Update: Contests, Book Blog Tours and Conferences!
Posted: March 1, 2021 Filed under: Blog Tour, Book Event, book marketing, Book Promotion, WordCrafter, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, WordCrafter Press, Writing, Writing Contest, Writing Event | Tags: 2021 New Beginnings Virtual Writing Conference, Book Blog Tours, WordCrafter, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, WordCrafter Paranormal Short Fiction Contest, WordCrafter Press, Writing Conference, Writing Contest, Writing Events, Writing to be Read 2 Comments
There are exciting things going on at WordCrafter, and there a few new or up coming deadlines and events which I really need to share with you. We have a submission deadline coming up, the lanch of WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, and a fabulous virtual writing conference in the works. Read on to learn more.
WordCrafter wants your paranormal stories. The submission deadline is fast approaching for the 2021 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest on April 30th. All entries are eligible for consideration in the WordCrafter paranormal anthology, Where Spirits Linger and the winner receives a $25 Amazon gift card and guarenteed inclusion in the anthology. You can find full submission guidelines right here, on Writing to be Read.
WordCrafter Book Blog Tours has launched with three successful tours in February: The WordCrafter Press Spirits of the West anthology, Feral Tenderness poetry and photography collection by Arthur Rosch, and Barbara Spencer’s fantasy novel, The Click of a Pebble. Book blog tours are affordable advertising for authors, and a great opportunity to get the word out about your book and turn potential readers into fans. WordCrafter Book Blog Tours include host blog sites with author interviews, book reviews, banners and promo images. We are currently booking tours for March and April. Learn more and book your tour here.
I’m excited to be hosting the 2021 WordCrafter New Beginnings Virtual Writing Conference, May 3 – 5. I can tell you that we have a great line-up of presenters on board for this year’s conference,which you’ll see below, including a Keynote by horror author Paul Kane. We will be offering both interactive workshops and panel discussions, as well as a free pre-conference Facebook book event where attendees can learn more about the conference, purchase tickets, and mingle with readers, authors and conference presenters. I’m still setting up on both platforms, but more details will be coming soon, so watch for them here, on Writing to be Read.
I do hope you’ll all join us in one or all of the above listed events. I look forward to your stories for the Where Spirits Linger anthology, and to promoting your books on WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, as well as hearing from you at the 2021 WordCrafter New Beginnings Virtual Writing Conference.
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The making of a legend:
Posted: February 27, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized 4 CommentsOn Day #6, we’re wrapping up “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour on author Barbara Spencer’s blog site, “Pictures from the Kitchen”. It’s been a great tour and I hope you’ll join us there to find out more about this wonderful fantasy novel.
How many of us remember our school days, when we dipped our toes into the fascinating world of Greek and Roman myths – and then promptly forgot them whenwe donned our high-heels and stepped out into the real world?
I certainly had until I visited Holland again in 2010. I first visited in the 1960s with my sister, when it was a quiet almost sleepy place (see barbaraspencerauthor.blogspot.com) but this time my granddaughter was with me. And the reason for our visit, to celebrate the publication of the thriller Running. She wanted to see everything; canals, walkways, bridges, trams, the Anne Frank House, the Koekenhoff … everything. Wandering around one of their many museums I was struck by images of Leda and the Swan and on returning to the hotel promptly looked up the legend of Zeus who descended to earth as a swan in order…
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Jeff’s Game Reviews – The Medium
Posted: February 26, 2021 Filed under: Horror, Jeff's Game Reviews, Video Games | Tags: Jeff's Game Reviews, Medium, Video Games, Writing to be Read Leave a comment
Reviewed on Xbox Series X – Also available on Xbox One and Xbox Series S
Fear can be a tricky thing to nail down. From a storytelling perspective, it’s more complicated than basic jump scares and grotesque slight of hand. In order to really scare people you’ve got to get inside their heads, and that’s exactly what independent Polish game developer Bloober Team has tried to do in their latest Xbox exclusive, The Medium. The basic selling point is a new gaming mechanic in which the player is occasionally required to control their character in two different spiritual “realms” at the same time. It’s a cool idea, novel in the sense that dedicated gaming consoles have never been powerful enough to render this kind of thing before, but it’s also a little bit gimicky, and that’s hard to ignore.
Whether it’s the stunning and seriously disturbed environments found in the land of the dead, the screaming, groping, crying, ever-present monster who shamelessly plagues you wherever you go, or the expertly revealed mystery of the murder of one lively little dead girl, the game is seriously invested in freaking you out. Does it do its job? For the most part, but there’s not a whole lot of basic modern scare tactics in use here that we haven’t seen before. The game’s narrative is anything but perfectly realized, and certain technical shortcomings hurt the overall experience, but The Medium is more than the sum of its parts. This could’ve been a huge disaster. It’s not though, even if it is the brand new system’s first and only true exclusive. Watch our video review for a good look at the game in action:
Our hero, the eponymous medium of this ghost story, is a young woman named Marianne. We never really get the sense she’s super experienced at this gig, because contextually speaking, she seems to be using many of her incredible abilities for the first time. First time having an out of body experience, first time getting stalked by a giant, faceless, pan-dimensional demon with a serious skin fetish. I mean it, there’s this frightening and freakish dude who follows you around for the entire second half of the game. No attacking, shooting, bludgeoning, or stabbing for you. The only way to win is to keep running and hiding. Can’t we get a moment’s peace?!
More or less The Medium’s shortcomings boil down to this: the camera is locked off in old-school Resident Evil fashion, making navigation cumbersome and awkward. Additionally, puzzles and quests are never as smart as you want them to be. The much-touted split-screen mechanic of simultaneously dwelling in both the world of the living and the land of the dead is unique and visually striking, but it seems to be limited to the use of passing arbitrarily administrated spiritual barriers, blasting demon bat thingies with an electric shield bubble, and slicing through large sheets of skin with a bone straight-razor.
Ew, gross.
And yes, a terse and limited story about shame, fear, death, and rage is continuously hampered by narration that tells more than it shows. Truly, the dialogue and voice acting try to keep pace with bigger games of the genre, but they never quite get there. It’s kind of a shame, because there’s lots of scary concepts and dark emotional undertones percolating just below the surface. Moments of sheer terror be damned, Resident Evil and other genre master series are capable of nailing gameplay AND story, so what’s the deal here?
The one thing that truly elevates the overall experience is the atmosphere, which is rich, dense, and undeniably disturbing. It’s hard to imagine The Medium pushes the powerful new Xbox hardware to its limits, but the launch release is plagued by framerate issues and other graphical kinks, so push the Xbox it must. Even so, dense forests and a haunted Polish resort hotel are handled with style in both the material and ghost realms. You’ll have a good time playing this game, especially if you’re a horror nut, but doubts will continue to linger as to whether or not you’ll remember it once you put it down.
Jeff’s Game Reviews gives The Medium a final score of SEVEN out of TEN.
Jeff Bowles is a science fiction and horror writer from the mountains of Colorado. The best of his outrageous and imaginative work can be found in God’s Body: Book One – The Fall, Godling and Other Paint Stories, Fear and Loathing in Las Cruces, and Brave New Multiverse. He has published work in magazines and anthologies like PodCastle, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, the Threepenny Review, and Dark Moon Digest. Jeff earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at Western State Colorado University. He currently lives in the high-altitude Pikes Peak region, where he dreams strange dreams and spends far too much time under the stars. Jeff’s new novel, Love/Madness/Demon, is available on Amazon now!
Check out Jeff Bowles Central on YouTube – Movies – Video Games – Music – So Much More!
