Poetry Reading

I'm reading at Beyond Baroque in the Mike Kelley Gallery on Dec. 12, 8pm, with three other wonderful poets –– Shivani Mehta, Richard Garcia & Katherine Williams. It'll be wonderful, at least they'll be wonderful, I'll be okay. Hope you can make it.

Online Poetry Class Begins Next Week

 I'm teaching an online poetry class for UCLA Extension's Writers' Program. 
Here's the info:


Creative Writing: Poetry
XL 136 English 5 units c
Available for UCLA transferable credit, this workshop combines writing assignments with an exploration of contemporary poetry. You look at forms ranging from the sonnet to prose poems, and develop your own voice. Each week the work of a contemporary poet is discussed and writing assignments are critiqued. The course goal is to finish with a number of polished and completed poems and understand the demands and rewards of living an inspired life through poetry. For technical requirements see page 4. Enrollment limited to 15 students.
Reg# 249985CA

Poems from The Sounthern Review

The Southern Review put two of my poems on Soundcloud. 

Unfortunately, it's me doing the reading: https://soundcloud.com/lsupress_and_tsr/we-and-the-accordion-players …

SoundCloud

New Book Coming Out

My next book, I'm No Longer Troubled By the Extravagance, will be published by BOA next year!

Prose Poem workshop filled up!

My one day prose poem workshop at UCLA Extension, 2/1/14, is now filled. It's gonna be fun. I'll be teaching an online class for them in the spring. Hope some of you are interested. You can be in Moscow, Russia, or Rhode Island and take the class!

ADVICE

"Any fool can take a bad line out of a poem; it takes a real pro to throw out a good line."

THEODORE ROETHKE

Prose Poem Workshop Coming Up!

I'm teaching my annual one day prose poem workshop on Feb 1st.  Not only will you learn lots about the prose poem but it's entertaining and we'll write some prose poems in class.

Here's the link: https://www.uclaextension.edu/pages/Course.aspx?reg=Z7262&qe=true

I hope to see you there.

Rick

Oh, this was one of the prose poems written in last year's workshop.

The Legerdemain

Door-to-door sales is a tradition in my family. My mother bought me from a door-to-door salesman when I was five weeks old. I’ve sold everything door-to-door – from silverware to poison, drank Hemlock three times as a demonstration. Slowly closing the eyes is an effective sales tool. I was thirty-six when I sold my first tulip, a Red Emperor to a man on his way to a funeral, stopped him in his driveway. He held the tulip and sobbed. Selling tulips is selling desire. Other flower salesmen sell clichés. The tulip is a nightmare rehabilitated, closer to a human heart than a rose. Tulips are the ears of the dead. My work has hardened my knuckles. At the end of the day I sit in my car and watch the sun set in the rearview mirror. The Monte Flame is my favorite tulip, the way its orange and red petals cup every dirty secret you’ve ever told.