Teeny Tiny Press by Amanda Laughtland

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. ...

After looking at some of my older work, I felt inspired to do some new collages with hay(na)ku, so this afternoon, I took out a little stack of 3x5 cards which I had started but not finished as collage pieces, and I added text to three of them. All of the text comes from a vintage issue of Hit Parader magazine I bought on eBay last year. Here's one of the images... And it turns out that I did more of those hay(na)ku collages back in 2010 than I remembered. I got to looking at my Flickr photostream and found quite a few. I added three new collages that I made today, tagged all the old ones, and put everything together into a hay(na)ku set on Flickr .

I saw some crocuses blooming yesterday, and they reminded me of a poem I wrote many years ago. I'm not sure exactly when I wrote this--I'm guessing 15 years ago. I can say for sure that this poem appeared in Bellowing Ark , a local literary magazine (which the Bellowing Ark website tells me is now defunct). Well then, here's a poem I wrote in the spring when I was in my 20s. On an Errand I found the cupboard far from bare but lacking important ingredients for banana muffins: wheat flour and baking powder. So I drove to the grocery store, pausing twice at four-way stops and once more to look (no cars were behind me) at the tidy row of crocuses, purple and white, beside the cemetery.

Here's a poem I wrote for Trish some time ago, and I think it's a good fit for Valentine's Day. This was published in Sinister Wisdom last year, and the editors kindly nominated it for a Pushcart Prize. Learning You said the Greeks said "know thyself" and "all things in moderation" and I agree it may be best to know me moderately, a woman who loves cookies, movies, Converse hi- and low-tops, books, cats, cardigan sweaters and--immoderately--you. Know me deeply and there's the mire of things I'm still learning. You know how I thought I didn't want kids? I've learned it was only that I'd never known any nor any adult who could surprise me into imagining myself with a family. I hope everyone enjoys the day. We're planning to go to the Experience Music Project to finally see the Nirvana exhibit!

In thinking about Valentine's Day and choosing a love poem that I especially like, "The Shampoo" by Elizabeth Bishop comes to mind. Here's the text of the poem, courtesy of an image from The Young Radicals . Anyone have poems that come to mind around Valentine's Day? Please do share if you have a moment!

Yesterday, I did the cutting-and-pasting process of laying out issue 14 of Teeny Tiny . I'd had the written content ready for a while, but I hadn't managed to finish the zine! Well, it takes a little concentration, as I like to find a nice combo of images to go along with the writing I'm publishing, and this issue contains work from seven different writers. I used a selection of bits and pieces from two vintage issues of Hit Parader magazine from the 1950s. Have you ever seen old issues of this magazine? Basically they printed the lyrics to popular songs and then also included some profiles of pop stars and maybe some articles with tips on beauty and so on. The magazines have some fun little advertisements, especially toward the back, with illustrations that are just the right size for my zine. I also used a couple of pictures cut from a book on the solar system I bought at the thrift store some time ago to use for the greeting cards I make with images of the moon ...

I've been thinking it would be cool to write a little sequence of poems using text from Barbara Pym's novels if for no other reason than to encourage people to read her work. Usually I don't write found poems from other published creative works--I use postcards or advertisements or other work that wasn't crafted to stick around. But I just like her work so much that I'm enjoying sharing little pieces of it in poem form. Anyway! Here's a second little poem inspired by Jane and Prudence , this one from chapter 17. After a Small Dinner Party Nothing seems real, Prudence thought. Tea under the walnut tree tomorrow and then what? "Have you got something nice to read?" Jane asked. "Yes, thank you. A novel." "And you have a book of poems if your novelist should fail to charm or soothe." I am drained of all emotion, Prudence thought. "I think I'm quite ready for bed."

When I read Barbara Pym's novels, I feel sad that she isn't alive to write more of them and that I'll one day run out of new-to-me Barbara Pym novels to read. There's something about her writing that captures the feelings and thoughts of someone who feels just a little outside of the mainstream, someone who can't help but notice the odd bits and pieces of life. (The above image is from the Barbara Pym Society home page.) Right now I'm reading her novel about two friends, Jane and Prudence , and enjoying it very much. Here's a tiny found poem I put together from just a handful of sentences from the first page of chapter one of that book. Reminiscences In excited little bursts-- "Ah, these delphiniums," sighed Jane. "And to think that we didn't appreciate wine," said Prudence. They walked on without speaking, their silence a brief tribute to their lost youth.

My blog came up in some web searches people did for "Powerball poems" after I posted my little found poem about Powerball the other day. If only all my poems were about such heavily searched-for topics. I received another fun bit of comment-spam the other day, so here's another poem built from spam. 11.30.12 You can still look great without designer clothing. You should never pay much attention to brand names unless you're a millionaire. So anyway, to bring this full-circle: if you win Powerball, pay all the attention to brand-name fashion that you want!

