Be a Successful Poet: Write/Publish Haiku, Tanka, & Many Other Forms

Don’t miss your chance to begin writing poetry or improve your poetry, get it published, and establish yourself as a well-known writer! My new reference book, Ripples of Air: Poems of Healing,  contains  hundreds of  haiku, tanka, haibun, haiku sequences, and dozens of other forms, such as sonnets and free verse to inspire you to write. It’s a treasure trove of instruction, inspiration, and ideas to successfully write and publish as a healing exercise, and get you recognized by the public through related activities–speaking, readings, exhibits of your work, and media interviews. Don’t hide in the shadows!

Read what the experts say about what this book can do for you!

Charlotte Digregorio’s indefatigable writing packs a strong poetic punch. This award-winning poet has the courage to face the truth about love, loss, aging, birth, death, and the upside down nature of life–the full catastrophe. Expect to be challenged and invigorated. Without question, Digregorio is a beneficial presence in this world, and I have a high regard for her fresh and poignant poems.

–Robert Epstein, Psychotherapist & Author, Healing into Haiku: On Illness and Pain

 

Digregorio’s poetry is healing, gets you through tough times, and saves lives. This book is one answer to the Coronavirus. In spending time reading it, we find an encouraging and peaceful way to live. Nuanced by childhood memories of oceans and jagged monoliths, of black bear and elk, she shares through reflection and meditation, poems with a spaciousness that speak of acceptance and gratitude for what is. She is like the sculptor in one of her poems, “creating equilibrium and harmony.” She reaches out and invites the reader to join her in solitude, share thoughts, and observations. Ultimately, there is a sense of community, of knowing we aren’t alone. There’s an exuberance of life here that cannot help but touch you. It is a book you can go back to time and time again.

–Mary Jo Balistreri, Poet and Author, Still

 

This book is different from any poetry book I have reviewed before. We need this book! Who among us has not needed healing? Who among us has not spent time in the cave of despair? Who among us has not needed an outlet for anger or loss? This is great poetry, mature craftsmanship, written in an accessible style for all to savor. It’s easy to apply these poems to daily life. A professional observer, Digregorio sees and feels everything more deeply. She reveals her sensitivity to the human condition. The volume contains something for everyone: from compact oriental forms, to superbly-crafted sonnets, to the little known etheree, to fun forms such as acrostics and limericks, free verse and more.

 

Exhaustive Appendices: More than a collection of poetry, the author offers practical, hands-on support for beginning and experienced writers. As poets, we also need to promote and sell our poetry, our books, and the author helps get us off the sidelines and into the promotional game. Treasures to be unearthed include multiple lists of publications that publish poetry; ideas for general print/broadcast media that feature poets; and ideas on types of associations, organizations, and businesses that promote poets through awards, interviews, readings, speaking venues, workshops engagements, and exhibitions of their work. This book has given me a real education.

 

–Michael Escoubas, Editor, Quill and Parchment

 

The bumper sticker on my car reads: “Nature: Cheaper than Therapy.” As an adjunct to nature’s treatment plan, I would prescribe Charlotte Digregorio’s Ripples of Air: Poems of Healing. Her imagistic poems wind through diverse relational and emotional terrain, and never lose touch with the natural healing qualities of acceptance, wonder, gratitude, and harmony.  

 

–Mike Stinson, Psychotherapist, Poet & Author, extra innings

 

Ripples of Air: Poems of Healing comes in a year when healing is in even greater demand than usual. In this book, we not only get a well-written poetry collection that promotes healing, but a how-to guide for writing poetry that aids healing. As I read it, I often paused to implement Digregorio’s suggestions, jotting down poems of my own, and filled several pages. The author is particularly well known as an authority on the Japanese forms of haiku and senryu, and many of the poems in this book follow them. Others are in free verse and a dozen other forms. The collection is structured into sections containing poems about various subjects you can consider writing about. Each section is introduced by a page of prose that includes the author’s sage comments on why the subject is relevant and how the poems influence healing. The poems and writing advice are clear, accessible, and beautifully lyrical. Her point is: look, you can do this. I highly recommend this book.

