Tag: poetry

Sold out: Tomorrow We Sweat Poetry

A Flood Gallery Fine Arts Center poetry chapbook

Tomorrow We Sweat Poetry (paperback, 20 pgs, 8″x5″ $8 + s/h) is officially out of print.

Tomorrow We Sweat Poetry is the result of the workshop I directed called “Write and do not waste time” and features poems by Susan Ryonen Keene. A digital sample is available here. Each poetry writing workshop I direct invites students to contribute their best poems for publication in a poetry book. If you’re interested in an upcoming poetry writing workshop, please leave a comment or email me at coffeehousejunkie [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thank you all for your support!

Rooftop Poets literary salon

rooftoppoets:

Many thanks to all who attended last night’s Rooftop Poets literary salon at the Roof Garden Ballroom of the Battery Park Hotel!

Poet’s on the Roof: A Literary Salon

Poet’s on the Roof: A Literary Salon

You are invited to a literary salon at the Roof Garden of the historic Battery Park Hotel. Whether you dabble in poetry or prose or you’re a published poet or writer or maybe you just love art and books; join the Rooftop Poets for a stimulating evening of literature, music and conversation.

Come prepared to participate in engaging dialogue about art, books, literature and life. Discussions will be lead by Barbara Gravelle, Matt Mulder and Brian Sneeden. Please bring work by someone you admire or something you’ve written to share at the salon.

Snacks and hors d’oeuvres will be provided, along with music by Mattick Frick and the Bloodroot Orkaestarr.

$10.00 admission includes all food and beverages.

Join us Friday, February 18, 8:00pm – 11:00pm at the historic Battery Park Hotel, 1 Battle Square, Asheville, NC (located north of the Grove Arcade building).

Rooftop Poets reading this Friday

rooftoppoets:

Will the Rooftop Poets love poems? You’ll have to come and find out.

The Rooftop Poets perform at Accent on Books on Fri., Feb. 11, 6 PM. Barbara Gravelle, Matt Mulder and Brian Sneeden will be accompanied by special guest musician Mattick Frick.

This event is free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served.

Mosaic of the Nativity (Serbia, Winter 1993)

by Jane Kenyon

 

On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:

“We’re descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?”

God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.

(via Charlie Lowell)

The Winter Is Cold, Is Cold

by Madeleine L’Engle

 

The winter is cold, is cold.
All’s spent in keeping warm.
Has joy been frozen, too?
I blow upon my hands
Stiff from the biting wind.
My heart beats slow, beats slow.
What has become of joy?

If joy’s gone from my heart
Then it is closed to You
Who made it, gave it life.
If I protect myself
I’m hiding, Lord, from you.
How we defend ourselves
In ancient suits of mail!

Protected from the sword,
Shrinking from the wound,
We look for happiness,
Small, safety-seeking, dulled,
Selfish, exclusive, in-turned.
Elusive, evasive, peace comes
Only when it’s not sought.

Help me forget the cold
That grips the grasping world.
Let me stretch out my hands
To purifying fire,
Clutching fingers uncurled.
Look! Here is the melting joy.
My heart beats once again.

Into The Darkest Hour

by Madeleine L’Engle

 

It was a time like this,
War & tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss-
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.

It was time like this
of fear & lust for power,
license & greed and blight-
and yet the Prince of bliss
came into the darkest hour
in quiet & silent light.

And in a time like this
how celebrate his birth
when all things fall apart?
Ah! Wonderful it is
with no room on the earth
the stable is our heart.

Advent

by Donald Hall

 

When I see the cradle rocking
What is it that I see?
I see a rood on the hilltop
Of Calvary.

When I hear the cattle lowing
What is it that they say?
They say that shadows feasted
At Tenebrae.

When I know that the grave is empty,
Absence eviscerates me,
And I dwell in a cavernous, constant
Horror vacui.

(via Poetry Foundation)

View of Asheville from the Roof Garden

The sun is setting. The full moon is rising. The room is set up for tonight’s poetry reading and jazz show. The dark mocha stout cupcakes with…

Rooftop Poets party tonight, 8 p.m.

