Showing posts with label stolen content. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stolen content. Show all posts
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Thursday, September 2, 2010
What you reading there?
Here’s an essay from a friend down south – all the way in Columbus – Scott Woods, poetry champion extraordinaire. This piece first ran at Got Poetry dot Com and is reprinted here with the author’s permission:
*********************************************
I was at the National Poetry Slam in St. Paul a couple of weeks ago (awesome time) and I noticed something right away: there were a lot more competitors reciting poetry from paper than usual. I mean, to the point of comment.
On one hand, this delighted me a great deal. In any given year I’m usually one of about three paper poets (a poet that performs a poem from paper or a journal or some other vehicle of codification) out of about nearly four hundred poets who show up to compete. Most people who consider themselves performance poets memorize, and in slam competitions particularly so. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve heard from poets or audience members or judges that poems that are memorized are somehow better than ones that aren’t. There is the notion that a poet who bothers to commit their work to memory is somehow more dedicated to their craft than the poet who does not. I ask you, which poet is more dedicated: the poet who memorizes ten poems that they recite at every featured reading they have over the course of a few years, or the poet who performs ten times that number in the same amount of time, but from paper?
I have made a conscious decision not to memorize any of my poetry. It is, quite literally, a mission with me. I’ve memorized poetry in the past to see if I could do it, and when I did the results were pretty impressive. But in the end I have dedicated myself to not memorizing poems because I want poets to know that memorizing a poem doesn’t have to be the entry fee to performance poetry. You can still win slams – even the big ones - from paper. You can still give incredible features and do tours from paper. You can still make an audience lose its complete and utter mind from paper. It all comes down to the poem and how deeply you’re willing to commit to giving a performance of that poem.
I lay no claim whatsoever that my platform of performing from paper only had anything to do with the amount of paper I saw in slam competition this year. I think a case could be made, and I’ve certainly heard things over the years from coaches that imply my mission has had some effect. Whatever the reason is for more paper performances this year I don’t care...I’m just glad the day of acknowledging the power of papyrus has returned.
Not that it wasn’t here along, mind you: any random poetry reading that isn’t swamped with people trying to show their performance chops in equal measure to their writing chops will be a reading filled with paper. There are more poets reading from paper than there are poets who aren’t on the whole, so in the grand scheme of things it’s not that big a deal. It only really matters in those circles that place a premium on performance over writing ability.
Anyhow, while I ultimately do not care about who’s doing what for what reason, I do care about The Big Four. A while back I drafted four rules about performing poetry from paper. Application of these rules is sorely lacking in performances I see everywhere I go:
1. Commit.
2. Voice compensates for body.
3. You aren’t allowed to fuck up.
4. It always comes down to the poem.
1) Commit.
Knowing is not memorizing. I can recite back parts of my poems, but at some point I need my line fed to me because while I know my poems pretty well, I do not have them memorized.
Also, reading is not performing. Sounding like you’re reading makes me feel like I’m in school. I hated school, especially the poetry units. We can all try a little harder in this area.
2) Voice compensates for body.
If you’re performing from paper, you’re already down a hand or two, or blocked by a music stand. The audience will have a hard time not noticing these things. Adopt the principle that if you lose one thing you should compensate for it by amplifying another. After your poem, your voice is your most powerful tool, not your ability to memorize or move around on stage. The poem starts to live in the performance world when you open your mouth, so use it: play with the texture of your voice, the tone, the rhythm, the breadth of its range of meanings.
Also note that I have been saying “perform”, not “read”. Most problems with poets and paper stem from not making this distinction. Conversely they do two things that make me wish they’d just stop writing poetry altogether: a) they don’t bother to commit to a performance since they’re going to be seen reading from paper anyway, and b) they perform with those annoying gaps every other line (you know: EXCITED SHOUTING! Look for my line. EXCITED SHOUTING! Look for my line…). Neither of these is an excuse for a poor performance from paper. If you can memorize, there is no reason why your reading from paper should suck. In fact it should be easier.
3) You aren’t allowed to fuck up.
This one is pretty unforgiveable to me. If you lose your place in a poem that’s sitting in front of you, then you’re an idiot. People who do this tend to do it because they thought they had more of the poem memorized than they actually do, or they get so caught up in the performance they forget that a part is coming up that they don’t actually remember. Idiots. Look, it’s very simple math:
You – memory of poem = no poem in your head
…so quit pretending you know your poem and invest in some fucking focus.
