West Chester Poetry Conference

Here I am, dusting off the cobwebs of this old blog again! I tend to wait till I have significant news, so here it is. I attended the 17th annual West Chester Poetry Conference at West Chester University in PA, about an hour drive from my home. The conference, whose focus is on formal and metrical poetry, ran from Wednesday June 8 through Saturday, June 11, and included three-day workshops plus readings, seminars, panel discussions, social events, and more. Robert Pinsky gave a keynote speech and reading Wednesday night, and he stuck around Thursday for a "town hall" conversation and Q&A. Richard Wilbur was also in attendance, and the conference offered a tribute and 90th birthday party for him. The workshops were led by such poets as Dana Gioia (co-founder of the conference), Kim Addonizio, Molly Peacock, Timothy Steele, David Mason, Dick Davis, A.E. Stallings, Alison Joseph, and others. I also met some up-and-coming, talented young poets like Amit Majmudar, Andrew Sofer, and Annabelle Moseley. My friend Anna Evans was also involved as a faculty member, moderator and presenter, in her roles as editor of the Raintown Review and member of Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline Project.

I took Molly Peacock's "master class" on the villanelle, and it was excellent - about ten of us were in the workshop discussing the form, reading examples, and writing and reading our own work. We also each got a half-hour one-on-one session with Molly, and I'm pleased to say she loved my work and offered good constructive critique. I wrote two pretty good villanelles, one of which got a very positive response both in class an at the participants' open reading later that day. Although this conference had more of an academic feel to it than the Palm Beach Festival I attended earlier this year, I think I held my own pretty well.

If you're a poet or other type of writer and haven't been to a conference, you need to get to one posthaste. They are a golden opportunity to work with renowned writers, meet and befriend other writers, network with publishers and editors (and sometimes agents), and immerse yourself in the writing world for a few days. Oh, and let's not forget all the "freebies", from pens and blank journals to books and periodicals. It's an experience not to be missed.

In other poetry news, I'm anxiously awaiting the release of the July/August issue of Writers Digest, which will contain my sonnet "Two Writers" in Robert Brewer's poetry column. I also got an ineresting e-mail from the editor of the print journal The Lyric about a week ago: She was cleaning up her desk and discovered a letter from two years ago that she had never sent to me, accepting my sonnet "Doldrums", but asking for a minor editorial change. She assumed my lack of response was due to not accepting the suggestion, and forgot about the poem until recently when she found the letter. She asked if the poem was still available. Why yes, I said, so it will appear in an upcoming issue.

Also, I will be the featured reader at Poetry in the Round, Barnes and Noble Bookstore, Rte. 70 in Marlton NJ, on Monday June 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Oh, yes, and an update from way back in April: I did finish the Poem-a-Day Challenge on Robert Brewer's Poetic Asides blog, cranking out 36 poems in 30 days. Here's one of them:

Maybe This is All Just a Dream

and I'll wake to find
Bobby Ewing in the shower
or Emily Hartley in my bed.

I'll return from my trip to Oz
with a bump on my head
from the twister, and Auntie Em,
family and friends at my bedside.

Maybe I'm a bit player in the daydream
of some autistic kid with a snow globe
of a hospital in his hand.

Or maybe I'm one of those folks
working on an inception,
and then I'll wake up,
and then I'll wake up,
and then I'll wake up,
and then I'll wake up.

News Flash: Contest Winner!

I just learned that my sonnet, "Two Writers", has won a sonnet contest held by Robert Brewer of Poetic Asides. The poem will appear in his column in the July/August issue of Writers Digest magazine. I'm stoked!

Happy NaPoMo!

All right, it’s about time to update this blog for the two or three of you who actually read it. It’s that time of year again: National Poetry Month! As usual, I am celebrating it by participating in the Poem-a-Day Challenge. I’m off to a flying start with thirteen poems in the first eleven days (fourteen if you count one that I finished on April 1). And as usual, I’m participating in Robert Brewer’s challenge on his Poetic Asides blog. It’s fun to work on the daily prompts and to share with a supportive online community there. I hope that at the end of the month, at least some of my 30-plus poems will be worthy of sharing with the rest of the world.

I kicked off NaPoMo in fine fashion, with two book-launch parties for two journals. April 1 was the launch event for Up and Under: The QND Review (produced by our little writing group, the Quick and Dirty Poets). It’s another excellent issue, IMHO, featuring Lyn Lifshin, the aforementioned Robert Brewer, and a fine lineup of others. (Unfortunately, it will be our last issue for a while, as our group decided to put it on indefinite hiatus so we could focus more on our other activities, like critiquing each others’ work and hosting our monthly poetry readings at the Daily Grind in Mt. Holly, NJ.) The other launch party was for US 1 Worksheets, a quality annual journal out of Princeton, NJ, produced by the US 1 Poets cooperative. It’s always a great event, well-attended, and the quality of work in this latest issue may just be the best ever.

