Check out the new Manzanita Arts Emporium!

Manzanita Writers Press is situated in Historic Downtown Angels Camp, surrounded by wonderful artists and writers’ books in a gorgeous gallery. MWP publishes local and regional authors, community anthologies and historical collections.

MWP hosts Writers Unlimited meetings for writers of all levels, workshops, literary and historical events, lectures, and more.

Artists and photographers featured in the gallery include photographer Ty Childress, botanical artist Janet Trinkle, geometric abstract artist Gary Rose, wood artist and furniture maker Andy Trinkle. Then there is watercolor artist Kevin Brady, acrylic and oil equestrian and bovinic painter Patty Payne, jeweler Roberta Hughes, and oil artist George Haskell.

Other artists and photographers: Wanda Mozcosiek and Robert Standiford, Paul Neil, Judy Wilmot, Cate Culver, Gordon Long, Shay Baker, and Susie Hoffman.

Books:  a large Mark Twain book collection where you can find scholarly books about Mark Twain as well as his novels and collected works.

The bookstore features Manzanita Writers Press authors, such as Glenn Wasson, Jim Fletcher, Stephen Archer, Ted Laskin, Dave Self, Monika Rose, Scott Thomas Anderson, Denella Kimura, Joy Willow, Sy Baldwin, Amy Smith, and other writers from our region.

Check out the Facebook page and our Manzanita Arts emporium website page.  Come in and visit, have a cup of tea, and chat with the editors about your new writing project.

Location:  1211 S. Main St., Suite 110, Angels Camp, CA 95222  Phone: 209-728-6171  – open every day except Tuesday, 10 am to 5 pm.  Writers Unlimited meets 1st and 3rd Monday mornings at 10:30, and 2nd and 4th Monday evenings from 6:30-9:30.

 

Art Reception – Hard-Edge Design and Writing Workshop on Ekphrasis – Writing About Art –

Gary Rose, artist, and Monika Rose, poet, had a reception on Friday, October 14, from 2-7 PM, for an art show, ekphrasis workshop, and poetry reading/signing at the open house reception at Mountain Ranch Community Center in the darling community of Mountain Ranch! Art show and reception occurred 2:00 P.M. through 7 PM – with artist Gary Rose, featuring his large, geometric hard-edge design wall sculptures and join a chat with the artist about minimalism, design, and modern art. His work will be visible from October through November at the center.

EkphrasisWorkshop  (writing about art) with Monika Rose   3-4 PM Writers and public art lovers enjoyed this art form, which is writing about visual art, dramatic art, presentation art, and more.  River by the Glass, a 212-page collection of poems spanning two decades, was signed by the author.

 

 

Books and anthologies with editing work by Monika Rose

River by the Glass River by the Glass front cover small, A Collection of Poems by Monika Rose

Released, April 2011- 212 pages, 85 poems, photography by Tuolumne County talent Ron Pickup

River photography includes Tuolumne River, Clavey River, Stanislaus River, and more….

Publisher, GlenHill Productions, Soulsbyville

Purchase on this site.  $21.95, add shipping and tax: $28.50

 

 

 

 

Wild Edges: volume 6 of Manzanita – Poetry and Prose of the Mother Lode and Sierra

Editor: Monika Rose – Published Aug. 2010 – pub. Manzanita Writers Press – 216 pages featuring over 100 poets and fiction writers from California and the U.S. Over 30 photographers and artists featuring their work – a 16-page full color glossy spread by talented artists and photographers of the Mother Lode and Sierra – Purchase from Manzanita Writers Press for $15.00.  2,000 printed – 1,000 remaining        Wild Edges - volume 6 Manzanita anthology front coveradd tax and shipping

 Some of the writers featured: J.P. Dancing Bear, Mara Feeney, Taylor Graham, Ted Laskin, Linda Field, Jim Lanier, Ron Pickup, Helene Pilibosian, Jackie Richmond, Monika Rose, Andy Shupala, Allegra Silberstein, Laura Snyder, Norine Radaikin, Jackie Rogers, William Keener, Bill Gainer, Michael Lee Johnson, Brad Buchanan, Zoe Keithley, Shelley Muniz, Joseph Milosch, Kathy Isaac-Luke, Kevin Arnold, Moira Magneson, Barbara Leon, W.F. Lantry, Carol Ann Lindsay, James Jacobs, Jodi Hottel, Gail Entrekin, Johm Fitch, Maureen Flannery, Lara Gularte, Dianna Henning, Lisa Gelfand, Connie Corcoran, Sandy Crepps, Chrissy Davis, Donald Anderson, Dawn Bonker, David Anderson, Marta Brady, Barbara Bass, Tim Bellows, Gary Cooke, Alan Cohen, Leslie Bailey, Marcia Adams, Glenn Wasson, Dorothy Wake, Andrena Zawinski, Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Daniel Williams, Paul Willis, Brigit Truex, David Sullivan, Michael Spinetta, Robert Walton, Anne Wilson, Paula Sheil, Dave Self, Michele Rugo, Dave Seter, Scott Siegel, Anne Privateer, Mark Redfearn, Marie Ross, Nick Samaras, Zara Raab, and many more…

Cover photo by Paul Neal

 

Manzanita Volume 5 – released Sept. 2008 – 1,500 copies published – 400 remaining