The Rooftop Poets event has begun

Rooftop Poets Event Program

Rooftop Poets: the doors are open

Battery Park Hotel

It’s 7:30PM! The doors are open and guests are arriving outside the Battery Park Hotel. Time to make my way to the Roof Garden.

Rooftop Poets party tonight, 8 p.m.

View of Asheville from the Roof Garden

The sun is setting. The full moon is rising. The room is set up for tonight’s poetry reading and jazz show. The dark mocha stout cupcakes with Bailey’s frosting look tasty. The supremo chocolate rum balls look like they could break several Prohibition-era laws. Time to get ready for the show.

The doors open at 7:30PM and the event begins at 8PM. Tickets are $10 each. Guests arriving at the Battery Park Hotel will be let in by a doorman who will have your name on a guest list.

See you all in less than two hours!

Poetry at the Roof Garden

Roof Garden Ballroom

Time to set up the Roof Garden of the Battery Park Hotel for tonight’s Prohibition-era poetry reading and jazz show.

More event details are here: link.

Poetry and Jazz at the Roof Garden

Battery Park Hotel: Roof Garden

In September an idea was born to hold a poetry reading under a full moon at the Roof Garden of the Battery Park Hotel. Tonight is the culmination of that idea.

Few people have access to the Roof Garden. Join the Rooftop Poets for a fine evening of poems, songs and full-moon revelry. Doors open at 7:30PM and the event begins at 8PM. Tickets are $10 each. Guests arriving at the Battery Park Hotel will be let in by a doorman who will have your name on a guest list. If you’re not on the guest list, you have to ask yourself, why not?

Tonight’s Rooftop Poets

Historic Battery Park Hotel

After some homemade latte and a walk through Asheville’s autumn splendor, I’ll wrap a couple last minute details and then head downtown to the Battery Park Hotel.

For tonight’s event, the doors open at 7:30PM and the event begins at 8PM. Tickets are $10 each. Guests arriving at the Battery Park Hotel will be let in by a doorman who will have your name on a guest list.

Tonight: Rooftop Poets: with music by Vendetta Creme and Aaron Price

Listen to music samples of Vendetta Creme, the featured musical guests for the Roof Garden event. The doors open and the band starts playing at 7:30 p.m. The poetry reading begins at 8 p.m.

A poetry reading and jazz show on the Roof Garden of the Battery Park Hotel

Rooftop Poets
Barbara Gravelle, Matthew Mulder, Brian Sneeden
with music by Vendetta Creme & Aaron Price
1 Battle Square, Asheville, North Carolina
Friday, October 22 · 8:00pm – until
doors open at 7:30pm — event begins at 8:00pm

In celebration of the publication of Barbara Gravelle’s latest book, Poet on the Roof of the World, join the Rooftop Poets under a full moon on the Roof Garden of the Battery Park Hotel for a Prohibition-era poetry reading, book-signing and jazz show.

Local poets Barbara Gravelle, Matthew Mulder and Brian Sneeden will perform alongside the French jazz music sensations Vendetta Creme and Aaron Price at the Roof Garden of the illustrious Battery Park Hotel.

Tickets are $10 and include a signed and numbered, limited-edition, 64-page book of poems featuring the work of all three poets, as well as complimentary light refreshments and hors d’oeuvres.

Few people have access to the Battery Park Hotel’s Roof Garden. Join us for a fine evening of poems, songs and full-moon revelry.

Space is limited. Reserve your tickets today by emailing: info@coffeehousejunkie.com

The evening’s cast of characters include:

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.

Cabaret singer Vendetta Creme (aka Kelly Barrow) and Aaron Price (piano, guitar) perform lesser-known songs from yesteryear. This duo scour the globe for their songs including material from five continents weaved into a seamless, unforgettable show.

Poem: Saturday Night, Coffee House

Saturday Night, Coffee House

The awkwardness is complete—
strangers sitting side by side
with nothing to offer but body heat
on this cold winter night;
and the only thing that
connects us is my brother’s wife
and the wooden bench we sit upon.

