120 hours of non-stop poetry!

The Pit at Prospero's [photo credit Prospero's]

The poetry filibuster, 120 hours of non-stop poetry is coming to Kansas City starting Friday April 2nd at 10:00 a.m. The longest poetry reading ever is planned for the Pit at Prospero's Books. The event is sponsored by Prospero’s, Write the Future and Spartan Press.

In celebration of National Poetry month, over 200 regional and national poets will gather in Kansas City to establish a world’s record for the longest poetry reading. The previously established record in 1978 as reported by the Associated Press and NPR’s All Things Considered, was in Cincinnati, Ohio where 50 poets performed 56 hours and 25 minutes of poetry.

The Kansas City event will be vidio taped and a live internet feed of the event is planned.

Some highlighted participants

Friday-

• Ron Jaffe: world renowned jazz-poet 
• Connie Dover: winner of the Loft’s Speakeasy prize for poetry
• Denise Low: imediate past Poet Laureate of Kansas
• Jo McDougall: Pulitzer nominated poet and memoirist
• William Trowbridge: former editor of The Laurel Review, author of 5 books of poetry including the The Book of Kong and the Complete Book of Kong. 
•  Maryfrances Wagner: past President of Kansas City’s The Writers Place and author of 5 books of poetry.  
•  Wayne Miller: award-winning poet of 2 collections of poetry and editor of Pleiades: A   Journal of New Writing.  
•  Jason Ryberg 
•  Jeanette Powers 
•  Marion S. Taylor 
• David Morrissey
• Patrick Lamb
• Annie Rasmussen
• James Kneece Joseph Davis
•  Valorie Engholm
•  Eve Brackenbury
• Oshome
• Trudie Homan
• Trish Reeves  
• Steven Proski
• Tony Plocido
• Greg Field

Saturday-

•  Marc Smith: host of the Green Mill poetry series in Chicago, Ill.. PBS identified Marc as the founder of slam poetry in America. Smith will come off sabbatical to perform for the longest poetry reading record attempt.
• Mark Tom Hennessy: former front man for the Lawrence, KS grunge and PAW.
• Marc Zorn
• Mike Bannen + 7year old
• Carl Bettis
• Noon Jan Kroll
• Stan Banks
• Janet Banks
• Alarie Tennille
• John Peterson
• Stacey Donovan
• Lindsey Martin Bowen
• Carl Rowden
• Robert Stewart
• Michelle Boisseau
• Jeanie Wilson
• Pat Danneman
• Phyllis Becker
• Pat Lawson
• William Peck
• TJ Jude
• Marc Smith
• Ed Tato
• Mark Hennessy
• Jason Ryberg
• Margueritte Rappold
• Iris Appelquist
• Aaron Fuhr
• Thad Havercamp
• Ron Worley
• Jason Harding
• Vic Swan
• Joshua Upsha
• Creed Shepherd
• Michelle Nimmo
• Tommy Mason
• Jacob Johansen
• Steve Goldberg
• John Dorsey
• Brent Kinder
• Holly Stewart

Sunday-

• The Recipe: founding members of the Black Poets Collective, Pries and 337 define the word “LIVE” in poetry performance.
• David Smith: author of White Time joins us from Las Angeles, CA.
• Dennis Weiser
• Kale Baldock
• Kathy Hughes
• Gary Lechtliter
• Sean Erixon
• Dean Fessenden
• Thomas Fessenden
• Kevin Rabas
• Josh Barker
• Jeff Tigchelaar
• Aaron Froelich
• Alyson Fuller
• Saira Jehangir Khan
• Faith Bemiss
• Britt Whitehead
• Blair Johnson
• Mickey Cesar
• Laura Kitzmiller
• Katie Longofono
• Jas Abromowitz
• Jeremy O'eal
• Lance & Rachel Asbury
• David Smith
• John Dorsey
• Abigail Beaudell
• Jacob Johansen
• Katie Kaboom
• Steve Goldberg (Jacob)
• Gretta Wilkinson
• Becky Barrera
• Lola Nation
• Duke Smith
• Diane Mora
• TJ Jude
• Janie Harris
• Evanne Miller
• James Canty
• Chris Beard
• Steve Bridgens

Monday-

• Connie Dover: winner of the Loft’s coveted Speakeasy Prize for Poetry.
• Nairba Sirrah: Book II of Paradise Lost: Satan Breaks Out Of Hell – 9 characters; 1005 lines; 59 minutes word for word memorized recital.
• Eric Gandara
• Megan Louise
• Larry Welling
• Mel Neet
• Paul Goldman
• Eve Brackenburry
• Lee Eliot
• Ken Buch
• Maggie Ammerman
• Dennis Weiser
• Dez
• Marion Dean McIrvin
• Kevin Hiatt
• Patrick Sumner
• Norma Marshall
• Jeremey Colson
• Patrick Dobson
• Stephen Karuska
• Connie dover
• Brian Harris
• Silvia Kofler
• Jose Faus
• Maria Vasquez Boyd
• Brandon Whitehead
• Steve Wolfe
• Megan Louise
• Mikal Shapiro
• Tracy Rockwell
• Jon Bidwell
• Arrika Brazil
• Duke Smith
• Rhiannon Ross
• Abigail Henderson
• Kara Werner
• Robert Moore
• Janie Harris
• Jon Bidwell
• Bob Chrisman
• Brent Kinder
• Lon Swearingen