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Day #5 of “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour: My Review
Posted: February 26, 2021 Filed under: Blog Tour, Book Review, Books, Fantasy, Fiction, Magical Realism, Review | Tags: Barbara Spencer, Book Review, carinatae mythology, Fantasy, Magical Realism, The Children of Zeus, The Click of a Pebble, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours 2 Comments
What they are saying on Amazon:
“This was a great coming of age fantasy story. I really enjoyed seeing these young characters struggle to survive in the aftermath of the massacre that leaves them only each other to depend on. Their journey drew me in and had me reading this entire book in one sitting, I’m looking forward to reading more books set in this fascinating world.”
In her Day #3 post for this tour on Robbie’s Inspiration, author Barbara Spencer talks about magical realism. I really loved her definition. She describes it, “Magical realism takes place in our world and follows its rules, except occasionally those rules are skewed.” I haven’t read a lot of magical realism, but what I have read have mostly were silly stories that were just kind of fun to read, with no real buy in because they were so ridiculous.
Not so with this skillfully crafted tale, which begins to lay a solid basis for the magical elements of the story. The Click of a Pebble had my buy in from the first pages and maintained it throughout the story. It was sweet and tragic, but there was nothing silly about it.
The Click of a Pebble is the tale of three children, Yost, Zande and TaTa, the only survivors of a massacre of their people. Ripped away from all they have ever known, they must stand together and go on, holding on to who they are in a place where things are new and different and try to fit in. They quickly learn that they dare not reveal their true origins, or risk falling prey to the same bigoted thinking that brought on the demise of their clan, because they are different, gifted. As they grow to know the family which welcomes them into their home, they begin to develop attachments with those around them and feel as if they belong. But, they are carinatae, children of Zues and what lies ahead for them is very different from the futures imagined by those who take them in.
Barbara Spencer has done a marvelous job of drawing the reader in and making her care about the characters, masterfully weaving historical detail into this wonderful coming of age fantasy. It touches on issues that ring true for many of us, at the same time portraying a time and culture in detail, with well developed characters readers will relate to. As the first book in her The Children of Zeus trilogy, Spencer does not tie everything up with a nice bow, but instead chooses the perfect point in the story to close off this chapter and leave the reader with a need to learn how all the loose ends will be resolved. I give it five quills.
In case you missed a blog stop along the way on The Click of a Pebble Book Blog Tour:
Day #1: Writing to be Read
Day #2: Patty’s World
Day #3: Robbie’s Inspiration
Day #4: This is my Truth Now
Get your copy of The Click of a Pebble today.
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Day #4 of “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour
Posted: February 25, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 CommentsFor Day #4 of “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour, James Cudney brings us an author spotlight and interview over on “This is my Truth Now”. I hope you’ll join us there to learn more about author Barbara Spencer and her book.
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#Blogtour – The Click of a Pebble by Barbara Spencer Day 3
Posted: February 24, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentFor Day #3 of “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour finds us at “Robbie’s Inspiration” , with an intriguing guest post from author Barbara Spencer about magical realism and how “The Click of a Pebble” came into being. Join us there and learn more about this wonderful fantasy novel.
Today I am delighted to welcome talented author, Barbara Spencer, to Robbie’s Inspiration for Day 3 of her The Click of a Pebble book tour hosted by WordCrafter Blog Tours.
You can find Day 1 here: https://writingtoberead.com/2021/02/22/welcome-to-wordcrafters-the-click-of-a-pebble-book-blog-tour/
You can find Day 2 here: https://pattysworlds.com/2021/02/23/wordcrafters-the-click-of-a-pebble-book-blog-tour-writing-to-be-read-day-two/
The Series: Children of Zeus
‘Where Historical Fiction and Fantasy Collide’
After a decade or more writing for children and young adults, I pretty much know my way around a children’s book. A couple of years ago, deciding I need a new challenge, I turned my attention to writing magical realism for adults.
But what is magical realism and how does it differ from fantasy? I think of fantasy as being set in a mythological world in which there are rules but maybe not the rules we subscribe to in our humdrum human world…
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Dark Origins – Hansel and Gretel
Posted: February 24, 2021 Filed under: Children's Books, Classics, Dark Origins, Fairy Tales, Fiction, Nursery Rhymes, Stories | Tags: Classic Literature, Dark Origins, Fairy Tales, Hansel and Gretel, Writing to be Read 33 Comments
Most people are familiar with the story of Hansel and Gretel, a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in their Grimm’s Fairy Tales in 1812.
