Poets Wear Prada | PWP Books

Sunday, March 3, 2013

A Poem for National Sleep Awareness Week March 3-10, 2013

NATION SLEEP FOUNDATION
Waking America to the Importance of Sleep

INSOMNIAC

by Austin Alexis

I am the screech in silence.

Also the quiet

that is too insistent.

During still night, my long hours

long not to be so long.

Like the prematurely buried

I can’t stay put — nor rise.

All options seem impossible

though they tease.

Stray thoughts chaos my mind.

Held hostage, my mind rebels against

the hush that would free it.

I am a vase that has fractured.

When all three thousand pieces

are found and reassembled

I’ll sleep.

This poetry selection is from Austin Alexis's book, For Lincoln & Other Poems (Poets Wear Prada 2010), and was first published online at RogueScholars.com. To find out more about National Sleep Awareness Week, please visit www.sleepfoundation.org.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

March 2: An Aeronaut's Birthday and a Poem

Henry Tracey Coxwell
March 2, 1819 - January 5, 1900

March 2, 2013 -- Today is the 194th anniversary of English Aeronaut Henrt Tracey Coxwell's birthday. Fascinated by ballooning from childhood, the son of a naval officer and a dentist by profession, Coxwell made his first ascent in 1844 at the age of 25. He became a profession aeronaut 4 years later, by 1861 made over 600 ascents, and eventually established his own balloon factory. In 1862 with Dr. James Glaisher, he attained the record height of about 39,000 ft. His partner, Glaisher, lost consciousness during the ascent, and Coxwell, unable to use frostbitten hands, opened the gas valve with his teeth, to allow their rapid but safe descent. [Source: Wikipedia]

Balloons and Mountains

by Erik La Prade

Mother, the view from your hospital

Window is dangerous — high and steep —

With no visible places to grab:

Neither to ascend nor descend.

Your fingers and toes are red-blue

Like the final stages of frostbite that

Climbers on Mt. Everest suffer from.

With the invention of the hot air balloon,

It became possible to ascend to great heights,

Rapidly, without physical exertion.

You have chemicals and machines to help

You survive under your white sheet tent:

Seven bags, suspended by wire rods,

Continuously emptying their contents

Into your body.

The meteorologists Coxwell and Glaisher

Ascended 29,000 feet in a balloon to

Obtain samples of the air for analysis.

Both were overcome. Coxwell, after

Temporarily losing the use of his limbs,

Was able to use his teeth to pull the cord

That released some hydrogen from the balloon

And brought them down safely.

The nurse checks your numbers

As the air is pumped into your lungs at

An even rate. She tells me these

Are the best blood gas results, so far.

This poetry selection is from La Prade's Movie Logic (Poets Wear Prada, 2013).

MOVIE LOGIC:Poems
by Erik La Prade
ISBN 978-0615761237
Soft Cover, Perfect Bound 36pp.
$12.00
Release Date: February 2013

"cinematic verse celebration of urbanity and human tenderness ... life freeze-framed into mise-en-scènes of hilarity and heartbreak"
-- ALAN KAUFMAN, author of Drunken Angel

Buy at Amazon.com: http://amzn.com/0615761232

& from CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/4146252/

Friday, March 1, 2013

March 1: Composer Frédéric Chopin's Birthday

Chopin at 25, by Maria Wodzińska, 1835

March 1, 2013 -- Frédéric François Chopin, Polish composer and virtuoso pianist, inventor of the instrumental ballade, widely considered one of the greatest Romantic composers, was born March 1, 1810. From 1837 to 1847 he carried on a love affair with the French writer Amantine Dupin, aka George Sand. For most of his life Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849 at age 39. [Source: Wikipedia]

CHOPIN AND SAND

for Frederic Chopin, 1810-1849

by Austin Alexis

A man coughing up blood

on a white keyboard.

A woman taking care of him.

A woman adding a man

to her case, her collection

and at last having something to do,

a person who becomes an activity.

He lives in her shawl.