4) It always comes down to the poem.
This is my answer to everything about poetry, but it really means something here. A great poem will forgive a lot of things, will clear the way for a lot of risks you might take as a performer. Don’t worry about your performance more than your poem. In the end, you want audiences to remember your poem, not that you were really passionate about whatever it was you were up there talking about that they can’t somehow recall under questioning. Everything in life is easier if you start off by doing things correctly right out of the gate.
That's it.
I love performing poetry, and performing it from paper doesn’t diminish that for me or my audiences. I love pulling out that thick ragged folder – “Goldie” – and embracing the challenge of riffling through it for the perfect poem at the perfect moment. And I won’t let a little thing like memorization stop me from doing this. It may stop me from being asked to do certain gigs, but that’s the booker’s loss. I will fuck your audience up from paper, just as easily as someone who’s flailing about and giving you jazz hands for twenty minutes. I don’t apologize for not memorizing. No one should, if they believe that the work they will present is just as good read as it is memorized AND that they will deliver it with the extra mile required to make that belief true.
*********************************************
I was at the National Poetry Slam in St. Paul a couple of weeks ago (awesome time) and I noticed something right away: there were a lot more competitors reciting poetry from paper than usual. I mean, to the point of comment.
On one hand, this delighted me a great deal. In any given year I’m usually one of about three paper poets (a poet that performs a poem from paper or a journal or some other vehicle of codification) out of about nearly four hundred poets who show up to compete. Most people who consider themselves performance poets memorize, and in slam competitions particularly so. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve heard from poets or audience members or judges that poems that are memorized are somehow better than ones that aren’t. There is the notion that a poet who bothers to commit their work to memory is somehow more dedicated to their craft than the poet who does not. I ask you, which poet is more dedicated: the poet who memorizes ten poems that they recite at every featured reading they have over the course of a few years, or the poet who performs ten times that number in the same amount of time, but from paper? I have made a conscious decision not to memorize any of my poetry. It is, quite literally, a mission with me. I’ve memorized poetry in the past to see if I could do it, and when I did the results were pretty impressive. But in the end I have dedicated myself to not memorizing poems because I want poets to know that memorizing a poem doesn’t have to be the entry fee to performance poetry. You can still win slams – even the big ones - from paper. You can still give incredible features and do tours from paper. You can still make an audience lose its complete and utter mind from paper. It all comes down to the poem and how deeply you’re willing to commit to giving a performance of that poem.
I lay no claim whatsoever that my platform of performing from paper only had anything to do with the amount of paper I saw in slam competition this year. I think a case could be made, and I’ve certainly heard things over the years from coaches that imply my mission has had some effect. Whatever the reason is for more paper performances this year I don’t care...I’m just glad the day of acknowledging the power of papyrus has returned.
Not that it wasn’t here along, mind you: any random poetry reading that isn’t swamped with people trying to show their performance chops in equal measure to their writing chops will be a reading filled with paper. There are more poets reading from paper than there are poets who aren’t on the whole, so in the grand scheme of things it’s not that big a deal. It only really matters in those circles that place a premium on performance over writing ability.
Anyhow, while I ultimately do not care about who’s doing what for what reason, I do care about The Big Four. A while back I drafted four rules about performing poetry from paper. Application of these rules is sorely lacking in performances I see everywhere I go:
1. Commit.
2. Voice compensates for body.
3. You aren’t allowed to fuck up.
4. It always comes down to the poem.
1) Commit.
Knowing is not memorizing. I can recite back parts of my poems, but at some point I need my line fed to me because while I know my poems pretty well, I do not have them memorized.
Also, reading is not performing. Sounding like you’re reading makes me feel like I’m in school. I hated school, especially the poetry units. We can all try a little harder in this area.
2) Voice compensates for body.
If you’re performing from paper, you’re already down a hand or two, or blocked by a music stand. The audience will have a hard time not noticing these things. Adopt the principle that if you lose one thing you should compensate for it by amplifying another. After your poem, your voice is your most powerful tool, not your ability to memorize or move around on stage. The poem starts to live in the performance world when you open your mouth, so use it: play with the texture of your voice, the tone, the rhythm, the breadth of its range of meanings.
