I know I've been criminally underusing this blog, but I can't believe I missed the opportunity to promote two upcoming readings:
Thursday July 23 - reading with Kendall Bell (my Quick and Dirty colleague, also the co-editor of Chantarelle's Notebook and publisher of Maverick Duck Press) for the Burlington County Poets, at Burlington County Library, 5 Pioneer Blvd., Westampton NJ, 7-9 p.m.
Wednesday, July 29- reading (with several other poets) at the Philadelphia Poets Vol. 15 Book Launch, 7:00 p.m., Robin’s Books and Moonstone Art Center, 110A S. 13th Street, Philadelphia.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Extra: The Book is Out!
Just got word that my chapbook, "Breathing Out" is now on the Finishing Line Press website. If you're interested, now is the time to order a copy, as advance sales help me to get to a full first printing. Click the link above, then click the "New and Forthcoming Titles" button and scroll down to my name. You can pay by check or credit card. Thanks for your support!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Summertime, Summertime, Sum-sum-summertime...
Anyone remember that old song? It's been an amazingly temperate, and until recently, wet summer so far, and our highlight to this point has been our trip to the Myrtle Beach area - our first visit. We actually stayed in Surfside Beach, just to the south and not quite as congested, though still quite busy. Our timeshare resort was set back in a wooded area, though, and was very nice with lots of amenities including a pool with a "lazy river". We only actually spent one day on the beach (the ocean was delightfully warm), but we found more than enough to do elsewhere, like amusement and water parks, mini-golf, seafood buffet, and activities onsite at the resort. The best place, though, was Brookgreen Gardens, about 1/2 hour south of MB. It's a huge 9000-acre estate which contains beautiful gardens and a wide array of sculptures, mostly in a neo-classic style, all over the grounds. Anna Huntington, who was a sculptor of some renown herself, owned the estate with husband Archer. There is also a zoo with domesticated and wild animals, including foxes, alligators, otters, eagles and others. The weather was near-perfect that week - hot but dry, and no rain in our area the whole time. We'll be back again.
Road trip tip: We discovered the joys of audiobooks on this trip, which is 10 to 11 hours each way by car. We popped them into our CD player and they really helped pass the time. We listened to Marley and Me on the way down, and Bill Bryson's memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, on the way back.
The other highlight of the trip, especially for our youngest son, was reuniting with his half-brothers whom he hadn't seen for about eight years. They both live in South Carolina, and we had a very nice evening with them over dinner in Georgetown.
Poetry: I finally got word from Finishing Line Press that advance sales of my chapbook, Breathing Out, will begin on their website on July 17, through August 28. If you are interested in buying my book, the best thing for me would be to pre-order it online, as these sales will determine whether it goes to a full first printing. Click here for more information.
I've been rather frustrated because I have missed two of the three summer readings hosted by my group, The Quick and Dirty Poets, the last one on July 10th featuring our friend and former member Rachel Bunting. She did make a surprise visit to our group meeting the night before, though, so it was good to see her again. Our next reading features poet Lynn Levin on August 9. Click the link to the right for more information.
Still not producing as much new poetry as I would like, though I'm still doing the weekly Poetic Asides prompts. One of my recent ones was featured a few days later as Pathetic.org's "Poem of the Day". I will include it below.
I've been enjoying Paul Pereira's poetry colleection What's Written on the Body, which includes a section called "Anagrammer", a series of very clever poems that contain a number of anagrams and other wordplay. They inspired me to try one out myself, and I was rather pleased with the results.
Music: Well, the year is half over, and here are my ten favorite albums of 2009 as of today (in alphabetical order:
Animal Colective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Bell X1 - Blue Lights on the Runway
Death Cab for Cutie - The Open Door EP
Decemberists - Hazards of Love
Iron and Wine - Around the Well
Black Joe Lewis the Honeybears - Tell 'em What Your Name Is!
Melody Gardot - My One and Only Thrill
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Various Artists - Dark Was the Night
White Rabbits - It's Frightening
I haven't heard the new albums by Moby and Son Volt in their entirety yet, but when I do, I suspect they could crack my top 10.
Poem of the Month: Someday I'll get back to a poem a week, but for now this will do. This is the poem I wrote in response to the prompt, "Write a poem with a title that begins, 'Nobody's Worth...'".
