Interview on Gypsy Poet Radio

So excited to be interviewed tonight by Sophia E. DiGonis​ for Gypsy Poet Radio!! I'll be reading some poems too. It's at 10 PM CST live, and on archive thereafter. 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gypsypoet/2015/08/01/american-poet-melissa-studdard

Respect

More than a day late but less than a dollar short. Happy to see my poem "Respect" as Poem-a-Day at the Academy of American Poets:


http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/respect

Indiewire Review of Dan Sickles’ Film Adaptation of “I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast”

Amazing, amazing, glorious beauty. Via Indiewire, here is Dan Sickles' lush, primeval, sensuous film interpretation of my short poem "I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast," shot on location in Puerto Rico. And huge thanks to the good folks at Motionpoems & VIDA: Women in Literary Arts for making this happen!

http://www.indiewire.com/article/watch-poetry-comes-to-life-in-exclusive-i-ate-the-cosmos-for-breakfast-short-film-20150513

I am so excited and honored to announce that my poetry collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, has been released. Yay. Yippee. Hooray. Hot Diggity Dog. POET OVER THE MOON!

Tiferet Talk with Molly Fisk

I'm so excited! This Tuesday I get to talk with Molly Fisk AND Donna Baier Stein. We'll be talking about Molly's essay collection, Blow-Drying a Chicken, as well as her poetry and other work. Here's a great blurb from John Updike: "Molly's voice is crisp and decided yet relaxed and just close enough somehow...and the pieces all are impeccably shaped and written. Fearless, clear-eyed work."

And I can attest that Blow-Drying a Chicken is delightful, and Molly's poetry is brave, skillful and beautiful.

Donna Baier Stein will be joining me as the new co-host of Tiferet Talk!

Details Here: http://tiferetjournal.com/42114-molly-fisk-3/

I'm pleased to announce that The Tiferet Talk Interviews book was selected as a finalist for Foreward Review's 2013 Book of the Year Award/IndieFab Awards.

Many thanks to Gloria Lee for picking up the title poem from my forthcoming collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, from Your Daily Poem and sharing it at the wonderful Nonduality Highlights blog. I'm thrilled to be in such great company!

http://nonduality.org/2014/04/04/5201-i-ate-the-cosmos-for-breakfast/

Caroline Leavitt and Tomorrow

Is This Tomorrow? I can't wait! Tomorrow's the day I get to interview the fabulous Caroline Leavitt about her newest novel, "Is This Tomorrow" and other things literary and soulful. She promises to spill her soul and her secrets. Generous woman! Join us from 7-7:30 EST.

http://tiferetjournal.com/22414-caroline-leavitt-2/

*Note* In case you can't make it live, all Tiferet Talks are archived permanently at iTunes, blogtalk, and the Tiferet website.

Six Weeks to Yehidah Wins 2013 International Book Award for Children's Fiction

I'm thrilled to announce that Six Weeks to Yehidah won the 2013 International Book Award for the Children's Fiction category. This is the 5th seal for this book. I'm humbled, honored, and feeling the need to put my nose back to the grindstone for the next book. Thanks to all you wonderful people who have been so supportive of me, especially my publishers, Phil and Deb at All Things That Matter Press!

In other author news, The Tiferet Talk Interviews is on blog tour and is receiving wonderful reviews. My two favorites so far are from Christine Bissonnette at The Positivity Project and Janet Boyer at Fizz of Ideas. Huge thanks to both of them for the extensive time and care they obviously put into the reviews.

Book Release and Audio Release

I have a few exciting author updates this week. First, The Tiferet Talk Interviews, a collection from my first year with Tiferet Talk, has been released by Tiferet Press. The Tiferet Talk Interviews contains thought-provoking and inspiring interviews with literary and spiritual luminaries, such as former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, Guggenhiem President Edward Hirsch, author and medical pioneer Dr. Bernie Siegel, and creativity guru Julia Cameron. These wonderful authors share insights about writing, craft, spirituality, and more. You can watch the Tiferet Facebook Page for news of upcoming online release parties and other related events. 

