Sherry Chandler » 2005 » April » 19
It occurs to me that, since posts fall off the bottom of the page here at a fairly rapid rate and searching the archives is a drag, it might be a good idea to do a sort of index of poets Kentucky featured so far this month. I have eleven days left and I’m pretty sure I’m going to run out of days before I run out of poets. But then there’s always next year…
James Baker Hall
Brenda White
Joanie DiMartino
Alan MacKellar
Jean Tucker
Frank Steele
Mary “Ernie” O’Dell
Jesse Stuart
Mark Brown
Elaine Fowler Palencia
Jim Wayne Miller
Georgia Wallace
Sena Jeter Naslund
Joe Survant
Davis McCombs
Wendell Berry
Margaret Ricketts
Tom C. Hunley
This post was written by sherry
I am way out of date in my information about Tom. He’s sent me an e-mail to bring me up to speed:
I have another full-length collection with Wind. It’s called The Tongue. Also, I won Pecan Grove Press’s chapbook contest, and the winning book, My Life as a Minor Character, is just about to come out. (It’s been printed, I have some copies, but they haven’t mentioned it on their website or made it available at Amazon yet).
One perk of doing this blog – I learn a lot.
This post was written by sherry
Tom Hunley teaches writing at Western and publishes Steel Toe Books . If I understand it right, Steel Toe publishes one poetry collection a year. This year’s book by Jennifer Gresham has been delayed (Tom will let me know when it’s available, I hope), but last year’s excellent Einstein Considers a Sand Dune by Stephen Doyle is worth your attention.
Tom’s own collection, Still, There’s a Glimmer , is available from WordTech Editions of Cincinnati.
Although I first met Tom last year at the Kentucky Writers Conference, I first encountered one of his poems at Gumball Poetry for spring 2000, here. This issue was called Heavy Metal , an odd place to find this graceful dancing poem. Here’s what I said in my comments then: “The language flows nicely off the tongue and it is original language. …Each issue of Gumball Poetry has one poem that delights me. This one is it for Spring 2000. It is exactly the kind of poem I’d like to find in a Gumball capsule.” Here is that poem:
First you have to make the oranges.
To do that you must become
an orange tree, which means moving
to Florida or Southern California.
If you go to San Diego, the beach
will beckon you, with its bikinis
and its waves, and you will feel the temptation
to take up surfing, which would get in the way
of becoming an orange tree. Stay focused
on your goals. Visualize all things orange:
carrots bursting from the ground,
a field of poppies blossoming all
at once, like some unplanned party,
a haunted house peopled by jack-o-lanterns.
Eat only the orange M&Ms
in each packet. Make friends only
with redheads. Concentrate entirely
on orange juice, which is not the same
as buying orange juice made from concentrate.
Stop looking for the easy way.
This post was written by sherry
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