Over 100 writers and artists featured – still in print Manzanita volume 5 Front cover – cover photo by John Doane

Editor: Monika Rose

Published by Writers Unlimited, sells for 15.00 plus tax, shipping

 Back cover volume 5 – photo by Ron Pickup

Poem by Jackie Richmond

Manzanita volume 5 back cover - photo by Ron Pickup - poem by Jackie Richmond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manzanita – volume 4  – over 100 writers and artists featuredManzanita volume 4 Front cover

Editor, Monika Rose – published by Writers Unlimited, 2006

Now, Manzanita Writers Press

published 2006 – 1,200 copies printed – 50 remain – sells for 15.00

Cover photo by Ron Pickup of Soulsbyville – lovely Manzanita blossoms frosted by a surprise snowstorm in the late spring

 

 

 

Ted Laskin’s collection of Short Stories and Essays

George A. Custer, Please Come to the White Courtesy Phone

Available from the author and Manzanita Writers Press

17.95 plus shipping and handling – 8.25 % tax – total: 23.00

George A. Custer, Please Come to the White Courtesy Phone - by Ted LaskinEditing work: Monika Rose  – Ed. Manzanita Writers Press, 2010

Joy Roberts – chief editor  on the project

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glenn Wasson’s collection of poetry, essays, and flash fiction

Tales Mark Twain Would Have Loved to Steal – revised edition

Tales Mark Twain Would Have Loved to Steal - revised edition - by Glenn WassonEditing work, Monika Rose, Joy Roberts: 2008 and 2010 (2 volumes)

Winner of the Readers Choice Humor Award

Available for 21.95   plus shipping, and 8.25 % CA tax

Total 28.50. 

Publisher: Manzanita Writers Press

Contact author via press

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getty Ambau’s Young Adult Novel

Desta and King Solomon’s Coin of MagicDesta and King Solomon's Coin

Monika Edited: 2009 and 2010  (not exclusively)

Manuscript also reviewed by Lodi High students

 

Formatting a Poetry Manuscript – Saving and Preparing Files and Text

Preparing Your Poetry or Other Manuscript for Publication   © Monika Rose April 2011

A few tips from Monika Rose, Editor  – monikarosewriter.com

These are not conclusive…many more things to think about abound, but these are a few….

Manzanita Writers Press      manzapress.com

1. Saving your Files:

  •      Keep a working folder with your book project name.  

It is important for you to save your drafts and document changes, as well as to save your files in folders that indicate the final draft and date of each poem. Some day, it will be useful to view your drafts and process. Back these all up to a CD or DVD disc, external hard drive, flash drive (which can corrupt). If anything, it keeps MA candidates busy if your work is studied in the future.

  •     I keep a folder for each poem. Inside of that folder are two folders. One has draft documents of the poem with dates, and they are numbered in succession. Each time a change is made, the document is given a new number added to the title and a new date for revision. This tracks any changes made to the poem. The other folder has the one final draft of the poem going to press.
  •     Copy final poetry files that you have labeled to the section folders in your main folder. Do not move them, but COPY them.
  •     When it is time to copy these final drafts into a folder for the publisher, then they are copied in succession from the final draft folder of each poem, into the section folders ready for the publisher.  

2. Organizing your files for the publisher:

  •      Front Matter materials organized in a folder called Front Matter- copyright page, dedication, etc.
  •       Back Matter materials also organized in a folder called Back Matter – author bio, photo, credits, etc.
  •      Sections numbered or saved with titles- with section titles and any quotations/photos
  •      Poetry matter is saved inside each section.  

3. Preparing ancillary materials:

  •       ISBN number – some people advise to purchase your own ISBN # for the book, but publishers do this and they are listed in Ingram and distribution sites – if you self-publish, or partner with another press and exchange printing favors, then purchase your own as well as the bar code afterwards, from the Bowker site online. This takes about a half hour for the process.
  •       Library of Congress Catalog # – obtain this free. It takes about a week or so to get it back via email.
  •       Copyright page – retain copyright of the book – list your name as copyright owner on the copyright page.
  •       Attributions and Credits – where your poems have appeared in print – give publication and dates if possible for every poem
  •       Acknowledgements page – front or back – thank you’s
  •       Dedication – short – usually to one or two people
  •       Blurbs for the Back – quoted lines from other writers and editors or readers to whom you have sent your manuscript to read and give commentary for the back cover
  •       Author page: bio and  photo with photographer caption – saved as a larger tiff and as a jpeg  and name them so you know (two types) – this goes for all photos and images used. 5 or more megapixels camera used(larger files with good resolution are needed – the jpeg files are used for smaller files, web sites, newspaper photos, etc.)  

4. Preparing the text for the manuscript

  •       Fonts – use Times New Roman – or other serif – don’t use a sans serif font

Do not change font styles for titles or anything – don’t bold your lines or use all caps

Some fonts have strange italic styles, or letter configurations. Don’t use different ones.

Stay consistent.

  •        The typesetter and editor will select fonts/depends on the arrangement you have with your publisher. If self-publishing and you want to do your own layout, take Tom Johnson’s class. Learn about fonts and sample them. Some of the fonts don’t print well in a large run and are hard to read.