As well, I have recently learned that my wonderful publisher for the Yehidah books, All Things That Matter Press, has contracted with a producer to release an audio version of Six Weeks to Yehidah. The audio book is due for release mid-summer. As new developments arise, I'll continue to post more news.

Have a great holiday weekend, everyone! 

The Mnemosyne Monthly: Poem Forty-Four (Evening Chant) and TIferet Talk with Natalie Goldberg

Photo by Kevin Moul

Tomorrow I will have the great fortune of speaking with author, poet, teacher, and painter, Natalie Goldberg about her forthcoming book, The True Secret of Writing for Tiferet Talk. Goldberg is the author of the seminal writing books Writing Down the Bones, Wild Mind, Thunder & Lightning, and Old Friend from Far Away, which, together with her life-changing workshops, have rent open the landscape of creativity and inspired a revolution in the practice of writing in this country. Goldberg’s own gorgeous creative works include the novel Banana Rose; the memoirs Long Quiet Highway and The Great Failure; and the painting and poetry books Living Color, Top of My Lungs, and Chicken & In Love. 

Goldberg’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and her extraordinary teaching methods have drawn students from across the globe. The True Secret of Writing, due for release 3/19/13, is the capstone to four decades of Goldberg’s teachings and reveals newly-developed methods not found in Goldberg’s previous books.

Of The True Secret of Writing, Noah Levine states, “Natalie Goldberg has done the unthinkable, she has shared the secret teaching. The buddhas of time immemorial are rejoicing and the literary bodhisattvas are smiling in silent approval. Read this book, then write a revolutionary manifesto!” 

In celebration of this interview, I'd like to do something a little different with Mnemosyne this month and memorize a chant instead of a poem. Mnemosyne started because I was so in love with certain poems that I wanted to bring them into my breath and being. I wanted to feel them in the beats of my heart. I feel the same way about this chant, "Evening chant," which is a traditional opening for mediation sessions and which has many variations. I like Goldberg's version the best of any I've heard, because it is more immediate and visceral than the others.  

Enjoy!                                            

I beg to urge you everyone:

Life and death are a Great Matter
Awaken, awaken, awaken
Time passes quickly
Do not waste this precious life

(Natalie Goldberg's version of the Evening Chant, written on the wooden han)

Tiferet Talk with Julie Maloney

This upcoming Monday, 2/25/13 at 7 PM EST, 6 PM Central, I'll have the pleasure of interviewing writer and writing teacher, Julie Maloney for Tiferet Talk. Maloney’s first poetry collection, Private Landscape, was published in 2007, and in 2003 she founded Women Reading Aloud, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting women writers through special events and workshops. Maloney is a trained workshop leader in the Amherst Writers and Artists Method, an organization whose philosophy is that “every person is a writer, and every writer deserves a safe environment in which to experiment, learn, and develop craft.” Maloney’s teachings focus on what she calls the 3-in-1 principle, which asserts the equal value of the writer, the reader, and the listener. “Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give to each other,” Maloney says.

Of Maloney’s first collection, Poet and Barnard University Lecturer Charlotte Mandel states, “Julie Maloney's poems in her collection - Private Landscape - move with the exquisite grace of her abilities as a dancer and choreographer. Dream narratives sing in delicate imagery. Pain of cancer is here, honestly revealed and transcended; love is here, in its greatest giving. There is not a trace of easy sentimentality. This is a collection to remember, at once personal and universal.”

As well, Maloney, has been kind enough to share one of her new poems with us below. Enjoy!

PEE

Darkness seeps over the walls,

slides across my mouth and

silences my wail.  Inside the palm

of my hand lays a dead emergency button.

Broken and unplugged, the button drags

me down inside a pool of piss.

Squeeze tight.  Squeeze tight.

Where do I put my pee?

No one to hear me, no where

to drain the neglected vessel.

I fantasize letting it all run down

my legs onto the clean sheets.

Relief sends a shiver up my body. 

“Yes, do it,” a voice says.  “Let it go.”

I stare down the pain of being full.

Focus on the steady contraction

of a bladder bulging into ferocity.

I call on my resolve and wait 

through the night without a clock

to tell me how long I have lived.

The Mnemosyne Monthly: Poem Forty-Three (Shikibu)

Izumi Shikibu

by

Komatsuken

This month's Mnemosyne poem, by Izumi Shikibu, comes from The Ink Dark Moon and is translated by Jane Hirshfield, who I will interview this upcoming summer for Tiferet Talk. If you're not familiar with her work, Izumi Shikibu is a mid Heian period Japanese poet and a member of the Thirty-six Medieval Poetry Immortals--a group of Japanese poets chosen by Fujiwara no Kintō as models of Japanese poetic ability. Because of her numerous affairs and marriages and the passionate nature of her writings, Izumi Shikibu became known as The Floating Lady. Enjoy ...

                                                   In this world

                                                   love has no color

                                                   yet how deeply my body 

                                                   is stained by yours.

                                                   --by Izumi Shikibu

Montgomery County Book Festival and Inteview

I'm thrilled to be hosting the Tweens Read Too Panel at the Montgomery County Book Festival. Here's an interview with me at the festival blog site: Melissa Studdard's Interview. For the panel, I'll be interviewing the authors listed below, and all of us will be signing books and book plates between sessions. Hope to see some of you there!

Kimberley Griffiths Little is the critically acclaimed author of the Southwest Book Award, Winner of the Whitney Award for Best Youth Novel of 2010, Bank Street College Best Books of 2011, Crystal Kit Finalist, and New Mexico Book Award Finalist. Her books have sold several hundred thousand copies in the Scholastic Book Fairs and have been chosen for many state reading lists. She lives on a dirt road in a small town by the Rio Grande with her husband, a robotics engineer, and their three sons. Kimberley is a favorite speaker at schools around the country, presenting "The Creative Diary," a highly successful writing workshop and has also been a keynote speaker at various conferences. She is a co-founder of SPELLBINDERS, a national newsletter for Educators and Librarians to create life-long readers. Learn more about her at her website.

Nikki Loftin lives with her Scottish photographer husband just outside Austin, Texas, surrounded by dogs, chickens, and small, loud boys. Her debut middle-grade novel, The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, is available now! You can visit her online at www.nikkiloftin.com or at twitter: @nikkiloftin or Facebook at Splendid Academy. The website for the book is www.SplendidAcademy.com

Bethany Hegedus is a well-published author and owner of The Writing Barn, a writing retreat and workshop space in Austin, Texas. Her award-winning books include Truth with a Capital T (Delacorte/Random House) and Between Us Baxters (WestSide Books). Forthcoming from Atheneum/Simon & Schuster is the picture book Grandfather Gandhi, co-authored with Arun Gandhi, grandson of the Mahatma. Bethany has served as the Hunger Mountain Young Adult & Children’s Editor since the prestigious journal went online in 2009 and once worked at The Writers’ League of Texas as Office Manager. A graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children & Young Adults, Bethany teaches privately and speaks across the country. She lives in a private home, with her husband and their dog, Toby, on the same 7.5 acres that The Writing Barn shares. Learn more about her at her website.

Jo Whittemore is the author of the tween humor novels, Front Page Face-Off, Odd Girl In, and D is for Drama, as well as The Silverskin Legacy fantasy trilogy. She is a member of the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and is one of the founding members of The Texas Sweethearts & Scoundrels. Jo has also written for, and been featured in, newspapers and national magazines. When she isn't writing, Jo spends her time with family and friends in Austin, dreaming of the day she can afford a chocolate house with toffee furniture. Discover more about Jo Whittemore at her website.