It’s that exercise they do every so often,
where they break the human body down
to its composite elements and figure out
how much they’re worth in today’s market.
So nobody is literally worth their weight in gold.
And certainly nobody’s worth ten million a year
no matter what team they play on,
no matter what corporation they head.
And I’m sorry, but nobody is really worth billions,
not a sultan or a founder of some electronics empire.
It’s just stuff, and they’re still just
pathetic bags of chemicals.
To some, life is cheap, and nobody is worth anything.
This is where suffering comes in.
But I say all that’s irrelevant. We are priceless,
no matter which way you take us apart.
Road trip tip: We discovered the joys of audiobooks on this trip, which is 10 to 11 hours each way by car. We popped them into our CD player and they really helped pass the time. We listened to Marley and Me on the way down, and Bill Bryson's memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, on the way back.
The other highlight of the trip, especially for our youngest son, was reuniting with his half-brothers whom he hadn't seen for about eight years. They both live in South Carolina, and we had a very nice evening with them over dinner in Georgetown.
Poetry: I finally got word from Finishing Line Press that advance sales of my chapbook, Breathing Out, will begin on their website on July 17, through August 28. If you are interested in buying my book, the best thing for me would be to pre-order it online, as these sales will determine whether it goes to a full first printing. Click here for more information.
I've been rather frustrated because I have missed two of the three summer readings hosted by my group, The Quick and Dirty Poets, the last one on July 10th featuring our friend and former member Rachel Bunting. She did make a surprise visit to our group meeting the night before, though, so it was good to see her again. Our next reading features poet Lynn Levin on August 9. Click the link to the right for more information.
Still not producing as much new poetry as I would like, though I'm still doing the weekly Poetic Asides prompts. One of my recent ones was featured a few days later as Pathetic.org's "Poem of the Day". I will include it below.
I've been enjoying Paul Pereira's poetry colleection What's Written on the Body, which includes a section called "Anagrammer", a series of very clever poems that contain a number of anagrams and other wordplay. They inspired me to try one out myself, and I was rather pleased with the results.
Music: Well, the year is half over, and here are my ten favorite albums of 2009 as of today (in alphabetical order:
Animal Colective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Bell X1 - Blue Lights on the Runway
Death Cab for Cutie - The Open Door EP
Decemberists - Hazards of Love
Iron and Wine - Around the Well
Black Joe Lewis the Honeybears - Tell 'em What Your Name Is!
Melody Gardot - My One and Only Thrill
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Various Artists - Dark Was the Night
White Rabbits - It's Frightening
I haven't heard the new albums by Moby and Son Volt in their entirety yet, but when I do, I suspect they could crack my top 10.
Poem of the Month: Someday I'll get back to a poem a week, but for now this will do. This is the poem I wrote in response to the prompt, "Write a poem with a title that begins, 'Nobody's Worth...'".
Nobody’s Worth More than $4.50
It’s that exercise they do every so often,
where they break the human body down
to its composite elements and figure out
how much they’re worth in today’s market.
So nobody is literally worth their weight in gold.
And certainly nobody’s worth ten million a year
no matter what team they play on,
no matter what corporation they head.
And I’m sorry, but nobody is really worth billions,
not a sultan or a founder of some electronics empire.
It’s just stuff, and they’re still just
pathetic bags of chemicals.
To some, life is cheap, and nobody is worth anything.
This is where suffering comes in.
But I say all that’s irrelevant. We are priceless,
no matter which way you take us apart.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Shame, Shame...
...on me for not keeping up this blog. My son, who is becoming an estimable poet in his own right and has his own poetry blog, has shamed me into writing tonight. I have no right to whine about lack of readership if I'm not posting more than once a month at most. So I plan to try to put something up at least weekly from now on. I'll try to keep it from getting too inane.
I did in fact finish the Poem-a-Day Challenge run by Robert Brewer on the Poetic Asides blog, which was a huge success with over 25,000 poems entered over the 30 days. The judges will select the 50 best for an e-book publication in July. I even volunteered to help out by reviewing one day's worth of poems (about 800!) and selecting what I thought were the the 50 best for that day, then I sent them off to Robert and Tammy Brewer to cut the list down to five. Those five then go to a "celebrity" judge (one for each day) who selects the best one for that day. Robert and Tammy then select 20 more of their favorites, rounding out the 50 winners.
