My Family Was Like a Russian Novel: poems— out from Plan B

 

Excited to announce my new poetry chapbook is out from Plan B Press.  The book has been shortlisted in several competitions.  These poems emerged from my re-reading of the novels of Dostoyevsky during the lockdown— and reognizing so many of the characters in my own family.  (“The Idiot” was my dad’s favorite novel…so it figures.)

Thanks so much to the editors of Evening Street Street Review, Neologism, Harpy Hybrid, and Gyroscope who supported these poems.  Plus, thrilled to receive this praise from one of my favorite authors:  

My Family Was Like a Russian Novel lives up to both its title and readers' highest expectations in a braided collection of delicate narrative poems…At moments haunting, at moments hopeful, and with an occasional sting in the tail, Carla Sarett’s distinctive voice pays tribute to the wonders of childhood and the loss ever-lurking beyond. Her writing, at once elegy and clarion call, seeks to enchant.

—Jacob M. Appel, author of The Cynic in Extremis

You can buy it at the Plan B Bookstore (link below)

 https://www.planbpress.com/store/p74/My_Family_Was_Like_a_Russian_Novel_by_Carla_Sarett.html

Podcast with Jewish Literary Journal in April and other news

I recently had a lively conversation with Aaron Berkowitz, the editor of Jewish Literary Journal.  We talked about my poem, “Nebach,” as well as our views about Yiddish and its role in Jewish memory.  My thanks to JLJ for giving a platform to Jewish voices.  

Hope you enjoy it HERE.

Also, you can find my short interview with Unsolicited Press (publisher of my novel A Closet Feminist) here

Finally, a big thanks to the editors of Wolfson Press for naming my new chapbook, “Woman on the Run,” as a Semi-Finalist in their chapbook competition.  

"dead, my mother moves in" in Words and Whispers

 Thanks to editors of Words and Whispers, an intiguing new literary journal, for published my poem "dead, my mother moves in."  This poem was inspired by my (re) reading of Samuel Beckett's short prose pieces....and I hope I managed to blend dark and funny as he does, if not as well.  

https://www.wordsandwhispers.org/dead-my-mother-moves-in

My latest poems in Sylvia and The Virginia Normal

 

Thanks to the hard-working editors of the British journal Sylvia and The Virginia Normal where two of my latest poems appear.  Both of these poems are highly personal. 

"My Mother's Shade" :  http://www.sylviamagazine.com/my-mothers-shade/

"Joan Didion Got It Wrong"  https://thevirginianormal.com/issue-7-spring-2021/

Who jumped in the water in Bowery Gothic

 Another spooky poem published in the appropriately titled magazine, Bowery Gothic.  Thanks to the editors for including it. 

https://www.bowerygothic.com/poetry-2020-4

New poem in Hamilton Stone Review

 My poem "before the first frost" appears in the Fall 2020 Issue of The Hamilton Stone Review.  A nostalgic poem...thanks to the editors for including it.

https://www.hamiltonstone.org/hsr43poetry.html#sarett

Meditation 2020

Rebecca Salsbury

meditation 2020

Carla Sarett

Thoughts come and go 

of masks by the Bay and

homeless encampments 

under the freeway.

They are not my thoughts and yet,

if I don’t press them to me 

like wayward orphans

who will hold them close?

Your light-eyed father’s passage

from Port Elizabeth to Athens,  

the city that betrayed him

Your father who died before I met you

Your father who named you after his father

whom he despised, but said it was tradition.

If I disown your father’s sorrow,

who will weep for him?

(appeared in slightly different form in print anthology, PITTOC, poetry writting during Covid.)

New poems published

The spurt of writing poetry during this quarantine season continues, possibly as a result of daily meditations.  Thanks to editors of Bluepepper and the new journal, grand little things for publishing my work.

You can read my poems "After hearing Mahler 5" and "Gathering" at grand little things, a welcome new journal of formal verse.  The first of these rhymes, the second is written in blank verse; and both are highly personal poems.

https://grand-little-things.com/2020/07/13/two-poems-by-carla-sarett/

and my poem "someone somewhere" at the Australian poetry blog, Bluepepper

https://bluepepper.blogspot.com/2020/07/new-poetry-by-carla-sarett.html

New Poem in Ephemeral Elegies

Many thanks to Ephemeral Elegies, which specializes in “confessional poetry,”  for publishing my poem “Waiting in San Francisco,” which was written during this bizarre quarantine.  Poetry is a new direction for me, and one which I am enjoying.

I have two other poems that will be published in print venues, but you can read this one here:

https://ephemeralelegies.com/2020/05/13/waiting-in-san-francisco-by-carla-sarett/