Have any of you heard of Bookie Books?
https://bookiebooksblog.blogspot.com
They approached me to promote my new poetry collection, Touch M’y Head Softly, which will be out in January from Finishing Line Press.
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eiieen-kennedy/
Have you had any experience with them promoting your book.?
Art always opts for the individual, the concrete; art is not platonic, according to Borges. So where does political poetry fit into this framework? If poetry is about the individual, how do we find community within? My new collection of poems, Touch My Head Softly, our from Finishing Line in January, is about the growing societal problem of Alzheimer’s and Dementia, but it’s my personal experience with my partner having it. Check it out at FinishingLinePress.com.
| Join Jacqueline Sheehan, Patricia Lee Lewis, and Ellen Meeropol for “Wine and Chocolate with the Founders” |
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on Facebook from 6:30-6:55 p.m. Here is the link to the Facebook Event: LINK Stay for Writers’ Night Out/In at 7. |
I’m grateful today for many things,
I’ve canoed and hiked in beautiful places all over the Northeast this fall. The nature sustains me. Writing sustains me. I have a new book, Touch My Head Softly, which will be out from Finishing Line Press in early 2021.
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/
My family, although, I haven’t seen them in some time, are all well.
I hope all of you have wonderful things to be thankful for, even if you don’t celebrate this American holiday.
I’ll continue blogging announcements on Tuesdays and my blogposts will post on Thursdays.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Set in the Santa Clara Valley during the turbulent sixties and seventies, REAL ESTATE, is the story of how a bucolic agricultural valley is transformed into the iconic Silicon Valley.
As acres of apricot orchards are converted into suburban subdivisions, families flock to the area. Air Force pilot Joe Jackson moves his family to Sunnyvale soon after the Hopkins build their dream house. Harriet Jackson, her father’s eyes and ears, finds herself living next door to Bobby Hopkins, aspiring circus performer and math whiz. They share a side-yard fence, but the worlds they live in differ radically. A shared love of the Beatles and the loss of the inspiring young President Kennedy bring them together in an unlikely friendship, but their family’s differences soon tear them apart. While Harriet struggles to fulfill her family obligations, Bobby builds a computer in his garage.
They meet again as adults, but by then everything has changed. In the electric valley, both Harriet and Bobby learn that family is not always destiny and houses are sometimes more than a home.
Order REAL ESTATE at: https://www.propertiuspress.com/our-bookstore/Real-Estate-by-Kathryn-Holzman-p252206509
“I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread,
is for everyone,
and that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous struggle
for life, love, little things,
landscape and bread.”
-Graffiti on a wall in the Mission District of San Francisco
I believe poetry is for everyone. Although many people who read serious print matter and quality fiction do not read poetry, I think that this is their loss. The poetry coming out today is accessible, relevant and enjoyable in concept and sound. Take look at Billy Collins, Natasha Trethaway or even Louise Glück, the 2020 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
My book of poetry, Touch My Head Softly, is accessible. It’s about my experiences with a partner who died of Alzheimer’s. Check it out: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/
Add me to your bookshelf on Goodreads:
MAVEN REACHES MARS: Home Poems and Space Probes in Four Fascicles looks
around at a world in crisis and asks, “Where am I?” and “How did I get here?” and by
the way, “Who am I?” The answers come wryly, ruefully, sometimes playfully, in
poems prompted by the day’s news, by fading family photos, by existential fears and
poignant twin grandchildren.
Johnson’s poetry reaches out in a conversational style and, like Robert Frost and
Emily Dickinson, she writes the reader into the poem. These were the poets her
grandmother and mother quoted so often in Kansas and Colorado, decades before
Jane moved to Amherst, where Frost and Dickinson are part of the local landscape.
But Johnson’s background is beyond fandom. Her early leadings coalesced in the
MFA writing program at Goddard College, where she learned from such mentors as
Stephen Dobyns, Thomas Lux, Louise Gluck, Robert Hass, and Donald Hall.
Jane McPhetres Johnson’s first published book is a life’s work—more than 90 poems
all in one place, painstakingly edited and carefully curated over a 50-year pursuit
that has largely been a solo flight. Now, with intricate drawings by Portuguese artist Maria Greene, Johnson’s compelling personal and political opus arrives.
Maven is available from Collective Copies/Levellers Press (www.levellerspress.com) in either Amherst or Florence, MA (curbside or mail order) and at Broadside Books (www.broadsidebooks.com) in Northampton, MA and Amherst Books (www.amherstbooks.com) in Amherst, MA
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” ― Aldous Huxley
For the artist, the world is shaped by perspective. It is that ability to view things from their own unique point of view, yet contextualize this point of view in factual reality. Can everything be defined in a limited world? Can the artist place his/her/their work in the larger framework?
As a writer, I try to contextualize my work in the larger world, but it changes so rapidly. I find I have just gotten my pen around one situation when another arises to contradict the first.
I have been doing phone banks these past few weeks to get out the vote for the presidential election. I try to listen to other people’s perspectives when I speak with them because if there is no dialogue, there is no bridge to unification and understanding between people. If I can’t listen to someone, I can’t convince them of my point of view. The country is so divided that I fear we will never come together again. There are so many signs in front of people’s homes, even in my own community, that advocate different philosophies. How will we all find a common voice after the election?
The dream state is sometimes a source of inspiration for writers, but this is the opposite of reality. But writes thrive on illusion, on an alternate view of what is.
As we pass through daily living, we pass through many―colored lenses that paint our writing with its own view. Yet how do we bring our view back to the world view, so everyone can relate?
My book, Touch My Head Softly, was recommended by Brilliant Light Publishing. It is my perspective on Alzheimer’s Disease. Take a look:
https://www.brilliantlightpublishing.com/eileen-p-kennedy_poet_massachusetts
Madlynn Haber lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her work appears in Letters to Fathers from Daughters, Anchor Magazine, Exit 13 Magazine and onwebsites including The Jewish Writing Project, Hevria, Right Hand Pointing, Mothers Always Write, Random Sample, Club Plum Literary Journal, Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, The Sunlight Press, Sparks of Calliope and Adelaide Literary Magazine. You can view her work at www.madlynnwrites.com
Contribute to her efforts to raise money for immigrants at the Center for New Americans at:
CNA Homepage
Big Bear Books has just opened in the Keystone Building in Easthampton, MA, 122 Pleasant Street #132. Check out the website:
http://www.bigbearboksandcafe.com
Watch the website for events listings.
Hours are:
Tuesday – Saturday 8:30-4:30, Sunday 9-3.
This beautiful new store features a coffee bar, where up to 10 people can be seated at a time. Come in and relax, grab a coffee, and read a good book.
Big Bear will also take your book orders at:
413-320-8946 or veronica@bigbearbooksandcafe.com
You can also arrange to donate your books here. Stop by and take a look.
Eileen P. Kennedy Author 