 5. Use a style manual and study it carefully – Chicago Manual of Style is best

  •       Use Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary -or latest one  www.merriam-webster.com
  •       Check those darn hyphenated (or not) words! I never realized how tricky these were until putting words in print. Edit carefully. It will cost you a lot of money if you send the typed manuscript to the editor and publisher, and then once it is laid out, you discover many changes you want to make to it.

 6. Check your manuscript in Word.

  •       Note spacing issues, spelling, grammar, capitalization of lines  do go through and check to see if your own format is consistent to the lines in the printed poem. Check contractions–are they needed? Get rid of them if possible. Check line length and evenness — visually and rhythmically. Check for best words. It is never too late to revise your poems. W.B. Yeats did this constantly in various printings.  But I would advise that you do this before the book is printed.
  •       Also, set your tools in Word to catch all your errors, including passive construction, grammar, style, etc. Check all spelling options if the word is in red. This saved me several times, and I’m an English teacher! I knew that the word maize was not spelled maise. But I didn’t pay attention to the cute little red line.Good thing we caught it just in time!
  •       Check punctuation carefully. Do you need the extra commas and periods? Get rid of them if they are not necessary. What about those colons?
  •       Use M-dashes for those long dashes poets love to use – Emily, this one’s for you!

            Sometimes, Word will change those double hyphens for you, sometimes not.

Go to insert symbol—look for the M-dash (the longer one). The shorter one is the N-dash.  Do not use that one. Set cursor to the spot and click the dash. Voila! There is no space on either side of the M-dash. However, there is a space after each ellipsis. . .

  •       What style do you want your numbers to be if you have sections numbered in your poems Roman numerals or other? What other styles do you prefer? Page number location, etc.
  •       Check your titles – are they too long?  Do they give everything away too soon?
  •       Epigraphs: These are those dedications after poem titles, or extra information about the place or time the poem references. Indent with an M-dash and then italicize them. Be consistent.
  •       Line length: Depending on the size of your book, your lines, if too long, will automatically be shifted to the next line and will split, depending on spacing
  •       Do this yourself before the heartache comes. Shorter lines are best. Measure your space. For a 6 x 9 formatted book, leave about a 1 and 1/2 inch margin inside and outside, to be safe. Then see if your printed poem fits inside that frame. If not, you need to think about how to split your lines and reform your stanzas. It may mean rewriting. Think about this as you write your poems to save you heartache later. See what editors do with Walt Whitman’s poems and their very long lines.
  •       Speaking about lines, VERY IMPORTANT:

Most poetry is flush left margin, not centered. Think very carefully as to whether you want to center any of your poetry. Unless it’s a concrete/shaped poem, leave it conventional flush left.

  •       Watch stanza consistency. There may be shifts in your lines once the stanzas are laid out, with lines dropped and moved to the next page. Carefully proof your galleys.

 7. Seasoned poets have formed typing habits that can hinder a typesetter:

  •       eliminate your two spaces after a period – only use one space as the computer program adjusts the spacing after a period automatically – difficult to change typing habits practiced over the years, I know
  •       don’t use the space bar, use tabs, to place words in shaped poems or poems that have creative spacing,  and don’t space over to the end of the line. They show up when a typesetter goes to place your poem.   
  •       single space your poems and double space between stanzas – if a stanza is split at the bottom of the page, then indicate the stanza break or indicate the stanza is continuous if it goes to the next page – best thing is to keep stanzas intact.
  •       turn off your system’s hyphenation if you have prose poetry
  •      don’t justify (don’t full justify – the block symbol in the tool bar) 

8. For more book manuscript information, check this site online:

http://www.press.umich.edu/press/authinfo/auguide.jsp

 

Contact MWP local layout designer as a reference: Joyce Dedini   imacoolcat64@yahoo.com

For any other advice, contact Manzanita Writers Press. We would be happy to help.  

manzapress.com

mrosemanza@jps.net

 

Monika Rose, Editor

Joy Roberts, Business Manager, Editor

Linda Field, Fiction editor, Events Coordinator

Copyright 2011 – Monika Rose

River by the Glass – What Readers Say about the Poetry Collection by Monika Rose

Welcome to the web site of Monika Rose, Poet, Author, Editor

Contact Monika at mrosemanza@jps.net

Founding editor: Manzanita Writers Press

New Poetry collection released :   River by the Glass

 

 

Monika Rose, Poet and AuthorHere are what other poets and writers say about River by the Glass:

Pattiann Rogers, poet, says:

The poems in River By the Glass are rich with the details of the earth moving moment by moment from death to life, from life to death.  Monika Rose understands the union of these transformations and records them with the energy, contemplation, and originality of finely composed poetry.  Like glass, her poetry offers both a reflection of the physical world and a window into our human experiences of its shifting beauty and mystery.

       –Pattiann Rogers

Kathy Isaac-Luke, poet, says:

In her new collection, River by the Glass, Monika Rose shows her
formidable range. By turns meditative, profound and imaginative, her
poems are always, at their core, genuine and unflinchingly honest.
Whether rooted in landscape or familial memory, these poems are rich
in metaphor and finely crafted. With the precision of a scalpel and
the clarity of fresh water, River by the Glass takes the reader on a
journey of discovery.

           —Kathie Isaac-Luke, author of Chrysalides, 2010, Dragonfly Press

 

Kevin Arnold, poet and director of the San Jose Poetry Center says:

Monika Rose inhabits the Mother Lode country, a geography that produces poetry.  Down the highway from where the Squaw Valley Community of Writers winter with Gary Snyder, her poems grow out of local soil.  No wonder Monika is dedicated to bringing out the best of her community.  These fine poems could have been written nowhere else.

