The Main Street Rag Poetry Showcase, Sun. 1/18, 7p, The Writers Place - 3607 Pennsylvania Kansas City, MO View Map
Join Main Street Rag co-founder, Shawn Pavey, as he welcomes Iris Appelquist and Jason Ryberg as featured poets for this month's event! Iris and Jason will read from their upcoming book, Blunt Trauma.
This month will be BYO beverages and snacks. The tailspinning economy is hitting us in the pants, especially in the parts of the pants that hold the cash. As a result, there is no budget for refreshments anymore. C'est la vie. Bring what you need, bring extra to share, and we'll take a "stone soup" approach to the good times.
As always, an open mic follows our featured poets. No sign up sheet, but please limit poems to 1 at a time and less than 5 minutes.
I look forward to seeing you all there! Please feel free to repost this. Any questions, call Shawn at 816-868-2707
Time: 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Poetry Reading Series@ The Johnson County Library
Patricia Miller and Robert Stewart
January 20, 7PM - 9875 West 87th Street | Overland Park, KS 66212
Patricia Cleary Miller is the author of the non-fiction book, Westport: Missouri's Port of Many Returns, and the poetry books Starting a Swan Dive and Dresden. She holds the Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas and taught there and at the University of Missouri-Kansas City before coming to Rockhurst University, where she has now taught writing and literature for twenty-five years. A past chair of the Department of English, she is currently chair of the Humanities Division. A former Bunting Fellow in poetry at Harvard/Radcliffe, she was granted the Harvard Alumni Association Award and the Hiram Hunn Award. In 1987, with the help of her students, she founded the Rockhurst Review, which she continues to edit.
Robert Stewart's books include Outside Language: Essays (Helicon Nine Editions, a finalist in the PEN Center USA Literary Awards for 2004, and winner of the 2004 Thorpe Menn Award), Plumbers (poems), and others. He has the particular joy of being married to a better poet than he is, Lisa Stewart. However, some of his poems have weaseled their way into Denver Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Stand, The Literary Review and other magazines. Anthology editorships include Spud Songs: An Anthology of Potato Poems (with Gloria Vando, a benefit for hunger relief), Voices From the Interior, and Decade: Modern American Poets, co-edited with Trish Reeves). In 2008, the magazine he edits, New Letters, won a National Magazine Award for the Essay.
The procrastination is over. I've readied my submission to an annual review that I am especially fond of. This will be my third year of submission. The first year - zing I was accepted. Last year nada. So I'm trying to remain hopeful that this years material has something that will stick. Everything all done up and stamped. Just need to drop it in the mail in the morning.
For some reason I always feel good when I submit to this review. I don't know why, I just do. Anyone feel that way about any place in particular that you send your work?
Word List:
A new year calls for a new word list. I decided this on the way home from the office tonight. I sometimes get away from my list and it really is sad, because having a list of uniquely interesting words at my finder tips often will spark something. That's just a side benefit. What I rely on the list for is to get me away from using the same words often when I'm writing. If I use it, I cross it off my list. The idea is to keep adding words even as I subtract them.
Feeling kind of yuckie tonight. Almost like I'm trying to come down with something. Headache and mussels ache. I think I'll try and read a while, if my eyes and my head will cooperate.
Listening to Savage Garden / Crash and Burn.....
It was cruel and unusual punishment working yesterday but this too has past. I need to go to the store this morning. Old Mother Hubbard is starting to look like she's among the privileged. I don't think procrastination as a plan is working. Time for the backup plan.
The sky is overcast and it's dreary out. Don't appear to be changing anytime soon.
I need to mull over some submissions I want in the mail by Monday.
Have a picture I want to work on too to submit to a journal. This would be the first time submitting photos.
Clock is ticking in my head. I hate that.
“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created.” ~ Brenda Ueland
Besides getting up this morning and writing, I went this afternoon to the Writers Place for the 4th Annual Writers Place - New Years Day Celebration Reading. It's a 12 hour Poetry Reading Marathon that Sharon Eiker organized based on the annual Bowery Poetry Club event in New York. So from a creativity standpoint I feel like the year has gotten off to a good start.
I thought now might be a good time to roll out some resources for those writers looking for good start to the year.
There's a few things to get you thinking if your having trouble getting the new year started.
Best wishes to everyone in 2009!