Also note that I have been saying “perform”, not “read”. Most problems with poets and paper stem from not making this distinction. Conversely they do two things that make me wish they’d just stop writing poetry altogether: a) they don’t bother to commit to a performance since they’re going to be seen reading from paper anyway, and b) they perform with those annoying gaps every other line (you know: EXCITED SHOUTING! Look for my line. EXCITED SHOUTING! Look for my line…). Neither of these is an excuse for a poor performance from paper. If you can memorize, there is no reason why your reading from paper should suck. In fact it should be easier.
3) You aren’t allowed to fuck up.
This one is pretty unforgiveable to me. If you lose your place in a poem that’s sitting in front of you, then you’re an idiot. People who do this tend to do it because they thought they had more of the poem memorized than they actually do, or they get so caught up in the performance they forget that a part is coming up that they don’t actually remember. Idiots. Look, it’s very simple math:
You – memory of poem = no poem in your head
…so quit pretending you know your poem and invest in some fucking focus.
4) It always comes down to the poem.
This is my answer to everything about poetry, but it really means something here. A great poem will forgive a lot of things, will clear the way for a lot of risks you might take as a performer. Don’t worry about your performance more than your poem. In the end, you want audiences to remember your poem, not that you were really passionate about whatever it was you were up there talking about that they can’t somehow recall under questioning. Everything in life is easier if you start off by doing things correctly right out of the gate.
That's it.
I love performing poetry, and performing it from paper doesn’t diminish that for me or my audiences. I love pulling out that thick ragged folder – “Goldie” – and embracing the challenge of riffling through it for the perfect poem at the perfect moment. And I won’t let a little thing like memorization stop me from doing this. It may stop me from being asked to do certain gigs, but that’s the booker’s loss. I will fuck your audience up from paper, just as easily as someone who’s flailing about and giving you jazz hands for twenty minutes. I don’t apologize for not memorizing. No one should, if they believe that the work they will present is just as good read as it is memorized AND that they will deliver it with the extra mile required to make that belief true.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
And you Slammers thought you started something...
The Word of the Day for August 01, 2010 is:
eisteddfod • \eye-STETH-vawd\
• noun- : a usually Welsh competitive festival of the arts especially in poetry and singing
Example Sentence:
This year's eisteddfod featured some exceptional recorder and guitar playing, but as in past years it was the bards who were the highlight of the festival.Did you know?
In Medieval times, Welsh bards and minstrels would assemble together for an "eisteddfod" (the Welsh word for "session") of poetry and music competition. Over time, participation and interest in these competitions lessened, and by the 17th century an eisteddfod was far from the courtly affair it once was. The competition was revived in the 19th century as a way to showcase Wales's artistic culture. It was also in that century that an official council was formed to organize the annual National Eisteddfod of Wales, an event still held each summer alternately in North or South Wales. There are awards for music, prose, drama, and art, but the one for poetry remains the eisteddfod's pinnacle.
- Theme music by Joshua Stamper ©2006 New Jerusalem Music/ASCAP
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Alls Fair...
LONDON _ A fight over who gets to be Oxford University's top poet has set Britain's pens racing _ and weakened the careers of two well-known wordsmiths.
St. Lucia-born Derek Walcott pulled out of the race for Oxford's Professor of Poetry after letters were distributed highlighting sexual harassment allegations made against him at Harvard and Boston Universities in the 1980s and 1990s.
His rival, Ruth Padel, resigned from the prestigious post Monday after admitting she sent e-mails to journalists publicizing the claims.
Some commentators called the move poetic justice, but others say the controversy uncovered the racially and sexually charged undercurrents still coursing through the uppermost reaches of academia.
Padel, the first female Professor of Poetry since the job was created three centuries ago, was elected only after Walcott, a Nobel Literature Laureate, dropped out under pressure from an anonymous letter-writing campaign.
The mysterious missives, dropped in Oxford University mailboxes, reportedly recapped a 1982 incident in which officials at Harvard admonished Walcott for pressuring a freshman into having sex with him, as well as a 1996 sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by a former Boston University graduate student.
Walcott called the letters an attempt at character assassination. Padel denied having anything to do with them, but The Sunday Times revealed that she had drawn attention to the charges in e-mail exchanges with unidentified journalists. Some of her previous backers called on her to stand down.
"As soon as I was told yesterday that there were people in Oxford who were severely against me I thought it was the right thing," she told BBC radio Tuesday. "I didn't want to divide the university, I wanted to offer it my services, so of course I stood down immediately."
