What a Week

Last week was almost the best week I've ever had as a writer. I had a total of 23 poems come out in 7 different journals. First there were the poems "Absence of Animal Presence," "The Word for What Only 4-Year Olds Can See," and "After the Flood" in Joe and Chenelle Milford's new journal, Scythe, at www.scytheliteraryjournal.com.

That was followed by "Light Falls and Runs Red" in the new issue of The Pedestal at http://thepedestalmagazine.com/. Next was one poem ("Second Chances" and ("All I Want") in each of the two new issues of Waterways, in print only, but info is available at www.tenpennyplayers.org/mags.html.

One of my favorite "blog" journals, protestpoems.org, at www.protestpoems.org.blogspot.com, then published one of my favorite new poems "Letter to Ahmadinejad," and I published my own poem "Relic" alongside Joe Young's photo "Time Goes By" in Outlook and then in my blog to help promote the Aroma of Art fundraiser going on this month in Hickory. That same day Outlook also published a profile of me written by Ann Fox Chandonnet.

A couple of days ago, Jane Crown released her latest issue of Heavy Bear, at www.heavybear.janecrown.com, which contained the poems "Meat Jesus" and "Arse Poetica" and an audio file of me reading 10 of my poems, most of which will be in Paternity, due out in just a couple of weeks. And now, today, Helen Losse has released the February issue of Dead Mule, which includes three of my poems written in honor of Black History Month, "Soundings," "Primer," and "in which the poet speaks as a sixth-grade classmate."

Thank you to each of these editors and to the readers who support these journals.

So why was it just "almost" the best week I've ever had? Because my new manuscript, which I really thought was good, didn't win the contest I had sent it off to, and because like most writers, I suspect, I take the rejections more personally than I do the acceptances. I tell myself to use rejections as motivation, but they still hurt, they still cause doubt, and they still linger in my mind longer than they should. Call me sensitive. Call me insecure. Call me spoiled. Self-doubt is just a tough thing to overcome.

Synaesthetic Joy

“Musings” for January 28, 2010

Synaesthetic Joy

Can you smell art? I don’t mean the smell of paint, wood, or graphite. That’s the smell of materials, but the materials are not exactly the art. Art is something else, something almost intangible, an image that inspires, that creates an experience in the viewer, that prompts catharsis. Surely that doesn’t have a scent. Unless, of course, you’re at Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse in downtown Hickory during the month of February. Because it is then and there that the annual Aroma of Art benefit auction takes place, causing art to smell perhaps like kindness, or warmth, or at least really good coffee.

Aroma of Art is a month long auction of paintings, photography, jewelry, sculpture, etc. all created by over 100 local artists to benefit ALFA (AIDS Leadership Foothills Alliance) and the Catawba County Humane Society. Aroma of Art is also an opportunity for local poets to participate in an exercise known as Ekphrastic Poetry, which is simply the creation of a poem from the viewing of a work of art in a different discipline.

Writers are invited to submit poems based on the works on display in the Aroma of Art to me, Scott Owens, by noon on February 15. A jury of local poets will select as many as 20 poems to display with the pieces in the auction and to be presented to the winners of the corresponding art work during Aroma of Art’s Grand Finale on March 4 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM. Three poems will also be chosen to be read at the Grand Finale.

Poems should include the author’s name and the title and creator of the “inspiring” work of art. The phone number, and email address of the author should be on the back or on an attached sheet. Poems may be submitted at Taste Full Beans or by email to asowens1@yahoo.com. Selections will be made by the end of the day February 16.

More information on Aroma of Art can be found at www.aromaofart.blogspot.com or by calling 828-325-0108. Here is a poem based on Joe Young’s photograph “Time Goes By” (included in the auction) to serve as an example of ekphrastic poetry.

Relic

by Scott Owens
after Joe Young’s photograph Time Goes By

Time does go by
not to mention around,
through, in,
and eventually over.
Tortoise-like it plods on,
patiently waiting
for the moment we stop,
stand still too long.

Even masters of space,
speed, and distance
know of this inevitable
reclamation but remain
unprepared, unbelieving,
just the sort of thing
we think happens
only to other people.

Who, possessing
even a shred of such
power, could be anything
but incredulous,
each thing its own
Ozymandias, pride
half sunk, only
passion surviving.