MIEL wants your work if it is intelligent. If it feels. If it wants a new language to speak from, in, and with. We want your work with gaps in it. We want your work about your invisible or barely visible life. We want your work that struggles. We want your work that demands a book form to accommodate it. We want your long poems, your fragments, your most bare articulations and your exorbitant ones. We want a bright pink language, a gold language, a deep blue language and a stark one.
Source: miel.ohbara.com
People need to hear the things you think about, dream about, and worry about. They have to hear it in your voice which isn’t the same as anyone else’s voice.” Because this is how we learn to become more human, by learning to share our voices, no matter how those voices are expressed.
I generally avoid the Facebook list challenges, but this one came from one of my students, and she mentioned me in her list, so it’s only polite to follow through. The challenge:
“Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who’ve influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what authors my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note.)”
1. Theodore Sturgeon
2. Kwame Dawes
3. Roger Robinson
4. Bob Hicok
5. Stephen Dunn
6. Junot Diaz
7. Stephen Dobyns
8. Dorianne Laux
9. Kim Addonizio
10. Douglas Goetsch
11. Seamus Heaney
12. Jeff Noon
13. El-P (let’s have a conversation about considering the literary value of hip-hop lyricism)
14. Adrienne Rich
15. WIlliam Gibson
(NB Facebook doesn’t let me into the text field for drafting a note via Mobile Safari. Hence the post here.
Hello! I'm Jacob Sam-La Rose. I've been described as a poet, tech head, educator, and all round literary whirlwind. I do web, old cameras and good things with words. Thanks for stopping by. Again, soon?