Poetry Book Giveaway

In the spirit of National Poetry Month, I have decided to participate in a Poetry Book Giveaway. I will give away one poetry book each to two lucky winners at the end of this month. To enter the draw, leave a comment on this post with your name and either your blog or email address (so I can contact you if you win). I will choose the winners via the Random Number Generator on May 1, 2010, and mail the books that week at my own expense. Kelli Agodon at Book of Kells came up with this wonderful idea. To read more about it, or to give away two books of your own, read this page on her blog.

In following Kelli’s suggestion to give away one of your own books of poetry and one book of your favourite poet’s work, I’m giving away a copy of my first chapbook, Cross Section, which I made in my senior year at university . The other is The People Look Like Flowers at Last, a new collection by Charles Bukowski. Here is a bit about each book:

The People Look Like Flowers at Last by Charles Bukowski

This is the fifth (and final) posthumous collection of Bukowski’s poetry.  I like its juxtaposition of crudeness and tenderness. Many of Bukowski’s poems in this collection involve the racetracks, where he frequently gambled on horses. His way of viewing and interpreting life through the lens of these races, specifically through the act of betting, impresses me poem after poem. The other predominant theme in this collection is writing. Here are a few lines from “it was an UNDERWOOD:”

“my poems keep renouncing each
other–
this one says this
and that one says that,
and the other says something else
but I find it humorous
as they battle back and
forth–”

Cross Section by Mallery K.

This is my third chapbook, though it is my first full-length collection. It comprises three sections of poetry, each  focusing on a specific theme. The first section addresses the human condition and how humans interact with their world. Each poem in the middle section use a single verb for a title and each embodies what it is to perform that verb. The last section is made up of four poems from a set of six I wrote representing the six steps of Plato’s Ascent to Beauty theory. Interspersed throughout are black and white photographs that I have taken. Here are a few lines from “other lover,” which was published in a slightly different version in RiverCraft and an English Honor Society anthology in 2007:

“sun slivers my thick cream carpet
red LED lights 10:16 AM
my breasts sweat against your shoulder blades

my right arm, bent under your neck, grasps your hand
the other folds around your middle and i count
between each snore to see how far away you are”

Remember, if you want to win one of these books, just leave a comment at the end of this post before the end of this month!