Wooster Jam 2012 is looking for poets

They're seeking poets (and other artists) for this 2-day festival at the Wayne County Fairgrounds. (I also hear they're willing to assist with travel expenses...) Apply online here. They also request a sample of work emailed to woosterjam@gmail.com. Visit them online for more details. Woosterjam.com

From the Wooster Jam website:

Wooster Jam 2012

The Jam is an end-of-semester celebration of music and the arts that thrive both on and off The College of Wooster campus, consisting of an array of individual artists and ensembles from a myriad of art forms and media. The gathering will take place at the historic Wayne County Fairgrounds on April 20 and 21, using several distinct and non-traditional venues. One may hear an A Capella ensemble, the Ohio Light Opera, the Cedar Valley Cloggers and the best rock music on campus – all at different venues simultaneously. The Jam is a unique fusion of language art sound motion music and interactivity.

We are looking for participation by Visual Artists, Installation Artists, Musicians, Media Artists, Light and Sound Artists, Theatre Artists, Poets, Sculptors, Performance Artists, Laser Artists, Magicians, Electronic Artists, Drummers, Video Makers, Filmmakers, Dancers, Floral Artists, Street Performers, Culinary Artists, Ceramicists, Sculptors, Fire Artists and more to participate in our art event!

We welcome your imagination and ideas.

The Jam is organized by The College of Wooster students at the college’s Center for Entrepreneurship (C4E) under the guidance of James Levin (founding director of Cleveland Public Theatre and Cleveland’s IngenuityFest). Further information about the Jam’s staff and history can be found on our website, listed below.

The Jam will take place from 4:00pm to midnight on Friday April 20, and from noon to 11:00pm on April 21 (in collaboration with the Wooster Ethnic Fair during the afternoon). Free shuttles will transport students from the campus to the Fairgrounds throughout the two days.

It's all I have to bring today--

It's all I have to bring today

It's all I have to bring today –

This, and my heart beside –

This, and my heart, and all the fields –

And all the meadows wide –

Be sure you count – should I forget

Some one the sum could tell –

This, and my heart, and all the Bees

Which in the Clover dwell.

--Emily Dickinson

Happy Valentine's Day, all.

• Love poems from poets. org

why i had to dance / Unexpected Journeys

This weekend in Oberlin. Next weekend in Cleveland.

Lots of places looking for poems...

Lots of places still looking for poems... so what's keeping you from submitting?

• "New Pages "Call for Submissions"
• Poetry Publishers Who Accept Electronic Submissions

Cleveland Poet's Haiku in Lilliput Review

Check out the following. Local poet Dianne Borsenik has a haiku in the weekly update from Issa's Untidy Hut:

http://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/2012/02/diane-borsenik-and-john-stokes.html

Borsenik's haiku is an example of how to make the most out of minimal language. The kigo--"full moon"--refers traditionally to Autumn, a season of slowing down and loss, as well as longing and memory. Borsenik's use of "spill" and "white" connotes the cliche adage, "Don't cry over spilt milk," but successfully navigates around using all but the most spare of allusions. Thus, readers are put into a scene of loss, unresolvable loss perhaps, which is juxtaposed against the austere beauty of light from the full moon.

Quite a moving and resonant haiku.

How (Not?) to Read Poetry

Poetry in the Woods on Thursday

At the risk of too much tooting, I'd like to point out the Poetry Back in the Woods reading, at the Shaker Heights Library, Bertram Woods Branch, coming up this Thursday at 7pm.

Shaker Heights Library Events

It'll be featuring some fine poets, namely Joshua Gage, J.E. Stanley, Mary Turzillo, and dan smith. Plus possibly a surprise reader as well.

Uh, I might point out that the reading is not actually in the middle of a forest (not that there's anything wrong with that.) It will be at:

Shaker Heights Public Library,

Bertram Woods Branch

20600 Fayette Road, Shaker Heights, Ohio

(that's off Warrensville Center Road, just south of Shaker Boulevard-- just to the south of the Rapid station at Warrensville, if you're car-free)

Check out the Facebook page.

