“Are you a creative writer whose Muse has gone into a sputter? Wondering: "What should I write about today?" Or are you a teacher with a classroom or workshop filled with eager scribes who need fresh prompts? Wonder no more!
Prose Poem Published 🖊📓
Wonderful news! My prose poem, “Return to Beck,” was published at Cerasus Magazine, a fantastic international literary magazine out of the UK. (Props to my fellow Gen Xers and ’90s babies in the house. 😎✨🎸)
Check out the many fantastic artists in Issue #2, submission guidelines here, and read on for a small excerpt from parts of four stanzas in my piece:
“Return to Beck” excerpt:
I look down this very long set of rectangular tables pushed together and there is Beck, dressed like the ’90s, singing along to Beck. And I walk past him, also singing Beck, thinking: “Keep it cool. Pretend this is just a normal thing, Beck sitting here, singing his own song”…
Beck never made eye contact (cool customer); he just went about his business, giving off 100% Beckness. The Beckness was just real-life rolling off of him, down the tables, and people milling around but nobody saying this was any big thing, this was just the same old Beckitude, any day of the week. And I was trying to keep my stuff together. Sure, I could mill around, I could keep it cool…
I took down some fizzled balloons, some soggy streamers wound around my bare arms, outside the party, outside the door, but didn’t see the trash can, didn’t see anybody, so I turned back to Beck, walked back in. There he still was, being all 100% Beck, Beckalicious, Becktastic. He hadn’t moved….
I was trying to keep it together, “just keep it together,” and walking around him at the terribly long tables and him not making eye contact, and the ’90s were back but we had nowhere to take them. So Beck kept singing Beck, Beckifically, and the Beckness was all around, 100% authentic, the ’90s were oozing…
For the entire, much longer prose poem, check out Issue 2.
My Photo Published, "Moment Series--Wish and Shadow" 😎
Thrilled to say that my photo, “Moment Series—Wish and Shadow,” was published today in the art gallery of Songs of Eretz Poetry Review.
Check out a few reflections I made about my photo as well as the work of the amazing poets, such as my dear friend Charles A. Swanson, and artists featured in this Summer 2021 Love Issue.
Ekphrastic Magic Project 📸📓
Super excited to have a poem I wrote in a fantastic project, “Ekphrastic Magic," a photography and poem collaboration, this summer. It is part of an international photo festival in Barcelona, Spain!
Many thanks to the amazingly talented Amy Jasek at Film Shooters Collective for the artistic camaraderie, for her vision and hard work in putting this project together, and for the wonderful invitation to take part.
Learn more about Revela’t and their festival.
Photo Courtesy of Markus Winkler at Unsplash.com
Great News: Beyond Words Literary Magazine Second Printing
So pleased that this issue of the stellar international literary journal, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, from last June has now gone into a second printing! 😍📸
I have photography in the June 2020 issue as well as in their current May 2021 issue.
Get your copy/subscription today @beyondwordsmagazine . Also, consider submitting your words or art.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
❄Featured in Snowflakes in a Blizzard ❄
Pleased to share that my craft book, Photography for Writers, is featured this week in Snowflakes in a Blizzard, a wonderful book blog.
Learn more about the blog as well as check out their other great featured books here and here.
"Within Reach"--Ekphrastic Work Featured Today 📓🖊📸
I’m thrilled to announce that a poem I wrote, “Within Reach,” based on a fantastic photograph by talented film photographer Martí Blesa was published today as part of Film Shooters Collective’s NATIONAL POETRY MONTH, DAY 5.
***
Check out all of the posts each day during April at Film Shooters Collective!
***
Within Reach
by Melanie Faith
It is, indeed,
something
good to be
one and small
Photo courtesy of: film photographer Martí Blesa
of many who are
one and small.
It is, indeed,
filled
with gray
potential,
elemental
to advance
in ordinary sandals
against cement.
More and more
rectangles
await our future.
Stacked lenses
mirrored,
so when we wave—
that pleasant
pain bloomed
there in the back
of the neck—
we wave back
looking up.
🌟National Poetry Month Ekphrastic Project 📸🖊
Know what’s just around the corner?
National Poetry Month. (Making April everyone’s fav month for 25 years and counting.) 😊
Know what else? I’m thrilled to say that I’ve been asked to take part in Film Shooters Collective’s rad project that pairs film photographers’ work with poets’ verse each day in April. That’s right: I’ve penned a poem based on the amazing art of a fellow photographer. Stay tuned! 📸
Be sure to check Film Shooters Collective’s Insta and website each day for your daily dose of delicious inspiration.
***
Care for some sweet poetic inspiration in the meantime? Check out my book—filled with oodles of tips and prompts created with poets in mind:
Poetry Power
Now also available in the 3-book series for e-readers!
Signed copies available at: WritePath Productions, my Etsy store
My Poem, "Wobbly," Featured ☕📚
So pleased to announce that my latest poem, “Wobbly,” was featured tonight as part of Lee Ann Berardi Smith’s wonderful series on Facebook of poetry videos during the pandemic, with the hashtag: #poemdemic.
Check out Lee Ann’s amazing video reading (clickety links above), my poem text (below), as well as other excellent videos of Lee Ann sharing verse from many inspired poets.
“Wobbly”
the stack of books
beside the nightstand
beside the bed
got wobbly again
I wouldn’t know why—
I only added three new
hardcovers last week
to the tippy-top
so I sat on the floor
this morning
on the carpet
with the tea stain
my knees tucked in a way
that would let me know
when I stood up
that they loathed to be tucked
that way, and I sorted
and pulled two or three mid-stack
volumes of softcover poetry
to send to an out-of-state poet friend
and a thick historical novel
that had been so-so
but a swap with another friend
and the memoir
about the 1980s painter
to toss into the free
book box by the gift shop
the next time I go past
and the rest,
like elementary-school
friends, I set out
for indeterminate recess
I let them group together
still holding hands
beside the printer
I know, despite my efforts
at any minute,
they might sing that song,
might play that game,
that goes
we all fall down
Photo Courtesy of Alfred Kenneally on unsplash.com
