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Issue 6 • Summer 2003 • Featured Lodestar Writer • Poetry
From Beginning to New Beginning: A Cycle of Poetry
Patricia Nell Warren
Anti-Season
From her first book of poetry A Tragedy of Bees, published by Novi Poezii in New York in 1960.
What a bunch of lies!
I know absolutely nothing about death.
My words are colorful but untrue.
Poetry itself is untrue,
And devious to boot --
It's a horror movie that we frighten ourselves with,
Or a wall on which we throw a lot of vast shadows.
I'm lying, I tell you.
The cemetery is just a shelf
Where we hide our broken dishes.
Yes, you the living, don't listen to me.
And you the dead, please don't believe a thing I say --
because you know a thing or two about death.
In fact, death is the last scandal
that you'll ever get to discuss.
For us, the living, life is the only truth
And poetry is the best of all possible lies.
***
From Beginning to New Beginning: A Cycle of Poetry
Untitled Poem,
Case History,
Anti-Season,
Excerpt from "Some Kind Of Kasida",
The Matador's Prayer,
Excerpts from "Minimal Poems",
Memoirs
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Patricia Nell Warren has 40 years' experience in publishing. Starting in 1959 at The Reader's Digest, she rose to book editor, working with a number of prominent authors, till 1980. Her own author career started in 1971, with a first novel from Dial Press. She published bestsellers The Front Runner, Harlan's Race, and Billy's Boy. Today she is co-owner and co-founder, with author/publicist Tyler St. Mark, of Wildcat Press, an independent author imprint. She belongs to The Authors Guild, is active in the ad-hoc group working to launch a gay publishing association, and serves as consultant for a growing number of self-publishing authors.
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