Last night at roughly 8:17pm New Yorkers got a chance to experience “Manhattanhenge”, the semiannual occurrence where the setting sun aligns perfectly with east-west streets. If you missed it don’t worry though, a second date this year is expected to take place on Monday, July 11 at 8:25 p.m.
Photo Credit: Anthony Behar/Sipa Press via AP Images
A while back I did a panel on music criticism as part of The Wheeler Centre’s Critical Failure series, with Lawrie Zion, Chris Johnston and Mikey Cahill.
(And yes, I am wearing a Darth Vader hoodie.)
Fluffynotes was there!
Yesterday I tweeted a few words I had to read and record for an audio podcast. I gave away the spelling of one word, ‘cineast.’ But how would you pronounce it? Here’s another challenge. Try to spell the words I read in this podcast without clicking the link to see how they are spelled.
Maybe our favourite quotations say more…
Well, I’ll read a few more than what’s on that shelf.
To be honest, I ran out of supplies for gardening. So the tree limbs and branches are salvaged from winter and spring storms. Each garden section (or box) is hand tilled and mixed with compost.
How many book lovers among the young has the Internet produced? Far fewer, I suspect, than the millions libraries have turned out over the last hundred years.
—Charles Simic1
NOTES:
1) Charles Simic, “A Country Without Libraries,” May 18, 2011, The New York Review, accessed May 25, 2011, https://www.nybooks.com/online/2011/05/18/country-without-libraries/
Celebrating Linotype, 125 Years Since Its Debut
Around for a century, Linotype machines were made obsolete in the 1970s by changing technologies — but they have not been forgotten
Read more — and see more photos — at The Atlantic
[zigazou76/flickr]
Classes will meet in the lovely sun room on the second floor of the bookstore.
Bring poems you are currently working on or poems you would like to have published in the workshop’s poetry book (to be published at the end of class).
This poetry writing workshop is open to students of all writing levels from high school students on up. Not only will your poems be workshopped, but will be prepared for publication in the workshop’s poetry book anthology. If you don’t feel like your poetry is ready for publication, there will be writing exercises and to help generate new content and editorial assistance in crafting them into the poems that best represent you, the poet.
Classes meet Wednesday afternoons (May 25, June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29) 3 – 5 p.m. at Montford Books & More, 31 Montford Ave., Asheville, NC 28801.
Matthew Mulder has published poetry and prose in national and international journals and magazines including Crab Creek Review, H_NGM_N, The Indie, ISM Quarterly, Southern Cross Review and others. He teaches poetry writing classes at Asheville bookstores and fine arts centers and is presently translating selected works of German poet Rolf Dieter Brinkmann. He is the author of LATE NIGHT WRITING (2004) and editor of TOMORROW WE SWEAT POETRY (2009) and A BODY TURNING (2010). His new poems are anthologized in ROOFTOP POETS (2010).
Spent much of the weekend gardening with friends and neighbors. On a quick trip downtown, I met a guy this weekend who said he thinks most Americans have lost their connection to the earth and agrarian principles. In some respects, I think he is correct. Within the mass media, consumeristic culture it is difficult to avoid the desire of immediate gratification, to change pace, and to wait 90 to 100 days to harvest the vegetables you plant. But it is rewarding to share in the labor and bounty of a harvest.
You can change a reader’s life, and you can change—you should change, I think—your own life.
David Grossman (via theparisreview)
Since the middle of March I’ve been writing a poem a day. Or to be honest, almost every day. There were a few days I didn’t write a thing. While other days I composed three or four poems. Now I have a stack of near a hundred pages.
While discussing with another poet the routine of writing daily, the other poet lamented of a creative dry spell, lack of inspiration, or nothing to write about. There are a lot of people in that place and they seek to get out of that rut. My upcoming poetry writing workshop assists in that creative crisis by offering a new routine — something to encourage poets to write boldly.
One of the last poems I wrote in April begins: ‘Would you still write / poetry if it meant a death sentence?’ It’s a bold question. Will you have a bold answer?
I loved reading these kind of articles in Step-by-Step Graphics magazine.
Better yet, does anyone have a Zip drive?
Cleaning out an old desk and discovered these books.
National Poetry Month [1] is over. Asheville Wordfest [2] is still echoing throughout the city. And I finally got around to reading O: The Oprah Magazine‘s first poetry issue. O is not a magazine I read, ever. And it is not a magazine I consult for American poetry. All I can say is that Oprah stole my idea.
Back in 2007 I wrote: ‘Why not promote National Poetry Month with appearances by Andi McDowell, Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Connery, Sarah Mclaughlin, Lawrence Fishburne or add [your celebrity/starlet here]. I know, I know, that sounds so like a consumerist. . . . Promote poetry with flashy, sexy people?!? Yeah.’ [3] In spite of all the criticism, I think O magazine pulled off a great opportunity to promote poetry in America using the vernacular of the culture, a fashion show.
First, a word from some of the critics. Gawker’s snarky take on O magazine’s poetry issue [4] points out that Maria Shriver selected ‘poems from athletes, actors, writers, musicians, and poets that no one has ever heard of because most Americans can’t name a single living poet other than Maya Angelou. . . .’ My favorite critic so far opens his article in the Sunday Book Review of The New York Times [5] with:
The signs of the coming apocalypse are many, but none are starker than this Web headline in the April issue of O: The Oprah Magazine: ‘Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.’ Yes. Spring fashion. Modeled. By rising young poets. There follows a photomontage of attractive younger women. . . in outfits costing $472 to $5,003.
