David and Goliath? Think again

As it typical from Malcolm Gladwell's work, my mind is reeling after watching his TED talk on David and Goliath. It doesn't make the story any less about David's faith, but it does explain how the story was possible. So interesting.

Bruce and Me

Two video story/poems posted in a row. Both about the same length, but claiming to belong to two different genres. Here's "Bruce and Me" by film maker Trent Harris.

Happy Halloween

Motion Poems strikes again!

Poem of the Week: Eduardo C. Corral

         

           

Cayucos

            boats used by African emigrants

            to reach Spanish islands 

A girl asleep beneath a fishing net

Sandals the color of tangerines

Off the coast of Morocco

A moonlit downpour, God's skeleton

Bark, dory, punt, skiff

"Each with a soul full of scents"

Day after day spent shaping

A ball of wax into a canary

Little lamp, little lamp

The word "contraband" arrived

In English in the 16th century via Spanish

Throw your shadow overboard

Proverbs, blessings scratched into wood

The tar of my country better than the honey of others 

-Eduardo C. Corral

From Slow Lightning (Yale University Press, 2012)

Used by permission.

Eduardo C. Corral is a CantoMundo fellow. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2012, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Quarterly West. His work has been honored with a "Discovery"/The Nation Award, the J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from Poetry, and writing residencies to the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He has served as the Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Creative Writing at Colgate University and as the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. Slow Lightning, his first book of poems, won the 2011 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he currently lives in New York City.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.

Poem of the Week: Shadab Zeest Hashmi

         

Ghazal for the Ninth Month

Your august birth, my taking oath as an American, were only weeks apart.
The most I can remember is your rocking to a dull ache before we were apart.

Our hill was plush, the whole place soaked up the scent of raisin pulao. On
the last day of July the umbilical cord was cut, yet still we were barely apart.

I had sworn to bear arms for this country. A cat prowled between the young
apple tree and dry lobelia; camouflaged, I couldn’t tell her parts apart.

I acted mother first when I frantically covered you, half-dreaming you were
the tender bird of prey and a feline form was the country of which I was a part.

Bear arms? Kill like a predator? In other dreams I bore you through the cold months,
through snow in Julian, rain in Sedona. Not for a single minute were we apart.

-Shadab Zeest Hashmi

Used by permission

From Kohl & Chalk (Poetic Matrix Press, 2013)

Shadab Zeest Hashmi is a Pushcart nominee and winner of the San Diego Book Award for poetry for Baker of Tarfia—a book based on the history of interfaith tolerance in Al Andalus (Muslim Spain). Her work has been included in the Seeds of Peace concert with the award-winning Al Andalus Ensemble, in the film Cruzando Lineas: Crossing Lines, and has been translated into Urdu by Pakistan Academy of Arts and Letters. She has presented her series of poems and photographs titled "Across the Windowsill" at San Diego Museum of Art. She has served as an editor for the annual Magee Park Anthology and the online journal MahMag World Literature and has taught as a visiting professor in the MFA program at San Diego State University. She has published her poetry and prose in numerous journals worldwide and represents Pakistan on UniVerse: A United Nations of Poetry.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

love your family: cook them tasty food

The doughnut man has stopped coming to the farmers' market! No more whole wheat apple cider doughnuts greeting me on Wed. mornings. I would get one each time and save it for my writing time, snacking as I tried to get myself in the right frame of mind.

So, no doughnuts. Something had to be done. Check out this wonderful, healthy recipe from BakedByRachel. Mine aren't nearly as pretty as hers, because they were baked on a cookie sheet, though I was pretty proud of myself for putting the batter in a ziplock bag and snipping off the corner in order to squeeze the dough into the right form. Anyway, recommended for sparking your creativity, or simply making you happy.

Agenting 101

For all you writers who are seeking agents or wading through the emotional muck of contracts, here are two fabulous resources for you!

1) pred-ed.com lists every agent it can find and marks whether they have negotiated certified sales. If you're worried someone might be a fraud, check here.

2) http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2006/06/agenting-101-part-one.html Agent Kristin lists everything you might want to know about negotiating a contract here.