St. Lucia-born Derek Walcott pulled out of the race for Oxford's Professor of Poetry after letters were distributed highlighting sexual harassment allegations made against him at Harvard and Boston Universities in the 1980s and 1990s.
His rival, Ruth Padel, resigned from the prestigious post Monday after admitting she sent e-mails to journalists publicizing the claims.
Some commentators called the move poetic justice, but others say the controversy uncovered the racially and sexually charged undercurrents still coursing through the uppermost reaches of academia.
Padel, the first female Professor of Poetry since the job was created three centuries ago, was elected only after Walcott, a Nobel Literature Laureate, dropped out under pressure from an anonymous letter-writing campaign.
The mysterious missives, dropped in Oxford University mailboxes, reportedly recapped a 1982 incident in which officials at Harvard admonished Walcott for pressuring a freshman into having sex with him, as well as a 1996 sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by a former Boston University graduate student.
Walcott called the letters an attempt at character assassination. Padel denied having anything to do with them, but The Sunday Times revealed that she had drawn attention to the charges in e-mail exchanges with unidentified journalists. Some of her previous backers called on her to stand down.
"As soon as I was told yesterday that there were people in Oxford who were severely against me I thought it was the right thing," she told BBC radio Tuesday. "I didn't want to divide the university, I wanted to offer it my services, so of course I stood down immediately."
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Marketplace
WERGLE FLOMP HUMOR
POETRY CONTEST - LAST CALL!
(no fee)
8th annual free contest with a special twist. Fifteen cash prizes totaling $3,336.40.
Top prize $1,359.
Submit one poem by April 1 deadline. No entry fee. Winning entries published online.
Judge: Jendi Reiter.
Sponsored by Winning Writers.
Winning Writers is proud to be one of "101 Best Websites for Writers" (Writer's Digest, 2005-2008).
Guidelines and online submission at
http://www.winningwriters.com/wergle
***************************************************************************
3rd Annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair,
March 21, 2009 - Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum,
453 Porter Avenue,
Buffalo, NY.
Event is free and open to the public and brings authors, booksellers, small presses, poets, etc. together.
http://www.buffalosmallpress.org/about/
*********************************************************************
<<>>
http://www.altruisticword.com/the_ALTRUIST/Welcome.html
New publication accepting poetry, short fiction subs, etc. Payment is publication. Submit via email as a .doc (Microsoft Word) attachment. Submit up to 6 poems per submission.
Do not submit a new submission until hearing about your original sub. Sim subs okay with notification. No previously published works accepted. Takes FNASR. Author holds rights and copyright after works are published. Include genre of work submitted and short bio with submission. Also indicate if your sub is a sim sub. No reading fee.
Email submissions to:
thealtruisticword@gmail.com
***********************************************************************
FUNDSFORWRITERS. COM
If there's a grant out there to enable a writer, FundsforWriters knows where it is. Subscribe to the four newsletters and jump start your writing career.
Writer's Digest labeled FundsforWriters one of its 101 Best Websites for Writers
for the past eight years. 20,000 readers can't be wrong.
Contests, grants, markets and publishing opportunities await you at
http://www.fundsforwriters.com/
****************************************************************************
Robert Frost International Poetry Contest,
Adult Poetry Contest 1st prize = $150, 2nd Prize = $75, 3rd Prize = $50, 2 honorable mentions. Entry fee = $10 per poem.
Submit previously unpublished work.
Any style or theme. 40 lines max. Submit typed poems. Submit 2 copies of each poem with name and contact info on only 1 copy of the poem. Make checks payable to Key West Robert Frost Poetry Festival.
Mail entries to: Robert Frost Poetry
Festival, Heritage House Museum,
410 Caroline St., Key West FL 33040.
http://www.robertfrostpoetryfestival.com/contest. htm
Deadline: March 23, 2009
POETRY CONTEST - LAST CALL!
(no fee)
8th annual free contest with a special twist. Fifteen cash prizes totaling $3,336.40.
Top prize $1,359.
Submit one poem by April 1 deadline. No entry fee. Winning entries published online.
Judge: Jendi Reiter.
Sponsored by Winning Writers.
Winning Writers is proud to be one of "101 Best Websites for Writers" (Writer's Digest, 2005-2008).
Guidelines and online submission at
http://www.winningwriters.com/wergle
***************************************************************************
3rd Annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair,
March 21, 2009 - Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum,
453 Porter Avenue,
Buffalo, NY.
