Marilyn Monroe Poem

 

Some poems take on a life of their own. Such is the case with my poem “Against the Wall,” which was first published in Beltway Journal by Kim Roberts. It’s also in my latest collection of poetry how we hold on from Broadstone Books.

 

 

 

 

It was recently published again in I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe edited by Susana H. Case and Margo Taft Stever. To promote this book, Susana and Margo have been sponsoring readings where a selection of the poems are read by the poets who wrote them. It’s interesting to hear all the different ways Monroe has been seen. While I read in one of these Marilyn marathons,  I’d say my best reading of my Marilyn poem was done in a studio setting with tango music backing me up.

RBG Crown Sonnet Gets First Visibility

 Sometimes publication of a single poem augers a greater success. In December, Mom Egg Review published Karren Alenier’s “Granddaughter Clara Spera explores Bubbie Ruth’s Big Closet.”

 

This poem is the first sonnet to be published from “I prefer to remember her in life,” which is a heroic crown of sonnets in tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

 

Recently Marilyn Nelson wrote a tribute crown of sonnets to Emmett Till. Here is her definition.

 

There are seven sonnets in a crown sonnet and the first line of the first sonnet becomes the last line of the last sonnet, and the last line of each sonnet is the first line of the following sonnet.

 

Crown sonnets comprise 15 sonnets where the last line of the first 14 sonnets contribute to the 14 lines of the last sonnet.

 

A second of these RBG sonnets “her play” has been accepted for print publication in Heron Clan IX.

 

 

Announcing Tender Buttons Resource Project

 

October 30, 2021 Announcing the Tender Buttons Resource Project ~ Check out our new releases here ~ The Word Works announces the forthcoming publication in 2022 of Appreciating Tender Buttons: An Invitation to Play Volume I of III with poems by Karren Alenier and 36 other poets. The purpose of this set of books in response to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons is to establish a creative resource to make Stein’s Tender Buttons more accessible. Volume I addresses “Objects,” Section I of Tender Buttons.   Tender Buttons, published in 1914, was a one-of-a-kind work by Gertrude Stein. It is a book-length poem divided in three sections—OBJECTS, FOOD, ROOMS—and may be a love poem and the marriage contract between Gertrude Stein and her life-long partner Alice Babette Toklas. If so, the agreement was that, as a clandestine married couple, their offspring would be books conceived by Stein. This is one way of looking at Tender Buttons.   The format of Appreciating Tender Buttons Volume I is that each of the 58 subpoems of “Objects” has a response poem written by Karren Alenier or one of 36 poets who were invited to participate. Leading the invitation to play, Karren Alenier has contributed over 1/3 of the poems in this volume. Two appendices written by Alenier offer ways to enter Stein’s most mysterious poem and to invoke the Steinian muse. This collection is a study in the creative impulse.   Who is in this collection? Poets, teachers, or students of Professor Al Filreis’ popular Modern and Contemporary American Poetry course known as ModPo included in this collection are: Indran Amirthanayagam, Rae Armantrout, Mary Armour, Carrie Bennett, Margo Berdeshevsky, Julien Berman, Andrea Carter Brown, Susana Case, Grace Cavalieri, Nikia Chaney, Roberto Christiano, Henry Crawford, Michael Davis, Denise Duhamel, Amy Feinstein, Barbara Goldberg, Harold M. Greenwald, Don Illich, Jacqueline Johnson, Hiram Larew, JoAnne McFarland, Kevin McLellan, Nils Michals, Brad Richard, Margery M. Ross, Martha Sanchez Lowery, Roger Sedarat, Lisa Sewell, Margo Stever, Miles Waggener, Lillo Way, Nancy White, Carolyne Wright, Bill Yarrow, Burgi Zenhaeusern, and Jason Zuzga.   In early 2022, Alenier will issue a call for poets interested in responding to the subpoems of Tender Buttons, Section II Food. As with Volume I, participants will get a random assignment as the inspiration for their poems and also be asked to write a paragraph about their processes for these poems.   Founded in 1974, The Word Works is a literary nonprofit organization publishing contemporary poetry and producing public programs to support the life and love of poetry. The three volumes of Appreciating Tender Buttons will be part of a new Word Works educational imprint.   #  #  #

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Madam Mayo Interviews Karren Alenier

 

The Steiny Road Poet (a.k.a. Karren Alenier) met Madam Mayo (Catherine Mayo)  a few years after she (Karren) returned from the School of Visual Arts workshop in Tangier, Morocco. We had that in common. Madam Mayo went the year after. 

Madam Mayo has many talents, poet, writer, translator, and long time blogger. Madam Mayo recently interviewed Karren about how we hold on, Paul Bowles, The Word Works and lots more.

A Letter of Praise for a New Book

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 I received this letter as an email about how we hold on, my latest collection of poetry. An author could ask for no greater praise.

Dear Karren:

I'm up in Vermont for a few weeks and have been reading your book, which arrived just before I left. I cannot tell you how impressed I am by your inventiveness, the range of your subject matter, your formal "flexibility," and the poems themselves. I read the entire thing in two sittings, which says a lot!

Another project while I'm up here is putting together a new workshop on prose poetry for The Writer's Center. Would you let me include your "Girl Talk" poem on the handout? I won't be teaching this until next spring, and the content is still in flux, but at the moment this poem would seem to fit in perfectly.

I found the love poems--particularly "Composition"--very moving. I know it has been a while since you lost your husband, but these poems really brought back a lot of what we long-married types seem to take for granted. So thank you for that.

with admiration,
Sue Ellen