prose features with an interview with Clayton Eshleman, from the summer issue of The Seattle Review:

"The roots of poetry are buried in proto-shamanism, which I suspect is of Upper Paleolithic antiquity. The shaman, as a novice, must rid himself of his given body, for a new and magical body, which is capable of mental travel. The main difference here between shamans, say, in 19th century Siberia, and poets in America today, is that shamans were central to their communities, they belonged in a way no American writer, even those with huge audiences, belong today. Whatever one must do to make the move from the given life to a creative one — well, that is up to each of us. The poetry scene today is flooded with young, talented, unoriginal writers who are trying to write significant poetry based on their given lives…"

Look for it on Tuesday on our news page.

We hope you enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller
Editors

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2. Sponsor Messages

The Seattle Review
The mission of The Seattle Review is to provide a forum for the
expression of adventurous ideas, a place where mindful pleasures can
be developed, articulated, and appreciated. We love equally the
arcane, the fractured, the philosophical, and the emotionally
direct. The Seattle Review is generous with its pages, giving
writers the space necessary to convey as wide as possible a sense of
the identity, or range of identities, of each author. We welcome the
submission of long poems, poem sequences and poem portfolios,
fiction, and nonfiction essays, both critical and lyrical.

Ellipsis Submission Deadline
Ellipsis is a literature and art journal published each April by the students of Westminster College in Salt Lake City (since 1967).  Contributors are paid for their work and eligible for a prize judged this year by poet Nance Van Winckel. We publish well known writers, up-and-coming writers, and never-before-published writers. Submission deadline: November 1, 2007.

Palm Beach Poetry Festival - Jan 21-26 Workshops
Palm Beach Poetry Festival, January 21-26, 2008, at Old School Square, Delray Beach, FL.  Advanced Workshops:  Kim Addonizio, Claudia Emerson, Thomas Lux, Campbell McGrath, Sharon Olds, and C.K. Williams.  Intermediate Workshops:  Major Jackson, Malena Mörling.  All workshops are limited to 12 poets, include a one-on-one conference, readings and gala celebration.  Tuition is $695 for advanced workshops, $495 for intermediate.  Visit the Palm Beach Poetry Festival website for application form and guidelines, or call (561) 868-2063. Application deadline:  October 31, 2007.

Perugia Press Prize
A prize of $1000 and publication by Perugia Press is given annually for a first or second unpublished poetry collection by a woman  Submit manuscripts with a $22 entry fee between August 1 and November 15. Send an
e-mail, SASE, or visit Perugia Press for complete guidelines. The 2007 winner, Beg No Pardon, by Lynne Thompson, is now available from our Web site.
 
Perugia Press Prize
P.O. Box 60364
Florence, MA  01062
info@perugiapress.com

Shenandoah, Fall, 2007
Shenandoah, Fall, 2007 A new "Sabbaths" series and interview with Wendell Berry / hunting with Fred Chappell and Hamp Markel /  Pam Durban's powerful, sorrowful story about a haunted enclave of veterans / birches, Bibles, wolves, gawkers at the grassy knoll / Ann Pancake on a dog with a squall bawl mouth and Mark Sanders's memoir "A Dog Named Loneliness" / "you must grasp the cello with your knees and guide the bow across her neck like a lovely murder" /  a surgeon pondering death / owl-oak-rabbit-joy / Betsy Boyd looking at grief and dessert /  war and more in the art of William Dunlap / Jeffrey Hammond examining writing, Babel and seeds of hope glowing in lucid utterances

Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition Awards
$3500 & Publication
$2000 & Publication

Two poetry books will be selected. Both winners receive publication with Southern Illinois University Press plus $1500 for a reading at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. First prize: $2000. Second prize: $500.
$25 entry fee. Postmark deadline: November 16, 2007.
Mail to:
Crab Orchard Series Open Competition
Faner 2380 - Mail Code 4503
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
1000 Faner Drive
Carbondale, IL  62901

For guidelines...

10th Annual Great Lakes Writers Festival
Free and open to the public, November 1 & 2, with featured writers Philip Dacey and Margaret Dawe at Lakeland College near Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Readings, workshops, and contests.

Details, including deadlines for registration and contests...

The Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program of Pine Manor College
is now accepting applications for the winter residency/spring 2008 semester, with a deadline of November 14, 2007. We offer concentrations in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and writing for children & young adults, and one of the most (if not the most) diverse MFA faculty in the country.

Designed for writers wishing to pursue their writing goals while balancing the demands of work and family, the Solstice MFA Program offers affordable tuition, small classes, and one-to-one mentoring in a friendly and non-hierarchical environment.

