Poetry Transforms Lives

Poetry has the power to open minds and transform lives. According to a study published by the Mail Online , two thirds of participants found reading or listening to poetry helped them be able to relax and feel calm, and 7% weaned themselves off anti-depressants or tranquillisers using poetry, with the help of their GP. This won’t come as a surprise to poetry readers, who understand implicitly that words matter, and that seeing our world thoughtfully and deeply, is not only enlightening, but necessary. Words create images which build expectation, emotion, impressions, and ultimately action. So choosing the right word is important. Poetry goes into the heart of humanity and winkles out all those little shiny bits you’d missed, forgotten, lost.

You are cordially invited to a Book Signing and Reading at Angus & Robertson, Newcastle Mall, Shop 200-212 Hunter Street, Newcastle, Australia on Tuesday 27 July, 10:30 to 11:30am.

Magdalena Ball will autograph and read sensual, intriguing poems from her latest book Repulsion Thrust, which “explores the intersection between science and life, quantum theory and love, molecules and gamma rays and despair and betrayal.” (Sue Bond, M/C Reviews), and will be joined by Dr Gail Hennessy, who will be reading with her, incorporating poetry from her book Witnessing.

Event highlights will include performance, book signings, candid, open discussion, door prizes, and more. This is a great opportunity to chat, socialize, experience exquisite, life changing poetry, and build your writers network.

“I’m quite stunned by the beauty, eloquence and poetic virtuosity of Gail Hennessy’s Witnessing. Taken as a sequence the poems bear witness to an Australian woman’s life-story.” (Shirley Walker)


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-142035/Poetry-help-cut-depression-rates.html

Poets Digitise Towards Deeper Understanding

Award-winning poets Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball have never met.  In fact they live on different continents.  But that hasn't stopped them from collaborating on a series of poetry chapbooks designed to replace trite greeting cards with real sentiment.  With their 'celebration series', the two have developed a new concept for inexpensive holiday gifts.

Their chapbooks of poetry include Cherished Pulse (for anyone you love) with artwork from California artist Vicki Thomas, and She Wore Emerald Then (for mothers on your gift list) with photographs by May Lattanzio. A new booklet titled Imagining the future will be released over the next few weeks in time for Father's Day 2010, with further books for women everywhere, and there is a Christmas chapbook in the works.

The small books, a tradition in the poetry world since Elizabethan times, are priced to compete with greeting cards and provide real poems, designed, for the same price as a high end card, to go far beyond the cliché sentiments in most greeting cards.

Now both of these poets' collaborations, Cherished Pulse, and She Wore Emerald Then, have been released on the high profile Smashwords.com site, and can be read in over nine digital formats on any computer or portable reading device anywhere in the world.  Smashwords unique technology allows the work to be available into every format used by the millions of new e-book readers that are flooding the market. Even as the hardware and software change, the author's words will remain available to readers. This is quite a revolution for both authors, both of whom started their writing careers when the latest technology was a typewriter and carbon paper for copies.

Magdalena Ball runs the highly respected compulsivereader.com review site.  She is the author of the poetry book Repulsion Thrust, which was published in December 2009 to unanimous 5-star reviews.  Her novel Sleep Before Evening, published in 2007, was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist. 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's poetry appears frequently in review journals. She is listed in Poets & Writers and her chapbook of poetry, Tracings (www.budurl.com/CarolynsTracings), was given the Award of Excellence by the Military Writers Society of America. She is also an award-winning novelist and short story writer and instructor for UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

For more information on any of the chapbooks in this poetry series, contact either of the authors or visit media rooms at www.howtodoitfrugally.com or  www.magdalenaball.com.

Guest Blog: Perfecting Poetry: 12 Tips for the Beginner

Today's guest blog is by my writing partner Carolyn Howard-Johnson.  Although we've never physically met (we live on different continents!), that hasn't stopped us from collaborating on a series of poetry chapbooks designed to replace trite greeting cards with real, deep sentiment.  We think it's a new concept for inexpensive holiday gifts. The chapbooks include Cherished Pulse, a book of love poetry, with beautiful artwork from Vicki Thomas, and She Wore Emerald Then, for mothers on your gift list, with photographs by May Lattanzio.  A new book titled Imagining the Future will be released shortly, just in time for Father's Day 2010, with further books in the works include a Christmas collection and one with a women's lib slant.   But enough from me, here's Carolyn, the poetry maven, to tell you how to perfect your own poetry.

***

I encourage my writing students to use some elements of poetry in their other writing and some elements of fiction and nonfiction in their poetry. The genres really aren't isolated. But mostly, I encourage them to try their hand at poetry, real poetry, the kind that comes from the heart. The first step is to make it less scary so they'll feel comfortable with it and these are my Twelve Tips for the Beginner.

