AWP Talk: Endangered Music: Formal Poetry in the 21st Century

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THE MORE YOU LEAVE

The more you leave, the more I want you back;
When you return, our love life seems to lack.
Believing you are unassailable
I yearn for you to be available.
And then you come; I cannot be more bored:
I like your leave, but not your coming toward.
Your distance charms, disarms my eager heart.
But close, I wish we were again apart.
Do stay away, and I'm forever rapt,
But now, you leave me empty, dull, and sapped.
So go away; I'll love you as before.
Love's ebb and flow is tricky as a whore.

My poem, "Gaia's Lunacy," appears in Journal of Poetics Research

I am very pleased that my poem, "Gaia's Lunacy," appears in John Tranter's new Journal of Poetics Research. 

Here is the text of the poem:

GAIA’S LUNACY

The Sun is hot and bothered, and libidinal, having fathered

all our mendicants and tycoons, cops and robbers, and our rife loons.

The Earth below is verdant, child of Eros, green, exultant

for solar love would bask her with his sure heat and not task her,

but treasure all her madmen, all her masters and their bondsmen,

thus offering a devotion of which our Gaia has no notion.

The fickle Earth presumes a love from solar powers as enough;

Her denizens expect the same and bask in glory with no name.

Now, the music of the spheres should play loud in one's own ears

But creation's power's assumed, and unheard by all us loons.

Journal of Poetics Research:

http://poeticsresearch.com/article/larissa-shmailo-poem-gaias-lunacy/

Moderating a Panel on "Metrical Illiteracy" at AWP16 in LA

I was delighted to learn that my proposal, "Endangered Music: Formal Poetry in the 21st Century," has been accepted to AWP 16's program in LA.  The all-star panel includes Annie Finch, Timothy Steele, Amanda Johnston, and Dean Kostos.  Our topic follows.

What are the consequences of what Brad Leithauser has termed the "metrical illiteracy" of contemporary poetry in the U.S.? Poetry readership here has diminished, in contrast to the vitality of poetry in countries where formal poetry is strong. Offering controversial views from a now minority aesthetic, panelists will discuss why basic knowledge of metrical analysis and prosody has waned and why accentual forms such as spoken word are popular.  We will demonstrate the essential role of music in poetry today and as a tool vital to understanding poetry of the past.

If you are in LA next AWP, I invite you to join us.