Tag Archives: Poetry

A Pair of Poetry Events

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Sorry I’ve been a bit behind on my posting. So behind that I haven’t even had a chance to recap two recent poetry events I was involved with. One was the Couplet Poetry Festival in Wilmington, NC on 2-4-12 and the other was Poetry Hickory on 2-14-12.

There are many wonderful things I could say about the Couplet Festival, but perhaps this Vend-a-Poem machine says it best: it was eclectic.

I had a chance to read poems along with three other terrific poets in a city I’ve always wanted to visit. I then had a chance to work with a poet one-on-one on their poems before a big group of us had a fantastic lunch at the Copper Penny.

Finally I finished up the afternoon with my Truth vs Fact poetry workshop. I had to head back but the festival also had an Open Mike and a release part for an anthology they put together. That was just the first day. That Sunday they had additional workshops.

The second event I had a chance to be a part of was the February edition of Poetry Hickory. Those of you who have been to my blog for a while know how much I LOVE Poetry Hickory. The open mike was fantastic. Reading with the pictured Tony Abbott was AMAZING and I was given free Jasmine tea and a brownie? Yep. Epic.

I’m still in a bit of a poetry writing slump, but being with these fabulous writers did have me composing a few disconnected stanzas. I need to refuel with my poetry people. I desperately missed it an with two gift cards for my birthday that will allow me to buy books? You can tell what I’ll be doing in just a few moments.

I have some other events coming up. They are linked under the appearance tab. I have at least one a month through June. Need a poet? Let me know!

Make Friday Write

Posted on
18

I’m in serious multi-task, must finish many things before the hour becomes to late mode because tomorrow I will be one of the featured poets at the first Couplet 2 Day Poetry Festival in Wilmington, NC! If you know people in that area, send them the schedule and send them our way! I may not make it to stay for the anthology release party – but I do have two poems in the anthology! – but I am going to try. I just know it is a 3.5 – 4 hour drive each way for me and I have a super bowl party to go to on Sunday at my in-laws home and they are HUGE Giants fans.

One thing I am working on is grading my composition classes assignment for this week. It was a three part:

  1. Try a pre-writing technique (several were in the book but they could be some such as freewriting, brainstorming, outlining, mapping etc) in response to Ken Macrorie’s quote” Good writing is formed partly through plan and partly through accident.”
  2. Take that pre-writing and try to write a response to the quote (if you freewrote revise your response)
  3. Write a paragraph about your writing process. Maybe think about why you chose the pre-writing technique you did or speak about what you are going to do next with your response

I have finished grading the in class analysis my British Lit class did of “Beowulf” and I’m catching up with my creative writing 2 online class. They are getting the experience of reading submissions to “Referential.” Don’t worry, if you submitted I get the final call on what stays and goes.

While I’m finishing up school work I am also trying to work on my to do list which included trying to get to this blog post and then digging into the printed copy I made of my potential third manuscript.

That manuscript is what I want to talk with you about for a minute. Instead of posting a poem since I really only have one in progress right now and it seems like it might be about ready to sub I’m going to ask you guys for some help as we think more about when we retire and/or keep working on poems.

I’m going tolink you to a document (and now it is unlinked!) filled with poems that I wrote, that were then published, but that I later found myself unsure of. If you want to scan through and then leave comments here (or I think you can actually leave comments on the document . . . this should be fun!) on ones you think should stay retired or ones you think maybe have some merit for revision I think that could be fun. Some of these poems are so old they were published when I was an undergraduate!

As always I want to hear what you guys are working on. Did you send work out? Have something to link or post in comments so we can chat about it? (As always I’ll take it down a week later).

Some fun notes at the bottom for your weekend:

  • A copy of my chapbook Fat Girl made it to Germany!
  • And here is a kickster opportunity I just had to give a little bit of money to. The filmmaker is someone I met on Twitter and she is such a warm person. If you don’t follow her you should!

Make Friday Write – Or So What?

Posted on
19

Maybe you are wondering about the heading for this post already; I’ll get to that, but first:

  • Here is a terrific interview with the poet (and memoir writer) Sandra Beasley
  • I have a poem in the new issue of Barely South the online journal from ODU
  • There is some publicity out for the Couplet Literary Festival I’ll be presenting at in Wilmington on Feb 4th (SO EXCITED!)
  • If you are looking for some things to watch I found P Star Rising, 6 Days to Air and How Beer Saved the World (and I’m not a beer fan, but neat to see how they shaped history/facts to fit their narrative) all pretty interesting on Netflix for very different reasons (warning on 6 days – it is about the makers of SouthPark so you know the language you are gonna be getting!)
  • Today was a good week of classes, albeit a short week which meant condensing and unusual prep times. My composition classes were working on critical reading/critical thinking skills and vocabulary fun (via modified Scattegories) while my British Lit students practiced their literary analysis skills using Fairy Tales and my online students were asked to sign up for Submishmash, Worpdress and to look into print and online literary magazines because they will be thinking on the world of publishing this semester.
  • I also managed to draft at least one poem this week and I sent out one submission package with some acceptances coming in so not bad on that front. I keep trying to move forward, including the word that Sibling Rivalry Press will publish my 2nd full length poetry collection in the Fall of 2013!