Conversation is embarrassingly
fumbled with references to
the chai we sip;
and at long silences we sip
more chai and look
around the coffee house
for more material to
discuss,
or some distraction
to fascinate our senses.

(c) Matthew Mulder. All Rights Reserved.
Originally published in Rapid River Art Magazine, April 2004

Interlude

From today’s The Writer’s Almanac, an excerpt from “Midwest” by Stephen Dunn:

The church

always was smaller
than the grain elevator,
though we pretended otherwise.

As a child, the largest structures I ever saw included farm silos and grain elevators. They were the closest thing to a cathedral the Heartland has to offer a child.

30 poems in 30 days: update five

Day nine
Day nine

The 30 poems in 30 days challenge is complete. Since the last update the poems have veered all over the place in regards to theme, subject and tone. The main reason for the challenge was to:

  1. generate new material and
  2. unclutter my mind.

A lot of new material was produced but I cannot say my mind is more or less cluttered than before the challenge. I’m still trying to make heads or tails of what I wrote.

30 poems in 30 days: update three

30 poems in 30 days: day 5
pages of a poem for day five

As stated previously, Deborah offered a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days. So far, I’ve been able to keep up with it in spite of a summertime cold and an urgent freelance job that evolved into a larger project than I anticipated. Still, the discipline of writing a poem a day, or at least a poem sketch a day, has proved to be rewarding in and of itself. Two benefits have come out of this exercise so far:

  1. the generation of new material and
  2. brain dumping stuff that’s been cluttering my mind.

At least one poem sketch so far helped articulate something I’ve been struggling with for a few months. Forcing myself to write at least once a day brought that struggle up from the subconscious and allowed me to form it into a personal poem. Somewhere in my reading I came across a poet, or writer, that said writing every day, even if it’s only for your own eyes, is good practice in writing content for others. My writing professor at the university encouraged students to write a novel for yourself first. Even if the novel is intended only for you, it is worth writing it. And sometimes it may find audience elsewhere.

30 poems in 30 days challenge: update two

30 poems in 30 days: days 3 & 4
pages of poems for days three and four

Deborah offered a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days. I took up the challenge and so far I’m on schedule with one poem a day. Maybe after the challenge I’ll translate the poems from handwritten form to digital, but for me the urgency is to get it all down first. It’s kind of like catching butterflies or lightening bugs.

One interesting item is that the poems have developed a theme. When I accepted the challenge I wasn’t planning on writing 30 theme-based poems, but somewhere under the surface it appears in each page of the poems I’m composing. I guess I’ll find out if it changes course by the end of the challenge.

30 poems in 30 days challenge

Deborah (of 32 Poems) invites interested persons to write a poem a day for the next 30 days. The invite was sent out on Sunday (and I didn’t read it until today… so, I’m a bit late), but I think I’m up for the challenge. Anyone else?

Read more details about the challenge here: 30 Poems in 30 Days.

Always be prepared to read your poems

When I mentioned earlier today that you should join the Traveling Bonfires tonight at Malaprop’s, you really were invited to join the reading. Two of the three poets were unable to show up for tonight’s reading. The emcee of the poetry reading and founder of the Traveling Bonfires invited anyone in the audience to read poems. He asked me to read my poems as well.

I wasn’t prepared to read; only to listen. But no one else came prepared to read. So, I frantically dug into my old messenger bag and found two poetry chapbook manuscripts by other poets. For a brief moment I thought I would read from their manuscripts, but I didn’t want to read poems that weren’t ready for the public. Sandwiched between loose papers and a copy of Selected Cantos of Ezra Pound and Narrow Road to the Interior was my red notebook containing poem sketches and revisions. I had half of a thought to read selections from Pound and Basho, but in my notebook I found six poem sketches and revisions to test in front of an audience.

The moral of the story is this: always be prepared to read your poems and if you’re a poet in the Asheville area (or if you’re a poet traveling near the Asheville area) contact me or the Traveling Bonfires (travelingbonfires@yahoo.com) and we’ll find a space and a mic and a crowd of listeners.