A Journal of Poetry, Essays and Commentary
Don't Just Sit There
ISSUES
Don't Just Sit There began publication in fall 2011, publishing four semi-annual issues before a series of life-consuming events caused several members of the publication staff to go on hiatus. We hope to be back soon.
Don't Just Sit There is a fledgling all-volunteer endeavor that emanates from the passion of participants in poetry workshops (nice alliteration, eh?) sponsored by the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. The journal aims to inspire writers to engage in creative conversations, to hone their versecraft skills and, most of all, to write.
A limited number of back issues of DJST are still avaiable for purchase at $5 each, plus shipping. To request your copy, please contact Martha Kalin at kalinmartha@gmail.com. Thank you for reading!
Spring 2013
VOL. 3, NO. 1
We are pleased to present Vol. 3, No. 1, featuring poems from the lyrical genres and special tributes to the late beloved poet Jake Adam York. Many thanks to everyone who contributed their verbal gifts with such heartfelt generosity. Rest in peace, Jake. (Photo: Sarah Skeen)
Fall 2012
VOL. 2, NO. 2
Many of the poems in this issue grew out of a class David J. Rothman taught at Lighthouse in the spring of 2012 on the genres of narrative poetry. A number of the poets who took the class and who appear here are making either their first appearances in print or their first in some time. Others who appear in this issue are part of the group that forms the spinning heart of this journal, “Six Poets Short of a Sonnet,” Denver’s merriest band of verse pranksters.
Spring 2012
VOL. 2, NO. 1
This issue features work by a group that calls itself “Six Poets Short of a Sonnet.” Of course, there are nine of them, but they’re literary types and that’s what happens. The group started meeting several years ago as an outgrowth of classes I teach on metrics, stanza forms and fixed lyrical forms at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. These poets, who come from all over the Denver and Boulder metropolitan area, entered strong and have shown an extraordinary commitment to learning their craft, as you will see from the pages that follow, which are filled with triolets, villanelles, Venus and Adonis Stanzas, ballades, heroic couplets, carefully ghosted free verse and much more. - DJR
Fall 2011
VOL. 1, NO. 1
“Speaking for myself, the questions which interest me most when reading a poem are two. The first is technical: ‘Here is a verbal contraption. How does it work?” The second is, in the broadest sense, moral: “What kind of a guy inhabits this poem? What is his notion of the good life or the good place? His notion of the Evil One? What does he conceal from the reader? What does he conceal even from himself?’ ”
— W.H. Auden, "Making, Knowing and Judging" (Oxford, 1956)
“A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweler, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more. ”
— Horace Walpole (1717-1797)