Discover the Writer's Life in New York City
Over more than six decades of steady innovation, The New School has sustained a vital center for creative writing. The tradition continues with our MFA in Creative Writing, offering concentrations in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and writing for children. Study writing and literature with The New School's renowned faculty of writers, critics, editors, and publishing professionals. Fellowships and financial aid are available.

For more information:
unsadmissions@newschool.edu
212.229.5630

Pacific MFA in Writing Now Enrolling for January 2008
Earn a Master of Fine Arts from Pacific University studying with top professionals who teach as well as they write. In the belief that writers can and must lead full and interesting lives, the MFA program embraces students who have full-time jobs and other obligations.

Each semester begins with a short residency packed with workshops, lectures, panel discussions, readings and more. Students return home to a correspondence semester of individualized study with award-winning writers who support and inspire emerging craft and voice.

For more information call 503-352-2077, or visit our web site...

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Robert Pinsky introduces three poems by Robert Hass. (The Washington Post)
• Don Share's Squandermania reviewed by Deborah DeNicola. (South Florida Sun-Sentinal)
• Rigoberto González reviews Javier O. Huerta's Some Clarifications y otros poemas. (El Paso Times)
• Charlotte Higgins leads us through "Catullus 64". (Guardian Unlimited)
• Stephen Burt reviews Time and Materials by Robert Hass. (The New York Times)
• Anne Stevenson, Herbert Leibowitz, Brian Culhane, and John Surowiecki are honored by the Poetry Foundation. (Chicago Tribune)
• Ted Kooser introduces a poem by Peter Pereira. (American Life in Poetry)

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4. Selected New Arrivals

These and other new arrivals are available for purchase via Poetry Daily/Amazon.com.

• Bouquet of Hungers, Kyle G. Dargan
• Kedging: New Poems, John Matthias
• Hyphasis, Lyndon Davies
• Furious Lullaby, Oliver de la Paz
• Soluble Fish, Mary Jo Firth Gillett
• The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005, Afaa Michael Weaver
• How Else to Love the World, Myrna Stone
• Sweeping the Cemetery, David Lee Garrison
• Sister, Nickole Brown
• Some Nights No Cars at All, Josh Rathkamp
• Some Clarifications y otros poemas, Javier O. Huerta
• In Line for the Exterminator, Jim Daniels
• The Scented Fox, Laynie Browne
• Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death, Christopher Kennedy
• Sleeping With Houdini, Nin Andrews
• No Starling, Nance Van Winckel
• Chinese Erotic Poems, ed. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping
• Kipling: Poems, ed. Peter Washington
  

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5. This Week’s Featured Poets

Monday - Margo Berdeshevsky
Tuesday - Laura Kasischke
Wednesday - Robert Pinsky
Thursday - Alan Brownjohn
Friday - Matthea Harvey
Saturday - Heidi Lynn Staples
Sunday - Medbh McGuckian

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6. Featured Poets October 1 - 7, 2007

These and other past featured poets may be found in our archive:

Monday - Colleen J. McElroy
Tuesday - Sherwood Anderson
Wednesday - Stephen Cramer
Thursday - Tony Tost
Friday - Bill Rasmovicz
Saturday - Patricia Waters
Sunday - Stuart Dischell

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

These poems will be retired from our archive during the coming week.

Mike Carson - "No Surer Heaven"
Thorpe Moeckel - "Spittoono Lilly "
Robert Wrigley - "News"
David Baker- "Horse Madness"
Les Murray- "Twelve Poems" and "Kitchen Grammars"
David Keplinger - "I Stood Too Close", "Storms Were Passing Over Us" and "I Watched a Man"
Sally Van Doren - "Reading Time"

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8. Poem From Last Year

The Kitchen Grammars

The verb in a Sanscrit or Farsi
or Latin or Japanese sentence
most frequently comes last,
as if the ingredients and spices
only after collection, measure and
even preservation might get cooked.
To all these cuisines renown attaches.

It's the opening of a Celtic sentence
is a verb. And it was more fire and pot
for us very often than ingredients.
Had we not fed our severed heads on poetry
final might have been our fame's starvation.
Upholding cuisine for us are the French
to be counting in scores and called Gallic.

In English and many more, in Chinese
the verb surrounds itself nucleus-fashion
with its subjects and qualifiers.
Down every slope of the wok they go
to the spitting middle, to be sauced,
ladled, lidded, steamed, flipped back up,
becoming verbs themselves often

and the calm egg centres the meatloaf

Les Murray
The Bip*** Houses
Carcanet Press

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Copyright © 2006 by Les Murray. All rights reserved. Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.