In summary, the story goes as follows:
Hansel and Gretel are a brother and sister whose starving parents decide to abandon them in the forest. Hansel overhears his parents plotting and drops pebbles on the path so that he and Gretel can find their way home later. The family’s plight does not improve and a short while later the mother [or stepmother depending on the version] persuades the father to take the children into the forest again and leave them there. This time, Hansel drops a trail of breadcrumbs but the birds eat them and the two children become lost in the forest.
The starving children come across a gingerbread house and they begin to break off bits and eat it. The house, however, is a trap set by a wicked witch who captures the children, enslaves Gretel and locks Hansel in a cage. She sets about fattening Hansel up so that she can eat him.
Gretel saves Hansel by shoving the witch into the oven which she has heated up in order to cook Hansel. The pair escape and manage to find their way home with the witch’s treasure. In the meantime, their mother [or stepmother] has died and their father is a broken man having abandoned his beloved children. The family live happily ever after.
The real history behind this already rather grim story, is even more grim.
The true story of Hansel and Gretel may have its roots in the great flood and great famine of 1314. 1314 was a year of continuous rain and this continued throughout 1315 and 1316. The wet conditions resulted in crops rotting in the ground, harvests failing and livestock drowning or starving. Food prices increased dramatically as a result of severe food shortages.
The great famine is estimated to have effected 400,000 square miles of Europe, 30 million people and to have resulted in the deaths of up to 25 percent of the population in certain areas.
The famine was so bad that during the winter of 1315/1316, the peasants resorted to eating the seed grain they had stored for planting in the spring. People resorted to begging, stealing and even murder in their quest for food. Parents abandoned their children to fend for themselves and their were rumours of cannibalism. An Irish chronicler wrote that people “were so destroyed by hunger that they extracted bodies of the dead from cemeteries and dug out the flesh from the skulls and ate it, and women ate their children out of hunger.”
In the story of Hansel and Gretel, the pair are taken into the forest by their father and abandoned. They are taken in by an old woman living in a cottage. When the old woman starts to heat the oven, the children realise she is planning to roast and eat them. Gretel tricks the woman into opening the oven and pushes her inside.
It is interesting to note that this time of famine coincided with the end of the medieval warm weather period and the beginning of the little ice age. The changing climate with its cooler and wetter summers and earlier autumn storms damaged the harvests. Given the strange wet and cool summer South African is experiencing, coupled with severe cold in the northern hemisphere, this really is food for thought.
Another grim early tale along the lines of Hansel and Gretel is a Romanian story called The Little Boy and the Wicked Stepmother. You can read this story here: http://www.planetofbirds.com/the-story-of-the-little-boy-and-the-wicked-step-mother
The story of Hansel and Gretel was the inspiration for my recent twisted fairy tale Covid-19 cake which featured a gingerbread house and a witch who is trying to keep children out after they are declared to be vectors for the virus.
About Roberta Eaton Cheadle
Roberta Eaton Cheadle has published nine children’s books under the name of Robbie Cheadle. She has branched into writing for adults and young adults and, in order to clearly separate her children’s books from her adult books, is writing for older readers under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle.
Her supernatural stories combine fabulous paranormal elements with fascinating historical facts.
Supernatural fantasy YA novel:
Through the Nethergate
Horror Anthologies (edited by Dan Alatorre):
Spellbound
Nightmareland
Dark Visions
Paranormal Anthologies (edited by Kaye Lynne Booth):
Spirits of the West
Whispers of the Past
Murder mystery Anthology (edited by Stephen Bentley)
Death Among Us
Find Roberta Eaton Cheadle
Blog: https://wordpress.com/view/robertawrites235681907.wordpress.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertaEaton17
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robertawrites
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Roberta-Eaton-Cheadle/e/B08RSNJQZ5
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WordCrafter’s “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour | Writing to be Read Day Two
Posted: February 23, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 CommentsDay #2 of “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour brings us Patty Fletcher’s review on “Patty’s World”. I hope you’ll join us there to learn more about this wonderful novel.
