Valerie Nieman v. 3.0

A big thank you to James Tate Hill, my colleague at North Carolina A&T State University, for inviting me on this blog tour, My Writing Process. His post appeared last week at this site. It’s always interesting when people ask us to step back and explain exactly what we’re doing, what I’m doing there in the corner in front of the computer, early in the morning or into the night, typing in words in uneven bursts. 1)                    What are you working on? Right now, I’m engaged in far too many projects. I am completing final edits to a new collection of poetry, Hotel Worthy , which will be published in the spring by Press 53. I’m pretty pumped about that – the best of ten years’ worth of poetizing. The editing has been light from the publisher, but I have to skinny down three formal poems – a ghazal, pantoum, and sestina – to fit the page width. Free verse and prose poems are not an issue...

For my Facebook friends who wanted to see the Parisian sonnet I mentioned... The poem appeared in the latest issue of the International Poetry Review, one dedicated to contemporary poetry from Romania. Since 1975, this fine publication has been bringing together poetry from around the globe, in the original language and in translation, as well as poetry from English-speaking realms. Mark Smith-Soto edits this journal, with the able assistance of a number of associate, consulting, and guest editors. The journal is published out of UNC-Greensboro. A two-issue subscription is $12. For more information about the magazine, visit this webpage. S o - this sonnet - based on a December stay in an apartment in the Second Arrondissement, a place of amazing contrasts and a low incidence of tourists! 2 nd Honeymoon Moonlight on watered cobbles of Montorgueil: limp endive, aging coquilles , cigarettes bob down the gutter . “My feet,” I plead, hobble past cave et bou...

We had a great gathering April 9 in Winston-Salem at A Gathering of Poets - put it on your calendar for the first weekend in April 2012! It's a third of the way through National Poetry Month, and it seems the reminders are everywhere. This morning, with the air heavy from last night's rain, is also thick with the perfume of wisteria, iris, and from a neighbor's yard, old-fashioned lilacs. These don't grow so well here in the South, not like the magnificent tree that swelled at the back corner of my grandparents' house in Little Valley, but the perfume is the same. I never could decide the difference between Persian lilacs and French lilacs, but I know the ones I have in mind, a magnificent light purple fading toward blue, for me the color and scent of death, seductive and sad. These were heavy blooms, toppling the branches on wet days. We broke them from the trees and massed them in Mason jars for the gravesites in spring. And so in grief I hear Whitman’s “When L...

The deadline date has been extended to April 1 (postmark) for the inaugural Sonia Sanchez and Amiri Baraka Prize in Poetry at the North Carolina A&T State University Creative Writing Program. Packets must be received in-house no later than April 4. On the anniversary of the A&T Four Greensboro Sit-in Movement and the onset of Black History Month, we celebrate the courageous legacy of African-American literary achievement by honoring the legacies of two literary giants. Their literary works and personal life energies have been spent in service to the uplifting of black people worldwide and to the struggle for freedom, justice and equality for all oppressed peoples. Their scholarship, activism, and poetry have reminded the world about the sacredness of human dignity and the need to preserve it. We are looking for poetry that seeks to honor the spirit of this tradition. The competition is open to writers without regard to geographical region or previous publication background. Win...

A dozen writers - dozens of images, figurative and otherwise. Add a couple of hours on a Thursday night and some inspiration from poets past - Rilke, Auden - and voila! The Art After Dark program that I presented a couple of weeks ago at the Weatherspoon Gallery yielded a stunning crop of poems, early drafts that sparkled and glowed even before put to the polish. Now three of those writers have posted their work here for others to enjoy. I'll be looking forward to seeing more.