Event is free and open to the public and brings authors, booksellers, small presses, poets, etc. together.
http://www.buffalosmallpress.org/about/
*********************************************************************
<<>>
http://www.altruisticword.com/the_ALTRUIST/Welcome.html
New publication accepting poetry, short fiction subs, etc. Payment is publication. Submit via email as a .doc (Microsoft Word) attachment. Submit up to 6 poems per submission.
Do not submit a new submission until hearing about your original sub. Sim subs okay with notification. No previously published works accepted. Takes FNASR. Author holds rights and copyright after works are published. Include genre of work submitted and short bio with submission. Also indicate if your sub is a sim sub. No reading fee.
Email submissions to:
thealtruisticword@gmail.com
***********************************************************************
FUNDSFORWRITERS. COM
If there's a grant out there to enable a writer, FundsforWriters knows where it is. Subscribe to the four newsletters and jump start your writing career.
Writer's Digest labeled FundsforWriters one of its 101 Best Websites for Writers
for the past eight years. 20,000 readers can't be wrong.
Contests, grants, markets and publishing opportunities await you at
http://www.fundsforwriters.com/
****************************************************************************
Robert Frost International Poetry Contest,
Adult Poetry Contest 1st prize = $150, 2nd Prize = $75, 3rd Prize = $50, 2 honorable mentions. Entry fee = $10 per poem.
Submit previously unpublished work.
Any style or theme. 40 lines max. Submit typed poems. Submit 2 copies of each poem with name and contact info on only 1 copy of the poem. Make checks payable to Key West Robert Frost Poetry Festival.
Mail entries to: Robert Frost Poetry
Festival, Heritage House Museum,
410 Caroline St., Key West FL 33040.
http://www.robertfrostpoetryfestival.com/contest. htm
Deadline: March 23, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
I fell into a burning ring of fire...
John Lundberg over at the Huffington Post Writes:Electronic Arts is currently in production of a video game called Dante's Inferno based on Dante's great 14th century epic poem The Divine Comedy. Production costs on the ambitious attempt to fuse classic literature and "hack and slash" gaming are expected to number in the tens of millions of dollars. Think they're nuts? Early indications say otherwise. While the game is a long way from store shelves, EA has already sold its movie rights, sight-unseen, to Universal Studios for millions of dollars. The game actually sparked a bidding war.
I'm not surprised that EA would see Inferno (the first section of The Divine Comedy), with its elaborate mapping and description of Hell, as a lucrative launch point for a game about killing demons. I am surprised though, at how determined the studio is to not just make the game about killing demons--to remain, in fact, as faithful as possible to Dante's masterpiece. Jonathan Knight, the executive producer and creative director for the game, is making a point in interviews to point out all of the game's connections to the epic poem. According to Knight, the main plot line is still Dante's quest to reach Beatrice, and the Roman poet Virgil still plays his part, as do more minor characters like King Minos (the judge of the damned) and Cerberus. The team has even created new characters based on what's known of members of Dante's real-world family. Knight told the popular gaming website IGN that the team took almost all of their cues for designing Inferno's setting directly from Dante's text, and that the game features many of its landmarks. And while developers obviously couldn't fit all 14,000 lines of the poem into the game, Knight claims that many lines will be quoted (or at least paraphrased). The newly released trailer for the game, which can be seen here, indicates that he's telling the truth. It begins with a voice-over translation of The Divine Comedy's first lines.
At the midpoint on the journey of life
I found myself in a dark forest,
for the clear path was lost.
Of course, EA also wants the game to make a buck, and that means pleasing the masses of gamers who couldn't care less about poetry, and want action, blood, guts and that sort of fun. So it shouldn't be surprising that EA's Dante will be brandishing a massive bony sword-looking thing and swinging it at demons (I have to admit, I laughed out loud when I saw that). The released game play also includes--and I'm not making this up--an army of unbaptized babies with deadly, extendable arms, which the website TeamXbox describes as "perhaps the nastiest batch of enemies that you'll ever face in a video game." I guess that's how you make a buck.
While Knight acknowledges that his team took some major liberties in turning Dante into a video game hero, he points out that the Italian poet had real-life experience as a soldier in the Guelph cavalry, fighting in their war against the Ghibellines. And take heart, poets, in addition to his big boney sword, Dante sports a mean-looking set of laurels on his helmet.
