Deborah Bogen

The holidays mean novels for me and I am reading "MARY Mrs. Abraham Lincoln." The writing is great but I can't get a grip on the historical basis if there really is one. I've researched online and find that no actual Mary Todd Lincoln diary exists. This entertaining book does a lot of supposin', I suppose. How much can we really know about MTL's sexual fantasies? However, the story of how a psyche manages grief after grief after grief rings true. Great grief does not, I think, "make you stronger." It makes you cope in ways that are often self-destructive and destructive of others. The desire to be in some other less painful state of mind can make us actors in plays we never imagined. WHAT NOVEL SHOULD I READ NEXT??

You've been working on a poem. There's something there. You're pretty sure there's something there. I mean, there must be a reason you are coming back to this one. But you're feeling stuck. Try this. Read your poem out loud - work on it for a bit if anything comes to mind. THEN get out a copy of HOWL (you own Howl, right?) and stand up in your living room or office or wherever you are - and read a big part of HOWL outloud. At full voice. I like to use Section II - the Moloch section. I tell you - this will move things around in your head. Then go back to your poem. If you have a good tip on revision send it to me at dbbogen@aol.com.

Recent and Forthcoming Work:

In April 2009 THE IOWA REVIEW will use my review of Carol Frost's amazing book, "The Queen's Desertion."
This book is deep, satisfyingly gorgeous and real. Don't miss it.

POEMELEON is about to publish two new poems in their humor issue. HUMOR!! You know I don't do that.

CRAZYHORSE just published "Using a Blue Willow Pattern, the Anesthesiologist Explains the Procedure" and "What We Know About Ghost Images" in their next issue.

The December PLOUGHSHARES will carry "The Rudest Gesture is the Phone that Rings in the Night."

VERSE DAILY ran "Special Ed Girl" in Sept.

Brian Clements at SENTENCE ran a piece called "Vocabulary Lesson" in the next issue. I am fascinated with whatever these new forms are - part prose poem (but not quite in the French tradition), part editorial, part whimsy?

A recent POEMELEON (www.poemeleon.org) is out - a "Persona" issue. It includes "Pastor Jackson Attends the Grateful Dead Concert" and "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury." Since I used to be a paralegal and will always be a deadhead - these were fun to write. Hi Jerry!

I was recently interviewed by Belinda Subraman for her series of poet and artist podcast interviews. You can hear it a number of ways - including by clicking on this link - Belinda Subraman Interview.

THE IOWA REVIEW has "The Cantilevered Bedtimme Story" in the April 2008 issue. The poem will be featured on a related University of Iowa website June 15th - the address is http://dp.uiowa.edu/.

VALPARAISO POETRY REVIEW (online) will publish two poems, "October" and "November" in their next issue.

PLAINSPOKE is a new and really interesting journal out of Amsterdam, Ohio. Check them out on the internet. They will include "Dakota Omphalos", "Dakota Schism" and "Special Ed Girl" in their next issue.

"The doctrine of original sin" and "the doctrine of angels" appear both in the NEW LETTERS MAGAZINE and on their online site. Their archives are always worth a visit.

A newer magazine, ECOTONE (online) will publish "Dakota Civility in their next issue.

CRAZYHORSE recently published "bearing on the heretical" and "bearing on the glory of love". You can find the second of these on the VERSE DAILY site since they picked it up.

Out in the most recent THE GETTYSBURG REVIEW - two poems , "Bringing in the Sheaves" and "Charity". I love their site -- Peter Stitt and his team post terrific poems.

"Flame" is in the Winter 2007 BARROW STREET.

My review of Bob Hicok's "This Clumsy Living" is just in the new LYRIC REVIEW.

POETRY DAILY chose "Six at the Beginning" for inclusion in their 2007 printed anthology. The book is out and it's fabulous. You can learn more at Poetry Daily.

"Bearing on Flashbacks" and "Dakota Grandmothers" appear in the current MARGIE, The American Journal of Poetry, edited by Robert Nazarene with the help of James Wilson. This is a great journal which usually sells out.

"Moving the Moon" will be anthologized by YARROW MOUNTAIN PRESS in "Cadence of Hooves" due out July 2008.

Online at www.thediagram.com you will find many great things, and in their current issue, my poem "Gravity." DIAGRAM tops my hipness chart for visuals that expand your brain space. Kudos to the DIAGRAM FOLK for letting wordsmiths play along..

"RUNES", edited by CB Follett and Susan Terris, out of San Francisco, put out an issue focused on "Hearth." My poem "Map" opens the volume, but look also for Ilya Kaminsky's "To Live", Jeannie Beaumont's "Parts of a Window", David St. John's "Hollywood Salvation (Broken Aurora)" and much much more. The rumor mill says this was the final issue - and if that's true it's a loss.