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POESY Magazine
Category:
Poetry
Publisher: POESY Press
Pages: 16
Copyright: Sep 1 2003
Dear Poets, Writers and Readers,
September 19th is the new release of POESY #22!!!
This issue features an interview with poet, Linda Lerner. Linda Lerner
was chosen because of her unique and full force approach to the poem..
She has released a book out on Ibbetson Street Press, “A Koan for
Samsara,” this summer (reviewed in POESY #21) Robert Peters
wrote: "Linda Lerner should be one of the most visible of our poets in
this country... she is in a special outsider group of powerful and
original American poets largely ignored by Poetry Establishment
forces. Her amazing energies zap her poems with high voltage... She
loves the open form, and works in a tradition of Ginsberg, Charles
Plymel, and the Beats, and has quzzled much from Charles Bukowski…”
Doug Holder interviews Robert K. Johnson. Robert K. Johnson was a
professor of English for over thirty years at Suffolk University in
Boston. In his long and varied career Johnson has penned multiple
poetry collections. In the 1970's he wrote a full-length study of the
films of Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola had been an editor with the
Hofstra University student literary magazine, at the same time Johnson
worked there. He chooses to be in the trenches, championing the little
magazines, emerging poets and editors that provide life to an often
stuffy poetry world.
Poetry this issue by: antler, patricia wellingham-jones, b.z. niditch,
and a slew of new and not-so-new faces!
We are blessed with the stunning photography of john bower, t. kilgore
splake, a.d. winans, and more….
Sincerely,
Brian Morrisey
editor/publisher
The new web site http://www.poesy.org is posted!!
AN EXCERPT FROM THE LINDA LERNER INTERVIEW:
For the poet finding a voice, or defining a style, do you have any
insight you can share based on your own reputation and experience with
poetry?
THERE IS NO EASY ROUTE, NO ONE SET OF RULES covers all, you know. It’s
something you do because you have no choice. It’s the only thing you
can do, your only way of being in the world that feels right, the only
way you can fully reveal yourself, say something you believe is
important. Whether you succeed or not, win major prizes or none at
all, are told you have no talent — it doesn’t even enter into the
equation. There are too many reasons why one should just give up, that
it’s not worth it. It isn’t in terms of economics, how society will
regard you, etc. It takes work to write your own poems, the best poems
you can. To fight for your own voice is to fight for your life... how
I see it. How it is for me.
Originality can’t be taught. I’m not a product of any MFA
program, and except for taking a class with William Packard once, I
have never been involved with writing workshops. It would not have
worked for me. I can usually tell a workshop poem immediately; the
voice often sounds the same, the poems are flat and what a non poet
friend called "pap." They usually have that labored over feel, the
striving for the brilliant phrase, the immortal line. William Packard
said the enemy of the great poem is the good poem. There are a lot of
good, competent poems coming out of workshops one forgets as soon as
they’re read....great ones?...I don’t know…
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