Robert Priest's Blog: Blogging not logging - Posts Tagged "poetry"

In the past few months two books, Rosa Rose, a book of verses for children about inspirational people and things and a book of adult poetry previously feared darkness have come out. In the midst of touring and publicizing these I've been working with Dundurn press on my epic fantasy series spell crossed. Book 1 the paper sword will be published in July. I'll get the copy edits in a few days and that will be that. Concurrently I've been working on the first two or three chapters of the re-write of book 2, second kiss, in preparation for a deadline in March when I turn it in. Plus I'm going on tour in Ireland the UK and to Paris during the second week of November as a poet and singer-songwriter. (I had a CD out about a year ago called feeling the pinch. You can get it on iTunes.). So I really am at a bit of a nexus. Something that occurs a lot in spell crossed. I'm under one spell for poetry and another for prose and another for songs and I live in the three-way flow. Also I'm a reader of course. The latest book being David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. Here's my latest Facebook post about it.

During the past couple of years I've been working on the poem for children about the children's March in Birmingham. It's hard to get a lot of information on it. I decided I'm going to have to go there and visit the center. But I just read the most stirring account of it in Malcolm Gladwell's new book David and Goliath. I I'm still writing the poem but in the meantime check out the story as he tells it.

Lesser Shadows

the buildings wait for the assassins

the shadows are prepared for them --
they flow like dark sheets
of blood from underneath the doors

there are many vacant rooms
many rifles waiting

soon the assassins begin to arrive
they are all a little crazy
moved by politics or dark desires
they are tense and frightened
but eager, jostling one another
for places at the windows

there are assassins behind bushes
assassins on roofs
and distant hilltops
there are so many assassins
there are assassins crouched
in shadows of assassins

it is good that the victim is young
and wealthy
it is good that
he seems to symbolize something

now they prepare their weaponry
his car goes by
the triggers click
a thousand bullets meet
inside a single head
the skull explodes
the president is dead
silently
some with spittle running
from the corners of their mouths
some dazed
as though awaking from a trance
the assassins file out of the buildings
past the shocked, staring faces to the highways
past the farthest edges of the sun's descending red
and, as night absorbs the lesser shadows
America absorbs her murderers
completely

I finally finished the whole trilogy! Yes, the Spell Crossed trilogy is complete. Book 2, Second Kiss and book 3 Missing Piece are now out and available. It's been a long haul, having worked on them for the past 15 years. Personally, it means I've followed through on a childhood commitment to write the kind of books I was reading them. Fantasy. I learned a lot along the way and a new appreciation of the novelist's craft. I'm tempted now more than I used to be to write a novel for adults. But I need to catch my breath if I'm going to do that. Meanwhile I am very close to finishing The Wolf is Back, a follow-up to Rose Rose, a book of poems for children and young adults. I confess to being very excited by it. All of this means that I'm going to have more time to attend to matters here in Goodreads so I hope some of you will encourage me by reading this blog and feeding back.