Wild Fridays #12: Roving the Web

Saying it with pictures

How many of us search the net for images to put with our poems? It makes a post more interesting, doesn’t it? I’m always amazed how our masters of romance, Robin and Sanaa, always manage to find the perfect image for every poem – albeit their styles, and hence the illustrations also, are very different.

Others (like me, when possible) use their own photos. The ones that spring most immediately to mind are those our Magical Mystery Teacher regales us with. I’m always blown away by their skill and beauty. (Me, I live in such a beautiful part of the world that I don’t need to do much more than point and click, and maybe the occasional bit of digital editing.)

But sometimes I don’t have anything suitable in my own photo library, and have to go hunting. Many of the supposedly free picture sites aren’t really all that free – there may well be a copyright fee. However, that’s usually small enough to afford easily. 

[A potential trap is that the fee may cover only a limited period of time. I once thought I was paying to use an image forever, only to find it slapped with a nasty sticker right across it after a month. The owner had not made it obvious – it was in VERY fine print – but apparently I was supposed to keep renewing the payment. No thanks! You think I’m made of money??? I found one of my own photos after all.]

All this preamble is leading to the welcome news that ‘Paris Musées, a collection of 14 museums in Paris, recently made high-res digital copies of 100,000 artworks freely available to the public on their collections website. Artists with works in the archive include Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, Cézanne, and thousands of others.’

What a treasure trove, eh? The one pictured here is Monet’s Sunset on the Seine at Lavacourt, Winter Effect, held at the Petit Palais.
 

(If any of you know great picture sites that you’d care to share with us all, please feel free to do so in the comments.)

Other people's poems to love
(and where to love them)

chocolate is a verb

I subscribe to One Sentence Poems, receiving one per day in my email inbox. Which led me to further explore the poetry of someone whose words I particularly liked: J. I. Kleinberg, whose website is endearingly entitled chocolate is a verb.

Oh, the treats I found there! 

I'm particularly enraptured by the cut-up found poems (reminiscent of our Magaly's). Look at this one (very topical) called the monastery: 

And then go and look at some more! You'll find lots of them by scrolling down the home page.

This is far from the only kind of writing you'll find. It's simply a lovely start in exploring the work. (I want to call it the play.)

I got in touch with J.I. Kleinberg for permission to reproduce her poem. She also allows me to quote her bio:

Twice nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards, J.I. Kleinberg is an artist, poet, and freelance writer. Her poems have been published in numerous print and online journals worldwide. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, USA, where she tears up magazines and posts frequently at chocolateisaverb.wordpress.com and thepoetrydepartment.wordpress.com and occasionally on Instagram @jikleinberg.

The art is well worth a look too. I personally was delighted by the many amazing crochet creations – but, again, that's far from her only form of expression.

Vandal Poem of the Day

Australian poet Amanda Joy recently posted on her facebook page this blog publication of this wonderful poem by (Australian poet) Robert Adamson. After I enjoyed it, I thought, 'What is this Vandal Poem of the Day?' (the name of the website). At the About page, I found out that: 

Vandal Poem of the Day (VPOD) is a public poetry project, which brings relevant contemporary poetry to the University of Idaho and the broader Idaho community. A new poem is published on this website every day during the academic year.

They also say:

VPOD encourages people waiting for buses, eating lunch, or otherwise going about their lives, to read a new poem each day on the VPOD website. Further, we hope the poems featured on this site will encourages public conversations about contemporary and enduring topics since the poems are quickly readable, but resonant enough for readers to re-read, think about, and comment on or share using the links at the bottom of each poem.

We operate with these famous lines in mind:

It is difficult

to get the news from poems

yet men die miserably every day

for lack

of what is found there.

-from “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”
by William Carlos Williams

Oh good, you don't have to be attending the University of Idaho in order to enjoy these poems. But can you get them, or at least a reminder, in your inbox each day? I couldn't see a way, but there is somewhere to direct questions. I didn't do that, however, because I found it was easy to follow the site with Bloglovin'. All the Vandal Poems that I've looked at so far, I find utterly fascinating and thrilling.


Publications by our community members

Aw, no-one (well, almost no-one) took up my kind offer to publicise them for you. Is that because they are already clearly visible at your blogs, with links to where to buy them?

I asked Rommy (whose book I already had) to start the ball rolling, and she obliged. Here is the link to her book of stories at Amazon, available in both paperback and Kindle. (And here's a picture of it to whet your appetite.)

I'll jump on the bandwagon and tell you about mine too – because there's a sale on at Smashwords right now, until 20th April, where you'll find something of mine, something of my late husband Andrew Wade's, and a collaboration between me and my poet friends Jennie Fraine and Helen Patrice – all here. 

To get the discount price, you have to scroll down and click on the book you want. (All these are ebooks only.) 

I also have an Amazon page you're very welcome to browse and buy from, but no discount happening there at present – though the chapbooks are very cheap. (If you would like to get the paperback of Secret Leopard, you'd do better to ask me, not Amazon, where it's currently unavailable. Or you could get it from Abe Books, at this link.)

So that's how it works, if you'd like to share information about your own books. Simple and straightforward! Just email me the details.

Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors.