A Map and One Year by Karen L. George

A Map and One Year by Karen L. George

$17.00

All the poems in this book are found poems created from different source documents. The Academy of American Poets (poets.org) states, “Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems”. To write these poems, I selected words I enjoyed the sound of, or that suggested intriguing ideas and/or images. I wrote them on a separate sheet of paper, letting my eyes fall over the list of chosen words until one attracted me, and then I’d find another word that paired with that first word in some interesting way, not necessarily thinking about any meaning or theme that my poem would eventually hone in on. Images and ideas emerged that connected with other images. I rearranged and shaped them, not always sticking with the exact words of the source. Writing these found poems felt addictive and magical because they came from the words themselves, and traveled places my poems might not normally go. Patterns began to emerge as well as narratives that I fit together into this collection. —Karen L. George

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Description

  • Kind: Perfectbound
  • Pages: 86
  • Language: English
  • Date Published: June, 2018
  • ISBN: 978-1-948017-15-2

Praise

“Traveling through the pages of A Map and One Year, I became convinced that Karen George has somehow managed to channel the mystic luminous language of our poetry deities. These poems sparkle with wit and wisdom.” —Kathleen Driskell

“Karen George’s A Map and One Year is as much a love letter to language as it is to the poets and novelists who inspired this collection. Whether in haiku, cinquain, tanka, or open form, these poems breathe—quietly, profoundly, but not without surprise. In doing so, they allow us to dwell in their moment, to catch our own breath in the white space around them. I can’t think of a better or more badly needed gift just now.” —Rhonda Pettit

“In her new, bold poems in A Map and One Year, to feel the energy run beneath the poetic “found-ness” of language is to behold Karen George’s pure, wise vision. George splices, stretches, and sculpts texts as wide-ranging as poems by Dickinson, Neruda, and Transtromer to prose by Joyce, Frida Kahlo, and others to cultivate poems rich in dreamscape. The oddities and surprises that rise from this strange, beautiful lyricism possess us. For George, this became a rapturous adventure in linguistic play, and we become rapt participants in her discoveries. It is a transcendent collection not to be missed.” —Jeffrey Hillard

Excerpt

Figment

Hemlock trees
of full-throated green
brim the forest
full of eyes and wings

Light glooms
mossy at my feet
and leaves murmurous
rhyme the air

I have found a path
opening like a bell
from the well
deep in a dream

Author

Karen GeorgeKaren George is author of the poetry collection Swim Your Way Back (Dos Madres Press, 2014), and five chapbooks, most recently The Fire Circle (Blue Lyra Press, 2016), and an ekphrastic collaborative chapbook, Frame and Mount the Sky (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her work has appeared in the journals Adirondack Review, Naugatuck River Review, Sliver of Stone, Blue Fifth Review, Heron Tree, and Still. She reviews poetry and interviews poets at Poetry Matters, and is co-founder and fiction editor of the journal, Waypoints.

Her website is: http://karenlgeorge.snack.ws.

Additional information

Weight 8 oz
Dimensions 9 × 6 × .25 in

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