Tuesday-

• Philip Miller: the godfather of Kansas City poetry, founder of the Riverfront Readings series and author of 6 books of verse, joins us from Mount Union, PA.
•  Dr. Patricia Cleary Miller: Rockhurst University Humanities Chair, four-term poet laureate of the Harvard Alumni Association.
• John Mark Eberhart
• Paul Goldman 
• Susan Peters
• Jim Fox
• Maril Crabtree
• Jan Duncan-O'Neal
• Karin Frank
• Anne Baber
• Bob Chrisman
• Joseph Davis
• Missi Rassmussen
• Michael Wells
• David Morrissey
• Shawn Pavey
• Timothy Pettet
• Tom Wayne
• Philip Miller
• Patricia Miller
• David Arnold Hughes
• Jason Vaughn
• Steve Brisindine
• Sara glass
• Duke Smith
• Rhiannon Ross
• Tom Wayne
• Will Leathem
• Jason Ryberg

Wednesday-

•  Victor Smith Memorial Reading: One of KC’s great ‘street’ voices, a poet’s poet, Smith published 5 chapbooks of poetry. A selection of poets  will read Victor’s poems in honor of his untimely passing.
•  7-9pm VICTORY PARTY at The Conspiracy (at the Uptown Theatre). Live Music and much back slapping. $3 cover for the Kansas City literary arts nonprofit: Write the Future

Poetry Reviews: What's The Point?

 

Publishers Weekly:

But in almost any conversation on the topic of poetry reviews, one question comes up: what's the point? This question isn't always asked with the flippant air that actually means "who cares?" Often, people really want to know: what is accomplished by poetry reviews? Do they help sell books? Do they keep the art form in line? Do they spur writers into creating better poetry or kick bad writers out of the halls of Parnassus? Do poetry reviews help readers?

Read the whole story: Publishers Weekly

Poetry Reviews: What's The Point?

 

 

Technorati Tags: the point of poetry reviews

Confession Tuesday

Tuesday again. I’m like a kid out of breath, only mostly out of thought. My mind is gasping for contemplation and I don’t even realize the weight on my knees against the kneeler. It’s been a week without much clarity.

What to I have to confess this week? [Long pause]

My mind is in a cloud. I confess that there are many times this week that this has occurred. They usually are times when I’m feeling like I’m in a vacuum. No, not the Hoover, but more like when you have an experiment and you put something in a sealed jar and then you suck the air out of it. Only my mind is the jar and my thoughts have been suffocated. So here I am trying to assess my week in review and my mind is blank.

Oh, there is my self doubt. Yes, I recall having self doubt that creped into my writing during this past week... It was there like a lead weight in my wrist when I lifted my pen. In my fingers as I typed. It was the weight of the low pressure zone preventing the clouds in my head from moving on eastward. Do you ever have these irrational periods of doubt? They didn’t seem irrational at the time, but I know they are because there was something external that triggered a clearing of the doubts from my head. ~0~

I had a number of objectives going into last weekend and I confess I perhaps put too much emphasis on what I hoped to achieve. So much so, that I felt early on that I was not going to have a good weekend. In the end, I confess that I turned that around and used it too my advantage. Deciding not to throw in the towel, but try to salvage as much as I could. I didn’t get as much accomplished as I planned, but surprisingly more than I feared I would, and I still was able to take in a movie with my family. I confess that sometimes I surprise myself and things turn out better. ~0~

I confess that I surprise myself sometimes that in spite of liking language, I can be a pretty visual person. I enjoy seeing and taking pictures. Maybe that is why poetry in particular is the way I like my language; because of the emphasis of imagery. The relational connection between one thing and another and how that all fits together. Yes, when you peel back the layers of me, I confess that image and emotion comprise a good deal of what I am about. ~0~

When people call me and leave me a message to call them back, I confess I do not understand why they think I want to listen to 2 to 3 minutes of music on their voice mail.  I’m not with a record company; I’m not going to discover them or anyone they are featuring. It is ALMOST always the most hideous (and I use the term loosely) music. ~0~

Wow-  I can't believe I flushed all that out.   :) 

The Pit Live on the Internet - from Kansas City

"William PeckMarch 28, 2010 at 3:40pm
Subject: The Pit live on the Internet
We are now broadcasting live. Check out Kansas City's poets here:

Journal Bits March 22 – March 28

March 22 -  read Barefoot by Anne Sexton…  this poem is on the erotic side, pretty interesting given the period in which it was written.

March 24 - “the front never advances / no land changes hands / no prisoners are captured / death keeps percolating / hot black death.”

March 25 – “Corduroy slacks don’t hold / creases well, in fact they turn / cheap quickly— warn down / like a smooth bald head.”

March 28 - “A Sunday afternoon cocoon / the time held tightly / a pattern of jealous squeaks in the hallway floor / my hunger to be refreshed / warm within the pit / I hear the ticking of the clock not / in the present latitude / not in the passage from light into dark / or even back again.”

“Molten sweet sonnet / sings my eyes into shadows / of the present.”

Quote by Elizabeth Jennings….”For me, poetry is always a search for order.” I so agree!

Technorati Tags: Journal Bits,a search for order

j 

Unconscious Mutterings Week 374

You Say, I think....

• Bow out :: withdraw
• Relationships :: personal
• Facebook :: slow
• Items :: sundry
• Ours :: communal
• Sting :: bee
• Hangover :: wasted
• Contacts :: eyes
• Lonely :: forlorn
• Seven days :: week

Get you own list here

~ Book of Kells: NaPoWriMo: 30 New Poetry Prompts for National Poetry Month

~ Book of Kells: NaPoWriMo: 30 New Poetry Prompts for National Poetry Month

Getting ready for NaPoWriMo????

Or if you are just looking for a poetry prompt or two to get you started on a new poem here is a great list.

Kelli constantly has helpful insights to writing and publishing poetry so her blog is an excellent read anyway. Check it out.