Tag: poetry

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Justin Gardiner reads at the Flood Reading Series, Sunday March 29.

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Amanda Gardiner reads at the Flood Reading Series, Sunday March 29.

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Mark Prudowsky introduces the Flood Reading Series, Sunday March 29, 2009, with a poem.

Poetry Reading:

Sebastian Matthews @ Flood Gallery Fine Art Center. Sunday, October 26th, 1:00PM, Asheville, NC.

Poetry Reading:

Katherine Soniat @ Flood Gallery Fine Art Center, Sunday, October 26th, 1:00PM, Asheville, NC

Poetry Reading:

Erin Victoria Wigger @ Flood Gallery Fine Art Center. Sunday, October 26th, 1:00PM, Asheville, NC.

Poetry reading:

Elizabeth Bradfield @ Flood Gallery Fine Art Center. Sunday, October 26th, 1:00PM, Asheville, NC.

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don’t try to make sense of it, just get behind it and push it over. (one-line haiku)

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the river’s long term goal is to get up early and bleed into dirt. (one-line haiku)

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she puts her lipstick on with a sharpie marker and then calls it quits. (one-line haiku)

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tryin to write a ‘status’ haiku durin lunch line breaks don’t work well (one-line haiku)

// weird. fell asleep reading an ezra pound bio and woke up thinking i’m late for class.

// i didn’t know ezra pound had wisconsin connections… chippewa falls connections at that.

I was engaging in a dubious art form that has no audience.

I read a poem at a coffeehouse last night and watched the audience’s eyes glaze. So, when I read this I smiled. » read essay @ globel life

Two things poets should consider

With the market plunging, here’s two encouraging items to consider as a poet:

1) “The state’s jobless rate began the year at 4.9 percent and has steadily increased since then. It stood at 6.6 percent in July.” Link The unemployment rate in N.C. is presently 7 percent.

DO NOT try to make a living writing poetry. Keep your day job (and your night job, too).

2) In the Asheville area, almost $400,000 was donated to political campaigns.

NONE of that money was spent on your livelihood as a poet, buying your poetry books, or purchasing coffee and other goodies at your public poetry readings.

Poetry reading at Malaprops

Poetry reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore this Sunday, Oct. 19, 3 PM. The advance poetry class that I am attending will present their work with a public, free reading.

This marks my return to Malaprop’s. It has been over two years since I read my work in that place. A lot has happened in three years. I trust that will show when I read my new work.

Poets Teaching Poets, part 3

Last night, I submitted one of my poems for workshop. For those readers unfamiliar with what happens to a poem/poet during a “workshop” session, imagine a colonoscopy performed by pre-med students.

I could play the pained poet and claim that I am still recovering from the ordeal, but that’s not true because I’m still giggling.

Poets Teaching Poets, part 3

Last night, I submitted one of my poems for workshop. For those readers unfamiliar with what happens to a poem/poet during a “workshop” session, imagine a colonoscopy performed by pre-med students.

I could play the pained poet and claim that I am still recovering from the ordeal, but that’s not true because I’m still giggling.

Poetry, the highest form of art

“Imagine living in a society where poetry was considered to be the most important art form. Where a poet could easily fill a football stadium. Where a poet’s death was the top news story for days.” Link

This echoes the thought that Icelandic books is the most important in Europe.

Poets Teaching Poets

This weekend I picked up a copy of Poets Teaching Poets at Malaprop’s. It is the only required book for the advanced poetry in which I am enrolled. I read the introduction and first few pages of the opening chapter on the bus ride back home. I hope the class is as engaging as this book.

The first class is Tuesday and I have a few predictions about the class:

  1. male students will be a minority
  2. students (regardless of gender) under 40 years of age will be a minority
  3. half (if not the majority) of the students will have had taught in an educational capacity at some time during their adult life (and now that they have retired want to write and publish poetry)
  4. the majority of the students will write in confessional lyric verse

This sounds a bit cynical, but I’ve taken a few classes like this in recent years and that tends to be the trend. I’ll share the results of these predictions later in the week.

An email from the class teacher arrived this afternoon as instructed all students to bring the following to class this week:

  1. one of your own poems
  2. and one of your favorite poems

Poet Billy Collins sells out

“[Billy] Collins, the former U.S. poet laureate, is the keynote speaker for the Decatur Book Festival Friday night at Agnes Scott College. Word from the festival organizers is that all of the free tickets have been given out…” Link

Poets & Writers magazine explains why in the recent issue:

“What makes Billy Collins one of America’s best-known (and best-selling) poets? Perhaps it’s his attention to what matters most — his audience.”

Poetry Is Dead

Society… did not favor the reading of poetry…. By the ’90s, it was all over…. consider that poetry is the only art form where the number of people creating it is far greater than the number of people appreciating it…. People don’t possess the patience to read a poem 20 times before the sound and sense of it takes hold….

I am part of a world that apotheosizes the trendy, and poetry is just about as untrendy as it gets. I want to read books with buzz… and I can’t remember the last book of poetry that created even a dying mosquito’s worth of hum. I am also lazy, and poetry takes work.

–Bruce Wexler1

NOTES:
1) Bruce Wexler, “Poetry Is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care?” May 5, 2003, Newsweek, accessed July 7, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/59182/page/1 (page no longer available)

Caffeinated poem

Caffeinated poem: A few weeks ago I had compiled a set of poems to submit to various poetry contests including Boston Review. But I was reading Robert Pinsky’s book Gulf Music and never sent them. It’s not that I forgot to send them. It is just that compared to Robert Pinsky, my poems appear un-submittable. So instead I wrote a poem on a paper cup after drinking a latte from The Dripolator.

Take this poem and read it

Take this poem and read it (or not, I was just suggesting you might like it… or maybe need it… oh, nevermind).

Deborah wonders if poets need to do a “better job of writing with an audience in mind.”1

Seth suggests that people might improve their writing2 if they think like bloggers. He offers 9 tips:

  1. Use headlines.
  2. Realize that people have choices.
  3. Drip, drip, drip.
  4. It’s okay if you leave.
  5. Interactivity is a great shortcut.
  6. Gimmicks aren’t as useful as insight.
  7. Don’t be afraid of lists.
  8. Show up.
  9. Say it.

What would happen if poets adapted those nine tips into their poetry? 

NOTES:
1) Deborah Ager, “Border’s Books,” April 2008, 32 Poems, accessed April 7, 2008, https://32poems.com/prose/borders-book/
2) Seth Godin, “Write like a blogger,” April 07, 2008, Seth Godin’s Blog, accessed April 7, 2008, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/write-like-a-bl.html (page no longer available, web site deactivated)