It's looking like a busy summer poetically for me. Monday night I was featured reader at Barnes and Noble in Marlton, NJ, sponsored by the poetry group there of which I am a long-time member. Next week I am one of the readers for the journal launch of the new issue of Philadelphia Poets (who are publishing my poem, "Record Store"), and in July my friend Kendall Bell and I are featured readers for the Burlington County Poets. Our own group, Quick and Dirty Poets, has our summer series already set with readings in June, July and August. My next-door neighbor has asked me to give a talk on poetry and publication with her writing group soon, and I hope by the end of the summer I will hear something on my chapbook from Finishing Line Press. I've also sent some formal poetry out to a print journal, The Lyric.
I feel badly that I haven't enrolled in any workshops or conferences this year. The Princeton Festival was great, but it didn't offer opportunities for workshop and critique. I skipped the Philadelphia Writers Conference, who have been so good to me these last few years, and I again missed out on the West Chester Poetry Conference, which my friend Anna has attended and raves about. There's also the Rutgers Summer Writing Conference, which a week of commitment (and time off work) and not something I wasn't quite ready for yet. Oh well, there's always next year.
Music: I really like the new album by White Rabbits, It's Frightening. They sound a bit like Spoon, so it's not just coincidence that Britt Daniel of Spoon produced it. Two drummers and a piano up front make it as very percussive and catchy band. Their leadoff track, "Percussion Gun", is one of the most addictive songs of the year - I can't get it out of my brain!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTnZOXs3gOo
I still can't figure how to attach a video directly to the blog. Can someone offer a little tech advice?
Poem of the Month:
National Record Store Day was in April - its purpose is to convince folks to patronize their friendly neighborhood independent record store, a dying breed. Here's a poem I wrote right around the last Record Store celebration in April 2008. This is the poem that will be featured in the new issue of Philadelphia Poets:
Record Store
I did in fact finish the Poem-a-Day Challenge run by Robert Brewer on the Poetic Asides blog, which was a huge success with over 25,000 poems entered over the 30 days. The judges will select the 50 best for an e-book publication in July. I even volunteered to help out by reviewing one day's worth of poems (about 800!) and selecting what I thought were the the 50 best for that day, then I sent them off to Robert and Tammy Brewer to cut the list down to five. Those five then go to a "celebrity" judge (one for each day) who selects the best one for that day. Robert and Tammy then select 20 more of their favorites, rounding out the 50 winners.
It's looking like a busy summer poetically for me. Monday night I was featured reader at Barnes and Noble in Marlton, NJ, sponsored by the poetry group there of which I am a long-time member. Next week I am one of the readers for the journal launch of the new issue of Philadelphia Poets (who are publishing my poem, "Record Store"), and in July my friend Kendall Bell and I are featured readers for the Burlington County Poets. Our own group, Quick and Dirty Poets, has our summer series already set with readings in June, July and August. My next-door neighbor has asked me to give a talk on poetry and publication with her writing group soon, and I hope by the end of the summer I will hear something on my chapbook from Finishing Line Press. I've also sent some formal poetry out to a print journal, The Lyric.
I feel badly that I haven't enrolled in any workshops or conferences this year. The Princeton Festival was great, but it didn't offer opportunities for workshop and critique. I skipped the Philadelphia Writers Conference, who have been so good to me these last few years, and I again missed out on the West Chester Poetry Conference, which my friend Anna has attended and raves about. There's also the Rutgers Summer Writing Conference, which a week of commitment (and time off work) and not something I wasn't quite ready for yet. Oh well, there's always next year.
Music: I really like the new album by White Rabbits, It's Frightening. They sound a bit like Spoon, so it's not just coincidence that Britt Daniel of Spoon produced it. Two drummers and a piano up front make it as very percussive and catchy band. Their leadoff track, "Percussion Gun", is one of the most addictive songs of the year - I can't get it out of my brain!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTnZOXs3gOo
I still can't figure how to attach a video directly to the blog. Can someone offer a little tech advice?
