Poetry Book Giveaway 2010 for National Poetry Month!

***Update! Congratulations to Evie Shockley, of may I have a word with you?, winner of Edward Hirsch’s The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems and Stacy Lynn Mar, winner of Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 by Lucille Clifton. I will be contacting both of you shortly so I can get your books sent to you. Thanks to everyone for visiting and commenting!***

April is National Poetry Month and Kelli over at Book of Kells came up with this great idea for a poetry giveaway. What if bloggers all over the world gave away two books of poetry this month to their readers — one of their own, and one from a poet they admire? What a wonderful way to discover new poets! I had to join in.

Now, I don’t have a book of my own in print yet, so I thought I’d give away books by two poets that have influenced me:

Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 by Lucille Clifton contains “Homage to my Hips,” a marvelous poem that taught me to love my curves. I had the pleasure of seeing Ms. Clifton read her work at Duke before she died and I have a signed copy of one of her books in my collection (sorry, I can’t bear to part with that one!).

The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems by Edward Hirsch is my second, although no less worthy, choice. I really wanted to give away Wild Gratitude, but it isn’t in print right now. Edward Hirsch came to speak to my writing class in college when I was just 17. Wild Gratitude had just come out and the world had no idea how big Hirsch’s influence on modern poetry would be, although I suspect that my poetry teacher might have had an inkling. I wrote a poem in response to one of Hirsch’s and he signed my copy of Wild Gratitude acknowledging my poetic response. As a poet, that signed book is one of my most treasured items (again, another book I can’t bear to part with!).

Please leave a comment on this post only by April 30th if you’d like to win one of these books. Be sure to include some contact information. I will choose two names at random with the help of my husband, Itinerant Cryptographer (he’s handy with numbers). I will draw the names on May 1st and announce the winners here, on this blog post, by May 2nd and I will try to reach you then. As soon as we make contact, I’ll order your book and have it sent to you. If I can’t reach you by May 5th, I reserve the right to draw another name.

Be sure to drop by Book of Kells — she’s running a list of bloggers participating in this giveaway along the left-hand column of her blog. The more blogs you visit, the more likely you are to win a book of poetry!

Happy Poetry Month! Good luck!