Glad and Sorry Seasons

My new collection, Glad and Sorry Seasons (Biblioasis Press, 2014) is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com

It's scheduled to be in bookstores around mid-March 2014.

The title is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnet XIX, and the book's six section titles are also from The Bard:

Section I:    Give Sorrow Words
Section II:    Driving Back Shadows
Section III:   The Oldest Sins
Section IV:   With  Mirth and Laughter
Section V:    A Smack of all Neighbouring Languages
Section VI:   Glad and Sorry Seasons

Painters and Poets

Sun in an Empty Room, by Edward Hopper (1963)

My villanelle, "Zeeman's Paradox" is online HERE. If you decide to watch the Hopper video, I suggest you turn off the sound. In any case, the dialogue appears as text. The music is utterly distracting.

This is my second ekphrastic poem based on a painting by Edward Hopper.

Zeeman's Paradox is explained HERE (under Types of Perspective: Limitations).

Thank you for this day . . .

Missing you . . .

Arrived in today's mail!

An early birthday present!

I recently won this beautiful book simply by being visitor #5,000 to a poetry website.

From the Folio Society. Text based on the 1609 quarto, edited, and with an introduction and glossary by Katherine Duncan-Jones. Quarter-bound in buckram with crushed silk sides designed by Anna Murray. Set in Monotype Bembo with the poetry in Narrow Bembo. 224 pages with 38 engravings by various artists.

Three Years, Thirty Thousand Visits to "The Wonderful Boat"!

Image by Australian poet, artist and musician, Janet Kenny, who designed it for the cover of my first chapbook, "For No Good Reason" (The Olive Press, 2008)

Celebrating three years of poetry blogging on The Wonderful Boat, launched in November 2010.

Below is a Fibonacci sonnet I wrote this year. The nickname, "Iron Goddess of Merci" belongs to a famous Chinese oolong tea. More HERE.  There is no typo in line 6 ;-) .
 


To the Iron Goddess of Mercy

light
tee-
ters on
the table
its wavelets almost
failing head over heels into
the imaginary axis of the outbetween

as I take my KrazyGlued teacup out of hiding
may the kettle whistle softly
may the day stay calm
may comets
swirl in
the
leaves

 

"Most Read" Milestone!

Margaret Atwood

Some wonderful news HERE.

"Coming to Terms" is a ten-poem mini-collection chosen by Margaret Atwood as one of three finalists out of over three thousand entries in the "competitor" category in the Attys Competition in 2012. It came in second, and part of my prize was a Skype conversation with none other than Ms. Atwood, who offered to "tweet" her thousands of followers on Twitter when my next book, Glad and Sorry Seasons, comes out next April.

You can lead a horse to water, but . . .

Photo by Debbie Irwin. Source: www.localriding.com

My humorous sonnet, "On the Folly of Persuasion", was just awarded a certificate of special recognition from Poets & Patrons of Chicago, Inc. (Est. 1954) in the 2013 Helen Schaible International Shakespearean/Petrarchan Sonnet Contest!

The sonnet will soon be published in Light, a quarterly journal of light poetry, whereupon I will also reprint it here on The Wonderful Boat.

This made me smile . . .

My blog stats show a search for my name (in Russian) as:

кэтрин чандлер

. . . but were they searching for me, or her:

 
or her?

 

 
At least, she's not the beast!  :-)

Old Friends

Photo by Tim Sinclair (www.blogger.com)

The Loiterers

Each morning at exactly nine o'clock
our fellowship of grizzle-headed men
meets at McDonald's, métro Frontenac.

We take our customary seats, and then,
despite the posted warning, PAS DE FLÂNAGE,
drink discount coffee for an hour ot two.

Surrounded by a motley entourage
of East-End Montrealers, we outdo
each other with our lively poppycock.

Long since returned from distant Neverlands,
we turn a deaf ear to the ticking clock.
The manager is kind. He understands

our joie de vivre, our order of the day;
refills our cups, and grants that it's no crime
to hold our own; and though we overstay,

to squander what we've left of change and time.


( © Catherine Chandler, first published in Alabama Literary Review)

Caesura

"Orange Wood" 
 Image courtesy of Evgeni Dinev at Free Digital Photos.net

Caesura

Between the last triumphant note of fall,
when maples, marigolds and pumpkins vie
for orange jurisdiction, and the rime-
embellished month of Christmas, there he is,

November. Stark. Severe. Demanding all
imagination can afford: a lie
might do the trick; an epic if there's time.
Anything to fill that void of his.


by Catherine Chandler, first published in Candelabrum (United Kingdom)

Too Little. Too Late.

Just one of those days . . .