Poem of the Month:
National Record Store Day was in April - its purpose is to convince folks to patronize their friendly neighborhood independent record store, a dying breed. Here's a poem I wrote right around the last Record Store celebration in April 2008. This is the poem that will be featured in the new issue of Philadelphia Poets:
Record Store
Brick-and-mortar dinosaur,
endangered species, whose habitat
is encroached by mp3’s,
mail-order websites and big-box
superstores – why am I still drawn
to you, why do I still walk right into
your welcoming mouth? It must be
your organized jumble, alphabetic chaos
of racks and racks of cases and sleeves,
CD’s and vinyl LP’s lined up
like thousands of ribs. What is it
about the air inside you that renders me
amnesiac, forgetting everything else
to do in the world, as I flip methodically
through the rows, searching for treasure?
I could hunt for hours, the stack
of booty growing in my hands –
a used Miles Davis CD, a cut-out
copy of Bach cantatas, a mint-condition
vinyl of Dark Side of the Moon.
If the guy at the register plays
something I like, I could languish
all afternoon.. There’s something
real here, the slightly musty smell
of old records, the rainbow sheen of
the CD surface I inspect for scratches,
the lost art of the gatefold sleeve,
even just the heft of my catch,
that one can never get from watching
the crawling bar on a monitor
and the message, “Download Complete”.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
NaPoMo Update/Poetry in Princeton
Another National Poetry Month has come to a close, and it’s been a pretty good one for me. As of this writing I’ve turned out over 30 poems in 29 days, and expect to complete one today for the last day of the poem-a-day challenge. Once again, thanks to Robert Brewer and his Poetic Asides blog for keeping the inspiration going with his daily prompts. He and his wife have a daunting task of wading through over 15,000 entries for the month, and winnowing them down to 5 for each day to send to their celebrity judges. The best 50 poems, in the opinions of the judges and the Brewers, will be published in an e-book. I hope that one of mine makes it.
On April 27th and 28th I attended the Princeton Poetry Festival, and it was everything I’d hoped and more. It went from 2pm to after 9pm both days – the afternoons offered readings by the invited poets and symposia on the subjects of “The Audience of the Future” and the process of poetry translation. The evenings were readings and conversation by John Ashbery and Seamus Heaney. I got to hang out with my friends John and Adele Bourne and Sheila McDonald, and Pat Hardigree joined us on the second day. I still lament the demise of the Dodge Festival, but this one, on a somewhat smaller scope, was in a way even more satisfying because it offered a more “intimate” venue – a hall that seats maybe 900 people. We spent much of the festival in the first or second row, so we got an up-front-and personal view of everyone. And there were many opportunities to casually meet the poets. I shook hands with Ashbery and got his autograph, as well as one from Michael Hofmann, an excellent German-British poet who was my “discovery” of the festival. I even accidentally upset Naomi Shihab Nye’s tote bag, for which I apologized profusely before I knew who she was. Sheila sat right next to her and I was next to Sheila. The poets were splendid, especially the venerable, legendary ones. Seamus Heaney – well, I love him more than ever, especially when he read some of my favorites, like “Mid-Term Break” and “A Sofa in the Forties”. John Ashbery has been a revelation to me too – I’m appreciating his work much more now than when I first encountered it. And Galway Kinnell read a poem still in progress. Gerald Stern read a moving poem about a friend’s pet deer that was struck and killed by a car. Lucille Clifton was great as always. The symposia and conversations were fascinating. Kudos to Paul Muldoon (an estimable poet in his own right) and everyone at the Lewis Center for putting together a very enjoyable two days of poetry.
No new publication news, other than that I've sent all my materials off to Finishing Line Press for the chapbook they'll be publishing this fall. My son designed another cool cover for me - can't wait till it's out.
Music: Not a whole lot of news here either - lately I'm listening to Juana Molina, Animal Collective, Great Lake Swimmers, and Arvo Part - an eclectic mix. I did celebrate National Record Store Day (April 18) by patronizing my favorite indpendent record boutique, Tunes in Marlton NJ. (Record stores are an endangered species and need our support!) I bought Iron & Wine Live at Norfolk, a 2005 performance that was one of the exclusive Record Store Day releases, plus a couple of used CD's from Ra Ra Riot (excellent "chamber rock") and What Made Milwaukee Famous (also pretty good). Got lots of freebies there for the occasion, like CD samplers, a vinyl LP sampler, and a nice color Beatles poster that I gave to my youngest son, who's almost as big a Beatles fan as I am.
