Extra Extra! The Descent is a Horrorific Good Read

Genre poetry, especially The Descent's: darker breed of poetry, is often overlooked by poetry lovers. This Autumn Cider Seasonal Reads staple here on Undawnted is a great way to vibe with the change of seasons.

On Writing to be Read's Treasuring Poetry column by Robbie Cheadle, she not only delves into my Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, paranormal inspired chapbook, but she enjoyed it as well.

Treasuring Poetry, 2024: Introducing the poetry of DL Mullan and a review is available to read. In this interview, I discuss my inspiration and journey into writing poetry. The classics are a beautiful influence and help me ground my creative pieces. My interview also exhibits three poems from other chapbooks. Transcendence is in my upcoming Impetus. The Flower Within lives in Effloresce, which is being expanded for a future release. Weather and Asymptote reside in Phantastic.

I hope poetry lovers read my upcoming chapbooks as I re-release these poetry books from one platform onto another. This year, I plan on publishing at least two chapbooks, Eclipse being one of them. I cannot wait to share my lyrical visions with an expanded audience. 

My Long Form Poetry will be published in an upcoming collection, but most individual poems are available in my Special Editions Store.

Thanks again, Robbie Cheadle, for your kindness and review of my poetry.

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DL Mullan has been writing award-level poetry for thirty years. Recently, she has showcased her literary talents by self-publishing several collections of her poetry. She also writes novels, designs apparel, and creates digital art. Ms. Mullan‘s creative writing is available in digital and print collections, from academia to commercial anthologies.

As an independent publisher, she produces her own book cover designs and video presentations, as well as maintains her own websites. She is an award-winning digital artist and poet. 

Join her Undawntable Newsletter for everything Undawnted. Be sure to enroll in her Substack writing program, RhymeScribe, which focuses on the form and function of poetry. Become a YouTube subscriber for her Poetry Slam updates.

http://www.undawnted.com

http://www.undawnted.com/p/poetry.html  

http://www.undawnted.com/p/long-form-poetry.html

WordCrafter Blog Tour for Small Wonders

Summary

The world is filled with amazing things, if we will just stop a moment and take notice. In this vast universe, we are but tiny individuals, filled with awe and amazement. From reflections on first love, to reflections on growing old. The poems within these pages express a lifetime of unique reflections in Small Wonders.

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Interview

Undawnted's DL Mullan sat down and interviewed fellow poet, Kaye Lynne Booth about her poetry collection, Small Wonders.


What made you decide to write a poetry book?

Small Wonders is an accumulation of a lifetime of poetry. I have written poetry since I was a young girl, and here and there, I’ve had a few published over the years. But, poetry is a form of writing which I indulge in because it is fun, and although I enjoy sharing my poems, I never really looked at it like it was something to make money off of. But when I saw the enthusiasm rise for the Poetry Treasures books, which WordCrafter Press published each year, I decided that I had enough poems that were sitting around gathering virtual dust to publish a collection and share them with the world, for better or worse.


Why the theme "Small Wonders"? What was the inspiration?

Poems are the “small wonders” of the literary world. They help people see things in new and different ways. They allow the poet to pour out his or her heart in a way that expresses exactly how they feel in such a way as to create an image that others can relate to and understand.

 

Is writing poetry an innate skill, or did you have to develop it? Do you have your own style? Or, do you like writing poetry in the various standard forms (haiku, sonnet, etc.)?

As I said, I like to write poetry because it is fun. I like to play with words, and so, I have fun experimenting with different forms of poetry. I enjoy writing syllabic poetry to see if I can say what I wish to say in the correct amount of syllables, and I also enjoy playing with visual poetry, such as shape poems. In the collection, I’ve included an entire section of poems I just had fun with.

Do you have a favorite poet? If so, why? How did this poet inspire you?

A. I am partial to Emily Dickinson, Sidney Sheldon and Dr. Suess. I believe that much of my poetry carries the sing-song, rhyming qualities of the two latter. Dickinson, I relate to on a different level, as she is more somber in her poetry, in both subject and content, and I think some of my more serious, emotional poems carry that somber quality. 

Have you written an epic poetry (Homer)?

Actually, I have written a couple of epic, or at least semi-epic poems regarding the life and death of my son, but those are for a very different book. There are a few poems in Small Wonders which are quite long, but I don’t know that one would call them epic.

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Review

Want to return to a time from your youth? Want to let your imagination guide you through the images dancing in your mind? Then pick up a copy of Small Wonders, by Kaye Lynne Booth. 

