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

Brilliant idea.
The chapbooks are stunningly presented.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Coincidentally, Tom, I've been discussing exactly the same subject with my publicist.
To celebrate the launch, he's arranged for me to abseil down the Empire State Building while reciting poems from my book.
I'll be naked, except for a strategically-inserted daffodil, and a silk hat.
Best regards,
David

Everyone concerned here really ought to be congratulated. I won't even try to pick out highlights, because I know that I can't do everyone justice, but there really is wonderful work here by Tim, Richard, David, Rhina, and Jerry.
Congratulations to everyone! My only question is: where can I get the phone number of David Anthony's publicist?

Tony

I'm finally making my way through all the books, and they are an impressive series. Tim, Rhina, David, Jerry and Richard: lovely work.

Richard, my favorite of yours is "Terminal Park": I love that "turntables rotated cars to go back" and the relatively gentle way you deal with the darkness.

Tim, aside from the gorgeous title of your collection, I most enjoy the sweet simplicity and sounds of "The Tiderace" and the beautiful restrained feeling of "Salsola Kali."

Jerry, not having seen many of yours previously, I'm lingering over them, and then will revisit Rhina's and David's again.

It's excellent reading! Thank you all.

Terese

It has been a pleasure to read the fine work by each author in the e-book series, and I’m looking forward with happy anticipation to seeing other collections as the series progresses.

Of the works published so far, I can’t pick any favorites, because all are memorable work, but I was immediately at home with Tim’s “Two Miles West”, with its images of a landscape that links us to a past perhaps more hospitable than our future. Richard’s “Original Disillusion” made me reconsider whether the remote past was so great after all, and David’s “Water Bearer” made me think of how the day is made better for the things we sometimes disdain, and how grateful we are when personal loss or injury occurs but we have the assurance of recovery in the hospitality of friends, as Rhina’s fine “The Small Hunt” reminds us.

I’m sure forthcoming collections will remind us again how pleasant it is to encounter poets and poems whose work is so well represented here in Eratosphere.

Jerry

Let me add my congratulations to Jerry Jenkins on his distinguished contribution to the series. I have asked John Beaton for a manuscript. And because all our little books to date are so grave, so elegiac, I have asked the Laughing Stream of Kilkenny, our own Jim Hayes, for a very funny little book. I also have permission from the awesome Suzanne Doyle to select a manuscript from her draft Collected Poems. Suzanne's books have been out of print for more than a decade, and I know that many of our members, particularly our young women, are intensely interested in her work. More invitations will be forthcoming. At The New Formalist, at least for now, Erato Rules.

Looking forward to the Doyle contribution, Tim. Need more chick poems ! And some Hayes humor will be a nice balance.

Have been enjoying these at my leisure, a fabulous idea, this. Nice work, folks, congrats to all of you !

And I think it should be noted that I'm biting
my tongue re: David A's daffodil.

wendy

I've edited the topic title, for Tony Lombardy is now Spherian #6 to contribute an ebook! Check it out, especially "In Memory of Stephen Spender, an ambitious and astonishing updating of Auden's famous elegy for Yeats: http://www.newformalist.com/ebooks/index.html

I just want to say that I've been reading and rereading the new additions to the "newformalist e-books," and can't believe my good fortune at being in such distinguished company. The variety of theme and subject, the quality of the writing, the ease with which these six remarkable guys handle everything from frontier lore to philosophical specu-lation to history and religious questioning to that trick-iest of all commodities, humor! I've never been in better company than on this electronic "shelf" with this blend of old friends and exciting new ones. My thanks to Leo, and to Tim for inviting me to submit work! And I'm looking forward to the poets soon to come aboard.

I have been remiss in not checking out The New Formalist sooner.

I am stunned by the quality of the site and the published works. I'm not quite sure what to say. It took me a long time to find the pearl of Eratosphere on the net. I've just seen another.

I'll try to confine myself to a poem a day, to make the candy last.

Jerry

I have just read Jim Hayes' outstanding addition to the collection of e-books, and would write more in praise of his poems but I'm laughing so hard that I can scarcely see the keyboard.

Jim, thanks for the gift of your poems. Humor, cheer and lightheartedness are sometimes in short supply. In your collection, we have an abundance of fun stuff - and fine poetry to boot.

Jerry

Let me add my encomia to Jerry's. Working with Jim, both at the Deep End and on the Classic Jokes, has been the greatest fun I've had at the Sphere. "Toasting Anti-gravity" is a riot and a welcome change from the usual gloomy fare in the e-book series. Warmest congratulations to the Hayes.