Poem of the Month: I guess I'll share one of the poems I've written for the Poem-a-day Challenge. This was written in response to the prompt to use the title of a famous poem, change it slightly, and then either riff off the title in your own direction, or do a "takeoff" on the original poem. I tried it both ways, but this is the one that's a parody of the famous William Carlos Williams poem that was supposedly a note to his wife about the plums he ate from the fridge ("icebox"):
This Is Just to Say (Memo from a CEO)
I have taken
the bailout money
that came from your
tax dollars
for which you worked
so hard to pay
and gave myself
a bonus
Forgive me
it was wonderful
so sweet
and so green
On April 27th and 28th I attended the Princeton Poetry Festival, and it was everything I’d hoped and more. It went from 2pm to after 9pm both days – the afternoons offered readings by the invited poets and symposia on the subjects of “The Audience of the Future” and the process of poetry translation. The evenings were readings and conversation by John Ashbery and Seamus Heaney. I got to hang out with my friends John and Adele Bourne and Sheila McDonald, and Pat Hardigree joined us on the second day. I still lament the demise of the Dodge Festival, but this one, on a somewhat smaller scope, was in a way even more satisfying because it offered a more “intimate” venue – a hall that seats maybe 900 people. We spent much of the festival in the first or second row, so we got an up-front-and personal view of everyone. And there were many opportunities to casually meet the poets. I shook hands with Ashbery and got his autograph, as well as one from Michael Hofmann, an excellent German-British poet who was my “discovery” of the festival. I even accidentally upset Naomi Shihab Nye’s tote bag, for which I apologized profusely before I knew who she was. Sheila sat right next to her and I was next to Sheila. The poets were splendid, especially the venerable, legendary ones. Seamus Heaney – well, I love him more than ever, especially when he read some of my favorites, like “Mid-Term Break” and “A Sofa in the Forties”. John Ashbery has been a revelation to me too – I’m appreciating his work much more now than when I first encountered it. And Galway Kinnell read a poem still in progress. Gerald Stern read a moving poem about a friend’s pet deer that was struck and killed by a car. Lucille Clifton was great as always. The symposia and conversations were fascinating. Kudos to Paul Muldoon (an estimable poet in his own right) and everyone at the Lewis Center for putting together a very enjoyable two days of poetry.
No new publication news, other than that I've sent all my materials off to Finishing Line Press for the chapbook they'll be publishing this fall. My son designed another cool cover for me - can't wait till it's out.
Music: Not a whole lot of news here either - lately I'm listening to Juana Molina, Animal Collective, Great Lake Swimmers, and Arvo Part - an eclectic mix. I did celebrate National Record Store Day (April 18) by patronizing my favorite indpendent record boutique, Tunes in Marlton NJ. (Record stores are an endangered species and need our support!) I bought Iron & Wine Live at Norfolk, a 2005 performance that was one of the exclusive Record Store Day releases, plus a couple of used CD's from Ra Ra Riot (excellent "chamber rock") and What Made Milwaukee Famous (also pretty good). Got lots of freebies there for the occasion, like CD samplers, a vinyl LP sampler, and a nice color Beatles poster that I gave to my youngest son, who's almost as big a Beatles fan as I am.
Poem of the Month: I guess I'll share one of the poems I've written for the Poem-a-day Challenge. This was written in response to the prompt to use the title of a famous poem, change it slightly, and then either riff off the title in your own direction, or do a "takeoff" on the original poem. I tried it both ways, but this is the one that's a parody of the famous William Carlos Williams poem that was supposedly a note to his wife about the plums he ate from the fridge ("icebox"):
This Is Just to Say (Memo from a CEO)
I have taken
the bailout money
that came from your
tax dollars
for which you worked
so hard to pay
and gave myself
a bonus
Forgive me
it was wonderful
so sweet
and so green
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
National Poetry Month! Baseball! Woohoo!
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Where Have I Been? Ireland!