2013 Tiferet Talk Schedule

Hip Hip Hooray! The first Tiferet Talk interview of 2013 is tonight at 7 PM, and I'm excited to also share the schedule for the year: 

                                    Judith Hanson Lasater 1/28, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Julie Maloney 2/25, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Natalie Goldberg 3/17 or 3/25/13, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Jim Hanson 4/29, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Molly Peacock 5/20, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Jane Hirshfield 6/17, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Doug Anderson 7/29, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Ann Hood 8/19, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Andrea Polard 9/30, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Alfred Corn 10/21, 1:-1:30 PM EST
                                    Helene Cardona and John FitzGerald 11/25, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Kanta Bosniak 12/16/13, 7 - 7:30 pm EST

For more information about the talks or to subscribe to the journal, please go to: http://tiferetjournal.com/

Judith Hanson Lasater on Making Peace with the Present Moment

Judith Hanson Lasater with B. K. S. Iyengar

On  Monday, 1/28/13, from 7-7:30 PM EST, 6-6:30 PM CST, for Tiferet Talk, I will have the honor of speaking with writer, yoga instructor, psychologist, and physical therapist Judith Hanson Lasater about how to live your yoga and other vital topics. Lasater, who has been teaching yoga since 1971 and is the president of the California Yoga Teachers' Association, is a founder of both the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco and Yoga Journal magazine. As well, Lasater is the author of many books, including What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication (with Ike Lasater, 2009), Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life (1999), A Year of Living Your Yoga (2006), and Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times (1995), all published by Rodmell Press. 

In praise of Lasater, Patricia Walden states, “Judith Lasater presents timeless wisdom with clarity and insight. She is a well-seasoned yogini, who writes from personal experience on how to use the events of daily life as yoga poses for the mind and heart.”

Erich Schiffmann states: "Yes! Living Your Yoga is what it's all about. Here is a clear and friendly book that will help anyone embody the wisdom of yoga by consciously bringing it into daily life. The exercises are fun. They can help you learn how to do yoga all the time—now and now and now—when you are in the yoga room and when you are not. Take this book to heart."

Below, you will find some words of wisdom that Judith was kind enough to share from her blog, as well as a link to the show. The link will become active once the show goes live on Monday.

Make Peace with the Present Moment

by Judith Hanson Lasater

Too often our mental process is to judge ourselves for what we are thinking or feeling. A thought arises and our inner dialogue says something like, “Oh, I shouldn’t be thinking that” or “How can I be thinking/feeling that when I am a yoga student, teacher or meditator?”

Then we react to those judgments with even more judgments for judging, and we are caught in a repeating pattern from hell.

A practice I have been enjoying for some months now is to “make peace with the present moment.” That means that when thoughts arise followed by thoughts of judgment I tell myself that the whole process is part of my practice: the original thoughts and the secondary or following thoughts as well. I do this by saying to myself, “how human of me to have a thought of X.” This helps so much when I look at the behavior of others as well.

When I say silently to myself, “How human of him to act/react with anger or fear or disappointment” then there is a space for compassion to arise in me. And I like how that feels. Then I am at peace with the present moment.

Copyright 2013 by Judith Hanson Lasater. Reprinted with permission.

http://judithlasater.com/writings/index.html

The Mnemosyne Monthly: Poem Forty-Two (Doolittle)

Orchard

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

As noted last week, The Mnemosyne Weekly has now become The Mnemosyne Monthly, and we're moving right along to the forty-second poem. What a joy it's been to carry these poems around through my days, pulling them deeper and deeper into my being until they reside among the internal resources I can call on for wisdom and beauty. With the new monthly format, I'm looking forward to even greater intimacy with the poems.

This week's poet, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) was recommended to me by my friend R Jeffreys of The Write Step. I've been somewhat familiar with H.D.'s work in anthologies, but this past weekend I sat down and read my first full H.D. collection, the salty, blossoming Sea Garden, from which I selected this beautiful poem, "Orchard." 

Enjoy!

Orchard

By H. D.

I saw the first pear
As it fell --
The honey-seeking, golden-banded,
The yellow swarm
Was not more fleet than I,
(Spare us from loveliness)
And I fell prostrate
Crying:
You have flayed us
With your blossoms,
Spare us the beauty
Of fruit-trees.

The honey-seeking
Paused not,
The air thundered their song,
And I alone was prostrate.