He lives on her shelf.

She frowns, afraid he might chip

or crack in two or scar.

He lives in her nest.

She is all leaves.

She is plenty of twigs.

His fingers sing for her;

they chirp; they fly.

She is the maple his claws grip,

the branch he needs

in order to soar.

He desires her as she longs for him.

They are as far apart

as petals of a single rose.

This poetry selection is from Austin Alexis's book, For Lincoln & Other Poems (Poets Wear Prada 2010), and also appeared in Chopin with Cherries: A Tribute in Verse, edited by Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press, 2010).

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Feb. 21: Happy Birthday W. H. Auden!

W. H. Auden, 1839
[Credit: Carl Van Vechten]

Wystan Hugh Auden, 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973, who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, born in England, later an American citizen, regarded by many critics as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. -- Wikipedia

To celebrate Auden's birthday, we're sharing a poem by Erik La Prada, "Auden Lived Upstairs" from La Prade's new book, Movie Logic, release by Poets Wear Prada, on February 7, 2013.

Auden Lived Upstairs

by Erik La Prade

I’m at Passport Restaurant,
Sitting at an outdoor table while
Eating a plate of couscous
And drinking an imported beer.
I’m facing 77 Saint Mark’s
Place. A tourist walks up
The stoop to photograph Auden’s
Memorial plaque, but it has been removed.
The only thing for him to look at is
A white outline that stains the red bricks;
He photographs the wall as his wife stands
On the bottom step shouting for him to come down,
Afraid he’ll be arrested,
When an anonymous voice from the hallway
Calls out, “Licitum est.”

Auden lived at 77 St. Marks Place from 1953 to 1972. The site of his tenement apartment is now an Italian restaurant, La Palapa.

Auden in his St. Marks Place digs. Hannah Arendt reportedly described his living quarters this way: “His slum apartment was so cold that the toilet no longer functioned and he had to use the toilet in the liquor store at the corner.”

MOVIE LOGIC:Poems
by Erik La Prade
ISBN 978-0615761237
Soft Cover, Perfect Bound 36pp.
$12.00
Release Date: February 2013

"cinematic verse celebration of urbanity and human tenderness ...

life freeze-framed into mise-en-scènes of hilarity and heartbreak"
-- ALAN KAUFMAN, author of Drunken Angel

Buy at Amazon.com: http://amzn.com/0615761232

& from CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/4146252/

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day! "Edith Piaf" by Joel Allegretti

Nocturne for Edith Piaf

by Joel Allegretti

The accordionist, the gigolo,
the pugilist surely knew:

It all came down to the lights —

The footlights that fawned
over your delicious agony.

The lust lights of Place Pigalle.
The chaste lights of Sacré-Coeur.

Mais non

It came down to the heart.
How it fractures like a thrown vase,

Like a lover’s airplane
for which the sky has no further use.

How, in breaking, it is more of a heart —
more than a heart.

Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien

We smoked a Gauloise in your honor.
We danced the Apache in your name.

How we envy you, Mlle Gassion.
You had no regrets. But we do.

This Valentine's Day selection is from Joel Allegretti's latest book, EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK: Poems/Not-Poems, released in 2012 by Poets Wear Prada. “Edit Piaf” first appeared in Compass Rose. Poets Wear Prada nominated this poem for 2013 Pushcart Prize.

EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK: Poems/Not-Poems
by Joel Allegretti
ISBN 978-0615600208
Soft Cover, Perfect Bound 52pp.
$12.00
Release Date: March 25, 2010
Now available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615600204
and from CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/3785527

Come, children, and take your seat for Europa/Nippon/New York, where Joel Allegretti spans the globe with ears to the ground and eyes toward the stars. “The next world is the next movie,” the poet writes. Phantoms, chanson, Godzilla, bread and wine, riddlers-to-be roll through the projector-light of the poet’s wildly associative forms, his unforced epiphanies and extravagant voice.

~ Daniel Nester, Author of How to Be Inappropriate