Welcome to WordCrafter’s “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour | Writing to be Read Day Two
Today, in our #ReadingWithTheAuthor series, where I’m hosting day two of The Click of the Pebble Tour, I’ve got a true treat for you.
If you missed day one you may catch up here: https://writingtoberead.com/2021/02/22/welcome-to-wordcrafters-the-click-of-a-pebble-book-blog-tour/
Many of you know author Barbara Spencer but do you know about her incredible books?
THE CLICK OF THE PEBBLE, TODAY’S FEATURED BOOK!
The Click of a Pebble
Book 1 – The Children of Zeus
Only if Yöst keeps the supernatural powers of his family hidden will they remain safe from the witch hunt that has already killed his entire village, apart from two young children, Zande and Tatania.
Offered shelter by a family of gypsies, Yöst strikes up a close relationship with the son of the house, Rico. As their relationship deepens, Yöst begins to think…
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Welcome to WordCrafter’s “The Click of a Pebble” Book Blog Tour
Posted: February 22, 2021 Filed under: Blog Tour, Book Promotion, Books, Fantasy, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, Writing to be Read, Young Adult | Tags: Barbara Spencer, The Children of Zues, The Click of a Pebble, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, Writing to be Read, Young Adult Fantasy 8 Comments
When I picked up The Click of a Pebble to review for this tour, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The cover was ellegant, yet a bit mysterious, which had a certain appeal for me, and the title doesn’t give anything away, although it does add to the sense of mystery. I wanted to know more about this story. Only after I’d begun to read, did I understand why the author, Barbara Spencer, had chosen that particular title, and why it was the perfect introduction to this touching coming of age story.
Known as swan-people for their ability to shape-shift not only into the swanlike form of the carinatae, but also the celeste, the winged shape of Zeus himself. The children of Zeus although peace-loving, have always been forced to live apart from humans, persecuted almost to extinction.
Three children survive the latest massacre: Yöst, Zande, the son of the Black and destined to be the clan’s next leader, and a small girl, Tatania, who insists on being called TaTa.
This is their story.
The Children of Zues trilogy, of which The Click of a Pebble is book 1, is a delightful coming of age fantasy, which I was soon emmersed in. It’s about the carinatae, or Swan People, decendents of Zues, who live among and pass themselves off as humans. When I started reading, I didn’t know what carinatae meant, or where this wonderful myth came from, but it didn’t take long for my curiosity to peak, and I wanted to know more.
So, I began to explore the internet to see what I could learn. Wikipedia defines carinatae as, “Carinatae is the group of all birds and their extinct relatives to possess a keel, or “carina”, on the underside of the breastbone used to anchor large flight muscles.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carinatae). This makes sense, since swans are then carinatae. But, I still wasn’t familiar with this particular myth, so I set about brushing up on my Greek mythology. The only mytholgy I found that dealt with swans in any way, was the story of Zues and Leda, which seemed to fit in with Spencer’s story.
When visiting the author’s blog site, Two Sides to Every Story, I learned that this myth was indeed at the heart of The Children of Zues trilogy, which is a prequel to The Year the Swans Came. This information excited me, because what it means is that Barbara Spencer has created a new set of mythologies from the old myths that we are all familiar with. Wow! Isn’t it fabulous that as authors, we can actually do things like that? And Spencer has done an excellent job of pulling threads from the original myth and weaving them into a mythology all her own. Now that is what being an author is all about!
It is my pleasure to present the The Click of a Pebble Book Blog Tour this week. Our wonderful blog hosts have lined up a greast tour for us, with reviews on Patty’s World and Writing to be Read, and an author spotlight on This is My Truth Now, and hear from the author,, on Roberta Write’s, and finishing off the tour on Barbara Spencer’s blog site, Pictures from the Kitchen. I hope you will join us and follow the tour to learn more about Barbara Spencer and The Click of a Pebble.