I thought about whether the game (and the movie, if it's produced) might sully The Divine Comedy, but I don't think it will. EA has been upfront about the liberties it's taken, and I'm intrigued not only that they feel compelled to be faithful to the poem, but that they believe that they can do so and still make a profit. Not that it's the point, but lord knows poetry isn't very profitable in the U.S. these days. And while the game will no doubt give some a mistaken impression of the poem, those people probably currently have no impression of it. The game might also do the poem some good. It might convince some that classic literature is more relatable than it appears in English class. And it's far more likely that after playing the game a teenager would be interested in picking up the book.
That said, if you have a teenager, and this winter he tries to sell you on allowing him to buy Inferno based its connection to classic literature, just remember the army of unbaptized babies.
Dante's Inferno is set to be released later this year.
What other poem or poet's life do you think would make a good electronic game? Sonnet Hero? Grand Theft Haiku?
Whatchya think?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Plucked from Clevelandpoetics the listserve...
This Thursday, Feb. 5, our new fiction writer at
John Carroll, Mike Croley, will give a reading.
8pm in Rodman A. Mike is a southerner and promises
to read his fiction in an authentic southern accent.
See you there,
George
George Bilgere
English Department
John Carroll University
(216) 397-4746
*********************************
SALON 2009
Monthly read-around, feedback, interactive critique.
Every month, in the banquet room of a restaurant in east Columbus, a diverse group of thinking people meets to eat, breathe, drink, sculpt, hammer and polish poetry. We work on craft, presentation, voice and style, persona, place, voice and content, freewriting, seed poems, how to become selfless at the microphone, and much, much more. Each poet consumes as much of this sustenance as he or she can contain. A unique synergy fills the space. A unique bond is created over the common love of words.
You are invited to join us!
First Saturday of each month, February through December 2009
9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
MCL Cafeteria
5240
East Main Street
Columbus,
Ohio 43213
All
participants: Please plan to have lunch at MCL. Light lunch (soup or salad with
drink just over $4, full lunch meal (entrée, two sides, drink, plus) approximately $7-10. Coffee with unlimited refills is $1.25. Tea/hot water available.
********************************************
Small presses have an uphill struggle to gain recognition. One measure of success is getting favorable reviews. Drinian Press author, Tom LeClair, is managing to get some "ink" for his latest release, Passing Through".
For those interested, here are the links:
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3264
and
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/fictionspresent/forward
Drinian Press, LLC
Huron, Ohio
John Carroll, Mike Croley, will give a reading.
8pm in Rodman A. Mike is a southerner and promises
to read his fiction in an authentic southern accent.
See you there,
George
George Bilgere
English Department
John Carroll University
(216) 397-4746
*********************************
SALON 2009
Monthly read-around, feedback, interactive critique.
Every month, in the banquet room of a restaurant in east Columbus, a diverse group of thinking people meets to eat, breathe, drink, sculpt, hammer and polish poetry. We work on craft, presentation, voice and style, persona, place, voice and content, freewriting, seed poems, how to become selfless at the microphone, and much, much more. Each poet consumes as much of this sustenance as he or she can contain. A unique synergy fills the space. A unique bond is created over the common love of words.
You are invited to join us!
First Saturday of each month, February through December 2009
9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
MCL Cafeteria
5240
East Main Street
Columbus,
Ohio 43213
All
participants: Please plan to have lunch at MCL. Light lunch (soup or salad with
drink just over $4, full lunch meal (entrée, two sides, drink, plus) approximately $7-10. Coffee with unlimited refills is $1.25. Tea/hot water available.
********************************************
Small presses have an uphill struggle to gain recognition. One measure of success is getting favorable reviews. Drinian Press author, Tom LeClair, is managing to get some "ink" for his latest release, Passing Through".
For those interested, here are the links:
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3264
and
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/fictionspresent/forward
Drinian Press, LLC
Huron, Ohio
Friday, November 21, 2008
Blind Review Friday
Blind Review Friday.The author shall remain anonymous (unless they chose to divulge themselves in the comments.)
Those commenting are also welcome to remain anonymous if they wish.
Incendiary comments will be removed.
If you would like your piece thrown to the wolves send it to salinger@ameritech.net with "Workshop the hell out of this poem" as the subject line.
Parapet
We have come to the edge
of this place, and there is no
stepping off that does not leave
something behind.
