A Poetic Present

Out of nowhere -- and this is especially surprising because it has to do with a poetry book, and I thought no one reads poetry anymore -- Dusk Before Dawn got this stellar, utterly unsolicited review.

It sure makes me feel appreciated as a writer. It's about the best holiday gift I could get, as I come out of the dark cave in which I've been furiously writing all month.

So, as a reminder, that's the second surprisingly positive review for Dusk Before Dawn, the other being on Goodreads here.

Find it at:
Amazon
Nook
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New Review of Dusk Before Dawn!

I am so thrilled Goodreads user "Gorfo" won my poetry volume Dusk Before Dawn in the recent giveaway, because she seems to have been the right audience. I can't tell you how often my heart has sunk when reading a review of my work and finding that I did not find the right reader. The elusive "right reader" is one who is moved by your writing. He or she may have some quibble, but the style and message are right up their alley. Here is what she says:

Dusk Before Dawn was a wonderful short collection of poetry. In this collection Jessica Knauss cleverly divides the the poems into sections based on five senses, allowing you to experience each section with a different sense. The Spanish influence in the poems and the almost seamless melding of the Spanish language into many of the works seemed to draw a connection between the reader, the author's thoughts and the struggles and triumphs of Spanish culture. Through these poems I not only felt a connection to the Moors as they were expelled by a new regime, I also felt a connection to everything that makes Spain what it is. I felt a yearning to jump on the first plane and head to Cordoba or Barcelona. However, despite my love for the Spanish language I was shocked that so much of the book was in Spanish, and if I was not a Spanish student I fear much of this delicious poetry would have been lost on me. When I began this book I was not persuaded by the first poem, or the second, but Knauss quickly ensnared me in her trap with the third poem, the fourth poem and many others after. I hope to see more of her work in the future!


Thanks so much! You make me feel like a real poet! 

Goodreads Giveaways Over!

Thanks so much for all the enthusiasm you displayed for my giveaways on Goodreads!

Sail to Italy and Sail from Italy received 639 entries and there are two lucky winners from the beautiful states of Missouri and Tennessee.


Dusk Before Dawn was requested 451 times (who knew people still liked poetry?) and has been awarded to a loyal reader in exciting New Jersey.

I'll get them in the mail tomorrow. A huge thanks to everyone who put their names in the virtual hat. I hope you enjoy my little books.

New Format For My Poetry Book

After much nose to the grindstone, I'm happy to announce that the digital version of my poetry volume, Dusk Before Dawn, is looking much better than it did before. It contains all the previously published items listed in the Good Reading page (except "Real") as well as many many gems unavailable elsewhere.

It will be available in Kindle shortly, and is already up for Nook. Enjoy!

Happy Six Sentence Mother's Day!

Many thanks to everyone who left comments last week! I appreciate it so much! Here's the hub of activity.

In honor of Mother's Day today, I asked my beautiful mother to choose her favorite thing I'd ever written, and I would select six sentences from that. I was surprised that she selected a poem of mine from my long-forgotten poetry volume, Dusk Before Dawn. The poem is based on the painting pictured above, which hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Poetry seems a bit unorthodox for Six Sentence Sunday, but I don't see anything that prohibits it, so, here's to you, Mum!

The Painter’s Honeymoon

Lord Frederick Leighton understood

that loves comes in soft hues of gold;

that its lines are warm and comforting,

smooth and flowing as the folds of an olive-toned gown

which, with its velvet, covers layers of full, bountiful petticoats,

completely hidden.

He recognized that love blooms like golden pears outside the window,

blossoms like the glow in the young bride’s face.

As he tenderly holds his sketching pencil,

so too does he hold her hand

as she inclines toward his smooth face,

her eyes lowered.

The wide drawing desk shades and obscures

the red passion of his stockings. 

Affordable and lovely, Dusk Before Dawn is available from Amazon and by request at most independent booksellers and libraries. Mothers agree, it's great!

Farewell, 2010! The Year in Review

There's a wonderful Mexican New Year's song that starts, "Yo no olvido el año viejo, porque me ha legado cosas muy buenas" (I won't forget the old year, because it's left me some nice things). The things I pledge to remember about 2010 all have to do with writing. I don't think anyone would argue that my husband and I had any luck or success with money this year. Twenty-ten is the year we avoided complete bankruptcy and living on the street solely by the grace of my husband's sister. In 2010, we sold a gorgeous deluxe fold-out desk for $100 in Pennsylvania and spent the money on folding chairs, TV trays, and an air bed in Arizona. All we're really left with for 2011 is the love we have for each other, and a dogged determination to be successful again soon.

Great Things of 2010:
1. 15 pieces published in literary magazines. Click on "Good Reading" to your left for a full list, with pictures and links! The indescribable thrill of having Fiction Collective accept my humble "Justine" has still not abated through all those other acceptances. The idea that some few people somewhere on the planet have read some small part of my work has made a lot of really awful twists of fate this year much more bearable.