        –Kevin Arnold
http://www.redroom.com/author/kevin-arnold

From Mary Mackey, novelist and poet:

“Rose’s poetry captures the texture and currents of the river, translating water into words.”
           –Mary Mackey            

mackeym@mindspring.com

About the poem, Harmonica, from River by the Glass, and notes by the poet, Monika Rose

One of the most interesting things I ever found was a tiny harmonica on a chain at Tuolumne Meadows, embedded in the sand bank, close to the Tuolumne bridge that traverses the Tuolumne River. The one-inch harmonica lying in the sand, attached to a tiny chain, sported four tiny reed holes. I tested the sound, a resounding and high-pitched tweedle–which added harmony to the river burble and the distant murmur of a pair of lovers’ voices dangling over the bridge. I gave the harmonica away, and then got it back and promptly lost it somewhere. Some things continue to want to be lost. The memory of my friend who passed away, fellow poet Julia Holzer, is intertwined with that harmonica. She was with me when I picked it up. She has been lost to the river of sky, no longer with us. The music of the harmonica still sings to her somewhere. Someone lost that harmonica. I wrote a poem about the losing. I wonder whose amulet it was. I wonder if they will find me through the poem. It won’t matter. The harmonica remains lost. The poem stays. If someone reads it, the harmonica will be found again, though in another form.

Side note having nothing whatsoever to do with the poem: The moniker, “harmonica” had been attached to my name, Monika, by my old Geometry instructor Mr. Flynn, who, in his darling Boston accent, would call out “harmoniker,” referring to me, while erasing the board with the elbow patch on his tweed coat and at the same time, and with the same arm, writing new material on the board simultaneously with erasing the old.   

Notes by the poet on the poem, “Harmonica, ” in River by the Glass

 

Harmonica

 

Forgetting the music

But finding new sound

Here by the river

Where stone shapes the

River songs,

An amulet glitters

In the sand

 

A talisman lost

By a lover

Maybe, last night

Here, by the water

Straining under the weight

Of new romance

 

A four-holed harmonica

On a black string tossed

In a groan

Or a sigh

Flown into sand

Reeds altered by grit

 

Bitter on the tip

My lips almost envelop

The musical words

Wondering how

The tryst went

How deep

Did it slip

And how the

Taste lingers.

 

 

 

How to Write a Sonnet by example – two poems by Monika Rose

                                                          

 Here is how Monika Rose converted a free verse poem to a Sonnet form — see the poem titled “Father” below the sonnet titled “Fish”, which was transformed from the free verse form.

                                                Conversion to an English Sonnet     (time: 2 hours)

Start with a situation and a statement of a condition, situation, or event which begins a plot or set of complications or logical argument—there should be a motive behind the speech:

 

The Fish

 

My father taught me how to swim to life

He must have seen my sudden fetal crawl

My body slicing membranes like a knife

While gasping, choking, wriggling in the squall

 

Continue with elements or aspects of that condition or situation and be sure to further the story — there should be a complication or advancement of the narrative:

 

How I kicked my legs and leaped into his world

Beginning struggle at an early stroke

And like a butterfly in flight unfurled

To wings of infant innocence he spoke

 

Add the volta (9th line — a turn or some kind of complication or reversal)

Then an explanation or elaboration . . .

 

Push off the heart he warned when leaving home

And turn like silver lest you lose retreat

Keep moving under water and its foam

So journey take you back where all ends meet

 

Add a resolution or solution to some aspect of the situation set up:

 

The backstroke takes you far into the start

The breast stroke brings you back into your heart.

 

 Finished! Fait accomplit!

 Finished sonnet:

 

— from River by the Glass, A Collection of Poems by Monika Rose

 

The Fish

 

My father taught me how to swim to life

He must have seen my sudden fetal crawl

My body slicing membranes like a knife

While gasping, choking, wriggling in the squall

How I kicked my legs and leaped into his world

Beginning struggle at an early stroke

And like a butterfly in flight unfurled

To wings of infant innocence he spoke

 

Push off the heart he warned when leaving home

And turn like silver lest you lose retreat

Keep moving under water and its foam

So journey take you back where all ends meet

 

 

The backstroke takes you far into the start

The breast stroke brings you back into your heart.

 — from River by the Glass, A Collection of Poems by Monika Rose

Father                                                

 Prenatal

 He watched from the outside

As I swam inside

The breast stroke

The butterfly

He watched

As I swam out

Wriggled

Gasped

Choked

 

Parental

This is the crawl he spoke

The fastest stroke

Kick your legs

Pull your arms

Cup your hands

 

This is the breast stroke

Push out from the heart

 

This is the butterfly

Unfold your wings

 

This is the backstroke

Retreat sometimes

 

Paternal

 My father the fish

Who taught

Me how to

Stroke ripples

Blow bubbles

Gulp quickly

Push away

And swim back

 

Publisher GlenHill Productions, Ron Pickup, Praises River by the Glass in his Introduction

INTRODUCTION

I first published Monika Rose’s poetry in the Mindprint Review, a literary journal of regional and international writing and art published back in the late 1980s. And even then, I was taken with her whimsical wit and metaphysical humor in poems such as “Carp” and “Eye.” Today, she has evolved these skills into the biting imagery but sensitive and haunting verse found in the likes of “Drowning in the Kern, ”  “Chester and the Bluebird,” and “On the Fence. ”

This is the ethereal yet concrete fine poetry of a master poet. In “Chester and the Bluebird,” a spirited bluebird standing in for a beloved pet steer, just reduced to sizzling steaks on the family barbecue, is Rose’s respectful reply to the classic, important image of a “red wheel/barrow/glazed with rain/water/beside the white/chickens,” written by the pillar of Objectivism, William Carlos Williams.

