Posts Tagged ‘introduction’

Published by Poetry Editor on . This item is listed in Introductions, Issue 33, Issue 33 Poetry

Introduction to SB 33 Poetry

by John C. Mannone

Welcome to the Winter issue of Silver Blade poetry with an impressive line-up of poets from all over the country (see below). A good number of them are really love poems and serve as excellent examples of speculative poems with literary depth, but so do most of the others.

 

Please enjoy,

John C. Mannone

Poetry Editor

Published by Poetry Editor on . This item is listed in Editorials, Introductions, Issue 26, Issue 26 Poetry

Introduction to Issue 26 Poetry

by John Mannone

This issue’s slate of fine poets opens with the gripping poem, “Tread With Me” by Anna Autilio (Boise, ID). Form serves function well here.

“Heliopause” by Barry Charman (Harrow, Middlesex, England) goes beyond poetic science, it is lifted into poetry with a series of appositives extending beyond the page.

“One Persistent Eye” by Darrell Lindsey (Nacogdoches, TX) continues with that edge of space in the previous poem. Again, it says a lot more that is apparent. This almost-sonnet, with it’s well-placed volta in the final couplet, answers an arguably implied question.

“The water babies amuse themselves” by Melanie Bell (San Francisco, CA) is an surreal/bizarro poem, it is as much an experiment with image as it is with sound.

“illusions of man” by Deborah Guzzi (Monroe, CT) has it’s own kind of surreality. The poem is meant as a tribute and elegy for a gifted but troubled artist who had passed. The sawtooth structure lends itself well to perhaps an interpretive glimpse inside the mind of this artist with the overlapping, but jagged associative lines.

The selection closes with another “list” poem of sorts, but with its own measure of surrealism. “Five Doors” by Darrell Lindsey (Nacogdoches, TX) may be a short poem, but will linger a long time off the page.

Now, go enjoy these gems.

Published by Associate Editor on . This item is listed in Issue 23 Poetry

Introduction to Issue 23 Poetry by John C. Mannone

John C. Mannone

John C. Mannone

Silver Blade is proud to present a slate of highly accomplished poets for this issue. We hope you savor every poem in this rich meal of words. Many of the poets here demonstrate what is meant by lifting prose into poetry, sometimes by filling our ears with a rich complex of sounds and rhythms. Virtually all of them take risks with conversational language, but turn the line with well-placed images, surreal elements, and daring structures and innovative styles (and I’m not talking about spreading words all over the page, though when done skillfully, can be very effective).

Our featured poet, Sue Brannon Walker, a former Alabama Poet Laureate (2003-2012), starts us with an edgy batch of work: “What is Found There,” a found poem (a cento) whose title is taken from the famous Adrienne Rich poem; “Bathsheba Bathing on the Roof,” an ekphrastic poem inspired by both music and a painting; “Committee by Fiat,” a poetic rant with linguistic delights; and an unusual prose sestina, “Nature like Mother is an Improper Name (Shillyshallying Sin).”

Marge Simon’s haunting piece, “Awaiting Another War in D Minor,” changes the direction of the thrust but sustains the energy from Dr. Walker’s poems. The deceptive simplicity of Mel Goldberg’s poem, “Weakling,” is also haunting, but in a very different sense. Adele Gardner’s “Everything and I,” might look like prose, but do not be deceived by this surreal piece. “Greek Fire” by Darrell Lindsey has many textures (perhaps even a spiritual one, at least for me it did). “All worlds meet at Happy Nails” by Emily K. Bright is playful, yet wrought with precision, light as a feather and heavy as lead. The series is concluded with Vanessa Kittle’s “The Nap Between the Worlds.” This is another deceptively innocent poem leaving me longing for more—the poem lives beyond the last line.