1. Try free verse (no intentional rhyming).
2. Write dense, poetic prose, then divide it into lines—or not. If you don't, you'll have a prose poem.
3. Break lines after important words. If you scan down the last words in each line of a poem, you should have a good sense of what the poem is about.
4. Eliminate as many adjectives and adverbs as you can and strengthen your verbs. You poem will be more powerful.
5. Eliminate as many of the clutter words as you can. Articles, conjunctions, even some prepositions.
6. Try making different pictures on the page with the words. Your poem can be in triplets, couplets, indented unusually, even be set up in shapes. Try to make the design fit with the subject of your poem.
7. Avoid long, Latinate words.
8. Use images rather than explaining.
9. Know metaphors, similes, assonance and alliteration. Play with them. Don't strain.
10. If you want to rhyme, try to use uncommon ones. No moons and Junes.
11. Read and write poetry even if you don't think you want to. You may be surprised at how much you like it. It’s changed a lot since your high school English Lit days.
12. Buy a poetry book or chapbook at least once a year.  That gesture supports your learning curve and the arts and you may get inspired.  

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Carolyn took up poetry late in life. After she wrote her award-winning novel This Is the Place, she realized she enjoyed metaphor, simile and symbol more than other aspects of fiction. She also found it easier to squeeze short periods of time for poetry into her writing schedule than large chunks of novel-writing time.

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, the Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award and her community's Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly's list of 14 women of "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen."

The author loves to travel and has studied at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She admits to carrying a pen and journal with her wherever she goes.  Her website is: http://carolynhoward-johnson.com and www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

Spirals

Following is a link to a reading (with music) of my poem Spirals, from Repulsion Thrust:

http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/images/spirals.mp3

Spirals


NGC4736
take that
a dirty incoherence of numbers and letters
your identity
crushed into a spiral galaxy
empty of dark matter
an absence of darkness
your exotic invisible substance
denied

some would call that ‘light’
shake unwashed hair
and swear
no such thing exists

you hold tight to darkness
the hardening addiction
that clinks
against the side of your glass
each night as your hand drops
in spiralling slumber

rotation slows as you move
further out
from the crowded inner reaches
of your galactic core
your motions sedated
gravity weakening

it might be the big bang’s
afterglow
that leaves you gasping for air
a stone’s throw
from one galaxy full of dark matter
to another full of light
pulsing
as you drift into another
dark sleep

Repulsion Thrust Trailer Video

Poet Travels Sharp Edge of Science

REPULSION THRUST is on sale at Amazon now (just in time for Black Friday)! The book is less than $10 and makes a wonderful gift for poetry lovers, scientists, futurists, literary folk, and anyone who enjoys a bit of uniquely framed introspection. The beautiful cover is by NSW artist Scott Jackson, and I'd love to send you an autographed bookplate, customised to suit your recipient. Drop by:
Amazon to pick up your copy now. Thank you for your wonderful support!

Following is the official press release:

Award-winning poet Magdalena Ball has released a new book of poetry that moves across a terrain not often the fodder of poetry. Following up on her chapbook Quark Soup, Ball combines her pursuit for scientific meaning with the steely-eyed observations of a poet, seeking answers to the human condition through Quantum Physics, and measuring human aging against technological singularity, or the loss of love against ecological destruction. It’s an extraordinary and original collection that author, inventor and futurist visionary Ray Kurzweil calls “wonderful … singularity-aware art with a poetic sensibility”.

Magdalena Ball was born in New York City and holds a BA from City College, an MA from Charles Sturt University, and has written a Masters thesis on James Joyce and Virginia Woolf at Oxford University. She now lives in Australia where she works in research and development for Orica, a large multinational corporation, a job that often provides inspiration for her work. She also runs the highly respected compulsivereader.com review site. Her novel Sleep Before Evening, published in 2007, was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist.


EARLY PRE-RELEASE REVIEWS:
"In poetry the thin line that divides the hermetic from the obvious is dangerous ground and not all poets can tread there without destruction. Magdalena is comfortable here and not only treads but dances." Bob Williams

"Precise and exciting. Words sizzle on the page. Images steeped in the physical world work beautifully to illuminate complex emotions and states of mind. Magdalena Ball is an important poet." Joan Schweighardt, author of Gudrun's Tapestry, Virtual Silence and other novels.

"This is a book of poetry for anyone who has been in love and knows what it is to live in the twenty-first century, but who is more than a little scared of what might happen if all the lights went out. Take these poems seriously. They may just have some of the answers you require." Catherine Edmunds, author wormwood, earth and honey

"Magdalena Ball creates a stunning impression with her first full-length collection, Repulsion Thrust. Her poems speak of experience, wisdom, and curiosity and welcome the reader to embrace a voyeuristic ride. Beautiful, haunting, and honest, Repulsion Thrust is a powerful collection with a refreshing voice and an open heart." Lori A. May, author of Stains

"Poems of clarity, epiphany and stark existential awareness. A bracing, imaginative collection of poetry that rewards repeated reading." Sue Bond, The Wordy Gecko

Repulsion Thrust by Magdalena Ball
ISBN: 978-1-904492-96-2
Bewrite Books
Publication Date: 2 December, 2009 *yeah, I know, but I bought a copy for my mother, so I know you can get it now!
Paperback, also available in digital e-book version, 110 pp

Available through Ingram, Bertram Books, Gardners, Baker & Taylor, Ingrams, Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and good bookstores everywhere. Available through Ingram, Bertram Books, Gardners, Baker & Taylor, Ingrams, Amazon, and good bookstores everywhere.