Book availability news

Ok, I'm not sure why Amazon is no longer carrying my book, but you can still get it at Lulu.com:

Provocative Haiku

And book #2 is in the works and should be available sometime in January. Also in January, book #1 will be available for FREE as a downloadable PDF. My Etsy store will be closed for the holiday, but you can still get goodies from Lulu or Zazzle.

Merry Christmas! and watch my video!

It's here!

Provocative Haiku now has a YouTube channel! View the first video and subscribe!



I would like to thank all of my readers for making 2009 a very fun year! I appreciate the work you've shared with me and I've enjoyed reading your haikus in the comments or by email. Let's keep the creativity going in 2010! Post your haiku and tell your friends to visit. Coming soon: the Angry Poet will have her own Facebook fan club.

Happy Holidays to all of my pirate poets!

Special Announcement!!!!!

I have some good news and some bad news! First the bad news - Provocative Haiku blog will be "shut down" while I work on formatting book number two. What does this mean? It means the blog will feature haiku from the first book. I hope to have the new book ready for sale by January 1st.

And now the good news! We're going to experiment with the haiku from book one by having VIDEO blog postings! Yes! I shall once more don my pirate cap and read my poems to you. Perhaps even shout them, angrily, as some of them are meant to be experienced. :)

My inspiration comes from one of our featured poets, T. Raven Scott! Check out his video stuff here: http://scottravent.com/animated and here: http://www.myspace.com/scottravent

And my inspiration also comes from an article I read in Book Business magazine which states that while poetry books are not usually best sellers, people use poetry in a variety of ways. Use poetry?! I was surprised to find that a growing category of audio books are poetry, read by the authors who wrote them. It gives fans a deeper understanding of the meaning of the poems, and also gives them more confidence in reading it - as in, reading it aloud. Audio books allow them to better understand the author's emotion or intent behind the poem. It often leads them to explore the works of other poets.

While obviously performance of poetry is not a new idea to people like Scott Raven, I have often thought of exploring it for myself. So, stay tuned for my YouTube channel and MySpace page! Perhaps it will inspire some of you to respond to some of my posts with a recording or video of yourself.

To my American fans, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving for next week! And to my international fans, I want to give thanks for your support - your comments, your participation, and just the fact that I know people are reading my blog is very exciting for me and I'm thankful for your readership! I hope you'll continue to join my journey on the pirate ship of Provocative Haiku!

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Ready to set sail
the haiku pirate hopes to
churn water with words!

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Donations

I love giving to charity but I hate those mailings that most organizations use to ask for it. You have the very long 4-page letter that no one reads, along with a reply card and envelope. It always makes me wonder "how much did this mailing cost? how much of my donation will actually go towards helping someone vs. paying some ad agency for this mailing?" Maybe I'm too much of an Internet person because it all seems like a huge waste of paper. If I see something on TV or hear about it in a magazine, I'll Google it and see what it's all about. Also, I think at my age most people already have certain charities picked out that they regularly donate to. Yes? Am I wrong? I have 3 charities I donate to. And I invite you to consider one of them: Heifer.org

Their mission is to give people the means to produce food for themselves. Instead of giving people money or food, they give people live animals and training in how to care for them and pass on the gift. For very little money, about $30, you could give a family the means to eat meat all year! Plus, I think it's so funny to tell people, "I bought a flock of chicks in your name" when I get virtual gifts for friends. It inevitably cracks people up, which is helpful when all you gave them was a card. I took it one step further for my cousin Jeff's Christmas present. He didn't want things for the holidays so he said "make a donation in my name." I thought that was so sweet of him and decided to do it.

I bought him a flock of chicks from Heifer.org and then I sent him several letters throughout the year from his "Cuttack Chicks" who were presumably sent to India. Each letter had pictures of them getting bigger. After almost a year, Bruce & I made a box with fake postage from india, and inside were 6 baby chicks - I had to coordinate early with my Mom to get chenille chicks around Easter. He opened the "package from India" to find the baby chicks, the offspring from his Cuttack Chicks, representing that his gift had been passed on to another family.