Here's another tiny found poem, this one inspired by a quote from "Debbie Baker... 60-year-old retired construction worker" published in the Boston Globe . 11.27.12 I do it for fun. One ticket. Two dollars. Quick pick. If it's meant to be, it will be. Jackpot! Five hundred million dollars.

11.26.12 Ancient attire or modern garments? Hermes handbags are one thing you'll desire if you'd like to be more self-confident. The spam filter for blog comments catches a lot of garbled, mostly uninteresting stuff about various prescription medications, but now and then, something more unique comes through. I turned one long comment into the little poem above. Though I'd hoped to write at least a tiny poem every day in November, I haven't done that! But I've definitely done some poetry-writing this month, which isn't the case every month.

The prompt for today's poem-a-day challenge from the Poetic Asides blog asks that you talk back to a poet who is no longer living . I got to thinking about Emily Dickinson's "letter to the world / that never wrote to me," and here's my poem... The World Writes Back to Emily Dickinson You said I never wrote you yet you told of all the notes I left anonymously, stealing across the grass to your father's door-- I sent you books and ships and whistling trains and more. I sent your sister-in-law, specially as messenger for my letters declaring myself to you. Every day you received word from me-- it was our secret that you knew I loved and still love you.

I've been following the November poem a day challenge at Robert Lee Brewer's blog, Poetic Asides . I have some friends who are doing National Novel Writing Month, but I don't know anyone personally who is doing this poetry challenge (unless some of my friends are holding out on telling me!), so I've been searching with the #novpad hashtag on Twitter to see how some poets I've never met before are faring in their attempts to write a poem each day this month. So far, the poem I like best of the four I've been working on for the first four days of November is the poem from the prompt on November 1 to write a "matches" poem. In my brainstorming, I got to thinking about The Match Game , and here's the poem I wrote. In the Late 20th Century When game shows played for hours in syndication on late-night TV, we knew this as forever, a party where everyone was tipsy long before we arrived to share the end of our evening with Brett Somers and Charles Ne...

Here's a found poem about the top ten images downloaded over the last week from the photography site, Shutterstock . 11.2.12 Holiday labels. Floppy disks. Pixel people. Gold glitter backgrounds. Pink roses. Pink lingerie. Human resources icons. If you have a suggestion for any websites for me to look at for inspiration for writing more of these little poems based on trending news, searches, downloads, etc, please let me know. I think it's more fun to vary the sites rather than just use the trending searches on Google.

Here's my fourth poem inspired by trending searches/news/topics online, this one via Yahoo's "Buzz Index." By the way, if you want to buy Zsa Zsa's house, you can get it for just under 15 million bucks. Yikes. 11.1.12 Zsa Zsa Gabor's house keeps busy while it waits to sell, doubling as the house of a Hollywood producer in a film about Iran.

I didn't even know HuffPost had a page geared toward teens, but you learn something every day. I enjoyed their list of things teens on Twitter can't live without . Here's another found poem inspired by trending topics on the web. 10.31.12 It's been a hard week. Good things I can't live without: music, friends, movies, my hairdryer, and my parents. I feel grateful for cereal.

A found poem culled from the "trending now" news blog on Yahoo. 10.30.12 Though not all photos of this hurricane are real, the internet is a great place. Many cute dogs and cats find fame on the internet.

A found poem culled from trending searches and news on Google. 10.29.2012 Tone turns ominous at The Weather Channel on TV and Twitter as Hurricane Sandy barrels toward the Eastern seaboard

I was reminded the other day of the documentary, King Corn , which in turn got me thinking about some poems I've been working on, inspired by found text from a 1970s-era children's nonfiction book I found at the thrift store. I have a handful of poems in this series so far and hope to write more. The poems take up different topics about how different foods and consumer products are made. Here's one about the many uses of corn. Corn is pretty wonderful when you think about it, controversies about corn syrup and ethanol and cattle feed aside... Some of the Wonders of Corn Corn belongs to the family of grasses. We make its stalk into paper. We make its cob into ink and cloth. We use corn oil in food and soap. Corn starch helps seal our stamps and envelopes. We drink alcohol made from corn and when we heat tiny kernels, they blow up. Corn is truly amazing when it pops. P.S. If you haven't seen King Corn and are at all interested in how food is grown in the U.S. and...

Yesterday I took out a couple of old magazines from my collage materials stash to use for a writing exercise for a guest lecture I was giving on poetry for a colleague's intro to literature class at Edmonds CC. I asked students to write short found poems as described in this writing exercise I posted about not long ago. I gave each student a random page I'd torn from an issue of Better Homes & Gardens to use as the source text for his/her poem. Before class started, I had time to look at another magazine I'd brought, and I wrote down a few lines. Last night and this morning, I edited the lines a bit. When I was in grad school, I tried to write a poem about Amelia Earhart, and it didn't turn out well at all. Maybe this could become a poem I like better. Amelia Earhart in National Geographic With propellers for buttons she designed clothing for Macy's. When its engines start, she said an airplane sounds like poetry.