Quick Little Mother's Day Gift--Electronic or Paper

Deeper Into the Pond
By Magdalena Ball and Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Genre: Poetry chapbook/women/Women'sDay/feminism/Mother's Day
ISBN: 9781461159384
Publisher: The Compulsive Reader
Available on Amazon Kindle and Amazon (as paperback)
$6.95


From Gilda Evans' blog Girl Talk

I  am honored to have as a guest on my blog the very talented Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Her books have earned her multiple awards, including the Best Book Award from USA Book News, the Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts from the city of Glendale and Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment from the California State Legislature.  She imparts her wisdom in many formats – I am pleased to present one of her poems from her collection titled “Deeper in the Pond: A Celebration of Femininity.”

Enjoy the reflections and humor of my esteemed guest, Carolyn!

Breakthrough for a Sexagenarian
In my Tangee years, Seventeen
advised I apply makeup
with an upward motion, toil fingers from chin
to cheekbone. We likely didn’t know the word collagen.

Gravity
we had known since Newton. That it would work
its weighty purpose on me, well, no one bothered
to tell me . . .

I, about 30, surprised that an elder-friend
had not shampooed for a week. Another friend
elbows my ribs, gives me a look.
Later says (hushed at the secret), Didn’t you know
that old peoples’ scalps dry up. No, no one ever bothered to tell me . . .

That was scalps. This is jowls. Now on the origami
packet in my Estée Lauder box of rejuvenating cream,
the same directional arrows Seventeen espoused,
(much too late for the anti part of anti-aging cream)
fingers massaging up, up to keep time
in its place.

I’m told fingers are more sensitive than other body
parts, still doubt magic fingerlifts vanish crows’ feet, wonder, though, if they could—would—work on drying labial petals.
No one ever said that, but I’ve learned if I don’t figure
it out for myself, no one will ever
tell me.

In my acne days, lotions pooled in oily
patches I cottoned away.

In the Pond’s Cold Cream
decade when, to combat drying affects,
I left grease shiny—thick enough to slick
my pillow cases.

There a hint.

That and fallen leaves skittering across my lawn,
so dry they sing a song before they crumble into sand. Very nearly too late to do much with this new-found wisdom—this trifle: If there is something I need to know (but really don’t want to know), no one can tell me
one damn thing.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“Deeper in the Pond” is available on Amazon at http://budurl.com/DeeperPond 

Carolyn can be reached at -
The Frugal Book Promoter: http://budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo
/ Web site: http://www.HowToDoItFrugally.com
/ E-mail: CarolynHowardJ@AOL.com
/ Facebook: http://Facebook.com/carolynhowardjohnson
/ Twitter: http://Twitter.com/FrugalBookPromo
/ Pinterest: http://Pinterest.com/chowardjohnson

 

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Inexpensive Love Gift For Moms in Your Life?

By

Cherished PulseSubtitle: Unconventional Love Poetry
Authors: Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball
Genre: Poetry/Love
Author's Web site: www.howtodoitfrugally.com/poetry_books.htm
Available on Amazon as paperback or for Kindle www.budurl.com/CherishedPulse

Reviewed by Mark Logie (London), originally for Amazon

 

Magdalena Ball's poems in this collection display a considerable interest in, and enthusiasm for, nature, both on this planet and in space. This is appropriate for "unconventional love poetry" as love for someone else often makes them seem to be everything (ie, the universe); it is also not what we expect since, on the face of it, love has no connection with outer space or the natural world on earth. This particularly appeals to me.

The awe in which we hold the cosmos together with its beauty and loneliness also make it ideal for poems about love. For instance, "Galactic Collision", one of my favourites, is about the virtually catastrophic fusing of two people in love with each other. The comparison of a human heart to a black hole is amazing, bold and apt: after all, a black hole is so powerful that nothing -- not even light -- can escape it. And true, deep love, draws us in and won't let go. She then goes on to underline this by going to the other end of the scale: light ("black hole/ expanded into a cartwheel blaze"). Love it.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, on the other hand, explores the inner recesses of the human world: the heart, the mind and the home, neatly complementing and counterpointing Ball's macroscopic world-view (or should that be "universe-view"?). As they say, "Home is where the heart is".

