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  #1  
Unread 09-10-2002, 01:23 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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The New Formalist, in which many of our members publish, has just begun a new series of chapbooks on the net. The first titles are Murphy and Wakefield, and they hope to have a chapbook by our beloved Mother Superior, Rhina, later this week. They are also publishing out-of-print classics, the first being Robinson's unspeakably great "Children Of The Night," 1897. The editor, Lamon Cull, who is actually Leo Yankevitch, has asked me to serve as his bird dog; and I shall be asking a number of our members and Lariats to submit manuscripts. Leo is doing a beautiful job of presenting our work. Streaming audio of each poet reading his or her work will eventually accompany the text. My audio should be compressed and available in a day or two.

In my case, five or six of the eight little poems were workshopped here. In Richard's case, I don't know the body count, but I know several of the best poems were workshopped hereabouts. This is Richard's first book publication, and I warmly congratulate him. Let me extend our thanks to the proprietor of The Deep End, and to all of you who helped us shape these poems.

The New Formalist's ebooks can be found at: http://www.newformalist.com/ebooks/index.html
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  #2  
Unread 09-10-2002, 01:35 PM
David Anthony David Anthony is offline
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Brilliant idea.
The chapbooks are stunningly presented.
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  #3  
Unread 09-11-2002, 12:16 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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I've now had the opportunity to read carefully Richard's little book. It's terrific, running the gamut from low humor to the highly elegiac. Technically it also runs the gamut from strict iambic to the loose, loping line he learned from Frost, who must be smiling down at his assiduous student. As is the case with my own, many of the poems in Richard's chapbook were worked on here; and we should all take pride in his accomplishment.
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  #4  
Unread 09-11-2002, 12:49 PM
Paul Lake Paul Lake is offline
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I've read Richard Wakefield's chapbook and agree with Tim. The poems range widely in subject matter, and vary from light verse to the serious. It's well worth a visit to the website.

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  #5  
Unread 09-14-2002, 01:44 AM
nyctom nyctom is offline
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Richard:

The three little piggies poem is cute and the title poem is Gorey-worthy (I would love to see how EG would have illustrated that), but the loaves and fishes poem moved me very much, lapsed Irish Catholic boy that I am. As did Deadweight, especially:

The math of love is hard, and the amount
one gives is rarely given back in full—
best put your trust in something tangible:
the things that count are things that you can count.


I am lazy when it comes to memorizing things, but I am going to memorize that.

It's lovely work. And kudos to the New Formalist for such a wonderful project.

Tom


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  #6  
Unread 09-14-2002, 10:43 AM
Richard Wakefield Richard Wakefield is offline
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Tom:
Thanks very much for what seems just about the highest compliment I could hope to get, that something I've written is truly memorable. You've also given me a bit of an insight, even if not deliberately: It suddenly looks to me as if "The True Miracle" and "Deadweight" make a nicely opposed pair. Very strange, to discover a resonance (or anti-resonance) where none was suspected.
Thanks again.
RPW
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  #7  
Unread 09-16-2002, 09:49 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Sam Gwynn has offered the following comment on Richard's chapbook, which will appear on the site:

"Nature is cruel," Robert Frost once said, and Richard Wakefield has taken the lesson to heart in stunning poems like "The Voice of the Logging Camp" and "The Levee." But unlike his often solitary Master, Wakefield reaches out to shake the calloused helping hands that compose a touchingly illiterate letter to a dead man's mother or add another log or bag of sand to fill the breach. "The True Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes" is his signature poem; it is only through pitching in for our fellow sufferers that we fully realize the nature of compassion and, in that, the fullness of our own humanity.

Rhina and David have submitted wonderful manuscripts which the editors hope to have up shortly. Bookmark this site, and keep an eye out for rapid development.
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  #8  
Unread 09-23-2002, 06:55 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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David Anthony's meticulously crafted chapbook is now in situ, and Rhina's elegant sonnet sequence will appear later today. I also urge everyone to read the nonegenarian Cornel Adam Lengyel. A profoundly philosophical poet who was a friend of Santayana, his book consists of blank verse sonnets of great power.
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  #9  
Unread 09-24-2002, 11:43 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Rhina's elegant sonnet sequence, Trinacria, is up at the New Formalist's e-book site: http://www.newformalist.com/ebooks/espaillat.html

From hers you can click into the site directory and see the works by Anthony, Wakefield, etc.
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  #10  
Unread 09-25-2002, 01:26 PM
nyctom nyctom is offline
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Rhina and David:

Lovely work from both of you. Really, The New Formalist should be heartily congratulated for such a wonderful idea finely presented.

I know I congratulated you over at the Gaz David, but what is this about a print edition? Look, leave the Brit modesty at the churchyard and cough up the details sir. I never send anything out to publish, but if I were, I would look into the cost of Times Square billboard space. And there's always informercials. If they can do it for hair removal systems and buttmasters, why can't they do it for poetry?

Tom
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