Small Wonders is a collection of poems that cradle the reader in fanciful rhymes that lead to having a picnic buffet of emotions and imagery, waiting with each turn of the page. The reader gets to sample different motifs and poetry structures throughout the book. 

If you want to take a moment for yourself, then read a page a night. 

Here is an example: 

 

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The Small Wonders Giveaway

Three free digital copies of

Small Wonders

are up for grabs. Follow the tour and make a comment at each stop,

so I know you were there and you’re automatically entered.

One entry per stop.

Winners selected in a random drawing. (Really. I draw them out of a hat, literally.)

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Purchase 

Books2Read

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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; and book 1 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

Discover Kaye Lynne Booth on her websites:

WordCrafter Services
Writing to be Read

2023 Retired Poems on My Poetry Forum

At the end of October 2022, My Poetry Forum went dark. 

In light of this website going defunct, all poems have now been retired from public review and comment. Undawnted has other poems and forums in the public sphere, but in the future will concentrate more on our YouTube Channel and Undawnteum sites. This change will ensure that our readership will have access to free reads in times to come. 

We are so sorry this snafu has occurred. 

Please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel, as well as bookmark Undawnteum. There is a wealth of information already on the site, currently under construction, for you to read about Undawnted's creative spark, DL Mullan, and her writings. 

While you are here, sign up for A Novelist Idea and take your creativity to a whole new level. 

Thank you so very much for your time. We appreciate and adore our readership. 

Team Undawnted  

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Undawnted's YouTube Channel offers poetry shorts to full-fledged poetry feature films in our Poetry Slam section. This new playlist will give you more of the rhymes you crave.

Subscribe for more award-level poems written by DL Mullan.

WordCrafter Blog Tour: Joseph Carrabis's Marianne for Visions Anthology

Summary

This short story is about the final stages of life. It's not a coming of age story; it's a coming to the end story.

How do you envision your last days? Marianne answers this question by how her mind starts to slip into fantasies. Marianne tries to balance her mental decline, her other medical issues, and her daughter's concerns with an analytical perspective, sarcasm, and defensiveness. All modes to deflect and shield her from others imposing their will upon her as she withers away.

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Review

The short story Marianne by Joseph Carrabis addresses the fears that each human endures as they draw closer to the end of their lives. The elderly Marianne is confined to a wheelchair, knowing that her prognosis is grim, yet her mind is sharp. She sharpens her wit by foiling the plans of her daughter, Rose, and when that is not enough to satiate her suspicions, she antagonizes the younger woman with airplane tickets to euthanasia-friendly Oregon... to visit her sister, of course.

What Marianne does not see is the perspective of Rose. Her daughter is witnessing her mother's mental decline and is helpless to do anything about it. She is pushed away and treated like a gold digger.

In converse, the daughter is more wrapped up in her stress of being a caretaker than to enjoy the last days with her mother. Rose’s relationship is complicated by her mother’s disgruntled attitude, finances, medical and legal appointments. Rose appears to have little power and is reminded of her insignificance, to the point where Rose visits her mother only once per day.

The narrative asks the reader: which view of the situation is correct? Each character sees the other as a hostile combatant, instead of as family. A true-to-life situation as the older and the younger women become at odds, both afraid to address the real issues of their relationship and what Marianne’s death would mean to them both. As these circumstances often yield two struggling individuals, who are unable to communicate with each other, because their emotions are dominated by ego instead of compassion.  

The story, Marianne, shows how a situation can lead people down the path of ungratefulness. Ungrateful to have a caring daughter who takes care of Marianne. Ungrateful for the time Rose has left with her mother.

The reader is not only taken on a journey of this complicated relationship, but also navigates its audience through the collapsing mind of Marianne herself. A good read that asks many hard questions. In the end, the reader is to decide what it all meant. If being at odds with a failing loved one has meaning at all.

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Purchase 

To read, Marianne, purchase Visions anthology here: https://books2read.com/u/49Lk28.

 

Giveaway 

Five digital copies will be given away in a random drawing at the end of the tour. Each stop visited earns an entry. Let me know you were there by leaving a comment.     

To Enter the Giveaway... go to Writing to be Read and leave a Comment.

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Joseph Carrabis told stories to anyone who would listen, starting in childhood, wrote his first stories in grade school and started getting paid for his writing in 1978. He's been everything from a long-haul trucker to a Chief Research Scientist and holds patents covering mathematics, anthropology, neuroscience, and linguistics. After patenting a technology which he created in his basement and creating an international company, he retired from corporate life and now he spends his time writing fiction based on his experiences. His work appears regularly in several anthologies and his own published novels. You can learn more about him at https://josephcarrabis.com and find much of his work at http://nlb.pub/amazon.