The poetry in this collection has been forged and tempered over decades of writing, while also teaching English at the secondary and college level; attending numerous workshops with some of the best writers of our time; and promoting and showcasing the work of her fellow writers and artists through founding Writers Unlimited and editing and publishing the Manzanita anthologies and other publications.

With the publication of River by the Glass, we at last have the collected poetry to date, of the hardest working poet I have been privileged to know. GlenHill is proud to present these fruits of her long labor.

Ron Pickup

March 23, 2011

Soulsbyville,California

Yeats and the Sculpture of Self: A Critical Essay by Monika Rose

Yeats and the Sculpture of Self: A Critical Essay

                     — By Monika Rose

W.B. Yeats’ progress as a writer was shaped by deliberate plans of self-improvement and exploration, especially as it pertained to his development of craft. His “passion for making and remaking himself led him to revise his early work…to conform to a later pattern” (Kermode 1683). Yeats cross-referenced his themes in several different modes of discourse–poems, essays, journals, plays, fiction, etc.–and worked on them continuously. The amount of material regarding the researching of his methods of composition is vast, ranging from detailed studies of his prosody and versification, to exploration of his writing influences and associations with people who would become symbolic emblems in his work. The most valuable and provocative of Yeats’ ritualistic writing practices, however, stem from his recording of occult experiences such as those experienced via his involvement in the Order of the Golden Dawn, Rosicrucianism participation in seances, ritualistic ceremonies, dream recording, automatic writing through mediums, and other activities. Luckily,  his methodical habits of composing prose, drama, and in particular, poetry, that involve compulsive, rigorous, methodical  cross-referencing and extensive notes, editing, and revision kept him “hammering his thoughts into unity”(qtd. in Kermode and Hollander 1680). These two areas seem radically different, yet in order to control and shape the evolution of his ideas, I believe Yeats needed the system of careful composition he devised in order to channel the mystic visions and experiences into unified forms of expression.  According to Kermode and Hollander, he sought a place called, after Plotinus, “There,” some center where everything came together, and “what he was trying to get together, for the sake of major poetry, was himself” (1682). And as Yeats said in a letter to Dorothy Wellesley, “I live in my own mind and write poetry; can go into a dream and stay there” (qtd. in Kermode and Hollander 38).

Yeats had a system for recording experiences and ideas that would seem challenging to the average person at first glance, but it was a system that afforded him opportunities to document material recurring in various genres, and it would become a method that would serve as a sort of cyclical reincarnation of ideas. He kept various bound journals and notebooks, and later, loose-leaf journals, which provided a vast workshop for his reveries and musings, as well as a place to store his observations that would become a basis for his text be it a dramatic work, a poem, or even a passage in his autobiographies (Bradford 3). Studies of his manuscripts provide the insights to his textual changes, which were frequent, before and after publication (Bradford Preface” vi-ix).

In light of Yeats’ constant self-construction, Daniel T. O’Hara summarizes Jahan Ramazani’s book, Yeats and the Poetry of Death: Elegy, Self-Elegy, and the Sublime, by concluding that “the poet is the one who is reborn as  ‘idea,’ perfected, become complete…”(qtd. in O’Hara 547). Yeats’ poems are “ecstatic acts of intellectual and imaginative deliverance, a wresting of order from the chaos of life” (549). Thus, Yeats creates himself as an entity in his notebooks and works, documenting the evidence of his identity, and he becomes a director of his own life, acting on the stage of his own tragedies (Neuman 56). In his reveries, mystical musings of the past as recorded in journals which would later become part of his Autobiographies, Yeats reports that he was, at puberty, first attracted by the thought of determining his life’s form as he would “shape a poem.” This process was influenced by the works of Shelley, as Shirley Neuman reports. Yeats stated that he “began to play at being a sage, a magician or a poet…as I climbed along the narrow ledge. . . (60). He “shaped his life as he might a poem….” Thus, this deliberate self-shaping began early, with Yeats trying out different poses and masks of himself, Hamlet-like (60).