Howard-Johnson's skill is in choosing original settings for poems that address different sentiments from the expected. It is also evident in her relaxed style, which cuts to the emotional crux of her works in a simple yet elegant way and embraces the real issues rather than the simplistic pseudo-sentiments of most commercial greetings cards. For example, the bittersweet "Dreaming Lilacs", primes the reader to expect a poem about intoxicating, fulfilled love through its vivid evocation of place and utilisation of all the reader's senses ("It's you who had me dreaming lilacs,/ breathing April's sweetest tears, tasting sugared lemon rinds,"), then reveals that it is really about expired or unrequited love ("... As if you/ were with me,/ as if you loved me."). Brilliant.

All in all, a superb collection: different yet not totally unfamiliar.

Roll on the next collection!

~Mark Logie is an award-winning poet & short-story writer;. He is the author
of "On the Road to Infinity" & "You Have No Power Over Me"

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

A Brand New eBook Women's Poetry Anthology

Title: Fire on Her Tongue Subtitle: An eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry Editors: Agodon, Kelli Russell, and Spaulding-Convy, Annette Editor’s Website Link: http://www.ofkells.blogspot.com/
Genre: Poetry
ISBN-13: 978-1-937860-24-0Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Her-Tongue-Contemporary-ebook/dp/B006R8Q9JK

Two Sylvias Press, 2012
E-book

Reviewed by Paul David Adkins

 

Fire on Her Tongue: An eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry, (, ISBN: 13: 978-1-937860-24-0, 491 kb, approximately 460 pp) is an eBook edited by Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy. The editors present the work of 73 poets, both well known and emerging artists. This first-of-its-kind collection, available on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Sony Reader, and twenty-eight other eBook retailers such as eBooks.com, IndieBound.org, Powell’s and many others, provides an exciting overview of some of the best American writing today.

    

Fire on Her Tongue should not be confused with earlier comprehensive anthologies such as Hayden Carruth’s The Voice That is Great Within Us, or a college textbook published by Norton, lugged to every introductory American literature course known to woman. Agodon and Spaulding-Convy present the poetry of contemporary women exclusively: there is no Robert Frost, W.C. Williams, Carl Sandburg, or Robert Creeley here. The collection is vivid and immediate, and the writers are all still living. This eBook captures the incredibly varied talents of the women included.

 

Anthologies are normally associated with canonical writing. With the usual exceptions of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Gwendolyn Brooks, general anthologies almost universally neglect the presence, much less importance, of women poets. The adage that one must be dead to be a famous author seems especially fitting for these types of collections, many of which stop at Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. It is as if American women suddenly ceased writing to eternally mourn the deaths of these twin icons. The fact that the press publishing this work is named Two Sylvias is doubly significant here. It marks the definitive passing of women’s poetry from the enigmatic, suicidal Plath to her matrilineal descendants, so to speak. Deference is paid to America’s colossal literary martyr, but it’s time to move on, the editors declare. 

 

And move on, they do! Though the poets are presented alphabetically, Kim Addonizio is a perfect opening writer for this groundbreaking collection. Members of the canon such as Alicia Ostriker and Patricia Smith stand alongside deserving lesser-known authors including Ivy Alvarez and Kate Lebo. Rachel Contreni Flynn and Annie Finch comfortably coexist. This is a collection for people who love poetry. And while academics will certainly find it an invaluable tool for mapping current literary trends women are exploring, the real worth is in its ability to share wonderful work with other readers, not dictate what is canonical or worthy of scholarly attention.

 

Some people might consider the heavy concentration of writers linked to Seattle as a weakness. Over 30 of the authors are indeed directly connected in some way to this city and surrounding area, as, too, are Agodon and Spaulding-Convy. The question might arise as to why Two Sylvias did not simply present the anthology exclusively as a showpiece of the incredibly vibrant Seattle poetry scene; there is certainly enough material to do so. Such criticism misses the point of the collection, however. The anthology has more of a conversational than authoritative feel. Essentially, here are two highly knowledgeable women from the Pacific Northwest respecting their audience with questions such as, “Hey, have you read THIS writer? She’s awesome! This one, too. Do you know her? She’s really fantastic!” 

