Welcome to another month here at the Palace!
Imagine someone setting out to achieve fame and fortune?
Pretty funny, huh?
Those who achieve fame and fortune are usually those who have found and fulfilled their purpose. Ocassionally an heir to riches may receive fame, from acts of generosity, curiosity or even stupidity, but that would be the exception, far from the rule. Looking for recognition is an almost sure means to failure, be it writing poetry, especially! The only true reason for writing verse is to fulfill yourself, your calling, as a poet.
During the years of street selling, mostly mid to late eighties, i found some pleasure in receiving monies for copies of my book, but, by far, the fulfillment of that period of my life came from walking around my apartments, picking up each page and stapling the books together, and the joy of the readers, when they shared it. The best reward i have received to date was in the form of an IM, shortly after i got online, in 2000. Three of four years before receiving the IM i had given a copy of Getting Real, Diary of a Poet, volume I, a book of personal affirmations, in rhyme, to a female truck drivers working on the same site as i. Her IM was to tell me she had gone through a really hard time, during which she had kept Getting Real on her nightstand, and reading it had helped her to cope with the situations she faced. She thanked me, repeatedly for that charitable donation of verse, before slipping back off into the land of memory. The knowledge that some of the verse i had witnessed being written had actually helped out another in times of need not only fulfilled the poet in me, but gave me a different view of the hardships endured that were the cause of the affirmation writing in the first place. Another friend, from childhood, read The Best Of DoaP (Diary of a Poet, also the original name of Veracious Verse) and claimed that it had opened up old wounds, only to heal them. These, along with other, coments have been the "pay" for my years of practice. Fame and Fortune are not in the cards of the practicing poet, and maybe for the best; fame and fortune could easily lead one to avoid the strenuous efforts involved in pencilling for The Muse.
The beginning of this particular path to fulfillment in the poetry arena started with writing "for the world", though there was no world waiting, or reading. At the time, this reason for writing kept me busy, and yeilded five or six thousand poems, while proving to be fantastical. In the shadows of that once grand desire, the affirmations in Getting Real were written. The publisher of Veracious Verse, Janis Phelps (Luckypress.com), asked that i start writng again, after a ten year break, to accompany the release of the book. Being online helped this experience drastically, as well as the timing; Versatility, a group of poets that released a weekly newsletter, with an "assignment", and met in "poe's place" on Monday evening to share their outcomes, cheerfully invited me into their midst. The newsletter was a goldmine of information, on whichever subject was taken, inspiring verse of a calliber i was not used to seeing flow from my pen..., keyboard (Online also was the first time i was ever able to write on a keyboard. Up until the year 2000 i had hand written every line). In the end, it would appear that writing for the sake of being a poet has gifted "my" collection with all of its true gems!
We are seeking the remainder of poets for this year as well as next year’s slots. If you know of any practiced poet who deserves a place in this series, please, send them our way. If you know of a school interested in a winter (schedules only allow this at present) seminar by the Palace, send that info our way as well. Distance may hamper some efforts, but a lot of the country is reachable by automobile from here in New Hampshire, so don’t be shy!
We are also looking for articles for this newsletter! If you have an essay on a poet, or form of poetry, we would be glad to run it here! Let us know!
I, again, would like to remind all the Palace Poets that the poem and picture/art option for the newsletter is open to all. Maybe you could go through your photo albums in search of poetic inspiration. Maybe you will even find the whole idea enticing. A scrapbook of your life with accompanying verse might be quite the heirloom to leave behind! :)
Okay friends and fellow Palace Poets, wake up and bow because the king has delivered his Magna Charta. This book is a masterpiece and lets you see Pen's poetic evolution, which by the way is still in progress. Never have I been more thrilled to do a project. I was floored when he asked me to put together what I considered to be the best of his poems for a Palace Poets series. I was honored to do it and I hope I did his great poetic voice justice. So all you friends and supporters add this classic volume to your collection. It's word will intoxicate you.
Volume 19.
Well I am extremely proud of this one because I helped in a minor way put it all together. As I said in the introduction of the book, "The king has finally taken the throne" and as long as I am around the jester will always be at court paying homage to this great poet. We love ya pen! # 50 is still my favorite and that is way I put it at the very last.
Pick any topic you are interested in. Write a poem that states your point of view on this topic. Write another poem, a believable one, that states the opposite point of view!
Have an exercise you created for improving your writing? Would you like to see it in this newsletter? Send it to
Poetry Palace
.
Remember, if the exercise is easy, the benefit is minimal… :(