As Vereen Bell relates, Yeats knew that “poetry and even thought are fictions, but he believed in the power of such fictions to shape and direct human life and in the ability of narrative logic to give coherence and dignity to the erratic human enterprise of becoming,” thus the Collected Poems of Yeats stood  for his own life story (495). Bell explains that Yeats was not really suited for the job of being a “cutting-edge modernist,” since the realm of his life experience included Yeats claiming to have had a meeting with a queen of a band of fairies who discussed the fairy kingdom with him.  Another incident, in which Yeats told Dorothy Wellesley that the immortality of the individual soul could be proved and upheld in a court of law, reiterates a tie to the ancient relics of the past, not to mention the practice of consulting daily astrological charts worked out by Yeats and his Uncle George to forecast events (Bell 496). “Hammer your thoughts into a unity,” one spirit had instructed Yeats (Bell 497) and by Yeats’ own desire to create a reality with its own qualities, he believed he could “call, declare, make, summon, tell,” and continue shaping his life as a poet in a physical sense (498). Natalie Crohn Schmitt reports Yeats’ statement, “Whether it is we or the vision that create the pattern, who set the wheel turning, it is hard to say, ” and that Yeats continues by saying that he is full of uncertainty, not sure “when he is the finger or the clay” (174). Thus, Yeats struggled with identifying the nature of his soul as a writer and as a Magi, a role he so much wanted to acquire, continuing his process of self-shaping (Croft 135).

Writing was painstaking for Yeats, and by 1895, he had developed the habit of writing many drafts of his prose and poetry, staying with a work until ‘much hammering’ had worked it into shape. But it was a tedious process, writing in a slow longhand, working mainly in the early morning hours on his poetry from 9 until noon (Wellesley 38, 44),revising as he went along. In his later years, he would often get up at 4 A.M., work at proof sheets until 5:30, then go back to bed until breakfast at 7:30. Then he would write poetry until noon (Wellesley 82). His handwriting was nearly illegible to others, so he dictated from his manuscripts and notebooks for a typist, sometimes his wife George. If he were interrupted during dictation, he would be disoriented and his secretary had to write what she thought she heard, going back later and correcting errors in the transcribing of his poetry, misreading his writing, with Yeats often missing the corrections needed, himself. Yeats’ writing contained atrocious misspellings, horrendous over-punctuation of commas and dashes, and his sentences were hard to discern due to lack of end punctuation and capitalization. He would do such things as trail off at the suffixes, so that those wanting to examine actual manuscripts for prose style had a difficult if not impossible task of trying to decipher his process (Bradford “Preface” iii).

Later on, after marriage to George Hyde-Lees, Yeats’ work was less graphically demanding, writing in loose-leaf notebooks so that he could rearrange the order of his material while composing, tearing or cutting out pages he wanted transcribed, and then rearranging them again more easily.  His wife would type these sheets out while he continued to revise in his notebook–thus, he would have continuous clean copies with which to work (xiii).  She often typed carbon copies so he could continue to correct the copies, revising such things as repetitive images that he could not get out of his mind, reducing them to “echoes”(Bradford 93). In his notebooks, or his “daybooks” which were literary musings and observations, in which he would write infrequently but regularly, he would write down phrases and statements, putting phrases that he would want to use in a poem in quotation marks, so that they could easily be seen.

Yeats would also complete some of his poems, such as “The Wild Swans at Coole” in these journals (Crawford 8). He would, in addition, develop musings on ideas he would have about news of the day, with reports of seances and psychic investigations, as well as autobiographical material in these journals.  For Yeats, this working record of ideas provided a fertile place for the genesis of ideas as well as the continuous working of that idea to its end as a publishable work, and these works included various forms.   On the nature of his repeated revision process, he remarked to Dorothy Wellesley, “The correction of prose, because it has no fixed laws, is endless; a poem comes right with a click like a closing box” (qtd. in Wellesley 24).  He even put minor essays through multiple drafts, and he worked for years on his Autobiographies.  One could say Yeats was a compulsive self-editor, but he seemed to work his material like a sculptor until that work of art conformed to his expectations of expression (Croft 54-55)

Yeats did not stop at just creating the shaping of his poetic self, as his association with Dorothy Wellesley, a fellow poet, demonstrates. He foisted his skills upon others. In one letter to Wellesley, Yeats had talked about the revision of one her poems: “Ah my dear how it added to my excitement when I re-made that poem of yours into a single being.  We triumphed over each other”(Wellesley 82).  It seemed as if his Pygmalion tendencies were not always self-directed but spilled over onto others.  His system included frequent letter writing in which he stashed and worked on some of his ideas for his autobiographies, another method of shaping himself (Kermode and Hollander 1683).

The individual pages of composition within his notebooks and loose-leaf manuscripts had a system as well, indicates Bradford.  Yeats liked having a two-page layout or spread in which he would compose on the right side, leaving the left free for revision, drawing arrows to the right-hand page and corresponding lines. The particular works may not remain in sequential order, either. Later, in the 20’s and 30’s, Yeats would complete his writing on the first typescript page.  When he finished a satisfactory work, he would initial it or sign in full, with a date. This method provided students of his work clear tracings of his process, especially watching actual lines emerge from the mass of ideas.  His process usually was an adding-on task, with works “accumulating slowly, as a coral reef accumulates” (Kermode and Hollander “Preface” iii).