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Treasuring Poetry – Meet Arthur Rosch, a brave poet
Posted: February 20, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized 25 Comments
To day, I am very excited to be hosting author and poet, Arthur Rosch, with his thoughts about poetry. I consider Art to be a brave poet as he poetry is so brutally honest and cuts to the core of difficult and emotional matters.
Over to Art:
My favorite poem is “Prophet”, written in 2001. Here it is:
Oh lord, oh lord,
what has befallen me?
That which I hoped to make straight
only becomes more twisted.
That which should be understood
only becomes more strange.
How did I come to this unexpected shore?
What am I to make of the walking wreck of myself?
I can still think, still work,
still speak in poems
in the sleepless time of the night.
It is a mixed gift, this life, it is hard
to feel so completely lost
in complexity I don’t know how I made.
I wanted to be a radiance
but I am more like a garbage can
tipped by a raccoon in predawn hours.
I pick myself up,
I sweep my contents
into a tidy pile,
but each time I think to rest,
I am again overturned.
I speak to you, o lord,
like the wounded Jew,
like the baffled bloodied prophet,
like the broken fated sage.
I take help from any quarter,
even those with dangerous denizens.
I take comfort with the scorpion,
I sleep with diseases,
I marvel and lament
at my scattered state,
at my continued surprise that I am alive,
that I move my limbs with some dim purpose,
that I have any faculty left to cry out to you.
Oh lord, what has befallen me?
You see, I have nothing but questions.
It could be much worse, I freely admit.
It could be much better,
I ruefully entreat.
Pieces of me have gone numb.
Whole continents of my psyche have been submerged,
drowned, forgotten.
I am the world I have made.
I am a man, dreadfully incomplete,
unwilling to meet the terror,
reluctant to behold the fire,
shrinking always from the worst case,
taking the hand of any wiser being,
like a lost child who needs to be led home.
I shall try now, lord, to snatch a bit of sleep
from the bottom of the night’s cup.
I’m glad we had this little talk.
I thank you, uncomfortably,
like one who has opened the wrong gift
at the wrong party.
Oh, is this for ME?
I’m not quite sure it fits,
I’m not sure how to use it.
I’ve broken it a little
but it still works. See?
I’ve tried, I’ve hopped on one foot,
I’ve danced insanely.
I’m still here,
waiting for your soft voice
to bring me peace.
You can listen to Art reading this poem here:
This poem is first of all my honest expression of vulnerability. It speaks of the paradox of the human condition in a way that echoes biblical expressions. Hence the name, “Prophet”. I am admitting to my grave faults, the problems that I have encountered that have led to my loss of innocence. Once I wanted to be a shining light and now I can barely raise my eyes to the sky. I have always been a man of spiritual aspirations but I am crushed by disappointment in myself. What has become of me? How did I get like this?
The year I wrote this, 2001, was a difficult year. I struggled with addiction and poverty and wondered whether I would survive much longer. I love this poem. There are lines that are like daggers, yet still it is a comfort to make this prayer. I haven’t lost faith. I’ve accepted that I have made my own quagmire and must come to terms with it. I will take counsel with anyone or anything. I sleep with diseases and ask the scorpion for advice. That’s my desperation; that even though I’m in the wrong place I can still find ways to make alchemy: that I will profit from this situation in spite of, or because of, my pain.
And another very different favorite:
Ghost Voices
Ghost voices grow
like weaving spires in the corridors of the night.
Stalactites of moonlight,
they hum and fade
through the wake of other minds.
A sheet of star rain in the night,
a mist of lightfall lost from sight,
these spectral hints emerge
from the night floor in the dark.
Silver waving plants recede forever
singing in twinkling winking echoes.
Ghost voices, shadow worlds
arise and converse,
while my sleep waits beyond the hills,
listening.