So how do I get to the so what portion of this post? Well, it is this poem below. I believe I may have posted an earlier draft of it here actually. My issue with it – what causes me pause – is the very question: so what? Maybe the poem isn’t terrible, per se, but what is it doing? Why would I bother including it in my submission packets and/or next collection (of course I’m working on what’ll be a 3rd collection or a 5th chapbook – 5? really? whew!). When do you decide the poem was fun to play with, but isn’t something to send out? Let’s discuss!

–by the way – I did decide to retire the poem. It didn’t have enough going for it. Sometimes you have to write stuff that you don’t keep :)

Looking forward to seeing your work in progress and/or to hear your thoughts on mine. It is time to discuss whatever writing items you want to discuss.

And now I’ll be back to grading :)

Review: Pitch: Poems

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Pitch: Poems
Pitch: Poems by Todd Boss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Todd Boss first came to my attention several years back when he was making video poems. At the time, I was editing “Shape of a Box: The First YouTube Literary Magazine.” I never had a chance to feature Todd’s work in my magazine, but his rhythmic style of writing really suited itself well to performance venues such as video. What, therefore, would I think of his work in printed form?

I can now answer that question after reading his newest collection of poems titled “Pitch.” Pitch is a word with many denotations and connotations which (except for baseball) Boss makes good use of throughout this book where there are literal instruments (primarily piano) addressed, but where Boss also tries out different tones, textures within the poems themselves.

Reading this collection made me think of buying my first cassette tape (I know I am dating myself a bit with that reference). I often picked up an album because of one particular song. There were always other tracks on the album that weren’t quite what I was looking for, but I still enjoyed having the collection together as a whole. This is how I felt reading “Pitch.” Not ever poem is one I found myself going back to re-read because maybe they did use a bit too much word play (slant rhymes, repetitions etc) but there were a wealth of poems that kept me coming back for how much fun they had with the sounds of words within a free verse writing style.

One of my favorites is “Blind” where Boss throws out some dark humor as he writes, “One day the doctor tells you that you’re blind / to the truth. . . . Truth is a wave-/ length in the spectrum you’re unable to detect.”

That’s just a taste, or perhaps I should say, a note. You should find a few more samples (chords) and then pick up a copy for yourself to see which track becomes your favorite.

View all my reviews

Ekphrasis

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Ekphrasis is a tricky part of writing to me. I was initially turned off from the idea of writing from/about works of art, but I started to realize that you don’t have to write about art (which I feel like I don’t have the proper vocabulary/knowledge to discuss) because you can be inspired (find yourself referencing) everything from other writers to pop culture.

What had me thinking about this again was that my husband and I recently went to a free open weekend at The Mint Museum in Charlotte. I’m sort of ashamed to admit how long we have lived here without visiting it, especially since we do go to downtown occasionally. Mostly to eat! Lol! Do you notice you do that though? Take for granted the things closest to you? I lived near the coast of NC until I was 18, yet I never saw Cape Hatteras or Roanoke Island  . . .

The Romare Bearden exhibit that was just ending was amazing. I loved that they had work from the 40′s into the 80′s (maybe 90′s?) yet the 50′s were missing. What was he doing during that time? It was fascinating to watch his progression as an artist and to see what different images and themes began to come obsessions; some temporarily and others for the lifetime of his work.

I walked away from the exhibit wanting to go back; wanting to see other cultural things in my area, but still feeling daunting about the language of vocabulary I have to communicate about visual arts. I was looking at one painting titled “Visitation” and I was fascinated by how he’d have a rock but yet you could see some of his lines beneath it. Why did he do that specifically? Why does a poet have a one word line in the midst of a longer work? I know, somehow, thoughts like these are connected, but it may take me a way to piece together just how they are.

Further in, I found myself most in love with his work in collage. How could I do more collage work in my poems? What that entail?

So, what am I trying to say here? Two things:

  1. Try visiting a museum, or taking in some music in the park. Do something in your area you normally wouldn’t do. Heck, even read a type of writing you normally wouldn’t just to see what it says to you.
  2. Don’t let your ignorance of something stop you from getting out there and trying new things. Like I try to tell my students: there is a big fancy word for everything you do. Learning those fancy words can be fun, but sometimes it is more important to just try even if you don’t yet know the word.

And – all in all – I hope this makes even a little bit of sense :)