Tag: Poetry
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Listening to Your Ghosts
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him… — Plato Ghosts, Muses, Inspiration, Universe, God. Call it what you…
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The Importance of Retreat
If the world were a sound, it would be flipping through all of the channels on a radio really fast. Announcers and DJs, commercials and music genres overlapping in the same way our 21st-century tasks seem to layer upon themselves. We’re always busy, there’s always something else to be managed, and the To Do list…
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About the Ghosts in Sleeping with Ghosts
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fadesFor ever and forever when I move.How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!As tho’ to breathe were…
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How One Phone Call in 1996 Led to a Life of Self-Publishing
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts I started my business, Words by Jen, in 1993. It was a part-time effort at first, offering writing and “desktop publishing” services to a small-but-growing list of local businesses, artists, and non-profits. By 1996, I had moved my office from the second bedroom of an apartment to commercial…
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The Artwork of Sleeping with Ghosts
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts People often comment about the visual nature of my creative work, and how my writing is usually accompanied by photography or artwork. As a graphic designer, artist, and writer, I firmly believe that partnering visuals and words layers the intentions of my work and makes the communication more…
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The Importance of Storytelling
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts My mother, who is easily insulted, often remembers the time a therapist called her a storyteller. Mom recounts the comment as one might an injustice, and she twists and elongates the word “storyteller” to make it sound as painful as it felt for her. What’s the old saying?…
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WOW! Women on Writing Interview with Jen Payne
by Jodi Webb WOW: Jen, welcome back to WOW! Women on Writing with your fifth book Sleeping with Ghosts. What inspired you to write about past relationships? JEN: Hi Jodi. Thanks for welcoming me back to WOW! I loved working with all of you for Evidence of Flossing and am happy to be back for…
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Sleeping with Ghosts Considers Love, Memory, and Storytelling
Sleeping with Ghosts is a collection of poems and musings by Branford, Connecticut poet Jen Payne. Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams. Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates,…
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Time to Write
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts Did you know that Picasso created more than 50,000 works of art, but only about 100 of those are considered masterpieces? That’s less than 1% of his work! I think about that little fact every April, when I attempt to write a poem a month for NaPoWriMo (National…
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Sleeping with Ghosts Playlist
AN INTIMATE EXPLORATION OF LOVE, MEMORY, AND MEANING Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Connecticut writer Jen Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams. Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves…
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New Issue! MANIFEST (zine): Perception
Issue #17, Perception WHAT ARE YOU SEEING? In today’s world, this question takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it? What are we seeing? What is real and what is imagined? How is my subjective response relevant to the collective real and important conversations? It’s critical, now more than ever, to validate what is real…
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Help Me Continue Manifest (zine)
Since 2020, MANIFEST (zine) has presented writing, art, photography, and creative bits of whatnot in a series of zines ranging in topics from creativity, grief, change, the environment, social issues, and finding refuge in turbulent times. It’s an eclectic combination of lit mag, artist book, and poetry chapbook, that also includes a curated Spotify playlist.…
Three Chairs Publishing 