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![“[animal revolt]”](https://richardleis.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/StarLine454-1024.jpg)
“[animal revolt]”
Three short lines, one ferocious attack.
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Girls From the County by Donna Lynch
Girls From the County by Donna Lynch My rating: 5 of 5 stars Haunting, heartbreaking, and highly accomplished. The razor-sharp poems in Donna Lynch’s latest collection mix the real and all-too-common with folklore as powerful commentary about the dangers women face, most often from men, but occasionally from themselves, too, especially while dealing with the…
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A Guide to Workshops at The Writers Studio
It can be difficult to sort through all the offerings from the Writers Studio to pick which classes are best for you or the writer in your life to which you would like to gift a workshop. Here, then, is a guide to our offerings, depending on your writing goals and interests.
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Cradleland of Parasites by Sara Tantlinger
Cradleland of Parasites might be Sara Tantlinger’s best collection yet, a sequence of frightening, gruesome, breathtakingly beautiful poems about the Black Plague and other very real pestilence horrors up through modern times.
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Tucson Poetry Festival Fundraising Event on Saturday, December 4 at Fini’s Landing
Help raise funds for the Tucson Poetry Festival by dining in or ordering take out or delivery at Fini’s Landing restaurant in Tucson between 11:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Mention it’s for “Tucson Poetry Festival (Ocotillo Literary Endeavors)” before ordering your meal. You can RSVP on the fundraising announcement site.
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“Bird Chooses to Make a Habitat of Heart”
“Give me back / my heart, beautiful bird. Mistake me for an open window.”
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“I Can’t Explain Love or Loss if the Only Language I Have is Geology or What I Watch on YouTube”
“The couple quit uploading to YouTube two years ago. / Their videos are something pitiful and earnest now, / something long buried, sand-scratched, rubbed raw. / Thumbs down, I think. None of my business.”
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The 39th Annual Tucson Poetry Festival is Coming Soon
The 39th Annual Tucson Poetry Festival is coming up in two weeks! Registration is available on our website for poetry workshops taught by our featured poets on Saturday, April 17, 2021. They will also be reading that evening and there will be an open mic (would you like to read one of your own poems?!)…
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“In a Mirror, Dimming”
“Beyond the scarred surface, I saw the bones of the Moon, / the geology of a crime. He would not speak of it.”
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K-12 Poetry Contest
The University of Arizona Poetry Center, Arizona Public Media, and the Pima County Public Library have launched a poetry contest for K-12 students in Pima, Santa Cruz, and Cochise County in Arizona, with submissions accepted between June 16 and July 16, 2020.
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2020 Rhysling Anthology edited by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
What bliss to read the latest Rhysling Anthology from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) and edited by David C. Kopaska-Merkel, but what torture to select the best three short and long poems nominated for the 2020 Rhysling Award.
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SFPA Poetry Contest
The 2020 SFPA Poetry Contest runs from June 1 through August 31, 2020 and is open to both non-members and members.
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On a Successful 2020 Tucson Poetry Festival
Thank you to members of the board, featured poets, and attendees for a successful and sustaining 2020 Tucson Poetry Festival.
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Tucson Poetry Festival Featured Poets Reading and Open Mic, April 18-19, 2020
The 2020 Tucson Poetry Festival will include workshops, a reading by the featured poets, and an open mic.
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“Witch House”
“Little girls in white dresses skipping rope / & chanting singsong in slow motion we stole / from an 80’s horror film.”
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Poets and Workshops at the Tucson Poetry Festival, April 18-19, 2020
When Director Melanie Madden suggested the theme for this year’s annual Tucson Poetry Festival—”Poetry to Sustain Us”—none of us on the Board could have predicted how even more necessary this sustenance would become in 2020.
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“Elysium to Lethe Through Athabasca Valles”
“Lava, perfectly happy to flow like water smoothly / around obstructions”
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![“[Aliens are here]”](https://richardleis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/42.4.jpg)
“[Aliens are here]”
“Aliens are here”
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Shadow Award 2019 Short List
In the 2019 Shadow Award from The Molotov Cocktail, one of my entries landed me on the short list.
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The Low Passions by Anders Carlson-Wee
Anders Carlson-Wee’s poems in The Low Passions feel like they have exactly the right words; the perfect, accessible, blunt, beautiful, challenging, and surprising words.
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New Writing Instructor at the Writers Studio Tucson
I’m now a writing instructor at the Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and I’ll be teaching an 8-week introductory workshop in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction beginning Saturday, April 20th!
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HERE: Poems for the Planet by Copper Canyon Press
New Kickstarter for HERE: Poems for the Planet, from Copper Canyon Press.
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“Foolishly Into the Ocean”
“Divert the river from the ocean!”
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“Nervous Bambi”
“He blinks and I’m not sure if he’s trying / to embarrass me or if he’s confused by me, too. / He has to be lying.”
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“Leave” By Katie Predick
I’ve been fortunate to have been in several workshops with Katie Predick, a poet I highly regard. Her poetry is rich with images and surprises as she explores myth and nature and themes of womanhood and parenthood, relationships, science, and human impact on the environment (she’s also an accomplished scientist.)
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Lace & Pyrite by Ross Gay and Aimee Nezhukumatathil
A short chapbook of beautiful epistolary poems between Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Ross Gay. Ostensibly about their individual gardens, the scope of these poets’ poems frequently expands in breathtaking ways.
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Lucky Fish by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
I know when poems are working for me when the images suddenly erupt in vivid virtual reality in my mind and I gasp; several poems in this collection had those effects on me.
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“Looking Ahead”
“I’ve seen the eclipse already. / I’ve seen how it begins: / the radiant sun, the vanished / moon. See how they are going / to collide, the many decisions / the moon made, the sun in its / place and bright and not waiting, / but willing.”
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Condemn
“Condemn / Condemn / when necessary / Condemn / Condemn white supremacists kkk nazis / whatever name gone by Condemn / always”
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Shard Atlas by Wren Awry
A micro-chapbook of impactful poems concerned with what needs to be preserved, what needs to be acknowledged, and what needs to be torn down. Beautiful and timely.
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The Machinery Second Edition
The artists and the writers are from various parts of the world and part of the charm and enjoyment of The Machinery is how writer and artist from different backgrounds are paired together.
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The Machinery First Edition
A young group of artists from India has organized a new literary magazine of poetry, prose, and art and photography.
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“A Poem Constructed at the University of Arizona Poetry Center”
“human / civilised the most popular sound”
Richard Leis
Horror Writer & Poet
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