A little belated, but so happy to have a poem in the new issue of Gordon Square Review!
Please head over there and support all the writers by reading Issue 10!
http://www.gordonsquarereview.org/
New poem in GSR!
Tag: writing
Aubade for Poetry Month
Another morning shifts into view like frost receding from rooftops, the unexpected cold of April’s end. The sheets are warm with your body, the imprint next to me where your hand pressed the mattress. Now entropy. I have to leave this space and wake the baby. I finger the edge of the comforter will-less to leave. You snort in your sleep. Our parting is the same every morning. In one motion I’m sitting on the edge of the bed and throwing open the curtains–the sun shouts GOOD MORNING on the walls and throws the light across your face. Your eyelids screw up because even in half sleep you can feel the light.
My Sonnet for Poetry Month
Bright cold sun of April, the northwest winds
whipping your cheeks red and spreading
the first of the season’s pollen. Shock of yellow
Daffodils holding on through sleet and snow cover
reminders of the coming warmth. You pick handfuls
of stems and spread them on the concrete
leaving trails of green against the composite
like the slick a snail leaves behind.
I love you in your discovery. This new world
you find, this bright cold place you embrace
as only a child could. The sky opens blue
and streaks with robins and you pierce
the noisy silence with your laughter. A temporary
moment I will hold onto forever.
Happy National Poetry Month
I am thrilled to share another wonderful April of poetry with you all!
Local highlights this month include:
-April 7, Flying Words Project at Kent State
-April 9, “How Do We Talk To Each Other?” The Cleveland Humanities Festival
-April 21, Ekphrastacy at Heights Arts
-April 24-May 1, Lakefront Cleveland Poetry Festival, including workshops, open mic, and the CSU Poetry Center Lighthouse Reading on May 1.
-April 29, Poem In Your Pocket Day
If you know of anymore events I can add to this list, please let me know!
Every year, I share a month-long list of poetry prompts for National Poetry Month. However, this years prompts will look a little different from the last few years. Instead of posting every day, I’ve decided to upload every few days and include a prompt, along with a formal poem in celebration of this great month. I want to challenge myself to write more poetry and to write more poetry in form, at that. I hope that I can end this month with at least five poems in form, whether that’s sonnet, haiku, villanelle, terza rima, ghazal, etc. I hope that you will participate with me!
*
Let’s start things off with less pressure: haiku
cold threads early spring.
icicles down the maple
branches. sunny sky.
*
And here’s a prompt for the first few days, mull it over!
Write a few lines describing a setting you know well that’s easy to picture: snow on pine trees, the back row of a classroom. Establish the scene with sensory details (don’t forget visual/sight isn’t the only sense we perceive in a place). Then have your poem twist, go somewhere very different, whether spatially or thematically, from where you started. (adapted from Billy Collins’ Masterclass)
Happy Poetry Month! Happy April! Happy Writing!
The New Year
The new year brings hope for what we can accomplish. Resolutions are our way of acting on that hope. As a new mother, my writing life has been “back-burnered” for quite a while. However, I finally feel able to tackle my stack of to-be-read books and to-be-written poems.
Thankfully this semester I am teaching an advanced fiction class, and my conversations with the students are inspiring. While fiction isn’t my first-choice medium, I find myself inspired by their own ideas and works to tackle my insecurities about writing. The latest conversation about imposter syndrome and “writing what you know” was incredibly fruitful for us and we came back to what makes writing so important: the universality of human emotions. I think that’s where I am with writing too–how can I bring that universal joy, sorrow, light into my work.
Part of my new years resolutions also involve self-care and stepping away from social media. I still have a private IG account, but I have removed myself from other spheres and chosen to have this website as my primary place to share the good poetry news.
I hope that you’ll keep up with me here.
Happy writing.
30 Days of Poetry
1 – The Fool
2 – Satellites in Orbit
3 – The Letter “E” appears in odd numbers. You cannot use the letter “E”.
4 – “I used to be a roller coaster girl” jessica Care moore
5 – Write the moment you decide to cut a corner.
6 – Kigo – write a haiku
7 – Write the senses – we have 5, is there a 6th? Your scene: the backyard of your childhood home.
8 – Rest. In music, in bed, in the space of a poem.
9 – Your poem is a gift, wrap it in colorful paper, bows, confetti. What’s inside? Tell us.
10 – This algae bloom.
11 – On this day, Napoleon abdicated, 1814. You can find more here. Connect your words with something that happened on this day.
12 – Orange, Clover, Exile, Patent, Freeze
13 – Listen to your favorite song until you cannot hear the melody anymore, until the words are meaningless. Then, write a poem about that experience.
14 – Choose an Emily Dickinson poem and use her syntax to create something new. Use the same parts of speech that she does, but change the words. So, “Banish Air from Air” becomes “Burn face to face.”
15 – Write about Margaret Keane.
16 – Write a sonnet.
17 – Silence. It has a sound, a feeling, a space. I want to know about it. Tell me about your silence.
18 – Visit the Smithsonian’s website for the National Portrait Gallery. Find a face and write their poem.
19 – Write a crocus, snowbell, daffodil, or lilac poem.
20 – Columbine was 20 years ago. Google the shooting and write your thoughts. Don’t approach this as a poem, more like a meditation.
21 – Write about the color green.
22 – 22 lines about anything.
23 – Listen to Clair de Lune and tell me what it’s really about.
24 – Write a poem in another language… Like the language of food, of music, of car maintenance.
25 – Write an Ode.
26 – I can never write comedy. So now we all have to. Watch a couple of YouTube videos of your favorite comic and write a poem in their voice.
27 – Read an animal poem. Pick your least favorite animal and write something for it. Think The Tyger or The Walrus and the Carpenter.
28 – Embrace symmetry and write a square poem.
29 – Write about Mondays.
30 – Serenade April, National Poetry Month. 🌠
Barnhouse Journal
Please support this amazing journal out of Cleveland, Ohio!
Barnhouse Journal’s debut issue dropped in February on their website here!
I have a prose poem, “The Beast with No Face,” in this issue. You can access it online or purchase a hard copy.
Updates for Fall/Winter
I have three poems up at Nice Cage in Issue 007! Please head there and take a read.
Additionally, I have a poem nominated for a Pushcart Prize! “Last Note Slipped Under the Mattress” in Gordon Square Review, Issue 2. If you haven’t already, you can read it here!
And that poem, as well as “The Pyre” in sidereal magazine are nominated for Best of Net 2018!
Long Poem Debut
Happy meteorological fall season!
I have a few submissions out, including the long book, so cross your fingers for STAR FACTORY. But in the mean time, the wonderful editors over at Noble/Gas Qtrly have just released Issue 205.3 which is full of amazing work and a long poem by yours truly. Go read and enjoy my longest poem ever published, titled “Color Theory.”
Micro-Chap Out Now!
My debut micro-chapbook, SPACE SPECTACULAR, is out today from Ghost City Press!
The chap is free on their website, and any donations you make will come directly to me.
SPACE SPECTACULAR is a collection of poems that enact a sort of call and response between Earth and Space. Some of the poems suppose what happens outside of our galaxy and some call out to other planets in our solar system. It was an incredible experience to research and write these poems, many of which appear in my longer manuscript, STAR FACTORY, which is currently looking for a home.
Thank you to the wonderful editors at Ghost City Press and to all my current and future readers.
I hope you enjoy!
Amanda Stovicek D'Alessandro 
