“Bottom, Falling” was published in Into the Void in October, 2016, and appears in my forthcoming chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for prepublication order at Finishing Line Press.
Recording of Bottom, Falling
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Tag Archives: chapbook
Sunday Compulsion: Devi S. Laskar (Why I Write)
Welcome to “Sunday Compulsion,” in which creatives answer one question: Why do I create? Poet Devi S. Laskar kicks off this new weekly feature.
I’ve been writing poems since I was 9 years old. It’s who I am: a poet. I write nonfiction and I write short stories and novels and I do so because I have this desire to communicate. I am interested in all kinds of forms. And I love to read, which is probably why I live to write. I’m trying to write the stories and the poems I haven’t read yet.
Devi S. Laskar is a native of Chapel Hill, N.C. She holds an MFA from Columbia University in New York, an MA in South Asian Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BA in journalism and English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former newspaper reporter, she is now a poet, photographer and artist. Her photographs include the cover of The Florida Review; and in the pages of Tiferet Journal and Blue Heron Review. Her art can be found currently on the cover of L.A. based Las Lunas Locas poetry anthology. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Blue Heron Review, which nominated her for Best of the Net 2016 & The Raleigh Review, which nominated her for Best New Poets 2016. She is an alumna of both TheOpEdProject and VONA/Voices, and served as a Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project poet in December 2015. She is also an alumna of Hedgebrook, and poetry workshops at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. In 2016, she won first prize in poetry at the 27th Mendocino Coast Writers Conference contest. Finishing Line Press published the first of two chapbooks, “Gas & Food, No Lodging” in March 2017; and will publish “Anastasia Maps” later this year. She now lives in California.
You can get Devi’s book Gas & Food, No Lodging at Finishing Line Press and Amazon,
as well as Bookshop Santa Cruz and online at Barnes & Noble.
Read this review!
Read and listen to her poem “Unanswered, Untranslatable”
To learn more about Devi, visit her website, which includes links to her artaday, essays, and various publications her work has appeared in.
And this podcast.
Recording of My Poem “Mayflies”
“Mayflies” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. FLP is taking prepublication orders here.
Please note: prepublication sales determine the print run, which means this stage is crucial in terms of how many copies will be printed and the number of copies I’ll receive as payment. So if you feel inclined to help, and are able, please purchase your copy during this period. Thank you!
Order Link for My New Chapbook is Now Up
From Every Moment a Second
The prepublication sales period for my new chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, begins today, June 13, and runs through August 11. The book’s tentative release date is October 6. Please note: prepublication sales determine the print run, which means this stage is crucial in terms of how many copies will be printed and the number of copies I’ll receive as payment. So if you feel inclined to help, and are able, please purchase your copy during this period. Order here.
Many thanks to the members of this blog community for supporting my writing. I sit alone in my shack to write, but you are there with me, just a keyboard away. I am truly grateful for your wisdom and humor and willingness to help me traverse the strange and wonderful worlds of poetry and publication.
My New Chapbook to be Published by Finishing Line Press
From Every Moment a Second
The prepublication sales period for my new chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, begins tomorrow, June 13, and runs through August 11. The book’s tentative release date is October 6. Please note: prepublication sales determine the print run, which means this stage is crucial in terms of how many copies will be printed and how many copies I’ll receive as payment. So if you feel inclined to help, and are able, please order your copy during this period. I will post the order link when it becomes available.
Many thanks to the members of this blog community for supporting my writing. I sit alone in my shack to write, but you are there with me, just a keyboard away. I am truly grateful for your wisdom and humor and willingness to help me traverse the strange and wonderful worlds of poetry and publication.
Review: You Break What Falls – Robert Okaji
Dani, from Only Books and Horses, has reviewed my 2015 micro-chapbook, You Break What Falls.
Two Poems Up at The Galway Review
I have two poems up at The Galway Review, one of which is also included in Interval’s Night, my recently released mini-digital-chapbook, available for free download at Platypus Press.
A Poem from My Recently Published Micro-Chapbook has been Nominated for a Pushcart Prize
The editors of the Origami Poems Project have nominated “Parting from Wang Wei,” a poem from my recently published micro-chapbook, No Eye But the Moon’s: Adaptations from the Chinese, for a Pushcart Prize. Many thanks to Jan and Kevin Keough for this honor. The chapbook is available via free download from Origami Poems Project. And please peruse their site for other titles and folding instructions.
My New Micro-Chapbook is Available via Free Download
My micro-chapbook, No Eye But the Moon’s: Adaptations from the Chinese, is now available via free download from Origami Poems Project. And please peruse their site for other titles and folding instructions.
One Day I’ll Market Your Death
One Day I’ll Market Your Death
Do not mistake this phrase for one contiguous with threat.
Even its flower knows the theory of attractive quality.
An ideal medium for cochineal production, the prickly pear
shelters a host of creatures we seldom caress.
Which displays greater motility, the cactus or the cochineal?
Life-cycle of attributes, packaging, excitement, the unknown.
In the Aztec language, the word meant prickly pear blood.
The insects’ bodies and eggs yield carminic acid, which mixed with
aluminum or calcium salts yields the red dye.
Reaching for substance is neither metaphor nor effect. Sessile
parasite: carmine. The product of Dactylopius coccus
became the second most valued resource in Mexico, behind silver.
Opportunism unveiling itself, revealed, or, layered greed.
What appears to be fungus is wealth.
One-dimensional / attractive / indifferent. We look together
through the window and observe our separate selves.
This poem originally appeared in a slightly different form in Otoliths, and was included in my chapbook length work, The Circumference of Other, published in IDES: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks, by Silver Birch Press.
O at the Edges 