Thursday, May 31, 2012

Breaking news from the Onion

News reports at The Onion, "America's finest news source," state that "Shadows meet the clouds, Gray on gray, Like dusty charcoal on an ashen brow", according to eye-witness poets.


Shadows Meet The Clouds, Gray On Gray, Like Dusty Charcoal On An Ashen Brow, Nation's Poets Report

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Grandfather's dirty pictures

 

She looked at me like someone who has just solved the crossword puzzle with a shrewd ``Emu'' in the top right hand corner.

Grandfather's dirty pictures  typewriter erotica in the 1920s. (NSFW-ish.) 

A camera that takes word pictures, by the designer Matt Richardson

MoMA's 'Dial-A-Poem' Brings You Ecstatic Language On The Go
A new installation at the Museum of Art in New York, titled, "Dial-a-Poem" brings ecstatic poetry to you online or over the phone at any time of the day or nigh
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/ecstaticalphabets/dial-a-poem/


We are pleased to announce the BIG BRIDGE 15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! including Cuyahoga Burning, edited by Jonathan Penton:
http://www.bigbridge.org/BB16/bios/editors.htm

...the sheer number of poets now plying their craft inevitably ensures moderation and safety. The national (or even transnational) demand for a certain kind of prize-winning, “well-crafted” poem—a poem that the New Yorker would see fit to print and that would help its author get one of the “good jobs” advertised by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs—has produced an extraordinary uniformity.---
From Marjorie Perloff’s essay, “Poetry on the Brink,”recently published in the Boston Review,
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.3/marjorie_perloff_poetry_lyric_reinvention.php


When my mother was very old and in a nursing home, she surprised me one day toward the end of her life by asking me if I still wrote poetry. When I blurted out that I still do, she stared at me with incomprehension. I had to repeat what I said, till she sighed and shook her head, probably thinking to herself this son of mine has always been a little nuts. Now that I’m in my seventies, I’m asked that question now and then by people who don’t know me well. Many of them, I suspect, hope to hear me say that I’ve come my senses and given up that foolish passion of my youth and are visibly surprised to hear me confess that I haven’t yet. They seem to think there is something downright unwholesome and even shocking about it, as if I were dating a high school girl, at my age, and going with her roller-skating that night...

Charles Simic wrote this post on the New York Review of Books blog explaining why he still writes poems.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/may/15/why-i-still-write-poetry/



Charles Bukowski on depression, withdrawal, and creativity

Poetry in Britain

http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Poetry-in-Britain


Iain Sinclair visits Gary Snyder at his retreat in the woods.


“I shot the serif. (But I did not shoot the sans-serif.)” A first-person-shooter typography game.

The right words never find themselves cut into stone.” Montana poet Richard Hugo’s “grave poems.” 
 
 
 

Friday, May 18, 2012

Dictionary Game Round 5

Dictionary Game Round 5

Now that Jim Stanley has demonstrated how to be whimsical and capricious in the extreme, by failing to comment humorously on all the definitions to entertain us, and by failing to provide the correct definition, as well as stabbing me in the back by selecting my entry as the 'winner', the new word is:

bottomry

Monday, May 14, 2012

Famous In the Neighborhood


Poetry Back in the Woods
7pm Tuesday June 12

Famous In the Neighborhood: The Final Cut
Daniel Thompson-a Life on Film
Enjoy the new, colorful 45 minute documentary about the life of Daniel Thompson, the late great poet laureate of Cuyahoga county.

Produced by Gail and Eric Buchbinder, Jim Wolpaw, Barry Zucker and Michael Bradley
Reservations are suggested by calling 216-991-2421

Bertram Woods Branch
20600 Fayette Road
Shaker Heights, OH 44122
www.shakerlibrary.org

Friday, May 11, 2012

Here's a pic of this year's Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest winners.
Honorable Mention Kevin Frederick Smith - 4th place S Renay Sanders - 3rd place Nancy Nixon - 2nd place Carla Thompson - 1st place B M Stroud.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Hessler Reading Wednesday!

Heads up, everybody!  The readings for the Hessler Street Fair poetry contest are coming up this Wednesday, 7pm, at Mac's Backs in Coventry!

This will be an impressive evening of Cleveland's top poets-- Neopoets has the line up:

  • Vicki Acquah
  • Lynne Albert
  • JP Armstrong
  • Mickey Bey
  • Dianne Borsenik
  • Jeffrey Bowen
  • Steve Brightman
  • C.M. Brooks
  • Skylark Bruce
  • John B. Burroughs
  • Shelley Chernin
  • Joanne Cornelius
  • Catherine D. Criswell
  • Katie Cutshaw
  • Lisa Dabrowski
  • Christine Donofrio
  • Kaolin Fire
  • Elise Geither
  • Michael Goldstein
  • T.M. Göttl
  • Anita Herczog
  • Dwain Higgins
  • Christine Howey
  • Steven Isenberg
  • Clarissa Jakobsons
  • Azriel Johnson
  • Jacob King
  • Mark Kuhar
  • Geoffrey A. Landis
  • Melissa Rose Leach
  • Cate Mullen
  • Nancy Nixon
  • Marilyn Oliveras de Ortiz
  • Jen Pezzo
  • Tina Puckett
  • Michael Salinger
  • S. Renay Sanders
  • Kevin Frederick Smith
  • Wanda Sobieska
  • J.E. Stanley
  • Dave Stringer
  • BM Stroud
  • Carla Thompson
  • Sarah Tolfo
  • Mary A. Turzillo
  • Paige Ward
  • Batya Weinbaum
  • Eva Xanthopoulos
That's one heck of a poetic line-up!
Readings will be held on the evening of Wednesday, May 9th @ 7pm at Mac’s Backs Books on Coventry. About 20 minutes after all poets have read, the winners will be announced and prizes will be handed out.

Can't make the reading Wednesday?  The winning poets will read at the Hessler Street Fair main stage on Sunday May 20th.  And, all the poets listed will have their poems in the 2012 Hessler Street Fair anthology-- get your copy at Mac's Backs, or at the Mac's Backs booth at the fair, for only $8.00-- a bargain!

The Hessler Street Fair adds: "Special thanks to Joshua Gage and Vertigo X. Xavier for putting the 2012 Hessler Street Fair Anthology together and conducting the reading. Our sincere appreciation is extended to Suzanne DeGaetano at Mac’s Backs for hosting the reading and her ongoing support of the Hessler Street Fair."

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Round Four: Dictionary Game

The word for this round is "actazerity."

Consulting the New Oxford KretZikan Dictionary is strictly forbidden.

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau