Last year, Arthur Seeley posted a couple of his wonderful dialect poems on
Pennine, a British poetry workshop. (They let us cousins in to play.) I was
entranced enough to suppose that his poem and another posted on the same
forum (Barbara's) could be the basis for a special issue of the Hood - a
"Bad Kid" issue.
I wasn't wrong.
As poets will, poets came through with bad boys and bad girls, good ones
too. We even have parents of a couple of different stripes.
We start with Arthur's, "A Christmas wi' noa Tree," also our Poem of the
Month (As the poem that started it all, could we have any other?), and move
to Barbara's musings on The Birth, "It is Christmas Eve."
The issue continues with Judy's "A Mother's Song;" from South Africa,
Jacqueline's "Morbid Daughter;" Corrine's "Trolls;" Kerry-Ann's "Impairment
by Default;" and David D's "Christmas Kiddies."
Before we finish the regular poems with Michael's "Workman in the Nursery;"
Kelly Ann's "Trantrums;" David A's Aunt Bessie's cakes; in Spanish, Silvia's
"La Cara de mi Madre;" and from our youngest poet, Emily's "Bookworm."
As usual, or at least since June 2001, we have Interboard Poetry Competition
winners. For personal reasons, the first place winner, Edward O'Brien, did
not want to publish his winning poem, but he honors us with another, "Tap
Dancing with Bottle Girl." The second and third places winners - Tara
Elliot's crabbing, and John Eivaz's break out attempt - are in this issue.
Finally, a new writer steps forward with this month's essay (sort of). Your
humble editor offers his first Hood essay, ruminations on translating and
reading classical Chinese Poetry.
For the first time, Hood poetry has nominated works for the Pushcart prize.
They are, in the order published, La Muetre de un Padre, Silvia Brandon,
February; Moon Lies, Caballo Oscuro, April POTM; Beyond Babi Yar, Ryfkah,
June; After the Love Song is Over, June POTM; Two Women at the River, TE
Ballard, July. (Silvia and Teresa are multiple nominees for 2002.)
The Poem of the Year, an extremely difficult selection to make, is Caballo's
Moon Lies. It will be our poetry entry into the P & E Best of the Web
competition. Voting for P & E will be in January.
I hope you enjoy this issue as much as I have preparing it. Regardless, send
the poets a note and let them know what you like or what you don't.
Thanks much.
Gary
Nov Sharon Svendsen at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html
Writer's Hood at http://www.writershood.com/
Poets for Peace. ˇPoemas sí, balas no!
|
