ChaptGPT and Book Reviews

 

Ask any writer who reviews books, how hard is it?

It’s hard, a genuine struggle to understand, digest, and then write something meaningful and true. Hours go by.

 

 

Enter ChatGPT.  I asked for a review of Karren Alenier’s book how we hold on. Within seconds, the bot produced thoughts that rang true. Here’s the conclusion:

“How We Hold On is a beautifully crafted collection that marries formal discipline with heartfelt depth. Alenier navigates memory, grief, joy, and language with elegance, offering an emotionally resonant journey through family ties, love, and loss—both intimate and universal. A compelling read for anyone who appreciates lyrical precision and emotional honesty.”

The only nit I might pick is that I meant for the title of the book to be in lowercase but that’s a hard thing to know given how my publisher rendered the title on the front cover and on the title page inside the book (all uppercase letters).

Furthermore, ChatGPT picks up the details. It knows that my section “Mama’s not a trapezoid” deals with the “complex relationship” with my mother. It recognizes that I wrote in various poetic forms from villanelle to Golden shovel. It draws professionally  from the excellent review that was published in the Mom Egg Review. What I mean by professional is that ChatGPT provides a quote from the MER essay. There is no pirating of the words in that review.  And surprise surprise, it also mentions the video of the reading I did from how we hold on for Poets vs. the Pandemic.

Now it seems justifiable to do profile reviews that provide the vital details plus key descriptors, first and last lines, and a short comment. Have a look at this format done for Fables from Italy and Beyond and The Mouth Is Also a Compass. 

The Grace of Guest Artist Diana Tokaji

 

Invitation to be a guest artist on her website is something the Steiny Road Poet does to promote other poets and to keep her website vital. Usually, she asks poets for permission to feature a short poem with short lines. However, for the month of April 2025, she asked Diana Tokaji to allow an excerpt from a long poem which also had some long lines. Her website format is not so flexible. Nonetheless, she was profoundly moved by the poetry (and prose) Diana had sent her and felt her words bore witness to the difficult times we are enduring.

I was also moved by her Facebook post that reads as follows:

In the kindest way, Karren Alenier occasionally invites fellow poets as guest artists on her site. This month I was so honored, an act that seems especially generous in an ever creepier world. It's not just the posting that is kind but the way she goes about it, with enthusiasm and her bright aesthetic in play. She read both of my books and expressed that Conversation 4 in SURVIVING ASSAULT especially speaks to these times, as it both empathizes with and asks us to rise above despair. Create Courage is the theme of that chapter - how do we manufacture courage when we actually don't feel it? She asked me to pull an excerpt out for this feature, and with hope that it's not too disjointed, that's what I did ...a short offering in the space. My thanks to her for this and multiple ways she touches and guides the artistic community.

 

Here's the cover of SURVIVING ASSAULT–Words that Rock & Quiet & Tell the Truth, of the book that the featured excerpt comes from. After reading SURVIVING ASSAULT, Steiny highy recommends you proceed to the prose memoir Six Women in a Cell: Survival and Sisterhood After Police Assault. These books are companion pieces.

 

The Intimate Interview—Miller of Alenier

 

 

What makes a good interview? In September 2024, Karren Alenier was interviewed for an hour by E. Ethelbert Miller for his podcast On the Margin.

 

Besides interesting questions that addressed the concerns of working poets like how does one arrange a book manuscript, it was clear that interviewer and interviewee liked and trusted each other. Trust is crucial if the interviewer wants honest discussion about such issues as grief and race.  The good chemistry between Miller and Alenier added to the shared history of the literary scene in the Washington, DC area.

 

People who listened to this interview made such comments as:

 

—I didn’t expect to watch the whole interview, but I was swept along by the exchange.

 

—I learned new things about the DC literary scene.

 

—I got to know Karren Alenier better.

Heron Clan XII accepting submissions

 

 

Heron Clan XI: 2024 Poems from Katherine James Books has been published. It includes such poets as Lola Haskins, Hiram Larew, Ed Lyons, Doug Stouber, Brad Strahan, and Karren Alenier (a.k.a. the Steiny Road Poet).

Here are some snippets from poets that caught Steiny’s attention

 

What There is to Lose  [excerpt]

A Golden Shovel with thanks to Louise Gluck

     by Frances Klein

 

Leather shoes in the rain, of course, and the endless why

of your child’s third year. A pillowy slice of cake. Love.

 

 

 

 

 

Cloud-Speak  [excerpt]

     by Brad Strahan

 

What comes from this cloud of words?

Surely not rain. – Blood perhaps?

Surely not coins. – Maybe stones?

Not hail, perchance pale maidens

dressed in wet veils.

 

 

Stage Fright  [excerpt]

     by Earl Carlton Huband

 

You sit, staring straight ahead.

Your jaw tight. Hot. The spotlight

focused, overhead a hood

poised, the final curtain drops.

 

 

To submit for the 2025 Heron Clan anthology, send three poems and a 50-word bio to

katherinejamesbooks@gmail.com

Checklist for an Excellent Poetry Manuscript

 

What does a poetry manuscript in the 21^st Century include? Here are some of the elements possible.

 

[ ]        Prologue Poem

 

This is a poem that sets up the major themes of this collection and ties its sections together. It should be short and easy to enter.

 

[ ]        Sections

 

A typical collection might have three to five sections. Fewer seem better but it depends on the work. There are collections where the work is one long poem without sections.

 

[ ]        A Repeating Title

 

This is a technique for demonstrating that the collection contains poems that talk to each other and deepen the subject matter. Such poems might open or close each section. To identify these poems with exactly the same title consider picking up a few words from the first line of the poem.

 

[ ]        Forms

 

While there are successful collections that use the same form for every poem in the collection (e.g. the sonnet is a popular form), variety shows the poet’s mastery of craft. Creating your own form and then, if possible, writing another poem in that form also shows craft.

 

[ ]        Poems in a Series

 

Poems that repeat some aspect such as subject matter, character, linguistic marker, add glue to a collection. The question is whether to group these together or spread them out in the manuscript.

 

[ ]        Poems that Contain Research

 

Whole collections of poetry might be based on extensive research but poems in a series might also operate under the magnifying glass of  researched information. Be careful about keeping end notes to a minimum.

 

[ ]        Metapoems

 

Poems that are about writing poetry. This is another way to demonstrate your knowledge of poetic craft.

 

[ ]         A Repeating Word 

A word or a version of a word that repeats throughout every poem of the collection creates an undercurrent of meaning to deepen the subject matter.

 

[ ]        Punctuation & Capitalization

Many poets have quit using punctuation and capitalization. Whatever you decide, just be consistent.