Gender Issue: The Movie

I've been back in the movie-making business. Several months ago, precisely on October 8, 2010, Nic Sebastian recorded a poem of mine for Whale Sound. This is an audio journal or library of Nic recording poems by a wide variety of poets. The common denominator is that they are all what Nic has named "web active poets," meaning that they have a substantial presence on the internet via blogs, websites, and social networks. That limitation is intended to increase the audience for Whale Sound.

Due to the success of the venture, Nic has now added an audio chapbook component and a blog, Voice Alpha. Voice Alpha is a companion to Whale Sound. There Nic and others discuss the art of reading poetry aloud. Guest bloggers are invited to contribute. Those wishing a critique of their reading skills may contribute a recording. It's all very positive. Nobody gets annihilated. It's also very instructive.

Whale Sound includes an index of all poets recorded, bios, links to the poems, and, of course, the recordings. My poem is Gender Issue, which first appeared in Margie and then in my second book, What Feeds Us, and then online in Poemeleon. I loved Nic's reading and began mulling over how I might get more mileage out of it. I decided I'd use it as the soundtrack in a movie. Nic kindly sent me the mp3 and I went about gathering appropriate images. Here's the result.

New Poemeleon

No, I'm not switching to porn or a discussion of anatomy. The above image is the cover of the latest issue of Poemeleon, one of my favorite online journals. Edited by Cati Porter, the journal appears twice a year. Why do I like it? Let me count the ways: 1) it's easy to navigate, 2) it's visually attractive, 3) it contains only poetry and poetry-related features, 4) each issue runs a handful of reviews and interviews, 5) there's an ample number of poems but not an overwhelming number, 6) it considers previously published poems, and 7) it has found its own niche by devoting each issue to a theme or type of poem.

The latest issue is the "gender issue." As soon as I saw the call for submissions several months ago, I immediately thought of my poem entitled Gender Issue. Seemed like that might be a good fit. The editor agreed. One more feature I like about this journal: each poem is accompanied by a brief author statement in which the author says something about his or her connection to the theme.

This issue contains work by a number of poets whose work I already admire, e.g., Michelle Bitting (I'm in the middle of her collection, Good Friday Kiss), Deborah Bogen, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Robin Chapman, Patricia Fargnoli (just finished her new book, Then, Something), Ann Fisher-Wirth (recently read her Carta Marina), Alex Grant (see my last blog post for a review of his book, Fear of Moving Water), Paul Hostovsky, Wendy Vardaman, and Charles Harper Webb. There are others whose work I'm looking forward to getting acquainted with.

So check out this issue. You'll find much to make you happy there.

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