Another great event this month, which I won’t be able to attend, is the Princeton Poetry Festival on April 29 and 30, a biannual event on the Princeton University campus featuring some of the best poets working today. It has the feel of a mini-Dodge Festival, and it’s well worth attending. This year features renowned poets such as Mark Doty, Sharon Olds, Carl Philips, Charles Simic, Natasha Trethewey, and Kathleen Graber.

I am hoping, however, to attend this year’s West Chester Poetry Conference in June. My friend Anna Evans has been involved with it for the last few years and has been encouraging me to attend. This year she’s leading a panel discussion on formal poetry journals, and as usual the conference lineup is impressive. Robert Pinsky is the keynote speaker, and there are several workshops from which to choose. I hope to get into one headed by Dana Gioia, Molly Peacock, or Kim Addonizio.

Last but not least, I was happy to hear the James Richardson, a fine poet out of Princeton whom I met and workshopped with at last year’s Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway in Cape May, just won the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets and Writers Magazine. It’s a generous ($50,000!) award for a poet who has done excellent recent work and deserves more recognition. His latest poetry collection, By the Numbers, was also nominated for a National Book Award. Way to go, Jim!

Baseball: My Phillies are off to a good start this year. They’re picked to win their division, and possibly the NL pennant, thanks in part to what is, at least on paper, the best starting pitching rotation in baseball, or as they’ve come to be called, “The Four Aces”: Halladay, Lee, Oswalt and Hamels. And let’s not forget the usually dependable Joe Blanton. The early results have been mixed – not all the aces have been impressive every time on the mound, but the good thing is that the Phils’ offense has stepped up and exceeded expectations. Yes, they’ll miss Jason Werth, but if the aces stay healthy, they may still have a record-setting year.

Music: Very briefly, some recommended new albums for 2011:

Elbow – build a rocket boys!

Adele – 21

Middle Brother – Middle Brother

Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What

R.E.M. – Collapse into Now

Decemberists – The King is Dead

Poem of the Month: Here’s the one that appears in the new issue of US 1 Worksheets.

Rapids Again

By rights, we should be done with this.

We’ve already brought up three,

rode the whitewaters of their adolescence,

then walked them carefully through the door.

Now, when most of our peers are enjoying

grandparenthood, we are raising another,

rescued from the trap of a lesser life.

He’s blessed to have you, everyone tells us.

But at thirteen, he doesn’t often feel that way.

Some days we feel too old to do this.

The rapids await once again, rougher

than they ever seemed before.

But we’re ready – our raft patched and inflated,

our life jackets strapped on tight,

our well-worn oars clutched in our hands.

A Quick Note...

If you haven't seen it yet, I have a "guest blogger" article on Robert Brewer's Poetic Asides blog - it's entitled "7 Reasons Why You Should Be in a Writing Group". Check it out here.

Parental Bragging and a Festival Photo

My son Chris, a sociology professor at Hofstra U. and Academic Director of the Center for Suburban Studies there, was interviewed today on "Soundcheck", a program on New York's public radio station WYNC. He and host John Schaefer discuss Arcade Fire's album The Suburbs, which just won a Grammy for Album of the Year. You can listen to the broadcast here:

And here is a photo of me with Jane Hirshfield and my awesome workshop group at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. (I'm in the back row with the cap, and Jane is on my right.)

Palm Beach Poetry Fetival

I am the worst blogger - every time I promise to make this a regular habit and post weekly, or biweekly, or whatever, I backslide again. Well, at least now I have a good reason for a post. I had the pleasure of attending the 7th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival in Delray Beach, Florida from January 17 to 23, and it was without a doubt the best conference I've attended yet. The list of "all-stars" was mind-boggling: Jane Hirshfield, Thomas Lux, Heather McHugh, C.D. Wright, Stuart Dischell, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Vijay Seshadri, and Alan Shapiro, plus performance poets Taylor Mali and D. Blair, and a special poetry-with-jazz performance by former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. The schedule included morning workshops, afternoon craft talks, evening readings by the above-mentioned "faculty". Wednesday evening featured a gala dinner and Robert Pinsky's reading, and Saturday was an evening performance-poetry event with Blair and Mali, plus DJ dancing and drinks.

I had the great fortune of getting into Jane Hirshfield's workshop, and it was a wonderful experience. She worked with about a dozen of us all week, which included five all-morning sessions and a brief one-on-one conference with each participant. I was a bit anxious beforehand, not so much about meeting and working with Jane, but with the level of skill of the other participants. Would I feel like a hack in their midst? But no, despite the fact that they were an extremely talented bunch, I felt like a peer and an equal. We started each day sharing a favorite poem by another poet, then had a writing "experiment", as Jane called it, after which we shared our results with the group. Then we critiqued each others' poems submitted for the workshop. It was a productive and rewarding week. Jane is a wise, warm and gracious lady - and one hell of a poet. She even went out to dinner with all of us on Saturday evening.

There were also readings on two afternoons by the workshop participants. I read a poem I wrote in workshop, "Suitcase", which got a good response. I also re-connected with my old poetry friend Lorraine Stanchich, who has been involved with the festival before and was asked to be Mr. Pinsky's assistant. I got to meet him afterward too - really nice guy. And of course, on top of all of this, the weather was in the 70's and 80's almost the whole week - a wonderful if brief departure from winter in New Jersey. Now I have to return to the "real world". Sigh....