Bradford relates that Yeats’ modus operandi in beginning a poem or any prose work, usually, was to sketch a subject in prose–for drama it was a scenario. These were brief images, but many of them laboriously developed into poems, most continued to a draft form that same day in which a sketch was begun. Yeats often complained that it took a long time to “set into a pattern” or find the rhythm of natural speech or utterance for it.  He had to pick his suitable form for the poem, then most often write a list of rhyming words at the top with which to play, select his rhyme scheme, and invent descriptive correlatives or symbolic objects to represent his ideas. Sometimes he obsessed over a conflict in a poem, which evoked dreams in which symbols and workings of the poem manifested themselves (Wellesley 86).  He worked until he got the poem right in this manuscript format, carrying on revision processes even after printing (Wellesley “Introduction” 8-9), however, it may have taken months between intermediate and final drafts which were working drafts that he continuously revised as he went along (12).  One favorite technique in his later years, in the 1930’s, was to “undertake different tasks in order to give birth to new poems,” states Tim Armstrong (50).  This was to force him to produce new work.  In a letter to Wellesley, Yeats says that his prose version of “The King of the Great Clock Tower” was written to “force myself to write lyrics” (43). At the same time, Yeats was concerned with his own approaching death and loss of sexual strength and desire, as evidenced by his interest in a surgical procedure called the Steinach operation (a vasectomy). This procedure was purported to be a restorer of the cardio-vascular system and supposedly provided a renewed vigor in men due to its inward properties of “self-insemination” (Armstrong 49).  Yeats, who related poetic creation and power with physical male potency, was aware of the theory behind the operation, and he would relish this “second puberty” (50). What might this have to do with his poetic prowess?  Armstrong analyzes that for a self-made poet, this procedure would give Yeats a rebirth, channeling his faculties inward during a time when he could balance the sexual energies and his creative output together. Yeats was involved at this time in his own “self as a focus for incarnation,” connecting with this idea of Yeats, indicates Armstrong,  as a “self-begettor” or self-generator and his fears that he would never again be able to write poetry (50). This is why the automatic writing, along with his marriage to George, and alliances with younger women such as Dorothy Wellesley, provided such a fresh source of new direction for his writing. He thrived on these new areas of exploration (50). The occult experiences that Yeats recorded, as well as his “esoteric investigations,” which occupied about one third of his time, became the types of activities that were an integral part of his writings. He does not say much of the studies, since he was sworn to secrecy about the rituals and experiences with Madame Blavatsky, MacGregor Mathers, his psychic teacher, and the ceremonies of the Order of the Golden Dawn (Bradford 309).  Included were his conversations with the spirit Leo Africanus, an explorer of the 17th century, with whom Yeats conversed initially at a seance in 1912, then over a period of years in which this ‘daimon’ allowed Yeats to understand his true self, as he thought it to be (Neuman 43-44). This experience would prepare him for his later automatic writings with his wife, which would inspire the basis for his grand scale description of the workings of the universe, A Vision (O’Donnell 1).

In the book, Yeats’ Golden Dawn, George Harper tells of Yeats’ accounts of experiences with thought transference, his meticulous records of his spiritual marriage with Maud Gonne, seances, dream recollections, and rituals connected to visionary events. In these events, Yeats would hold an object in his hand and begin to envision ideas and events related to that object, or the use of mediums would assist with this (102-3). Yeats had not been the only writer to have ideas come to him via a trance-like state: he had studied Blake and Coleridge extensively. The automatic writing, of which he participated even before his married life, as well as the other psychic experiments he conducted with friends of the order, kept him in good standing with the metaphysical tradition of his predecessors (103). Yeats also wrote occult essays based on his practices, such as one called, “Magic.” His most famous work, Vision, which Yeats labeled as “philosophy” but is in reality a group of images based on one symbol of the universe, the Divine Essence, stems from his automatic writings with his wife as the medium.  Through her, spirit “Controllers,” those that spoke to and gave insights to George, and the “Frustrators” who attacked his health and caused illness, or confused the manuscript text, communicated to them in response to Yeats’ questions on various subjects.  The actual text or writing of the automatic script is difficult to decipher, so Yeats went back and transcribed the questions and answers in his notebooks, trying to unravel for himself the mysteries he only “half understood”(Croft 166).

Some researchers, such as Kathleen Raine and Virginia Moore, among others, explains Croft, have discovered some of the symbols and rituals from the occult experiences, many of these related in closed notebooks not for public viewing.  For instance, when Yeats was initiated into the Order of the Golden Dawn, he wore a green robe, red shoes, and a rope belt. Being blindfolded and told to repeat oaths, he was led around to symbolic points in the room.  His path was barred, but then he passed between two pillars and learned secret steps and salutes. In another ritual, he was “suspended on a cross by means of ropes, while the Second Chief of the Order held out the Rose Crucifix and said, ‘The Symbol of Suffering is the symbol of strength,’ to which Yeats replied, ‘I, Demon Est Deus Inversus, a member of the Body of Christ, do this day spiritually bind myself, even as I am now bound physically upon the Cross of Suffering, that I will to the utmost lead a pure and selfish life’”(Croft 137-8).  It is suggested that these rituals became a part of actual life for Yeats, then embodying the realm of symbol in his writing, especially since these symbols, forms, colors would reappear in his works, further evidence of the deliberate shaping of life and work in his integrated system (Croft 138).

