Poetry

It is National Poetry Month and while I had promised myself last year to read more poetry and talk about it more here in months other than April, it never really panned out. Not sure why. But at least there is National Poetry Month to remind me, "Oh yeah, I was going to read more poetry." So I thought I'd try once a week for the month to post something about poetry. And I thought I might try really hard to find some poets other than the likes of famous dead ones or famous living ones. Today I bring you Michael Paul Ladanyi. Ladanyi has been writing poetry for about ten years but had not sought publication until 2000. His poetry has appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Melic Review, The Circle, Snow Monkey, Poetry Super Highway, Texas Poetry Journal, The Pedestal Magazine, Kimera, Ascent, PoetryRepairShop, Subtle Tea, Voices, Poems Niederngasse, and Spillway Review, among others. He is a two-time 2005 Pushcart Prize nominee. Ladanyi has published numerous chapbooks a full poetry collections, Humming Riddles in Naked Seasons and recently completed another full collection Raindogs in the Sun. Here's a sample poem for you:

Beautifully Thin ~For T~ Shannon was born a bird once, before he learned the scratching color of things; was born when blue was still violin-star orange, kudzu storms green and yellow, beautifully thin, blind hair-shoulder painting. He came to see me on a Wednesday three years ago, green eyes cannibals craving soup, fingernails vampire skin-harps--- came to me crying and laughing about yellow spiders and diamond-eye voodoo. He told me that some people dance like kitchen drawer scissors, survive horse hands and bowel-crunch seas by licking the sun’s spooned neck and heat. He told me what it was like to have once been born as a small bird falling against nothing but piano air. (First published in Aesthetica Magazine.)

You can read a few more sample poems here.