Writing

POETRY

Baby on the Water

I was introduced to poetry at very early age, even before I could read. When I went to sleep at night, my father recited to me the only poem he knew, Blake’s Tyger. Night after night I drifted off into the dream world hearing, Tyger, tyger burning bright in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could tame they fearful symmetry. My mother was always reading to me from her worn copy of Longfellow’s Collected Poems. He was her favorite poet and her favorite poem was the one about shooting an arrow and singing a song into the air. The arrow was never found but the song, as I recall, was found again in the heart of a friend. With such inspiration its not at all surprising all I ever wanted to do growing up was write poetry. It took me a long time to get started. I had to learn and unlearn so much. It wasnt until the 198Os that I started to read my poems at an open mike, the great Matthew Courtney’s Sunday Night Open at ABCNoRio on Rivington Street in Manhattan.

In 1992 Apathy Press in Baltimore published my first poetry chapbook containing ten poems, Pushing Out The Envelope. I had to go up to the Post office to pick up the small box that contained my fifty copies because the box wouldnt fit through the mail slot in my building. Walking home, I clutched the box tight against my chest with both arms. I felt like I was carrying the Rosetta Stone or the Holy Grail, so precious was this achievement to me. Since then I have had published seven other chapbooks of poetry. In 2002, Long Shot, the venerated press that first gave my poems national and international exposure in their magazine brought out a collection of my work, Baby On the Water, New and Selected Poems 1992-2002.

I continue to write poetry and to read and publish my work. I try to build all-night cafeterias in my poetry, to dress dogs and cats in nylons in my poetry. In April 2005, Snapdragon Press published a chapbook of my erotic haiku, Peach Garden. In 2005, Snapdragon Press published Blake Haunts Me - a chapbook concerning my love for the poetry of William Blake, and then in 2007, they brought out my tenth chapbook, Crazy Lust.

Praise for Baby On The Water:

“a rough and tumble wit at work, a humor brought to a high water mark...” - American Book Review
“Her poems make me cry, and howl laughing, and wonder how I can spin myself a thread as resilient as hers.” - Susie Bright
“With painstaking freedom, with rugged charm, with a hand in yours, a voice that walks, Tsaurahs Baby On The Water is the true story of love.” - Bob Holman

PROSE
The Motion of the Ocean

I would say I became an erotic writer by accident, except I dont believe in accidents. I could say I became an erotic writer as part of the grand design but not only does that sound too grandiose, I dont know if I believe in any grand design. I could just say that it was magic, sex magic of a kind.

I had a weekly Eros and Existence column in the now defunct New York Arts Weekly DOWNTOWN. When a “friend” stole my beau, although he and I were already on the skids, I was devastated. I started writing about the break-up in my column. Although I disguised the names of my former amour and my former friend, everyone on the Lower East Side Poetry scene at the time knew who I was writing about. I wrote a reminiscence right from my heart concerning him and I and a big, black dildo. It was too raw, too personal even for my extremely personal column, so I put it away in a red manila file that I labeled Heartbreak. When a friend asked me for a piece for a little sex zine he was starting, I gave it to him, thinking no one I knew would see it there. Some months later, on the day before Christmas, I found a letter in my mailbox, saying, Congratulations! Your story, The Sacred And Profane Country Of Desire, has been selected for Best American Erotica 1995. My new writing career was born.

Since then, my erotica has been published in over sixty books and anthologies, magazines and webzines. In 2004, Simon and Schuster as part of Three The Hard Way, a series of erotic novellas edited by Susie Bright, published my erotic novella, The Motion Of The Ocean. Im currently working on an erotic novel titled The River Of No Regrets.

Praise for The Motion Of The Ocean:

“The only porn I read is Tsaurah LitzkyÕs. It has the necessary Je ne sais toit.” - Tuli Kupferberg
“The Motion Of The Ocean by Tsaurah Litzky is just plain terrific... funny, poignant and a delightful read.” - Jana Kraus, Amazon.com
“Smartly done, ...at times deeply felt.” - Kirkus Review
“Superior work.” - Jim Feast, Rain Taxi

Read Poems and Short Story Here!


Senior Se1

Blake in Amsterdam

I Love You I.J. Singer

from Haikus Somehow Involving Water

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