Um, for the record, my author photo shoot did not require a $995 jacket [6] Truth be told, it costs $20 and I found it in the clearance aisle at a discount store in Nashville. Then again, I’m not a young attractive female poet. But I must admit, ‘Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets’ is a great marketing move to push poetry into the mainstream American culture. The New Yorker [7] reports:
Rachel Eliza Griffiths. . . [said] that someone contacted her in December about modelling. The day of the shoot she was informed she’d be photographed as ‘the Romantic poet.’ Her photograph shows her on a bed of sand with a large paint brush, pretending to paint the letters of her poem on an enormous wall.
Ironically, O features Maria Shriver’s interview with Mary Oliver, stating:
Oliver says that when she was very young and had decided to become a poet, she made a list of items she would never have: a house, a good car, fancy clothes. Unfortunately, Oliver was not featured in a fancy photo shoot and did not have the opportunity to wear fancy clothes. . . .
The highlight of O, for me, is the Mary Oliver interview. [8] I especially enjoy Mary Oliver’s response to the question, what does it mean to be a poet? ‘I consider myself kind of a reporter. . .’ says Mary Oliver. ‘I never think of myself as a poet. . .’
Though I offered the idea in 2007 to promote poetry with flashy, sexy people, I would never have the budget to pull of a spring fashion photo shoot as a way to introduce poetry to the ‘golden palace of mass culture.’ Nor would I have the opportunity to meet and interview Mary Oliver.
But allow me to offer something that professional opinionators and journalists may have overlooked. Mike Tyson, [9] Ashton Kutcher [10] and Dan Rather [11] were introduced to poetry at a young age by people who they admired and respected. In Mr. Kutcher’s case, it was a poem his father wrote. To my knowledge, Larry M. Kutcher has never published his poetry. But that doesn’t matter to his son, Ashton Kutcher. For me, that’s the legacy of poetry. It’s not a spring fashion ‘photomontage’ in a flashy mainstream magazine. It’s not the academic snobbery of ‘Important Literary Folks.’ The legacy of poetry is a poem a father shares with his son. Or a mentor encouraging a young boxer with a couple lines of verse that advise to ‘stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit.’ This is what will promote poetry in America: fathers, mothers, and mentors sharing poetry with young readers.
NOTES: [1] National Poetry Month [2] Asheville Wordfest [3] How to Promote National Poetry Month [4] Are You Ready for Demi Moore’s Poetry? [5] Oprah Magazine’s Adventures in Poetry David Orr’s disclaimer: ‘First, only a snob or an idiot complains when the magic wand of Oprah is flourished in his direction. . . . Second, O has been running an intelligent and professional book section under the direction of the former Publishers Weekly editor Sara Nelson for some time now, using excellent critics like Francine Prose. . . . Finally, it’s all too easy for Important Literary Folk to sneer at anything involving fashion.’ He continues: ‘And yet. ‘Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.’ The words are heart-sinking. For some readers, this will be because poetry represents a higher form of culture that can only be debased by the commentary of Oprah Winfrey and the pencil skirts of L’Wren Scott.’ And Mr. Orr concludes: ‘But that’s precisely the trouble: for an overwhelming majority of the culture, almost every poem has an inscrutable ending, even the ones that aren’t actually inscrutable. . . . All poets and their readers can do is stare half-longingly, half-fearfully across that great divide at the golden palace of mass culture. . . and sigh.’ [6] Fashion Extremes: Celebrate Your Unique Style [7] O Magazine’s First-Ever Poetry Issue [8] Maria Shriver Interviews the Famously Private Poet Mary Oliver[9] 24 All-Star Readers on the Words That Rock Their Worlds: Mike Tyson [10] 24 All-Star Readers on the Words That Rock Their Worlds: Ashton Kutcher [11] 24 All-Star Readers on the Words That Rock Their Worlds: Dan Rather
In September 2010 an idea was born to hold a poetry reading under a full moon at the Roof Garden of the historic Battery Park Hotel. Three weeks after that September afternoon, sixty people attended an invite-only poetry reading, book-signing and jazz show on Friday, October 22, 2010. The event was publicized almost exclusively through Twitter, Facebook and word-of-mouth and featured Asheville, North Carolina poets Barbara Gravelle, myself (Matthew Mulder) and Brian Sneeden with special musical performance by Vendetta Creme and Aaron Price. And thus, Rooftop Poets was born in Asheville under a full moon.
Since the Roof Garden reading, the Rooftop Poets have been invited to read at various venues and interviewed for newspaper and television. Brian’s poem “The Temple” (included in Rooftop Poets poetry book) went on to be the Mountain Xpress’s first place winner in their 2011 poetry contest.
If you missed the memorable evening last October, there are still a few copies of the limited-edition, 64-page book. You may purchase copies at Malaprop’s.
Rooftop Poets is a limited-edition, 64-page book of poems featuring the work of three Asheville, North Carolina poets.
Barbara Gravelle, author of several poetry books including, Keepsake, Dancing the Naked Dance of Love, and her latest collection of poems, Poet on the Roof of the World.
Matthew Mulder, one of the original members of the Traveling Bonfires, his poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, Small Press Review, The Indie, H_NGM_N, and other publications.
Brian Sneeden has produced, designed or written for more than a hundred theatrical performances. He is the current director and MC of Asheville Vaudeville.
Coffeehouse Junkie 