You can listen to Art reading Crazy here:
This poem came from a dream, or a half-awake hypnogogic state. I probably wrote it in the early 70s. I love surrealism and this poem is an artifact, a surreal object that conjures images by way of abstraction. It was inspired by a piece of music by Tzvi Avni, a composer of dream-like electronic music. I don’t know if anyone will understand it and I don’t recommend analysis. It’s meant to be enjoyed, like a painting or a photo. Images of sleep and dream pervade. Various kinds of eerie light engage the senses. Stalactites of Moonlight. Yes, this is way up there in my personal hierarchy of poems.
I think poets write for themselves. I never expect anyone to read my poems. And if they do, what will they make of them? I read a few poets. I enjoy Rilke and Lorca, In high school I had a passion for e.e.cummings. I still do. It’s more fun to write poetry than it is to read it. When a poem occurs for me, I’m in love with the language. I’ve made it do something it’s never done before. It takes skill to make language exude vision and emotion while remaining relentlessly original. Can I possibly convey how I feel in love? I certainly try, using the magic of words and rhythms. I once had a dream that people spoke in a magical language that was both alien yet comprehensible. As they spoke, pictures emerged from their mouths and then faded away. It’s an apt metaphor for poetry. Or a reality of cartoons. It was a dream that I’ll never forget.
My favorite poet is Jelalledin Rumi, the Sufi mystic who lived in the 12th century in what is now Afghanistan. There’s a line of Rumi’s that brings me great peace and comfort: “Don’t worry about what doesn’t come. By not coming it prevents disaster”. That line had real consequences in my psychological life. It eased my frustration at my lack of recognition. It contains a deep truth, which is that things ripen in their own time. If I had been successful in my youth I may not have survived to old age. I didn’t have much wisdom or self control. These days I often read poetry in columns from one of my favorite internet venues. Otherwise I don’t go out of my way to read poetry. I give attention to my fellow living poets, to be sure, but I’m not going to offer critiques. I find that reaching into the deeper layer of emotion allows me access to poetic sensibilities that are rich with material. In this way poetry and psychotherapy are close cousins.
links:
About Arthur Rosch
Arthur Rosch is a mid-westerner, who became a Californian as a young man. A lover of jazz, poetry, painting and photography, and writing, as well as a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. After receiving Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders, he was immersed in circles that could have taken him to the top, but it was short lived. Arthur found himself reeling, struggling with depression and addiction on the streets for almost a decade, and repairing and rediscovering himself was a defining event in his life, nurturing his literary soul. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Purchase Feral Tenderness
You can read my review of Feral Tenderness here: https://writingtoberead.com/2021/02/19/blogtour-day-5-my-review-of-feral-tenderness-by-arthur-rosch/
About Robbie Cheadle
Robbie Cheadle has published nine books for children and one poetry book. She has branched into writing for adults and young adults and, in order to clearly separate her children’s books from her adult books, is writing for older readers under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle.
Robbie Cheadle’s Sir Chocolate children’s picture books are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision. Her books for older children also incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.
Roberta Eaton Cheadle’s supernatural stories combine fabulous paranormal elements with fascinating historical facts.
Children’s picture books – available as a square book and an A5 book (co-authored with Michael Cheadle):
Sir Chocolate and the strawberry cream story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the baby cookie monster story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the sugar dough bees story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Condensed Milk River story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Sugar Crystal Caves story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Fondant Five story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Ice Cream Rainbow Fairies story and cookbook
Middle school books:
Silly Willy Goes to Cape Town (includes five fun party cake ideas)
While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with Elsie Hancy Eaton)
Poetry book:
Open a new door (co-authored with Kim Blades)
Supernatural fantasy YA novel:
Through the Nethergate
Horror Anthologies (edited by Dan Alatorre):
Spellbound
Nightmareland
Dark Visions
Paranormal Anthologies (edited by Kaye Lynne Booth):
Spirits of the West
Whispers of the Past
Murder mystery Anthology (edited by Stephen Bentley)
Death Among Us
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
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