This is an extraordinary experience- being included in a grouping of poets whose level of artistry I had long admired but could only dream of reaching.

When the Classic Jokes project was first mooted and Tim's 'Karma' poem and Richard Wakefield's 'Bear Country' were posted, I thought they were both the best works I had ever read in the genre. I still think so, and now, how good I feel to be in a series alongside them and to bask in the company of such excellent practitioners as Jerry Jenkins, David Anthony, Rhina Espaillat and Tony Lombardy.

My sincere thanks To Tim Murphy, who has been friend and mentor to me and to Leo for his foresight and committment to this wonderful series.

Jim

It gives me great pleasure to say that I have just sent The New Formalist terrific manuscripts by OUR John Beaton and by Suzanne Doyle, a future guest Lariat. I'll post again when they are up and viewable.

Alan and Guest Lariat Dick Davis and I have been working with Suzanne Doyle on her Collected Poems. Suzanne allowed me to select 18 poems for the New Formalist's e-book. It's up now, and you can link to it at the aforementioned URL. Suffice it to say, we all think her one of the foremost poets writing in English, and we particularly urge the Sphere's talented women to study this tiny selection. Suzanne has been out of print for a decade, and it is a thrill to bring you this small preview of her Collected. Many of the poems you've already seen at www.poemtree.com, but many of these poems will be new to you.

I'm also pleased to report that Dick Davis has generously given me permission to assemble a similarly-sized chapbook from his seven distinguished volumes of verse. Erato Rules. yr lariat, Timothy

PS. I've revised the topic title to reflect the received and expected e-books. Here is Dick Davis' comment on Doyle:

"Suzanne Doyle's poems are operatic in the best sense, and to read them is like say hearing Renée Fleming sing one of Donizetti's more extreme heroines; such raw, convulsive emotion conveyed to us by such flawless control and technique. The grandest themes are here (eros, loss, regret, you name them . . .), and the artistry is all but impeccable. If there's a better poet writing now I haven't read her / his work."

Hate to follow my own post (Where ARE you people on Suzanne Doyle?) We're putting these things up so fast, I just finally got round to reading Jerry Jenkin's little book. Folks, it's really distinguished. Jerry was disentangling himself from the Sphere as I was getting involved, although I am delighted to see him becoming so active again. I urge everyone to read his chapbook with great care. It floored Rhina, and it has floored me.

I have done the impossible, selecting 20 pages from the enormous oeuvre of OUR Dick Davis. And I have persuaded OUR master of memory, Robert Mezey, to give us a little chapbook of his masterly sonnets. And OUR Clive Watkins has been asked for a book. That will bring us to twelve. And who knows where the next dozen will come from? Safe to say, many of them from OUR ranks. Erato Rules.

Tim,

I’m still reading Suzanne Doyle’s fine work and will comment later.

For now, I just wanted to acknowledge with gratitude your generous remarks on my collection. The collections posted so far are an inspiration for me, and maybe to all of us, to write as well as we can. It would be hard to find another collection with the scope and breadth of the poems posted so far. I consider myself very fortunate to be among such fine writers, and I thank you for your kind comments.

Can’t wait for the next set of poems. This is Christmas come early.

Jerry

Tim,

In any gathering of poetic works Suzanne Doyle’s would stand out. These E chapbooks are truly incredible and with Davis, Watkins, Beaton and now Mezey, at least, to come, the collection will be truly awesome. But even in such an august assemblage the Doyle will be an extraordinary and valuable text.

It is truly superb; as has been noted by others, all the emotions are therein, taut and controlled- a joy to read and re-read. It is indeed a humbling experience to be exposed to such mastery of language- ‘Wild Lightening’, the poem from which the chapbook title takes its name, is as beautiful a poem about her nephew as Yeat’s was for his daughter, and ‘Migraine’ is such a skilful telling piece as almost to allow the reader to experience the dread intensity of the affliction.

There are eighteen poems in all expressing love, fear, hope, pain and joy with a technical virtuosity rarely found in such a small collation.

My one fear and reservation is that someday people are bound to look in awe at this whole collection of chapbooks, and when they’ve finished immersing themselves in its undoubted mastery, wonder how the heck I got in. Well, let them- they’ll have a hard job getting me out.

