Ars Poetica Anthology

poem, home: An Anthology of Ars Poetica is about to be published by Paper Kite Press. The publishers, Dan Waber and Jennifer Hill, are now seeking pre-publication orders. The cover price will be $20 for this 230 page book which includes the work of 115 poets. My poem, "My Husband Discovers Poetry," is one of those poems.

This anthology has a rather unique birthing story. Several years ago Dan created a blog called Logolalia. He invited five poets to submit an ars poetica poem. He also invited each of those poets to invite five poets to submit. A poetic pyramid scheme. Submissions were thus by invitation only. Each of the poems was posted, one per day, at the blog. The plan was to eventually publish an anthology of those poems. If you go to the blog, you'll find links to each of the poems. The project grew to enormous proportions. I think it was about two years before my poem was posted. By then I'd pretty much forgotten about it.

But just coincidentally, I met Dan and Jennifer before my poem was posted at the blog. They run a reading series at their gallery, Paper Kite Press Studio & Gallery, in Kingston, Pennsylvania. A friend recommended me for a reading in the series. The night of the reading, Dan and Jenn took me out for dinner. We never mentioned my poem or the anthology. What I remember best is a conversation we had about smoking, Dan and I both being recovering smokers. As ex-smokers always do, we talked about what had made us quit. Dan said that he'd decided he'd rather keep the 10-15 years smoking would take from his life and spend those years with Jennifer. I liked that story.

About a year later, I was notified that my poem would appear on the blog. And quite a while after that I was notified that my poem would appear in the anthology. I think this should be a wonderful collection. Some familiar names: Kelli Russell Agodon, Mairead Byrne, Nick Carbó, James Cervantes, Denise Duhamel, Lynnell Edwards, Annie Finch, Lola Haskins, Paul Hoover, and Susan Rich. You can see the entire list of poets at the pre-ordering site.

The book is scheduled for release in November. You can pre-order here.

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