Poetry in the Woods, I might point out, has been a long-running series at the Shaker Libraries:

the series was started eleven years ago by poet, college teacher, and environmental activist Barry Zucker. After starting the readings at the Bertram Woods library--"Poetry in the Woods"-- the series also included readings at Horseshoe Lake Park ("Poetry Really in the Woods") and readings at the Main Library ("Poetry Not in the Woods.") The series is funded by the Friends of the Shaker Library and, now that it's back at Bertram Woods, it's (what else?) "Poetry Back in the Woods."

Anyway-- be there!

Ohio Poetry Presses

For a long time I've wanted to compile a somewhat comprehensive listing of active Ohio poetry publishers.  For now I'm focusing on print (rather than purely online) publishing, and admittedly some of the following are more active than others. But here's what I've come up with off the top of my head. The list is woefully incomplete, I know, and I'm certain I'll think of a few more to add as soon as I hit the "Publish" button, but I hope you'll help me fill in as many of the missing Ohio poetry presses as possible.  Thank you!

Ashland Poetry Press
Bird Dog Publishing
Blood Pudding Press
Bottom Dog Press
Buffalo ZEF
The City Poetry Press
Cleveland State University Press
Crisis Chronicles Press
deep cleveland press
Dos Madres Press
Etruscan Press
Green Panda Press
Guide to Kulchur Press
HobGob Press
Hydeout Press
Kattywompus Press
Kent State University Press
Kenyon Review
Le Pink-Elephant Press
Masked Man Media 
New Luna Bisonte Prods
NightBallet Press
Oberlin College Press

Ohio State University Press
Ohio University Press & Swallow Press
P2B Press
Pale Horse Press
Pavement Saw Press
Pig Iron Press
Poehemian Press
The Poet's Haven 
Porkbelly Press
Pudding House Publications
recycled karma press
Small Victories Press
Silenced Press
Standing Rock Cultural Arts 
True Colors Press
Two Dollar Radio Books
University of Akron Press
University of Toledo Press
vanZeno Press
Walleyed Press
What's In The Bag Press
Writing Knights Press
Zygote in My Coffee Press

Writing is hard

...even for Dorothy Parker.

"...all I have is a pile of paper covered with wrong words. Can only keep at it and hope..."

52 Cleveland Haiku (52)

One year of haiku:

city turns from white to green,

circles back to white.

--Geoffrey A. Landis

Community vs. cash?

In a recent conversation on poetry, one poet told me that community is "absolutely necessary" to her creative process. She was specifically speaking about a close group of a few fellow writers, but since that conversation, I've been mulling over the concept of a poetry "community."

Anyone relatively active in poetry readings in Northeast Ohio would confirm the presence of a poetry "community" in the Cleveland area, and many who attend readings regularly would also probably attest to the importance of such a community. But I'm wondering exactly what aspect (or aspects) of "community" poets feel is necessary to the creative process.

Open mics and regular readings provide an open forum, but doesn't "community" imply more than that. More formalized groups with paid memberships--like the lately departed Lit--provide workshops, classes, and regular publications, but many of those groups seem to be struggling, or like The-Lit, going under. It's easy to blame it on the economy--people don't have the money to pay for writing association memberships right now. But I have to wonder if such groups might also be going under because they're becoming obsolete, no longer meeting the needs of poets in 2012.

So now I'm wondering if you would pay for membership in a poetry organization, and what perks you consider to be worth the price of a paid membership. Or do informal gatherings provide you with everything you feel you need in a creative community for free?

(In the interest of full-disclosure, this isn't purely a point of personal interest. As current VP of the Ohio Poetry Association, I'm genuinely interested in feedback on how we could make formal poetry organizations more relevant to members and potential members and what you, as poets, feel are the needs among NE Ohio writers that are not being met right now.)

52 Cleveland Haiku (51)

Pale thin grey line

separating the lake from sky

before New Year's dawn.

--Geoffrey A. Landis

Oprah on Poetry (or poets at least)

I just found this, and wonder if anyone else saw this last year:

http://www.oprah.com/style/Spring-Fashion-Modeled-by-Rising-Young-Poets/

I don't know if I'm jealous of these young women for having Oprah's glitter dust scattered their way, or upset that they had to use their bodies, not their words, to obtain said glitter dust, but either way, I think it says something about our culture when the only way poets can receive attention is by modelling clothes well outside the salaries of most poets.

