NPM podcast, part II

The new podcast is up, my second in honor of National Poetry Month 2007, here in the United States.

For this week's show I have selected and read 4 of my favourite poems from authors past:

Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabell Lee"
Perc y Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias of Egypt"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "How Do I Love Thee?"
George Gordon, Lord Byron, "She Walks in Beauty"

You can pick it up via Apple's iTunes Music Store or via this link at archive,org

New Blog: PODbooks

I just launched yet another new blog (is this addictive or what?).

It is PODbooks Blog at http://podbooks.blogspot.com and the purpose is to give authors of books produced through POD (publication on demand) publishers a place to post and comment on their books, their experiences and their appearances to promote their works.

If you are an author of a POD book and would like to leave a comment, even news on your book, you can take it right there...or you can drop us a line at podbooks@cityoflegends.com so that we can get the necessary information to feature you and your works on the blog.

Hey, free publicity!

fragment and my fresh face

As I was driving down the highway Thursday, a poetic fragment lodged in my head, so I thought to share it here.

Even unrequited
love endures
if sure and pure
there is no cure

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

I have been offered a chance to take part in a New Writers' Night in May at a Barnes & Noble, targeted to those who have a book (or in my case several of my books, but not all) through POD publishers. I am split on this. On the one hand it is exposure, but just as I do not like open microphone nights, I am uncomfortable with the label "New Writer"...as would be my readers, my fans, those who have known me in a leadership position in the digital renaissance and those who rely on me as a mentor or a contest judge or contributor.

Sort of like Angelina Jolie being offered a magazine spread as a "fresh face"...er, I love the lady, both for her work with worthy causes and the unwholesome thoughts she generates when I look at her, but she's not a fresh face. She's been around as an actress about as long as I have had books out, and I have been a published writer since before she was born (and, let's face it kids, I am a little long in the tooth to be considered an ingenue).

I think I shall decline. I love expanding my audience but it would be disingenuous of me to take part in the forum. My decision to use the POD route for my last several books is entirely based on my desire to have complete creative control (something no standard publisher has ever offered me). It does hurt distribution and marketing, but I am not playing for rackspace next to Tom Clancy at Safeway. I'm playing for the vision a reviewer in "Imagine" said about my work years ago, that "I have no doubt that 500 years from now a young man will woo his lady fair with the words of this poet".

That's my plane of existence. I think I'll stay loyal to it.

What would Jesus really do?

Let's raise some hackles.

I just read a very earnest and bright op-ed piece by Roland Martin on CNN.com, entitled " What Would Jesus Really Do? and thought I should add my voice.

Yes, the Christian faith is under attack.

We have met the enemy and he is, in a word, us. Social Conservatives, looking for validation for the hatemongering that embracing the real tenets of the faith should literally drive from their hearts, have instead seized upon the framework of the Christian faith to justify their actions and attitudes and political agenda.

Jesus never spoke on the topic of abortion. Or homosexuality. Or school prayer (He did say not to pray in public, though).

He did say to not kill your enemies, not to take revenge, not to resist evil with violence. Which means every person who supports a war, any war, is a worse Christian than anyone who is pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, anti-school prayer.

Mind boggling, ain't it? And don't come at me with misquotes from Shakespeare or perversely generalized lines of Scripture. Taking a line from a conversation and declaring it applies to everyone in all cases could bastardize just about every element of the Christian tradition and faith.

I wrote an essay a few years ago calling Christianity "the hardest religion" because, in a word, it is. It isn't just doing this ritual or that ritual a few times a day or year, it is living a life under principles that are unnatural to the darkest impulses we find too easy to surrender to. Being a Christian is accepting a brutal regimen of self-control and sacrifice.

It is not "bong hits for Jesus" or picketing funerals or Mardi Gras or questioning a person's faith because they do not have the same political agenda as you do. It is reflecting on the life and teaching of Jesus and seeking to live as He would want you to do, as He would take pleasure in knowing you are trying to do.

Thanks you, CNN, for providing access to this essay by Roland Martin, and to Mr. Martin himself for the courage to speak out in a world full of too much hatred masquerading as righteousness.