O rough-hewn
God of the orchard,
I bring you an offering --
Do you, alone unbeautiful,
Son of the god,
Spare us from loveliness:

These fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
Grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken figs
And quinces untouched,
I bring you as offering.

Happy Holidays

One of the Family

Frederick Cotman 

1880

This week, instead of memorizing a poem for the Mnemosyne Weekly, I'll be spending time with family. But I'd still like to share a poem with you. No matter what your faith or what you're celebrating, this poem, "Grace," highlights mealtime as a way of honoring both the past and the present, both those with whom we are sitting and those who are no longer here. Such a lovely, universal message--

The poet, Jake Adam York, just passed away on the 16th of this month. May he rest in peace.

Grace
By Jake Adam York

Because my grandmother made me
the breakfast her mother made her,
when I crack the eggs, pat the butter
on the toast, and remember the bacon
to cast iron, to fork, to plate, to tongue,
my great grandmother moves my hands
to whisk, to spatula, to biscuit ring,
and I move her hands too, making
her mess, so the syllable of batter
I’ll find tomorrow beneath the fridge
and the strew of salt and oil are all
memorials, like the pan-fried chicken
that whistles in the grease in the voice
of my best friend’s grandmother
like a midnight mockingbird,
and the smoke from the grill
is the smell of my father coming home
from the furnace and the tang
of vinegar and char is the smell
of Birmingham, the smell
of coming home, of history, redolent
as the salt of black-and-white film
when I unwrap the sandwich
from the wax-paper the wax-paper
crackling like the cold grass
along the Selma to Montgomery road,
like the foil that held
Medgar’s last meal, a square of tin
that is just the ghost of that barbecue
I can imagine to my tongue
when I stand at the pit with my brother
and think of all the hands and mouths
and breaths of air that sharpened
this flavor and handed it down to us,
I feel all those hands inside
my hands when it’s time to spread
the table linen or lift a coffin rail
and when the smoke billows from the pit
I think of my uncle, I think of my uncle
rising, not falling, when I raise
the buttermilk and the cornmeal to the light
before giving them to the skillet
and sometimes I say the recipe
to the air and sometimes I say his name
or her name or her name
and sometimes I just set the table
because meals are memorials
that teach us how to move,
history moves in us as we raise
our voices and then our glasses
to pour a little out for those
who poured out everything for us,
we pour ourselves for them,
so they can eat again.

For more information about the poem: tinyurl.com/cn59693

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Forty-One (Zagajewski)

I'd like to dedicate this week's Mnemosyne Weekly to the victims and survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and their families and friends. The poem, “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” written by one of my grad school professors, Adam Zagajewski, ran on the final page of The New Yorker's 9/11 issue. Though it was written a year and a half before the attacks, it became the most well-known poem cited in relation to the tragedy. Now that we are once again blindsided by the agonizing symptoms of a mutilated world, I think again of this poem.

According to The Daily Beast, "'Try to Praise the Mutilated World' recalls a trip Zagajewski took with his father through Ukrainian villages in Poland forcibly abandoned in the population transfers of the post-Yalta years." No stranger to tragedy himself, Zagajewski was just an infant when his family was deported from their home, thus beginning a state of exile that would become a motif in both his life and his poetry. Bless him for transforming his experience into art.

As I memorize this poem this week, I'll be thinking of the community of Newtown, Connecticut, and sending prayers for healing.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

By Adam Zagajewski


Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Forty (Dickinson)

This Thursday, 12/13/12, I'll join twenty other fabulous poets to read at the Annual Gathering of the Poets Emily Dickinson Birthday Bash. The reading, which is hosted by Dave Parsons and the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council, will take place at at 7 PM at The Corner Pub in Conroe, TX. We'll each read one poem of Emily's and one of our own. I've selected the lovely little poem, "How happy is the little Stone" for both the birthday reading and this week's Mnemosyne Weekly. My favorite thing about memorizing Emily Dickinson poems is having her unusual syntax, slant rhymes, and coupling of the concrete and abstract bouncing around in my head. I hope you enjoy this one too--

How happy is the little Stone

Emily Dickinson

How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn't care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears --
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity --