Sunday, July 21, 2013

Poem: paper dragons




paper dragons

blue & yellow folded paper dragons
sail away in an indigo Tintenfaß
dragons dangerous yet delicate
for they cannot breathe fire
and live

(c) Nissa Annakindt 1990

The word 'Tintenfaß is German for 'inkwell'. The funny letter at the end is pronounced like 's'.  This is the origin of the poem: one day I was looking through a mail order catalog from Dover Books and came across several advertised books about Origami, the Japanese art of folding paper. One of the book descriptions must have mentioned that it gave instructions for making Origami dragons. And so this poem kind of poured out as poetry often did in those days.

This is one of the poems in my poetry book, Where the Opium Cactus Grows.  Shared in Poetry Pantry #159 over at Poets United.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetry Group, Poetry Zine

For a couple of years, some time ago, I used to edit a zine. It was something I liked to do and wasn't half bad at. But the printing and postage cost a lot.

When I self-published my poetry book on Lulu.com, I first began to get the idea that Lulu.com might be a great way to publish a zine. But it took me a while to get to the idea of doing a poetry zine.

The advantage of doing it as a Lulu.com book is that the 'zine' will be a nicely printed book with a cover, and it won't cost me a fortune making that happen. I wouldn't be able to pay in contributors' copies--- the poets would have to buy their own copy/copies.

Now, the hard part would be to find some poets who write what I could recognize as quality work. So I thought of starting a Facebook group for poets. Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/479819908761898/

Both the group and the future zine are called 'Red Explosions'--- a line from an old poem of mine--- because it expresses what I want--- poems with something vivid, explosive, strange, or interesting. Not a bland collection of words as in:

my girlfriend
dumped me,
I feel
like sh*t
and want
to
die
die
die

(If you want to see further examples of what I, perhaps due to a lack of mental health, think of as poetry, you might go to my book on Amazon.com and look at the free preview there at some of the poems I've written.)

While I am not accepting submissions just yet, if you are interested in submitting to the zine, you might do well to join the Facebook group so you can share poems there. If I like your stuff enough, I will probably ask you to submit when the time comes.

UPDATE: the zine has become an e-zine. This one right here.

Please consider 'liking' us on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

11 comments:

Mary said...

I enjoyed the origami dragons...and the idea of them being both delicate and dangerous is an interesting concept. I can't imagine a dragon not breathing fire....poor thing. Smiles.

Brian Miller said...

i rather like the girlfriend poem...hahah...just kidding, i hear you...

i like the origami dragon in your poem the line between delicate and dangerous....that they are paper using their greatest power would consume them...which makes an interesting conundrum....

Audrey Howitt aka Divalounger said...

Loved the origami! Good luck on your zine--it sounds like a lot of work actually---

Sherry Blue Sky said...

I love the image of the paper dragons sailing away in indigo........and your comments which follow. Lovely.

Anonymous said...

Oh wow gorgeous poem I love it!

TALON said...

Oh,the paper dragons is gorgeous! They still breath fire - but only in imagination. So beautiful!

Anand S Unni said...

Japanese Origami dragons floating in German inkwells. Quite a sight that will be. I couldn't spell the German word here, but thanks for the note there about the last word sounding like 's'. I read it completely differently the first time that if I told what I read, it would seem like a great disrespect for your language. :D

Anand S Unni said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anand S Unni said...

And I was reading your notes underneath the 'Leave your Comment' option. Seriously, do you receive death threats? :D

Sarav said...

Nissa, thank you very much for your visit :-). I love your sense of humor in this piece and in your example of poetry you'd reject. I like explosions too;-). I'm horrid at Facebook, life really gets in the way, however, you've really intrigued me , so I'm going to visit:-)

Nissa Annakindt said...

So far, no death threats, just some insults and someone who hoped I would get raped. There are some seriously peculiar people out there, but it doesn't bother me.