Hello, blog! Long time no see! I guess I’ve been away for so long because there seemed to be so little to talk about. But we just got back from a week in Ireland – our second visit there. We stayed in western Ireland (Killarney area) in 2007, but this year we went to the Dublin area. It was great, though generally a different experience – bucolic versus urban. Dublin is a bustling city, all right, but a fascinating one. We actually stayed at a timeshare resort about ½ hour south of Dublin proper, Fitzpatrick Castle Holiday Homes – very nice. It’s between the bayside towns of Dalkey and Killiney, an area that boasts a number of celebrity residents like Bono and The Edge of U2, author Maeve Binchy, and the late playwright Hugh Leonard. We also located musician Enya’s castle. We didn’t rent a car, so we relied on public transit and foot power the whole week (lots of walking involved), and it was uphill all the way from the village of Dalkey up to our resort (about a kilometer or so). We got a sample Of Irish hospitality early on the first day when we arrived in Dalkey by bus and tried to figure out how to get a cab to take us up the hill. An older gent named Sean, who was seeing off his adult daughter at the bus stop, offered to drive us up to the resort. So three of us plus luggage piled into his subcompact car and got a ride. What a nice fellow. (I said “the three of us”, but one of our other sons, who came on another flight, joined us later that day.)
I won’t give you the whole itinerary, but I will give you the top 5 highlights, at least in my opinion (and not necessarily in order):
1. The Irish History Walking Tour, which we took on our first full day (Sunday). It started at Trinity College and wound around to different historic buildings like Dublin Castle and Christchurch Cathedral. All the while our guide, an editor for Irish History magazine, gave us a crash course in Irish history. Fascinating, and a good orientation to the historic parts of the city.
2. The Chester Beatty Library. Beatty was an American-born millionaire and philanthropist who acquired an awesome collection of books and other sacred and secular artifacts. We saw illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, some very old editions of the Bible and Koran, and even a fragment of one of the Gospels from the 3rd century.
3. Newgrange: an ancient burial mound in the countryside that dates from 3200 B.C., 500 years before the Pyramids of Giza. Visitors are allowed inside the inner chamber, which is one of the oldest man-made structures still standing. The Neolithic people who built it constructed a vaulted ceiling from heavy stones, and without any kind of mortar or such. They also aligned the entrance and a “window” over it such that, on the Winter Solstice every year, the rising sun illuminates the entire inner chamber for just a few minutes. People from all over the world are eager to experience this phenomenon, so a lottery is held each year to determine which 50 people can come to see it.
4. The National Museum: The archeology museum was fascinating, and contained gold jewelry made by the Irish natives as far back as 3000 B.C., as well as artifacts of the Viking occupation. But the coolest thing was being able to see the “bog men” - three of these well-preserved bodies on display there.
5. The “Irish House Party” – on our last night in Ireland, we went to The Lansdowne Hotel in Dublin, where they seat about 30 people for a four-course meal, followed by a show with traditional Irish musicians. There was a vocalist/guitarist, accordion player, flute and whistle player, and a young woman who alternated between playing the fiddle and step-dancing (she used to be in “Riverdance”). We did sing-alongs, and some of us learned some basic Irish dance steps. The host invited any guests with a “talent” to come up and share it, so of course my 13-year-old volunteered to come up and tell a joke. The food was good, and the music even better.
Another interesting highlight of the trip was that my son went to a book-signing by author Neil Gaiman at a bookstore in Dublin. We found out after the fact that we and Mr. Gaiman were on the same flight to Dublin.
If you’d like to see some pictures, click here.
Poetry: Not much going on creatively (another dry patch), but I did get good three bits of good news recently:
1. My poem “The Jena 6” was selected as a finalist by Mad Poets Review for their annual contest and has been published in their current issue. The judge was Leonard Gontarek.
2. My poem "Record Store" was accepted for publication by Philadelphia Poets.
3. I entered the Finishing Line Press chapbook contest last year and although I wasn’t a winner, they have offered to publish my manuscript. I’m chuffed because it will be the first time someone other than myself or a friend has published one of my books, and on its own merit. More details as they become available.
Music: Already it seems to shaping up to be another good music year. So far I’ve been enjoying new albums by A.C. Newman and Andrew Bird, and I discovered a great Canadian band called Woodpigeon.
I'm also enjoying a 5-CD box set of music by Steve Reich called Phases. I picked it up at Tower Records in Dublin for a bargain price of 20 Euros. (The exchange rate when I was there was only about $1.22 - one of the few benefits of this depressed economy.) Anyway, it's an excellent collection of his best work, if you like Reich anc minmalist music.
Poem of the Month:
Here’s the poem that won the prize in the Mad Poets Review contest.
The Jena 6
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root….
- Lewis Allen, as sung by Billie Holiday
When three black kids crossed
an imaginary line in the schoolyard,
someone hung three nooses from an oak tree,
stems without fruit.