We chip away at morning to see
what lies beneath. Even the earth-
worm and the weed have infernal
engines that will not comply. Still,
we churn our garden, only to grow
things we think cannot die.
Everything has its end.
Even the mechanical jaw owes
its human hands – hands that plow
furrows deep in an earth that only
reveals the rocky strata of our myths
of ascent. The clay calls out beneath
our steel nests. When we sleep, we
remember when soft beds of hay
and a pennywhistle were enough.
Yet even with our cloven hooves,
we think it is us that have left
the light on.
Now our garlands hang high upon
towers of lilac and thunder, but it is
that strong wind that defeats us, always,
carrying the scent of all that we have
forgotten.
Monuments to nothing will fly and then
vanish. It is our hands that will remember -
plunged deep into a soil that gazes out
on a landscape with human eyes.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Whoa Three Weeks of Poetry!
i saw this in the margin of blogspot...clicked on the link. pretty wild.
BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A middle-aged primary school teacher reciting a 1,300-year-old poem could become China's answer to an American Idol-type superstar thanks to on-line voting in a government-sponsored competition.
The 40-year-old from the eastern Anhui Province, Fang Baojiu, was leading the field of 179 performers one week into the three-week poetry recital contest with more than 38,060 votes as of Friday evening.
All the contestants have submitted videos of their recitals to the Ministry of Education, which has organized the competition and posted the performances on the official website, http://songdu.cuconline.cn/.
Since the videos were posted on Nov. 7, the website has attracted an average of 19,933 votes a day and with the daily record of 54,306, including 676 votes from Hong Kong.
"As a Chinese language teacher, I always lead the recital in my class. Maybe that's why I began falling in love with the art of poetry recital," says Fang, in his brief introduction on his video.
He can be seen sitting beside a scenic waterfall near his home at Huangshan while introducing himself. His performance is accompanied by traditional music and footage to match his recital of "Moon-lit River on a Spring Night" written by Zhang Ruoxu who lived circa 660 to 720AD.
Wang Dengfeng, the ministry official in charge of the contest, said the level of public response had been a surprise.
"It was out of my expectation that the on-line voting would draw such attention," Wang said. "We thought young people might have lost interest in classical Chinese literature."
On the website and forums of many colleges and schools, young people had debated the performances and posted supportive messages for their favorites.
"The contestants have become stars," Wang said.
So popular has the contest been that Internet technology firms approached the ministry to host the on-line voting, but the ministry wants to keep the contest non-profit, said Wang.
"To guarantee fair play, we try our best to supervise the voting and prevent any manipulation," he said.
The annual nationwide contest began last year and is intended to raise awareness of traditional literature. The on-line vote, the first of its kind in China, will last till Nov. 30 as part of the preliminary contest. The result of this stage is to be decided by both on-line voting and a panel of judges. The contestants were divided into five groups: students; teachers; students of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese; foreign students and non-students. Ten of each group will enter the final and six of each are supposed to win the prizes.
The ministry said they have not decided what the prizes would be but an award is to be granted.
"It is a great pleasure to see more and more young people find an interest in traditional Chinese culture," Wang said.
Editor: Jiang Yuxia
BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A middle-aged primary school teacher reciting a 1,300-year-old poem could become China's answer to an American Idol-type superstar thanks to on-line voting in a government-sponsored competition.
The 40-year-old from the eastern Anhui Province, Fang Baojiu, was leading the field of 179 performers one week into the three-week poetry recital contest with more than 38,060 votes as of Friday evening.
All the contestants have submitted videos of their recitals to the Ministry of Education, which has organized the competition and posted the performances on the official website, http://songdu.cuconline.cn/.
Since the videos were posted on Nov. 7, the website has attracted an average of 19,933 votes a day and with the daily record of 54,306, including 676 votes from Hong Kong.
"As a Chinese language teacher, I always lead the recital in my class. Maybe that's why I began falling in love with the art of poetry recital," says Fang, in his brief introduction on his video.
He can be seen sitting beside a scenic waterfall near his home at Huangshan while introducing himself. His performance is accompanied by traditional music and footage to match his recital of "Moon-lit River on a Spring Night" written by Zhang Ruoxu who lived circa 660 to 720AD.
Wang Dengfeng, the ministry official in charge of the contest, said the level of public response had been a surprise.
"It was out of my expectation that the on-line voting would draw such attention," Wang said. "We thought young people might have lost interest in classical Chinese literature."
