poetry

i would not like a bad review of my work and i wouldnt print a bad review of someone elses work without reason... even good reviews of my work have left me feeling poorly because the reviewer missed the mark or was weak in his analysis...

but i have to say something.

and it isnt sour grapes!

i entered the competetion for the 2006 john ciardi prize for poetry with my book eating God. i didnt expect to win. and i didnt! the literary community will not seriously consider poetry about god unless you are a long-dead sufi like rumi or hafiz. contemporary poetry about god is relegated to the greeting card category.

my poetry about god, however, is about some down-and-dirty sex. im not sure how that gets missed... but we arent the most literate country...

anyway, as a consolation prize to entering the competetion ~ and also to make the winning poet think people actually buy and read poetry ~ all the losers receive a copy of the winning book. mine arrived in the mail yesterday.

richard wilbur loved it.

maxine kumin loved it.

x j kennedy loved it.

and the judge who selected it, mark jarman, loved it (of course).

i hated it.

i hated everything about it.

i wont go into detail regarding why i hated it ~ i would hate to read something so pointedly negative about my work ~ but i just didnt find the breath others found. (the reviews were so wonderful they were printed twice ~ once before the title page and again on the back cover ~ just in case a reader isnt quite sure how wonderful the book is... i read the reviews twice and had a difficult time even with them, the list of titles and references... the words seeminly without heart... not heard because there was nothing to hear).

my work, of course, is all heart!

my dear friend steve sanford died (someone who definitely deserves a blog entry ~ when i can get through it) and at his funeral, my poetry was read. i should have had a table set up selling books, the response was so wonderful. it was no john ciardi prize with copies going to the losers, it was better. it was alive. and it was heard. and it was a winner! nah nah nah!

my poetry: http://royanthonyshabla.com