Big Poetry News and Best Music of the Year

I am psyched! I applied to attend the Palm Beach Poetry Festival this coming January in Delray Beach, Florida, a great annual conference that features some of the country's premier poets who run intensive workshops throughout the week, as well as special events, panel discussions and readings. I just found out the other day that I've been accepted into the conference, and I will be workshopping with one of my favorite poets, Jane Hirshfield. Also leading workshops there will be Thomas Lux, Heather McHugh, C.D. Wright, Alan Shapiro, Stuart Dischell, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and Vijay Shesadri. There will also be featured readers like Robert Pinsky and performance poet Taylor Mali. I'll be staying and hanging out with my wife's relatives there, too. It should be a great week!

I've been doing Robert Brewer's "Poem-a-Day Chapbook Challenge" again this year - a poem a day throughout the month of November, with the intent to create a chapbook manuscript at the end. I don't know if I have a unified chapbook theme at this point, but at least I'll have a few good poems coming out of it. I'm almost two days behind at this point, though, as I haven't written a poem yesterday or today so far. I feel like a slacker for not writing a poem in two days - how about that?

I was featured poet at Poetry in the Round at Barnes and Noble last Monday. It was a small audience, and my friend Kelly Fineman stepped in for regular host Barney Oldfield, who was under the weather. The highlight of the evening for me, however, was my friend Bill, who attended and read a poem he had written about his experience with cancer treatment in the last year. He said he hadn't written poetry in decades until he was inspired by another cancer survivor who attended one of these readings last year. I think it may be the first time he ever read one of his poems in public, and he did fine.

We also had a very successful reading in our Quick and Dirty Poets series, featuring Teresa Leo, last night. The little coffee shop where we meet, The Daily Grind, was standing room only, and the place was full of great poetry by Teresa and others

Music: I submitted my final lists of best 10 albums and songs of 2010 to WXPN this week, and I'm looking forward to their countdown at the end of the year. I have to say though, that this was a rich year for music, and cutting my lists down to a top 10 was a real chore, but here are my choices:

Top Ten Albums:

1. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
2. The Hold Steady – Heaven is Whenever
3. The National – High Violet
4. Beach House – Teen Dream
5. Frightened Rabbit – The Winter of Mixed Drinks
6. Bettye LaVette – Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
7. Drive-By Truckers – The Big To-Do
8. Black Keys – Brothers
9. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz and All Delighted People EP
10. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Mojo

Honorable Mentions:
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: I Learned the Hard Way
Josh Ritter - So Runs the World Away
Alejandro Escovedo - Street Songs of Love
Yeasayer - Odd Blood
Spoon - Transference
The New Pornographers - Together
Bruce Springsteen - The Promise
Jimi Hendrix - Valleys of Neptune
Herbie Hancock - The Imagine Project
Ray La Montagne - God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise
Natalie Merchant - Leave Your Sleep
Field Music - Field Music (Measure)
Vampire Weekend - Contra


Top Ten songs:

1. I Should Have Known It – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2. Measure – Field Music
3. Working This Job – Drive-by Truckers
4. Anchor – Alejandro Escovedo
5. Bloodbuzz Ohio – The National
6. Sprawl II – Arcade Fire
7. I Walked – Sufjan Stevens
8. Too Afraid to Love You – The Black Keys
9. Haul Me Up – Richard Thompson
10. Burn It Down – Los Lobos

Honorable Mention:
Laredo - Band of Horses
Zebra - Beach House
Cousins - Vampire Weekend
American Slang - The Gaslight Anthem
Repo Man - Ray LaMontagne
The Mystery Zone - Spoon
Swim Until You Can't See Land - Frightened Rabbit
Angel Dance - Robert Plant
Your Hands (Together) - New Pornographers
The Weekenders - The Hold Steady

Poem of the Month:

Here's one of the two poems published in the current issue of the online journal Tilt-a-Whirl:

Poe Boy Blues


Well, I woke up this mornin’,
there was a raven in my bed.
I woke up this mornin’,
there was a raven in my bed.
If I didn’t know better,
I’d swear that I was dead.

When I went downstairs,
I heard a thumpin’ under the floor.
Yeah, when I went downstairs,
I swear I heard thumpin’ in the floor.
It sounded like a beatin’ heart,
so I ran right out the door.

I’m pinin’ for my Annie,
I’m pinin’ for Annabelle Lee,
Yeah, I’m pinin’ for little Annie,
and pinin’ for sweet Annabelle Lee.
I’m a morbid Victorian lover,
wallowin’ in my misery.

Well, I got them Poe Boy Blues,
my face’s a perpetual frown,
Yes, I got the Poe Boy Blues,
my face’s a perpetual frown.
I ain’t felt so sad and lonely
since that Usher house fell down.

If the booze and drugs don’t get me,
It’ll be a broken heart for sure.
Yeah, if them booze and drugs don’t get me,
That ol’ broken heart will for sure.
I’m a Poe boy, baby,
and I’ll be happy Nevermore.