Yeats saved most material involved with the Order of the Golden Dawn and other spiritualistic data, except the early personal writings.  In writing of his occult experiences, he sometimes admitted he called up the wrong symbol or had distorted visions, making errors in his evocation (Croft 137).  Some examples of symbols found in his documentation include a dagger, a wand, a pentacle, and a broken lotus, as well as a rose cross, a black silk sash, several cardboard seals and pentagrams, a huge diagram of the Sephirotic Tree of Life (about 3 ft. square) and a diagram of the Phases of the Moon on oiled silk, etc. (Harper, Golden Dawn)  The sword he was given by a Japanese visitor also worked into the symbolism of his poetry. There are several notebooks that document more diagrams, sketches of gyres, phases of the moon, sleeps (dream recordings of the spirits speaking through the medium while asleep), automatic script, and working notes, some of which are illegible.   There is an index card file of over 700 cards of the automatic script, as well as envelopes with recorded information in the collection, showing the elaborate organization Yeats devised  (Harper,  Yeats and the Occult 4-5). The automatic script is an incredible body of work on psychic research, conducted from October 20, 1917, to March 28, 1920, with more than 3,600 papers in 450 sittings that were recorded (Harper, Making, “Preface” x). Harper relates that other modes of dictation include a writing in which Maud Gonne wrote down notes and conversation for Yeats about the investigation of the bleeding miracle, an oleograph of some sort of religious figure (Harper, Yeats and the Occult 3-4). In addition, some of the exercises in the Golden Dawn materials are concerned with the Celtic Mysteries, horoscopes, Talismanic experiments, and Tarot exercises (Harper, Yeats’ Golden Dawn 8). There are letters and sealed records of the business meetings, petty quarrels, and lectures of the Order of the Golden Dawn, all of which were carefully saved by Yeats, I think, so that students could later clarify his participation in the occult. Yeats stayed with the Order of the Golden Dawn in hopes of eventually becoming a Magi, or spiritual figure (O’Donnell 56).

Thus, through Yeats’ deliberate attempts to train himself in his various literary and dramatic undertakings, shaping his realm of thought, the poet had some control over his own genesis as a writer. If he lacked control elsewhere in his life, where women slipped away, politics wavered, losses overwhelmed him, as in Lady Gregory’s death, and as his own impending death loomed nearer–he at least could take satisfaction in the constant visible changes in the editing and shaping of his manuscripts. Balancing that with exploration of the world of the dead via communication with spirits, and the formulation of a cyclical system of the universe, perhaps he could engender some hope that he would retain a position in the earthly literary system. Perhaps he would return to complete some of his projects, continuously revising some them, as was his habit, from beyond the grave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

 

Bell, Vereen. “Yeats’ Nietzschean Idealism.” Southern Review 29 (July 1973): 491-513.

Bradford, Curtis. Yeats at Work. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University     Press, 1965.

Croft, Barbara L. Stylistic Arrangements: A Study of William Butler Yeats’ ‘A       Vision.’  New Jersey: Associated University Presses, 1987.

Harper, George Mills.  The Making of Yeats’ ‘A Vision’: A Study of the Automatic Script. Vol. 1.  Carbondale: Southern Illinois University     Press, 1987.

—.Yeats’ Golden Dawn. London: Macmillan Press, LTD, 1974.

—.ed. Yeats and the Occult. Canada: Macmillan, 1975.

Kermode, Frank, and John Hollander. “Autobiographies.” Oxford Anthology of    English Literature. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press,1973.1721-  1723.

—.“William Butler Yeats.” 1679-1683.

Neuman, Shirley. Some One Myth: Yeats’ Autobiographical Prose. Republic of    Ireland: The Dolmen Press, 1982.

O’Donnell, William H. “Yeats’ Adept and Artist.” Harper, Occult 1-10.

O’Hara, Daniel T.  “Poetry and Phantasmagoria.” The Virginia Quarterly Review 67

(Summer 1991): 547-551.

Schmitt, Natalie Crohn. “Ecstasy and Peak-Experience: W.B. Yeats, Margharita Laski, and Abraham Maslow.” Comparative Drama 28 (Summer 1994): 167-   181.

Wellesley, Dorothy. Comp. Letters on Poetry from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy.       Wellesley.       London: Oxford University Press, 1964.

 

 

Authors Praise River by the Glass

River by the Glass front cover smallHere are what other poets and writers say about River by the Glass:

Pattiann Rogers, poet, says:

The poems in River By the Glass are rich with the details of the earth moving moment by moment from death to life, from life to death.  Monika Rose understands the union of these transformations and records them with the energy, contemplation, and originality of finely composed poetry.  Like glass, her poetry offers both a reflection of the physical world and a window into our human experiences of its shifting beauty and mystery.

       –Pattiann Rogers

Kathy Isaac-Luke, poet, says:

In her new collection, River by the Glass, Monika Rose shows her
formidable range. By turns meditative, profound and imaginative, her
poems are always, at their core, genuine and unflinchingly honest.
Whether rooted in landscape or familial memory, these poems are rich
in metaphor and finely crafted. With the precision of a scalpel and
the clarity of fresh water, River by the Glass takes the reader on a
journey of discovery.

           —Kathie Isaac-Luke, author of Chrysalides, 2010, Dragonfly Press

 

Kevin Arnold, poet and director of the San Jose Poetry Center says:

Monika Rose inhabits the Mother Lode country, a geography that produces poetry.  Down the highway from where the Squaw Valley Community of Writers winter with Gary Snyder, her poems grow out of local soil.  No wonder Monika is dedicated to bringing out the best of her community.  These fine poems could have been written nowhere else.

        –Kevin Arnold
http://www.redroom.com/author/kevin-arnold

From Mary Mackey, novelist and poet:

“Rose’s poetry captures the texture and currents of the river, translating water into words.”
           –Mary Mackey            

mackeym@mindspring.com