On the website and forums of many colleges and schools, young people had debated the performances and posted supportive messages for their favorites.
"The contestants have become stars," Wang said.
So popular has the contest been that Internet technology firms approached the ministry to host the on-line voting, but the ministry wants to keep the contest non-profit, said Wang.
"To guarantee fair play, we try our best to supervise the voting and prevent any manipulation," he said.
The annual nationwide contest began last year and is intended to raise awareness of traditional literature. The on-line vote, the first of its kind in China, will last till Nov. 30 as part of the preliminary contest. The result of this stage is to be decided by both on-line voting and a panel of judges. The contestants were divided into five groups: students; teachers; students of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese; foreign students and non-students. Ten of each group will enter the final and six of each are supposed to win the prizes.
The ministry said they have not decided what the prizes would be but an award is to be granted.
"It is a great pleasure to see more and more young people find an interest in traditional Chinese culture," Wang said.
Editor: Jiang Yuxia
Friday, October 17, 2008
Blind Review Friday
Blind Review Friday.The author shall remain anonymous (unless they chose to divulge themselves in the comments.)
Those commenting are also welcome to remain anonymous if they wish.
Incendiary comments will be removed.
If you would like your piece thrown to the wolves send it to salinger@ameritech.net with "Workshop the hell out of this poem" as the subject line.
We did not receive a piece this week so I am throwing up one by a friend from out of town I will reveal the author next week:
The Quiet World
In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long
distance lover and proudly say
I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn't respond, I know
she's used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
The Quiet World
In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long
distance lover and proudly say
I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn't respond, I know
she's used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Osama Bin Laureat
John Lundberg is a Washington DC area academic poet who has a regular gig over at the left wing blog Huffington Post. He writes:
So - whatchya think?
The pending publication of Osama Bin Laden's poetry in the academic journal Language and Communication next month is sparking some debate. While the poems could provide insight into Bin Laden's psyche, many people wonder why the heck you would give the guy another forum.
The poetry is being translated by Professor Flagg Miller who teaches Arabic poetry at the University of California at Davis. Miller is working from recordings discovered at an Al Qaeda compound in Kandahar in 2001 which include Bin Laden reciting his poetry at weddings, ceremonies, and various Al Qaeda recruiting events. The FBI spent years translating and screening the poems for hidden messages to Bin Laden's followers. Now that the poems are apparently clear, Miller aims to publish a book about them.
Judging by Miller's descriptions, Bin Laden's poetry is what you'd expect it to be. He paints himself as a sort of warrior poet and aims to incite violent religious fundamentalism by blending religious imagery--much of it taken directly from the Quran--with imagery of war and heroism. Miller calls Bin Laden an "entertainer with an agenda" and describes a typical tactic:
"He told gory tales of dead mujaheddin from the villages where he was speaking, which was often the first time their families had learned of their fates. He mixed this news up with radical theology and his own verse based on the traditions of hamasa - a warlike poetic tradition from Oman calculated to capture the interest of young men."
Elsewhere, he gets to the heart of it:
"The violence and barbarism of war can sicken anybody and poetry is a way to frame that violence in higher ethics."
It's a strong argument, I think, for not publishing the poetry.
According to Miller, Bin Laden actually has some poetical talent. In a recent interview with The Times of London, Miller said: "Bin Laden is a skilled poet with clever rhymes and meters, which was one reason why many people taped him and passed recordings around, like pop songs." Bin Laden may, in fact, have "clever rhymes and meters"--I really don't know--but I'm guessing his poetry's popularity has more to do with his legions of fanatical radical Islamic followers. I doubt listeners were charmed by what Miller calls Bin Laden's "distinctive monotone."
Another Arabic scholar interviewed by The Times, who has read the poems and wished to remain anonymous, disagreed with Bin Laden's ability, saying of the poems:
"They seem adolescent and brutal, like a video--nasty, composed with minimal skill to win over the susceptible mind of the young and bloodthirsty male...Whatever else Bin Laden is, he is now exposed as a disgrace to two millennia of Arabic culture."
Miller's playing up Bin Laden's skill might have something to do with his being in the process of writing--and thus to some degree pitching--a book on the subject. Even if the Bin Laden poems were radical Islam's answer to Walt Whitman, I'd prefer it if his work ended up lost in a government warehouse somewhere. It's currently headed to Yale University to be digitized.
So - whatchya think?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
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