Poetry Friday: My Cruel Invention Giveaway

Happy Poetry Friday, everyone! Let's celebrate the end of a week during which the cruelest invention, Death, took the lives of cultural icon David Bowie, poet C. D. Wright, and actor/ heartthrob (at least to me) Alan Rickman.

Where is the poetry action this week?
At Keri Recommends!
I recommend you visit her site
for more Poetry Friday goodness.

This week, I am giving away a copy of the new poetry anthology MY CRUEL INVENTION to one lucky reader. Post a comment to be entered into the drawing. The book is "An outstanding collection of poetry about inventions and inventors, real and imagined," edited by poet Bernadette Geyer. [Quoted from back cover.]

More about the book in a moment. First, a few important announcements for fans of Author Amok.

First: I'm moving my blogging HQ to my newly refurbished website. I'll continue to post Poetry Friday entries here at Author Amok through January 29. As of February 1, you'll find me at my new blog.

Second: I am hosting the fourth (wow!) annual daily poetry prompt this February, with some help from my friends. The theme this year is FOUND OBJECTS. You will find a full explanation of this year's daily poem project at my new location. Past daily poem projects and National Poetry Month series will remain here at Author Amok, so you'll still be able to access those posts.

Now, on to MY CRUEL INVENTION. This cover! The Green Man goes Steampunk.

Find out more on Goodreads.

Check out some of the poem titles from this gorgeous little collection:

"The Rube Goldberg Contraption for Kissing" by Karen Skolfield
"Jekyll's Apology," by Kathryn Rickel
"A Physics Haiku," by Keith Stevenson
"I am a Geothermal Heat-Pump" by Nolan Liebert
"Dance with Rocket Shoes" by Alex Dreppect
"Edison's Elephant, 1903," by Tanis MacDonald
"Catherine de Medici and the High Hell" by Marcela Sulak
"Cadaver Feet" by Karen Bovenmyer

One of my postcard poems, "Eyes on the Back of My Head" is also anthologize here.

I reached out to poet Marjorie Maddox, who has given me permission to share one of my favorite selections from the book with you. I love how time travel underscores the layered interactions between parent and child in this poem.

H.G. Who?
by Marjorie Maddox

"I'm going back in the time machine;
I'll be right back," my daughter hollers
from the backyard when it's time
to set the table. I let her go
off into that world of minutes
cartwheeling backwards
and upside down into the oblivion
of imagination I once knew
in that past she's hurtling toward.
I stay where the seconds click
toward pot roast and green beans,
which she'll later leave on her plate,
off to visit the  moon
or that strange new solar system
calling to be discovered.

First published in The Same 10, no. 1, 2012. Posted with express permission of the author. All rights reserved.

You can learn more about Marjorie Maddox and her work at www.marjoriemaddox.com. Or check out her book of poems LOCAL NEWS FROM SOMEPLACE ELSE, which includes "H.G. Who?"

Available from Amazon.

Would you like a copy of MY CRUEL INVENTION to call your own? Leave a comment -- that's all you have to do. I'll choose a winner on Wednesday, January 20.

See you in the stratosphere, fellow travelers. There's a starman, waiting in the sky.