Poet-in-Residence at ArgoBoat, plus blurb

I am the newest poet-in-residence at Argo Spier's ArgoBoat. My collection on there, titled Yellow Sand (title given by Argo), is a mix of poems from Behind the Mask: A Folded Heart and some newer material. Altogether, there are twenty poems featured.

Argo Spier also wrote a wonderful blurb about my writing, which can be found on my page at his site.

Laala Kashef Alghata lives and studies in Bahrain.

Yellow Sand, her present collection of verse, portrays her as a meticulous observant of the world around her. With full bodied verse she charters her sharp observances and describes the things and occurrences that surrounds her. And always there is reflection of her inner position in relation to the events that take place.

Yellow Sand takes the reader on a tour of tranquility and shows him with very clear transparency where the poet stands with her inner feelings. Playing with single themes and using modern metaphors, she describes the universe as it opens up to her. Topics such as hope, the absolve of absence and the cure for love, that is the duality of her love affair with the world she lives in and the love she experiences for the absent yet always calling Muse, give Yellow Sand a universality that transcends her own base locality.

Verse such as the following make of Laala Kashef Alghata an up-coming young poet of great promise. The reader will find her work accessible and quite enjoyable.

'Distance means
my fingers pressing
melodies with keys
instead of into your arms
as I pull you into my embrace.

Distance is
a form
of torture.

Distance can
be overcome.'

-Argo Spier

My page at the ArgoBoat.

Poet-in-Residence at Soul to Soul

I have been going through a tough time recently, as my grandfather passed away a week ago. It's hard and it's going to be hard for a long time.

Good, writing-related news however: I am now a poet-in-residence at Soul to Soul. I have a page there now, which I plan to update every month. The editor loves my writing and I'm very flattered.

Link to my page on Soul to Soul.

Go, read, enjoy.

Write Me a Metaphor.

So, that surprise project that I was going on about?

I've started my own online poetry and prose journal! An ambitious project, and one I am committed to. Feel free to read, enjoy, and if appropriate, submit.

This quarter's issue features the poetry of Lisa Zaran, Zoe Migicovsky, Alyssa May Trifone and myself.

Write Me a Metaphor, an online poetry journal and the brainchild of Laala Kashef Alghata.

Amazon

Amazon just sent me an email ordering more stock of my book. They sold the one I sent them! I'm insanely pleased. The level of my excitement may seem silly to some, as this is definitely not the first book I've sold (I've sold a fair few); but it is the first one to someone I don't know outside of Bahrain. People in the USA, Canada, UK, Oman and UAE (and Sweden, soon) have copies of my book, and they paid for it, but they're people who have been reading my poetry online for at least a year, thus I know them a little. This time, it's someone overseas and I've no clue who.

I'm a happy little poet.

Poetry in Because We Write

My poetry is now also in the inaugural issue of Because We Write.

Link to my poems, Texts of Emotion and Unique Fingerprints and Just This Moment.

Work in ezines.

My piece, So, had been accepted into this month's issue of All Things Girl a couple of months ago. The issue is now finally live and looks great!

Link to my prose piece, So.

Voice Newspaper is a new (as of Jan 2007) paper comprising of poems, prose, essays and art. If you're interested in submitting something, they can be reached at voicestaff@yahoo.com. They wrote to me a few months ago asking for permission to include of my pieces. I said yes, and their first issue is now out. It's in PDF format, so once I find a link where others can download it, I'll post it here. Regardless, it's a publication credit.

That's it for now. I'm off.

Acceptance.

This is going to be brief, I'm in the middle of studying for my exams. But, I got another acceptance, this one at Argotist Online.

Link to my poem, Dali's Rose.

Happy New Year!

Well, welcome, 2007. I wonder how this year is going to go. At any rate, I hope it's a good one for my writing. In my next post I'll hopefully have links to places where my writing is appearing this month. I'm pleased at the acceptances, though the rejections did dampen my spirits a little. Regardless, I'm waiting on replies from another handful of places, so we'll see how it goes.

The 'surprise project' is just great. I wanted to launch it today but that won't be possible. Just blame my dreadful HTML skills. But, it should be ready within a few days and I'll be announcing it then.

Apart from a brief post with the links to my writing, I'm going to try my best to tone down on the writing front for a couple of weeks. My AS levels are fast approaching (just a week away, now) and studying really should be my priority.

That's all for now.