2. In November, I got my second royalty check from Tree/House and Dusk Before Dawn. They wait to accumulate $20 before they send it to me, and I got it! Twenty dollars doesn't begin to compensate for the time, effort, and money I've invested in their promotion over the year and a half since I got my last royalty, but again, the idea that someone, somewhere, is reading my work makes up for a lot. Thanks you so much to anyone who purchased either book! They're still highly enjoyable, affordable, and ready to be shipped to your home in paper or digital formats.

3. I started this blog, which has had a modicum of success. Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope to see you and get your feedback in 2011!

4. I found Duotrope. I'll keep the trade secret from those of you who don't know what that is. Those of you who do know will agree with me that it's possibly the single greatest tool for a writer in the digital age. Please contribute $5 a year if you're a user and keep the dream afloat! Without Duotrope, I would have a lot of inspiration and not much else when it comes to writing.

5. I'm now a GoodReads author! Check me out!

This time of year, people talk a lot about resolutions. Resolutions are an especially handy tool for the writer, who can so easily get bogged down by anything from other demands on her time to a funny sound or a fly on the wall. So, in 2011, I resolve not to let anything get in the way. Not my exhausting temporary job and the difficulties in getting to and fro, not the ongoing job search and distracting hopes for the future, not the dire lack of furniture in our new apartment, not the worries about money. Specifically, I resolve to finish a certain story to my own satisfaction and find someone to critique it, rather than sending it out to the publisher all raw, as I've had to do with a few too many pieces this year. (My husband is wonderful, but far too appreciative of my vision to be any use as a sounding board.) I also resolve to get serious about at least one of my book projects. (Stay tuned for those!) By "get serious," I mean take a look at the all the resources I've already gathered and managed to bring with me to Arizona, and make a decision about which to do first. And then write. Come up with a concrete, doable goal and stick with it. In the land of my resolution, at least one book will be completed this year for the enjoyment of literary agents and publishers in 2012. Wish me luck!

Without Language in Córdoba

"Without Language in Córdoba" is one of my favorite poems I ever wrote. Now you can read it in its entirety in the amazingly high quality Apparatus Magazine! Please also see a photographic preview at YouTube.

The theme of the issue is "Translation," a theme dear to my heart. Interpreted widely, it pertains to people trying to communicate in any way they can, and so encompasses most of human experience.

The poem came to me during a study abroad experience in Córdoba, Spain. As we realized more every day after we got there, Córdoba was the original melting pot. In spite of the discomforts it implied, the blending of peoples, languages and cultures created an experience so astoundingly beautiful, it can still be felt today in the air that passes through.

My room mate (and best friend) was having a tough time. She loved Spain (I like to think I had something to do with that) but October is always emotionally raw for her. One day she just got up and went for a walk while it was still dark outside, and contemplated the serenity of the Roman Bridge in the early morning light. By the time I woke up, she was back and telling me about the adventures she'd had. Anywhere else, they might have been commonplace, but the setting made them almost mystical.

Only my friend can say what parts of her walk I made up myself for the poem. I've forgotten, because with time, the poem becomes the reality. "Without Language in Córdoba" honors her expedition: the finding of something extraordinary right there in her surroundings; the way she felt she was beginning to belong to this place she had arrived in only weeks before; and, a personal favorite theme, the inability of words (in any language) to fully comprehend experience. With that in mind, I use empty space and translations of place names that seemed comical to us at the time, and leave "madrugada" (sunrise, daybreak, etc) untranslated. I had fun dicing up words to show their origins: "break/ fast."

In workshop, the other members were sorely disappointed to hear that I wasn't writing about something that happened to me personally. I think one of them claimed she would continue pretending. That's absolutely fine. I don't think the poem is injured, no matter who the subject is. What is imagination for if not to bring vivid experiences to people who never had them?

Take a look at the poem here. I'll also add the link to my "famous publications" page.
"Without Language in Córdoba" is one of the centerpieces of my collection Dusk Before Dawn.

"Real"ly Published in Cave Scribbles

My poem "Real" has made it into the genial Cave Scribbles, a journal that explores the human condition through words. Read the whole thing here. The link is also in the "Good Reading" page to the left.

I was inspired to write "Real" as a response to the vertiginous vacuum left after my boyfriend would visit me at college during Spring Break. As I've mentioned in another post, this was my first love, and I was madly and deeply attached to him. We went to college 3,000 miles apart, and our Spring Break schedules were skewed: his was the week before mine. Since I was the poorer of the two and couldn't fathom another plane ticket, he came to visit me, staying in the dorm common rooms or the bed-and-breakfast, witnessing me and my friends as we went to classes, sometimes took midterms, and prepared for our Spring Break. It was unreal to have him there, that tangible piece of my heart, bringing all his California goodness with him.  He fit in surprisingly well, considering that I slept in all-female dorms throughout college, but his presence was somehow on a different plane. He and my college never seemed to be occupying the same space at one time.