A Visit from the Poetry Police - Year End Edition

Some of the Best of the Year Links:

http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-12-25/books/30553745_1_poem-titles-devotions-robert-pinsky

SF GATE

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2011/12/18/best-poetry-books/EMwDBZdDcYcbfbVNhLyh6L/story.html

Boston Globe

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/29/144197310/truth-and-beauty-2011s-best-american-poetry

NPR

http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=3175

The 2011 BTBA Poetry Finalists

The Poetry Foundation (including two different CSU titles)

A link to some e-poetry free chapbooks

Argotist ebooks.

Shooting at Penguins

So, apparently the new Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, selected and edited by Rita Dove-- former US Poet Laureate, not to mention Akron home-town girl--has been attracting some vicious reviews over her choice of which poets, and which poems, represent the 20th century, centered on Helen Vendler's slam review in The New York Review of Books, asking “Why are we being asked to sample so many poets of little or no lasting value?"

Enough fire has been drawn to attract the attention of the Chronicle of Higher Education: ("Bloodletting Over an Anthology").

John Olsen, in the Tillalia Chronicles, calls the anthology flightless, and says "The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry is such a travesty, why bother to say anything about it at all?" He goes on to comment "in view of what a hideous and psychotic landscape the United States has become, should it be that surprising that an anthology of American poetry would exclude, oh, I don’t know, Howl?"

In the Kenyon Review’s blog, poet Amit Majmudar suggests that the problem is that "its title is at odds with its nature." He suggests that the volume might have been fine if it were just Dove's selections of poems she liked, but for an anthology with pretense to some scholarly value as an overview of the century, “the volume comes to seem biased to the point of scholarly unreliability.”

Inclusivity, exclusivity... is it really a "dubious and incoherent selection from the country’s last century of verse."?

Whoa. So much attention! Everybody loves it when poets fight.

52 Cleveland Haiku (50)

In winter darkness

Christmas lights in red and blue

glitter in the rain.

--Geoffrey A. Landis

Hoping for a Happy Christmas, Cleveland!

Peace on Earth, good will to men

... and hoping that, whichever holiday you may choose to celebrate, all your wishes come true.

52 Cleveland Haiku (49)

Half-frozen mud
crunchy under my feet;
footprints fill with snow.

--Geoffrey A. Landis

Smile, it's a Simile

"John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met."

Check out the 56 best/worst similes evah.

These were identified "as having been written by high schoolers", although in fact they actually originate from the Washington Post's Style International Analogy contest. Still, how can you argue with this:

"It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall."

"The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas."

New 2nd Wednesday poetry series in Cuyahoga Falls

52 Cleveland Haiku (48)

Raindeer skeletons

draped with wire and tiny lights

slowly turn their heads

--Geoffrey A. Landis

How to become famous

"We're here to conquer American Poetry and suck it dry of all glory and juice."

Jim Behrele explains "Poetry And Ruthless Careerism: How To Become The Most Famous Poet In America Overnight."

"Now, you might think that because there are more poets than ever, there might be more opportunities for poets than ever. And you'd be correct. If your fondest wish is to become the next totally obscure minor poet on the block, well, you're probably already successful at that. This literary landscape has proven itself infinitely capable of absorbing countless interchangeable artists, all doing roughly the same thing in relative anonymity: just happily plucking away until death at the grindstone, making no great cultural headway, bouncing poems off their friends and an audience of about 40 people. A totally fine little life for an artist, to be sure. No grand expectations from the world to sit up and listen. One can live out one's days quite satisfied to create something enjoyed by a genial cult. But that's not why any of us are here tonight."

Turn On. SPIT.

Bilgare meets Keillor

Cleveland Poet Captures NPR's Heart

According to the Cleveland Scene,

"Like “jumbo shrimp,” “famous poet” is pretty much an oxymoron. Still, if any contemporary Cleveland wordsmith is poised to make that leap, it's George Bilgere."

Bilgere will read live on A Prairie Home Companion at 6 p.m. this Saturday, December 10; catch it live on NPR stations WCPN 90.3 or WKSU 89.7.

52 Cleveland Haiku (47)

Geese fly noisily

across the pale morning sky;

the moon, silently.

--Geoffrey A. Landis