The Friday Influence

Just a quick post to announce the release of the anthology desde Hong Kong: Poets in conversation with Octavio Paz (Chameleon Press), which includes my octave sequence “Octaves for Octavio Paz.”

I was excited by the submission call early this Spring and came up with some rather different takes on the octave. Using a line by Paz as a guide, each octave (nine total) explores a seven syllable syllabic line, playing with the magnetic tension of words and phrasing. Here’s one sample from the sequence:

sobre la hoja de papel/el poema se hace/como el día/sobre la palma del espacio[1]

could we write: morning, window,
light: and write: afternoon stretched,
and so on: write past things missed
by the eye, missed by being
alive, write: the tree outside:
the feeling of lines moving
past you, write: the paper wind
moves: O, we’d miss the missing.

[1] “El Fuego de Cada Día”

Gestures like the play on “O” as address and declaration as well as the unique take on Paz’s words played out in each octave is my way of tipping my hat to the great poet’s Surrealist leanings.

The editors have made available both their Introduction and Afterword which give a more in depth description on the project. More information on the book can be found here.

Thank you to editors Tammy Ho, German Munoz, & Juan Jose Morales.

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I also want to take this opportunity to announce that my pieces “Relinquished” & “Look” have placed 2nd in Blue Earth Review’s Flash Fiction Contest and will be published in an upcoming issue (BER#13).

Thank you to the editors & staff of BER! I’m greatly honored.

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See you Friday!

Jose