Media Release
CONTACT:
Carolyn Howard-Johnson e-mail: HoJoNews@aol.com
CONTACT:
Magdalena Ball e-mail: maggieball@compulsivereader.com
For Immediate Release
Poets Suggest The Real Thing Should Compete with Greeting Cards
Award-winning poets Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball have developed a new concept for inexpensive holiday gifts--an idea for poetic greetings apart from greeting cards.
They suggest a real chapbook of poetry and have released the first two in a series in time for the holidays. So far the series includes Cherished Pulse (for anyone you love) with artwork from California artist Vicki Thomas and She Wore Emerald Then (for mothers on your gift list) with photographs by May Lattanzio. New booklets are coming for Father's Day and for Christmas 2010.
The small books, a tradition in the poetry world since Elizabethan times, are priced to compete with greeting cards. The poets' idea is that, in general, cards from the rack seldom say what we'd like and that a small book of poetry would be more thoughtful.
Cherished Pulse may be ordered from Amazon at www.budurl.com/CherishedPulse and She Wore Emerald Then at www.budurl.com/MotherChapbook.
This us the second edition of Cherished Pulse. The first may well have been the first e-chapbook of poetry. This edition comes in paperback with a newly-designed cover; Ball and Howard-Johnson felt issuing a paperback essential considering the popularity of the e-book version. That e-book was offered by online gift-giving giant of 35 years, Celebration Express to its clients in 2007.
Magdalena Ball runs the highly respected compulsivereader.com review site. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Quark Soup, which won a 2006 "Noble" Prize from MyShelf's Back to Literature site, and a poetry book Repulsion Thrust, due out in December 2009. Her novel Sleep Before Evening, published in 2007, was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's poetry appears frequently in review journals. She is listed in Poets & Writers and her chapbook of poetry, Tracings (www.budurl.com/CarolynsTracings ), was given the Award of Excellence by the Military Writers Society of America. She is also an award-winning novelist and short story writer and instructor for UCLA Extension Writers' Program.
For more information on any of the chapbooks in this poetry series, contact maggieball@compulsivereader.com.
Celebration Express can be found at: http://www.celebrationexpress.com.au/
Learn more about Howard-Johnson in the media room at www.howtodoitfrugally.com . And more about Ball at http://www.magdalenaball.com/.
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E-mail: HoJoNews@aol.com
This is certainly something to think about. Since I do a lot of my own poetry and other writing ideas for special days, I'm all for this concept. Thanks for posting about it. ~ Yaya
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IThese lady are wonderful poets. I bought my mom one of their books for Mather's Day and she loves it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. I like the idea of sending a little book in place of a card.
ReplyDeleteDonna, the idea for poetic greetings apart from greeting cards is a superb idea! When I taught elementary school, we used to create a "Gift of Words" for parents around Christmas time. Each child would write several positive paragraphs describing what their mother or father looked like, things they said, and did that they would always remember. This was done in booklet form, including color sheets, and best of all a poem which proclaimed that the best gift you receive may not be gifted wrapped with a ribbon and bow. Parents always loved what was written, and they treasured the booklets.
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