Tilt-a-Whirl

“Another one goes away before i had even heard of it,” says Jessie.

Which gives me a perfect cue to point you all toward Tilt-a-Whirl, a new “poetry sporadical” for repeating forms from editor and publish Kate Bernadette Benedict.

Says Kate:

The Bronx, my home town, is famous—or infamous—for many things: its slum areas (which are greatly improved since Paul Newman fended off thugs in “Fort Apache” in 1981), its expressways, The Yankees, the Zoo—none of which epitomize my experience of the place. Growing up, I lived on a leafy street of modest homes with swing sets and barbecues in their backyards. Just three blocks from my house was a little amusement park called Funland and there I first experienced that iconic American ride called the Tilt-a-Whirl.

. . .

Surely some of the most thrilling types of poems are those written in repeating forms. Poems which rely on the repetition of words or lines have a rhythm not unlike that of a Tilt-a-Whirl ride; they have a slithery quality and keep coming around and coming around. When written well, there is a strangeness in the sameness. Each repetend provides a different slant and tingles anew. These poems possess a momentum of within-ness. Many such poems begin as they end; the reader has been taken for a ride, ended in the same place, and yet been changed by the experience. These poems take your breath away!

Welcome to Tilt-a-Whirl, an exhilarating compendium of poetry written in repeating forms.

Check out the first issue to see whereof she speaks. Not just good poems but a very attractive website, very readable, lots of nice graphics (which I like because I have a short attention span reading at the computer).

Guidelines here.

Cheatsheet of repeating forms here.

Possibly related posts:

Kate Bernadette Benedict

James Baker Hall Memorial Prize in Poetry

“When the flags start to flutter, common sense slides right into the trumpet”

A Retreat of One’s Own

Trout Lilies

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