Jim

This evening two new chapbooks will be up, OUR John Beaton's and Leo's own. Of all these, I am probably most tickled by Beaton's and Hayes', simply because they have worked so hard at the Sphere, become such invaluable members of the community, and grown so tall in the art.

In other e-book news, I've asked OUR Susan McLean to favor us with a chappie of her outrageously good Catullus translations, and she has graciously agreed.

John's wonderfully rumbustious chappie can be viewed here: http://www.newformalist.com/ebooks/beaton.html

I just visited the site and man, it's a beaut!!

Congrats to all involved!!

A beut, indeed. A constellation of stars to wish on.

Cheers,

------------------
Ralph

I've only had time so far for a browse through the recent additions, but they're outstanding work, all of them.
I'm delighted to see John B's Wolves poem again, and that it has given his book its title. It was the first of his poems I came across on the internet, and I realised at once that here was a major talent.
Regards,
David

David, I had the same experience a few weeks later when Alan said, "You've got to check out Caledonian Pines by this guy whose monicker is Porridgeface." I just offered the New Formalist the following comment on his e-book: "John Beaton writes as though the 20th Century never occurred. The newest influence I can detect is the Thomas Hardy of the long line. He has a fabulous vocabulary and an unerring ear for the meters. Indeed he's proving to be a latter-day heir to those fabled makars, Dunbar, Douglas and Henrysoun." John, thanks for the graceful acknowledgement of the Sphere in your Author's Note. Poets like you make it all worthwhile. Just received this comment on Hayes from Master Gwynn, "My God, the man's a genius!" I also urge members to read Leo's chapbook; it contains some terrific poems which were workshopped here under various guises.

I hadn't read this thread properly until tonight and am short of time. But I'll be back soon with observations on this fine series. For now, I'll just say a couple of things.

A big thank you to Tim for the invitation, blurb, and kind comments. Congratulations to all the authors. Thanks to Leo, Jerry, and the other editors of the New Formalist for a fine production. Thanks to you, David, for your comment above - in the spirit of the Deep End I've often given your postings tough critiques, but, at the same time, I've admired your work greatly. And thanks to all at Eratosphere for the help I've received here. I have to mention you, Alan and Carol, in particular, because the quality of your critiques and the standards with which you challenged me when I started here as "Porridgeface" were what changed a pastime into a serious pursuit.

For me this e-book is a significant step. I've worked at poetry because it's a compulsion and because I enjoy it. But I did so in private, behind the name "Porridgeface", because I didn't want to be publicly known as "a person who tries to write serious poetry". This e-book is a first admission that that's what I am.

And as for Mr. Hayes's,
to be sure, the man amazes.

John


[This message has been edited by John Beaton (edited October 18, 2002).]

Tony, Jim, Suzanne, John and Dick

I'll make my way over there later today to see the newest e-books, but meanwhile it's heartening to see all the local color blazing! Congratulations to each of you.

Terese

I wanted to say how much I enjoyed these e-books as well. Thanks again, kudos to the poets and to Tim for all their dedicated work!

Rhina, "Temple at Segesta" has the magical characteristic of being written "on water": the fluidity is silken. Plus now I really have to go there! It's one thing to be brought there by the poem, but another entirely to be inspired to jump on a plane by a poem. Well, one day it will happen. For some reason I found "Catania" amusing and it made me laugh. It's the earthy quality of the people there. "Sicilian Puppet Theater" is genius.

Tony, this stanza from "In Memory of Stephen Spender" is uncanny and fine, even moreso than the rest of the poem:

Desire that blooms in human loss,
Earth those blossoms fall across,
Water in which poets write
"In the morning simple light."

Also found "List" very witty; "Things to Listen For" a small revelation; and "The Aging of Europe" took my breath away, especially the quote you created.

Jim, seeing "Anti-Gravity" again is a joy, and "The Raggedy Bush" is a special favorite of mine because it reminds me not only of Druidic trees but of the same phenomena all over the Himalayas, part of a Tibetan ritual which I believe dates back to before the Buddhists, i.e. pre 8th Century! And "Anti-Gravity" reminds me of that story about my Dad where he and the bucket of paint fell off a high ladder and the bucket landed right-side-up! I like to think it may have inspired you to write that delicious poem! In my dreams!

John, "Women of the Ages" is a work of genius. What more can I say? Sounds like a Druidic riddle too.

Jerry, your humor in "Special K" is pure joy! But I think my very favorite is "The Station": musical, a brilliant poem.

Terese