The sensation increased when he left and I turned to a week of no classes but plenty of studying. (There wasn't anything else to do, even if I hadn't been a complete nerd.) The entire campus was suddenly imbued with his presence. I thought I could hug him in the hallway, or get him a soda in the dining hall, but he just wasn't there anymore. I began to doubt that he had been anything other than a figment of my imagination. Hence the poem.

I don't think of this darling boy very often any more, but when I do, I get the same sensation that I made him up, a sensation backed up by failed Google searches. Somehow he's managed to remain anonymous in this era of information access. Very strange, indeed.

"Real" doesn't appear in Dusk Before Dawn (although many fine poems do!): Cave Scribbles is the only place you'll get to read it. Like my first boyfriend, it could easily become an evanescent experience, lost to the sands of time. Enjoy!

"Dictionary" in The Shine Journal

My poem, "Dictionary," is now up at The Shine Journal. It looks great, if I do say so myself!

The editor requested an origin story, and on the site I kept it very short. In reality, I was in the throes of breakup woe over my first two lovers when I wrote this. Both relationships were unhealthy, so I used a shorthand and combined them. During writing, I alternately saw the names and faces of first one, then the other.

Bachelor Number 1: My first boyfriend. I met him in my small high school, in my little town. I couldn't conceive that there might be something better out there, and I didn't know what love was, so I imagined that this was love and accepted whatever came along with it. We were constantly clashing because we had utterly different expectations. I never saw him as he really was, and I doubt he could see me, we were so full of preconceived notions. We never made each other happy. I was too busy trying to make him fit into my dream life, dreaming of true love and a perfect marriage that I was too blind to see was not reality. He tried to change me, I tried to change him. He did us a huge favor and called the wedding off just a few months before it was to take place. What a relief! In the poem, I allude to the feeling of losing my sense of self whenever I was with him. After that fateful phone call (no sniggering, we lived 3000 miles apart at the time), I was left with an apparently blank slate. It filled back in with my personality after the shock wore off.

Bachelor Number 2: I had a lot more in common with him, and I could really see us spending our lives together in blissful contentment. But I was still trying to change one fundamental thing about him to suit my fantasy: he never wanted to be with me for the long haul. Through no fault of his, I was convinced that he was The Love of My Life, that there would never be anyone to compare him to. As recently as two years ago, if he had given me the signal, I would have dropped everything just to be with him. If I've ever suffered from erotomania, he was the object. I knew that when they did my autopsy, they would find his image on my heart. Very deluded, indeed. Very self-effacing, as we see in the poem.

Thank goodness, it turned out that Bachelor Number 2 was just a step (an important step) on that ladder toward meeting my real soulmate. To anyone who's suffered in love, keep the faith! 

Enjoy "Dictionary"! It's just one of many self-rediscovery poems in Dusk Before Dawn.

"Invasion"

My latest publication, a poem entitled "Invasion," is now at Apollo's Lyre for your viewing pleasure! It's sixth in the Table of Contents.

I wrote this gem as a self-portrait assignment. This was how I looked to myself at the time: alone at a desk in the wilds of Massachusetts, contemplating my forever unattainable love, who was at that time in California.

Importantly, "Invasion" is just one of the many great poems on offer in Dusk Before Dawn. Online or in print, enjoy!

My New Release: Dusk Before Dawn (Poems)

From the back cover:

How do we make poetry? Through the unlikely medium of language.
Why do we write poetry? For love.
Where do we find poetry? In those evocative spaces full of old spirits.
When do we create poetry? Whenever the muse strikes.
For whom did poetry come into being? For each and every human.

Based around these questions, the book offers 28 provocative poems, in English and a smattering of Spanish, especially for your enjoyment.

You were waiting for it, even if you weren't quite aware what you were waiting for. My book of poems, Dusk Before Dawn, is now available!

Dusk Before Dawn unites all my favorite poetic work from over the years. Some you will find good, some bad, some short, some long: an infinite variety. Hopefully, it's all entertaining. The book includes the tour de force "Call Numbers of the Wild," recently published in Haggard & Halloo, and also four others slated to appear in various 'zines. Have all your favorites in one place, to have and to hold, to read again and again!

It might be a few more days before it loads into Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, but please buy it here and I will get more royalties. Please buy it for your friends, buy it for your enemies, buy it to help the starving author who put it together, buy it to laugh at said author, but please, just buy it. At $6.99, it won't break the bank, but your purchase will have a huge impact on the life of this humble writer. And please tell your friends to buy it, and tell that guy from accounting to buy it. Tell a librarian to buy it for her or his library.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I will sign it with a personalized dedication if we ever cross paths.

Again, please take a look and buy it HERE. Thank you.