 

–Richard Allen Taylor, Author of Armed and Luminous

Book Reviewer, The Main Street Rag

 

I highly, highly recommend this book! I read a lot of how-to-write poetry books, but this is unique because it shows would-be poets like me the “why” of writing poems. For those who want to write the best poetry we are capable of, this collection encourages us to look for and create beauty, strength, and healing. Many times during the reading of this book, I put it down and wrote a few lines of my own. I read several of her poems out loud, luxuriating in the evocative language and the emotional effect it had on me. Her haiku is particularly inspiring and she is a master at it. I love this book. It’s not just a collection of poems, but thoughtful essays about how poetry can heal. There are a lot of lines I would like to quote (or pretend I came up with). I love the imagery.

 

–Robin Stratton, Editor, Boston Literary Magazine

 

 

An affecting collection. Charlotte Digregorio finds lyricism in solitude, finds reason to celebrate and transform into art the trifles in our gritty lives. These are poems of great skill, poems with a generous heart by a writer who cherishes the luminous particulars of every moment.

–Marsh Muirhead, Poet and Author of last night of the carnival

 

 

Award-winning poet Charlotte Digregorio offers readers an array of poems that delve deeply into the external, her Midwest surroundings, and the internal, the nature of her creativity. Digregorio’s delectable collection is one to be savored again and again.

 

–Roberta Beary, Poet and Author of The Unworn Necklace

 

 

Fascinating tome–the perfect fit for this time in history. Soothing and peaceful. The author balances different poetic forms that contribute to a melodic, musical timbre. I marked many pages as my favorite poems–far too many to list here. Gorgeous words describing the natural world and her insightful memories in the “Nostalgia” section. Her poems wend their way through the maze of life events and experiences, healing in their warm, lyrical beauty.

 

–The Rockford Review, Sally Hewitt, Editor

 

 

The poems of Charlotte Digregorio possess a clarity of vision one seldom finds in contemporary verse. The images she creates are vibrant and alive. We Baby Boomers identify with her all too well.

 

–John J. Dunphy, Poet and Author of Touching Each Tree

 

 

We are blessed with this work! This is a comforting, much appreciated companion in these difficult times. The book responds to so many of the themes and issues that are central to my life experience. It explains and sustains, and I am thankful.  I hope this book makes its way to many people in these sad times. It provides shade from the glare of events.

 

–David Eyre, Educator and Author, the nothing that is

 

Charlotte Digregorio has the all-too-uncommon ability to put the reader in the poet’s place. One does not read, so much as experience her poems. Closing my eyes, many of these poems could have been memories from my own past. These very personal poems become personal to the reader. The poet uses words as her brush, and all senses are stimulated.

 

–Ignatius Fay, Poet and Co-Author of Breccia

 

 

This is a self-help book that is the pathway to finding peace. The author’s healing poems speak to us and are especially timely during the Covid crisis.

 

–Winnetka-Kenilworth Living magazine (Illinois)

 

A treasure. Love-ly. A ponderous book. I am giving it the daily reading that the inspiring poems call out for, a page or two a day with meditative thought for the author’s many layered gifts of creativity. I love the titles of the multi-themed chapters. I am delving into this clear pond of healing, the book’s healing messages.

–Donna Bauerly, Professor Emeritus, Loras College

 

This elegantly designed book offers readers an eclectic mix of poetry styles to suit any and every mood. Here, you may find your senses soothed, or stimulated by the natural world. There, you might find yourself immersed in memories, or daydreams about the future. This writer has walked in our shoes, and her words entice us to take the first steps along the poetic path to healing.

 

–Debbie Strange, Poet and Author of The Language of Loss

 

  

Charlotte Digregorio is a much-published and much-honored poet. The approaches to writing she shares in this collection prove useful for those who seek inspiration and for those who give writing workshops.

 

–Maxianne Berger, Book Review Coordinator, Haiku Canada Review

 

You may purchase this book through Amazon  if you live in the U.S. or elsewhere. Or, you may receive an autographed copy directly from me, Charlotte Digregorio, if you live in the U.S. For more information, you may contact me at c-books@hotmail.com.