- At February 04, 2007
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Dancing Bear, Gacela, Poetry 365
1
Updated: Monday
Martha Silano and my workshop in Bellingham has been cancelled! Sorry to those of you we won’t get to see. Next time!
Thanks to Steve Mueske and his Poetry 365 project – my poem “My Little Brother, in Parts” is up on the Poetry 365 web site – click here to read it!
Congrats To Kelli Russell Agodon, John Poch, and Allen Braden on their Dorothy Prizes!
I promised more mini-reviews:
J.P. Dancing Bear’s chapbook, Gaceala of Narcissus City and Other Gacealas, Main Street Rag. This handsomely-produced, matte-cover chapbook is a collection of “gacela” poems, which are based on Lorca’s interpretation of the Arabic ghazal form; I believe “gacela” is Spanish for “gazelle.” (I could be wrong. Let me know!) Anyway, back to the poems: J.P. Dancing Bear’s voice is edged with humor and bite, and the forms he uses aren’t a constraint but rather a way to allow him to write with a certain amount of detachment and surrealism. For instance, in one poem (“Gacela of Consumer Apathy”) he moves deftly from cosmetic testing on animals to the destruction of tiger habitats to an imaginary rabbit heaven. A skillful, mournful collection.
In other news, I’ve finally switched to the new blogger with barely any scars. I was a little nervous.