It was so much fun to learn about India while I searched for photos to include with the letters from the chicks. It really made me appreciate everything I have, and it's hard to see people who live in such poverty. Heifer provides a great yearly magazine that tells the success stories of families who have prospered because of their animals and how they're helping to change their local community by passing on animals or working together to pool resources to bring to market. It's amazing to see what so little money can do for people.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are almost here. If you've been following this blog and thought about buying my book, let me toss out a little incentive. If you buy my book through Lulu or even my Etsy store, I'll donate the cost of the book ($10) to Heifer.org. Just 3 books would allow Heifer to give a bee hive to a family, or a flock of chicks or ducklings. Just 6 books would equal a trio of rabbits, and 12 books would equal a goat! I hope you'll consider it, and please consider buying through my Etsy store so that I can send you a personal thank you and some extra goodies.

Tell me about your favorite charity in the comments!

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Gift of chicks gives eggs,
then much needed protein meat.
And most of all: hope.

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"Paste-up" Graffiti - Lego heads!

There are so many ways to defile advertisements in New York City! One popular way is "paste-up" graffiti. This technique is only used by the "artsy" graffiti artist who has time and money to design and print up his (or her) own labels or sheets of paper and the wallpapering skills to paste them over ads. I always wonder if there is some other ulterior motive behind this type of graffiti, as evidenced by a group of people who plastered "thought bubbles" all over Manhattan which invited people to participate. Ads became single frame cartoons of unspoken public thoughts. Photos were taken of the really clever ones and made into a book.

Not sure what this artist had in mind by printing up various Lego toy heads - at full human size - and then pasting them all over the 23rd Avenue station of the C, E Train. (The blue subway line has the best graffiti, hands down!) But, the effect is hilarious because the entire station was hit up! If we only saw one head, we find it curious and forgetful. But the repetition turns it into art! Of what kind, I can't comment. I just think it's funny.

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Paste-up graffiti
mocks advertising's effort
to sell us something.

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Paste-up graffiti
a slap on the ad face can
transform it to art.

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Contents of a Shopping Basket

Ding Dongs, whole chicken,
orange juice - with calcium.
"Yes, gals... I'm single!"


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'Nuff sed. The above items were purchased by the dude in front of us at the grocery store.

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Glorious Graffiti!

Alison & Alyce in front of a Village graffiti mural

This one is for my good friend Ellen because she wanted me to write a haiku about graffiti. The boros of New York City have such an abundance of scribble, social and political commentary, and downright detestable filth. But some of it is very clever and artistic. Sometimes it's even encouraged - as evidenced by this massive mural my friend Alyce and I came across.


And these cows are an example of what looks like art but is actually an advertisement. There is no shortage of ads in the city - either legit or "gorilla marketing." I really enjoy the ones that provoke a reaction, or even better, photos!


So much advertising in the city is bland and New Yorkers respond to it with graffiti - often vicious, depraved scribble. Someday I'll dig up my photo of a cute little boy for a healthcare ad that someone drew a Hitler mustache on - and before I could get back with my camera, someone else had added a Zorro mask. Somebody really needs to collect this all in a book! It was my goal at one time to do such a book, but I no longer ride the "C" train which seems to have the best graffiti. If you want to see movie ads where every actress and actor has a doodled penis in front of their face, just ride the "C" train!

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Raw, social comment
drawn in a scrawl on the wall,
defacing faces.

happy ad people
juxtaposed with foul language,
mustaches, and cocks!

Graffiti declares
truth of the masses do not
buy what you're selling!

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I always wanted to write a haiku with the word "juxtaposed"!!!!! If you've got photos of graffiti, send them in with your haiku about it! That would make for a most excellent Friday Featured Poet spot!

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