The culprits weren’t prosecuted,
but six black kids, who tried to mete out
their own justice, got trumped-up charges
and no bail, today’s version of the noose.
Justice is blind, they say, but not color-blind.
Nothing hangs from the oak tree now,
no “fruit”, or suggestion of it,
yet the ground still smells of rot.
I won’t give you the whole itinerary, but I will give you the top 5 highlights, at least in my opinion (and not necessarily in order):
1. The Irish History Walking Tour, which we took on our first full day (Sunday). It started at Trinity College and wound around to different historic buildings like Dublin Castle and Christchurch Cathedral. All the while our guide, an editor for Irish History magazine, gave us a crash course in Irish history. Fascinating, and a good orientation to the historic parts of the city.
2. The Chester Beatty Library. Beatty was an American-born millionaire and philanthropist who acquired an awesome collection of books and other sacred and secular artifacts. We saw illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, some very old editions of the Bible and Koran, and even a fragment of one of the Gospels from the 3rd century.
3. Newgrange: an ancient burial mound in the countryside that dates from 3200 B.C., 500 years before the Pyramids of Giza. Visitors are allowed inside the inner chamber, which is one of the oldest man-made structures still standing. The Neolithic people who built it constructed a vaulted ceiling from heavy stones, and without any kind of mortar or such. They also aligned the entrance and a “window” over it such that, on the Winter Solstice every year, the rising sun illuminates the entire inner chamber for just a few minutes. People from all over the world are eager to experience this phenomenon, so a lottery is held each year to determine which 50 people can come to see it.
4. The National Museum: The archeology museum was fascinating, and contained gold jewelry made by the Irish natives as far back as 3000 B.C., as well as artifacts of the Viking occupation. But the coolest thing was being able to see the “bog men” - three of these well-preserved bodies on display there.
5. The “Irish House Party” – on our last night in Ireland, we went to The Lansdowne Hotel in Dublin, where they seat about 30 people for a four-course meal, followed by a show with traditional Irish musicians. There was a vocalist/guitarist, accordion player, flute and whistle player, and a young woman who alternated between playing the fiddle and step-dancing (she used to be in “Riverdance”). We did sing-alongs, and some of us learned some basic Irish dance steps. The host invited any guests with a “talent” to come up and share it, so of course my 13-year-old volunteered to come up and tell a joke. The food was good, and the music even better.
Another interesting highlight of the trip was that my son went to a book-signing by author Neil Gaiman at a bookstore in Dublin. We found out after the fact that we and Mr. Gaiman were on the same flight to Dublin.
If you’d like to see some pictures, click here.
Poetry: Not much going on creatively (another dry patch), but I did get good three bits of good news recently:
1. My poem “The Jena 6” was selected as a finalist by Mad Poets Review for their annual contest and has been published in their current issue. The judge was Leonard Gontarek.
2. My poem "Record Store" was accepted for publication by Philadelphia Poets.
3. I entered the Finishing Line Press chapbook contest last year and although I wasn’t a winner, they have offered to publish my manuscript. I’m chuffed because it will be the first time someone other than myself or a friend has published one of my books, and on its own merit. More details as they become available.
Music: Already it seems to shaping up to be another good music year. So far I’ve been enjoying new albums by A.C. Newman and Andrew Bird, and I discovered a great Canadian band called Woodpigeon.
I'm also enjoying a 5-CD box set of music by Steve Reich called Phases. I picked it up at Tower Records in Dublin for a bargain price of 20 Euros. (The exchange rate when I was there was only about $1.22 - one of the few benefits of this depressed economy.) Anyway, it's an excellent collection of his best work, if you like Reich anc minmalist music.
Poem of the Month:
Here’s the poem that won the prize in the Mad Poets Review contest.
The Jena 6
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root….
- Lewis Allen, as sung by Billie Holiday
When three black kids crossed
an imaginary line in the schoolyard,
someone hung three nooses from an oak tree,
stems without fruit.
The culprits weren’t prosecuted,
but six black kids, who tried to mete out
their own justice, got trumped-up charges
and no bail, today’s version of the noose.
Justice is blind, they say, but not color-blind.
Nothing hangs from the oak tree now,
no “fruit”, or suggestion of it,
yet the ground still smells of rot.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)