All right, time to stop making excuses: this blog is long overdue. And now that it’s National Poetry Month and the beginning of the baseball season, I have not excuse.
Yup, I’m doing the Poem-a-day Challenge again, and once again following Robert Brewer’s blog on the Writer’s Digest site. This month is kind of exciting, because he has corralled a bunch of judges to pick daily winners, whose poems will eventually end up in an e-book he’ll produce with the 50 best submitted poems of the month. Competition may be keen, however, because he’s had an unprecedented response on his comments board, with over 700-800 entries a day (over 1000 on the first day alone). I don’t envy his task, with his poet wife’s help, of slogging through hundreds of submissions a day, although a fair number of them, frankly, will be easy to weed out. The judges for the final cut, by the way, include such familiar names (at least to us poets) as Mark Doty, Dorianne Laux, and Marilyn Nelson.
I’m also mailing off my pre-publication package to Finishing Line Press for my chapbook, Breathing Out. Got my cover art and photos (courtesy of my son) as well as three very nice “blurbs” from my poet friends Anna Evans, Therese Halscheid, and BJ Ward. Watch this blog in a few months for more details of the pending publication!
The other thing I’m doing for Poetry Month is attending the Princeton Poetry Festival on April 27th and 28th. Unfortunately, the Dodge Foundation decided not to hold the biannual Dodge Poetry Festival next year, but thank goodness for other organizations that will be trying to fill that huge cultural hole. This one will feature two poetry legends, John Ashberry and Seamus Heaney, and a number of other excellent poets in readings and seminars. And best of all, it’s FREE – but you need to order tickets. If you're interested, click here.
Finally in poetry news, our group, Quick and Dirty Poets, has released our 4th annual issue of our journal, Up and Under: the QND Review, which should be available soon, if not now, on our website (see link on right). Not that I’m biased or anything, but I think it’s our best issue yet, and our launch party last month was a big success.
Baseball: Opening week! Can the Phillies repeat? I think they certainly have the potential – they have virtually the same starting lineup and pitching staff that made them so successful last year. Pat Burrell is gone, but he’ll be happier as a DH in the AL, I think, and Ibanez will hopefully fill that gap well. They won it all last year despite some offensive slumps from their key players, so if everyone gets in a groove this year, they’ll be hard to beat. The pitching staff needs to be consistent and healthy, of course, and we need JC Romero back (he got a raw deal with that banned substance penalty – way too stiff a punishment, IMHO). I predict they’ll at least make the playoffs again this year, if everyone stays healthy.
Music: Nothing yet this year has set my world on fire, though I do like the new releases from Neko Case, M. Ward, The Decemberists, Animal Collective, Andrew Bird, A.C. Newman, Beirut, and Bell X1. That’s like, not love. One of my favorites CD’s so far this year is actually a compilation from the folks that have brought us the “Red Hot…” series which benefits AIDS charities. It’s called Dark Was the Night, a 2-CD collection of some of the best indie-rock and indie–folk artists performing these days: Feist, Bon Iver, The National, Sufjan Stevens, Yo La Tengo, Spoon, Arcade Fire, Iron & Wine, and a bunch of other favorites. It’s well worth a listen.
Poem of the Month: This one appears in the new issue of Up and Under:
Where Are They Now?
I hadn’t heard anything from the Muses
for so long, so I went online
to track them down. It seems they’ve all gone
undercover, acquired new identities:
Terpsichore’s on Dancing with the Stars
(still hot, too – love that skimpy outfit).
Erato’s become a porn queen – that’s some boob job!
Euterpe’s a producer for some indie label in Japan.
Urania runs the planetarium at a science museum
in Phoenix. Most nights she just stares into the night sky,
making up new constellations.
Thalia’s doing standup at some cheesy comedy club
in Baltimore. Weeknights, she waitresses at the same club.
Clio teaches history at a high school in Philly.
Her lesbian lover’s a performance artist.
Polyhymnia has joined a religious cult in Montana,
and spends her days in a long skirt, on a hard bench,
chanting.
Melpomene – well, she’s a sad story, in the hospital
for the fifth time after as many suicide attempts.
But she’s published three books of poetry.
Calliope is a stay-at-home Mom of three in Michigan.
Weekdays she gives piano lessons.
No wonder I can’t get inspired.
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