 

Fire on Her Tongue is a celebration of women’s poetry, a party, not a granite monument. It’s not the work of two editors showing off how smart they are, but instead how excited they are about the current state of women’s poetry in America. Buy it! Read it! You’ll find their enthusiasm is catching.

 

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Feminist Poetry Perfect Christmas Gift for Women In Your Life

DEEPER INTO THE POND – A Celebration of Femininity

By Magdalena Ball and Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Genre: Poetry (Chapbook)
$6.95
There is still time to have a paperback delivered for Christmas at http://budurl.com/DeeperPond.
Available for Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/Deeper-into-Pond-Celebration-ebook/dp/B005G51I82/ for $2.99.
Chapbook cover by Jacquie Schmall

Reviewed by Jennifer Poulter

This is a rich tapestry of a celebration.

It opens with Carolyn’s verse and a ballad of marine exotica and moves to the name bearing poem “Narcissus Revisited” which mirrors the suffocation of ‘progress’ that gives  freedoms with one hand and takes with the other.  Here the deadly oil slick wall kills as readily as any of glass – progressive killing -

Those who feel 

new freedoms like I, some later-borns 
unaware that they are new, accept
the yellow-bright shimmer 
spread across the surface 
as if it were our doing 
or our due.

The next poem makes a nod to John Masefield’s “ Sea Fever” but taking it in role reversal  with ship at dock and the poet manning the great swooping cranes that  unload.

I want to go down to the sea at dawn 

with a lunch bucket and thermos, 
[and then]...  pull 
and push the big gear shifts to make a boom
tall as a building turn, swing down toward carloads 
of gravel, clamp chunks of whatever freighters 

I love the bittersweet of “Ariel” and its death-defying reach in to the unknowable.

You need 
the music to tell your story, 
to find it, to understand it
to know the truth,
to reach above the 
ocean's surface
where 
others 
live.

Death is horribly present in the all too revelatory “what I once would have called a little tiff”. Those of us who have lived long enough know too well of what she speaks…

            i learned 

to call a spat a spat, 
an inheritance something
more than money,
an argument, 
a fight-to-the-death.

Magdalena’s opening poem both celebrates and denounces the hippy freedom of a generation that chose to ‘love’ but not their children well.

ecretly leaning in for more
parenting I didn’t get
punishment I 
deserved
no rod spared
here
no spoiling.

“Time Out” speaks of the guilt trip that is motherhood if you are, as many creatives are, a perfectionist and time your merciless master .

I shoot a response
what now?
two bullets of frustration land in 
her timeless lap
as she slips off.

Magdalena has  written a powerfully poignant tribute to all those  frightened elderly flood victims, trapped in rising waters and psychologically unable to leave their lives behind –

You pretend 
three hundred netfriends
hold your virtual hand
take you places
that don’t involve
leaving 
home

he perpetual womb
shroud
you’ve pushed into. 

Magdalena’s  “Coming Back" ends the collection with an almost whispered reverie on love and loss in a no man’s land of guilt and recriminations –

No one dared point a finger.

We tried not to look at her but it was hard.
So we looked out of the corner of our eye when
we walked past, our heads thrown back fake
laughter all the while drawn towards the silence
of that pain the peripheral gravity that wouldn’t
let us settle into our evening of forgetting.

This collection offers the feminine take on life, love, and everything in between and does it with élan!

~Reviewer Jennifer Poulter is a member of JacketFlap , SCBWI Member, and a SCBWI representive to SWC and Stae Library of Queensland, QWC Member.

Learn more about this author of children’s literature at www.jenniferrpoulter.weebly.com. She blogs at http://jrpoulter.wordpress.com/ and
http://jrpoulter.blogspot.com.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :