A Bit About Me...
I live in New York City and Long Beach, Long Island with my husband
Alfred. I began writing and studying poetry in my golden years,
the 92nd Street Y and the West Side Y favorites of mine for workshops
and readings, also, I've studied privately with some wonderful New York
(and elsewhere) poets. To learn more about what I've been up to,
poetically speaking, that is, "Google" me and visit me at:
www.pw.org/content/ruth_sabath_rosenthal
Also, see and hear me read some of my poems at:
www.poetryvlog.com/ruthsabathrosenthal.html
The poems I read on "poetryvlog" have also been published in various
literary journals and poetry anthologies:
Adagio Verse Quarterly, The Aurorean, Bibliotekos,
Birds by My Window, Birmingham Poetry Review,
Breadcrumb Scabs, Canopic Jar, Chronogram, Connectitut Review,
Creations Magazine, Cyclamens & Swords, Ibbetson Street,
Jabberwock Review, Juke Jar, Message in a Bottle (U.K.),
Mobius-The Poetry Magazine, MungBeing, Pacific Review,
Podium-92nd St.Y, Poetica, Poetry Bay, Poetry Depth Quarterly,
Sarasvati (U.K.), Taj Mahal Review (India), The Book of Ten (U.K.)
The Human Genre Project (U.K.)
"Empty Shoes" -- Popcorn Press
"Harvest of New Millennium"-- Cyberwit.com (India)
"Long Island Sounds 2008, 2009" -- The North Sea Poetry Scene
"primal sanities--a Tribute to Walt Whitman"-- Allbook Books
"Songs of Seasoned Women"-- Quadrasoul Press
"Voices Israel" 2007, 2008, 2009
3 manuscripts titled: "Facing Home," "Blood Relative"
and "Beasts of Burden" will be published in 2010.
On October 15th (my actual day of birth) 2006, "on yet another birthday"
was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Ibbetson St. On November 26th,
2006 in Davis Square, Somerville MA, the Ibbetson St./Pushcart nominees
My good friend (ex-poetry teacher), Sarah Hannah (a nominee herself)
read my nominated poem, in my absence -- one of the many kindnesses
she'd shown me over the years. Just months after that reading, precisely
on May 23, 2007, Sarah took her own life. The following is a poem
My friend, mine is a beating heart,
a poem bursting to come forth; yours
has stopped. No writer's block
induced dormancy. Stopped for good.
Oh, that yours would still beat out poems.
No matter how dark, we'd listen,
we'd learn, we'd understand and maybe
a Sonnet with its turn moving to depths
of utter bleakness, assonance resounding
in the second stanza. No resolution fit
syllabic runs, each iambic line
symbolic unto itself, each stanza break
a whip crack, a heart breaking.
A Villanelle, whose repeating end-
rhymed lines bleed their way down
to a finale punctuated by a question
Sestina of razor-sharp repetition
echoing the i in cry—lament that pierces
through stanza upon stanza, until
reaching biblical heights of irony.
Oh, that we'd hear more from you. No
matter how dark the sound, we'd listen,
we'd learn, we'd understand and maybe
