For those poets who read the news, a spot you might want to follow is the New Verse News, a site that publishes poetry dealing (mostly) with the day's news and current events. Maybe it's not as good a source of news as the Plain Dealer, or even the Scene... but then again, who says poets might not be the best people to interpret the news?
I was astonished to see that quite a few of our local poets are regulars there, including at various times (among others):
- Jill Lange ("Weather Report")
- Mary Turzillo ("Spirit at Troy")
- Mary C. O'Malley ("When Fog Invades Cleveland")
- J.E. Stanley ("Dream Deferred")
- Nin Andrews ("Bananas")
- Michele Cooper ("Unexpected Off-Site")
- Fred Schraff ("Covered")
- Robert Farmer ("On News of the 2nd Batallion, 503rd Infantry (Airborne)")
- Roger Craik ("Monumental")
- Erika Feigenbaum ("For These Reasons")
- Marcus Bales ("Stopping by Woods with a Snowy Vandal")
- Diane Kendig ("Some Women Just Give Up")
- Jan Snow ("Urban Story: a Synopsis")
- Mary Weems ("Tanorexia")
- and even me ("Fall Haiku")
--New Verse News admits that it tends toward the "politically progressive" (although a lot of the poems aren't political), so if your opinions tend more toward Glenn Beck, your mileage may vary--
While I've brought up political poetry sites, by the way, let me also mention Mobius, for no other reason than that I have a piece in the most recent issue (but then, isn't that a good enough reason for me to mention it?)
So, politics in poetry-- does it make for good poetry? Well, heck, maybe it does, maybe doesn't-- but when did poets ever stay away from politics? And it looks like Cleveland poets are in the middle of it!
