A Little Poem from My Neighborhood

Well, I've been writing in my journal now and then (and writing things for work), but I haven't worked on a poem in a very long time--a few months anyway, but who's counting?

I finally did draft something. I almost called it "An Appreciation" as it's in appreciation of the man who sells Real Change outside the post office on Greenwood Avenue. But then I figured my appreciation was clear.

In Front of the Post Office

"Hello, queen," sings the man
who sells newspapers. You wouldn't think

I'd be so charmed, but who else
greets me this way? When I leave

with my paper, I never hear
another customer receive the greeting

I almost believe he keeps for me.

Comments

Abbie Taylor said…

This is nice. I'm sure it's hard to find time to write with your busy schedule. Please keep writing and blogging. I'm looking forward to reading more.

Abbie Johnson Taylor, Author of
We Shall Overcome
and
How to Build a Better Mousetrap:
Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver
http://abbiescorner.wordpress.com

January 16, 2014 at 9:23 AM

Amanda Laughtland said…

Thanks, Abbie. :)

January 16, 2014 at 3:15 PM

New Zine and a Fundraiser for Kids in Foster Care

I'm excited to announce a new zine project from Teeny Tiny Press called Thank You . Using the classic Teeny Tiny format of an eight-page, single-sheet zine, Thank You collects a series of thank you notes in the form of poems and very short prose. Issue one includes work (in alphabetical order!) from Maura Alia Badji, X.P. Callahan, Del Ray Cross, Laura-Marie River Victor Nopales, BT Shaw, Eileen Tabios, and Mandy Zeller. To launch this zine, I'm doing a month-long fundraising drive (Aug 9-Sept 10) for Treehouse, a Seattle-based organization that helps kids and young adults in foster care. This is part of a larger back to school fundraising drive from Treehouse. They help kids with clothes, school supplies, books, toys, and much more. If you want a copy of the zine, donate an amount of your choice to Treehouse via https://engage.treehouseforkids.org/teenytinypress , and send me an email or instagram message with your mailing address. Then I'll send you the zine! Thank

Attempting a Ramage

Earlier this week, I happened upon a used copy of a tiny book called Turkish Pears in August by Robert Bly, and in it, he uses a form he developed called the "ramage" in which you have 8 lines of roughly 10 syllables each, and each line is also supposed to contain a repeated sound/syllable. OK, so below I am trying to repeat a sound like "air." I like trying to repeat a sound without using end rhyme; I try to do this anyway but not so specifically as trying to do it in every line. I may experiment more with this form, as an exercise to get myself writing if nothing else! Cheers Mortgaged as everywhere, our suburb is sometimes carefree. For example, take me— I bake brownies and bid for rare knick-knacks on eBay, in a pair of plaid pajamas until two or three. I do laundry when I dare let it air-dry on warm afternoons as I sit in my plastic chair. I sip tap water or beer—come on by, and I’ll share.

Poems Published Here and There

In the year or so since I've posted to this blog, I've had a handful of poems published online that I can link to here. Eratio published four of my poems that combine found text from the New King James translation of the Bible with some autobiographical reflections. I also had a poem in Impossible Archetype , a cool PDF-format journal that focuses on work from LGBTQ+ writers. And finally, one of my poems appears in Red Eft Review , a straightforward journal that reminds me of classic lit zines like Nerve Cowboy and Right Hand Pointing . My work was also recently included in some print publications that aren't available online: Crosscurrents , Gold Man Review , and Sinister Wisdom . Maybe listing these publications will encourage me to send work out more--or maybe even to get to work on one of my own zines again. I'm posting to the blog again because I've just put together a new online writing class, with prompts meant to appeal to both poets and prose writers.

Teeny Tiny Press by Amanda Laughtland

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