National Poetry Month Starts Tomorrow!

Posted on March 31, 2022 by Michelle Garren-Flye

I’ve been debating about how to celebrate National Poetry Month. I always do something on here to make the month special. I’ve written a poem a day. I’ve written and illustrated a haiku every day. This year I want to do something special because this year is special to me. It’s my first year I’ve actually had ambitions for my poetry.

I’ve been studying renga recently. It’s sort of an early form of slam poetry invented in Japan where poets would gather for a renga “party” and try to outdo each other with every verse. Haiku (and we all know I love haiku!) actually grew out of the renga format, which featured alternating verses of 17 and 14 syllables.

So I’ve decided to write a (sort of) renga over the course of April. Renga were normally written in honor of a celebration and, in a way, I’m celebrating a new beginning in my life in April. I think the title of the renga will be “Thawing”. Each verse will be illustrated. I will follow the format of alternating 17 and 14 syllables and at the end, I will (hopefully) have the first thirty pages of my next illustrated poetry book, Hypercreativity.

So join me tomorrow for verse 1. And we’ll see where we go from there.

Hypercreativity (working cover) image copyright Michelle Garren-Flye

Adding Color to Writing

Posted on August 13, 2021 by Michelle Garren-Flye

I’m so close to being done with 100 Warm Days of Haiku! It will be my longest poetry book yet. And my most unique book of any genre. I’m excited to share it, and I hope you’ll be excited, too. It’s a book meant for looking at as much as reading. Even UnSong didn’t really manage that.

Illustration by Michelle Garren Flye. Copyright 2021.

So I guess the very reasonable question would be why am I publishing a book that’s as much to look at as to read? I’m an author, not an artist, a poet, not a painter.

Short answer? I like to challenge myself. I like to be more. Long answer? This has been a complicated year in which I came to know a lot of interesting things about myself. I mean, none of us has had an easy year, right? Pandemic, home schooling, isolation, mask-wearing…it’s all a bit much. Add any other complications into the mix and you’ve got the makings of a good, old-fashioned nervous breakdown. And who didn’t have other complications?

My answer for the complications in my life was to dig deeper to find more. I found a lot. And 100 Warm Days of Haiku is my way of sharing it with you. So stay tuned for more information.

UnSong: Illustrated Poems (4 days away!)

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Michelle Garren-Flye

We interrupt our regularly scheduled stream of illustrated haiku for a special message:

UnSong, my collection of illustrated poems (which does contain some haiku but also has free verse, sonnets, etc.), will be published on Friday, April 30! I’ve already seen a hard copy proof and it’s pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

And I don’t totally have to say so myself. I’ve been lucky enough to get some glowing advance reviews for UnSong from poets and writers I respect a great deal. Of course, I’m going to smash all of them onto the back cover (I already have and I’m hoping the type will be big enough to read…) But I also wanted to take some moments to brag a little and explain why each of these advance reviews means so much to me. So this week, I’ll be putting up early reviews from these wonderful, talented people so you’ll feel more confident when you go to buy UnSong.

Here’s one from the best poet you may never have heard of but should:

UnSong by Michelle Garren Flye is a wicked-smart mash up of verse and graphic art. Early in the book, an elegy to Ruth Bader Ginsberg is paired with a portrait of a woman in a black dress, seen from behind, her arms raised as if to enthrall an unseen crowd. Later, a brilliant untitled haiku takes as its subject our “Covid Days.” My favorite work in the book is a piece called River Bones: “… water rolls back to caress and cover the river’s bones with the touch of a lover …” Illustrated poetry books are hard to get right. UnSong nails it, the book rising above any limitations of the format. Buy this book!

—Dennis Mahagin, author of Grand Mal, and Longshot & Ghazal

I’ve “known” Dennis for several years. We’re both what I consider graduates of an online writers group called Zoetrope. Dennis was one of the first poets I knew in real/online life that I became a fan of. His poems are edgy and true, with a sprinkling of genius in some of the ways he uses words that I have never been able to capture in my own work. So he was one of the first people I approached with a request for a blurb. When he responded with the above paragraph, I felt a little like I’d won a prize or hit the best-seller list or…something pretty awesome.

If you want to check out some of Dennis’s work (and I do encourage it), Google him for some of his many online publishing credits, but you can also find his collection Grand Mal on Amazon, and he has a tumbler blog.