I did a poetry reading tonight at a Quaker House Church on a theme of war & peace. Not a big crowd but a friendly bunch... no pun intended.
Besides reading some of my own work I introduced them to a poem by Carolyn Forche and talked a little about the subtlety in her work and how effective she is with witness poetry without sounding preachy.
After a reading dry spell, this makes my second reading in two weeks.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Mixed Bag - Wednesday
Ouch! I realized today that I plum missed Confession Tuesday. On the upside, I took time out of work during my lunchour to make Ash Wednesday Mass so maybe I can have special dispensation.... Please!
Received a rejection letter from Rattle today but I won a poetry book, Dreaming in Darkness Jessica Kristie. Anxious to to read this book. Always love to be exposed to new poetry. I get a real rush from it.
Received a rejection letter from Rattle today but I won a poetry book, Dreaming in Darkness Jessica Kristie. Anxious to to read this book. Always love to be exposed to new poetry. I get a real rush from it.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Magpie 105: Collision
image: epic mahoney
The future and history crash
in a flat lined hub of fiber optic nowhere.
The long gone party-lines,
core black telephones decried
iconic -pink princes phones
that came to link transient families,
translucent friends, truncated business
associates and cordial customers
in a national dialogue.
Colorful language went silent—
we pause to reflect
we pause to listen to what has become
a chorus of tapping finger tips
chipping finger nails
but void of human voice
of human color.
Our mind is left to add warmth
and pictures to text
and try to find the humanity
in the middle of everywhere.
Michael A. Wells
A few gems from Tom Leonard ‘100 Differences Between Poetry and Prose’
among my favorite:
· poetry is the subliminal history of linguistic shape
· poetry has four wheels, two wings and a pair of false teeth
· whoever heard of war & peace having the line as a unit of semantic yield
· the square root of poetry is an ever-evolving quark
· poetry is all the juicy bits in the juiciest order
· you can talk about prose without mentioning school
Sunday, February 19, 2012
The Poetry Brain
"Poetry is a different area if the brain [from prose] - much closer to music and mathematics." Margaret Atwood, BBC Radio 3, June 1995
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Crossroads Coffeehouse Reading Last Night
A thanks to the owners of the Crossroads Coffeehouse for
sponsoring the event. They plan to do it every third Friday.
Pat Burge on the left reading.
Magpie 104: To Be
She finds it exasperating
she has the duty
to be—
the plastic clown
the elastic
cheerleader
the Wal-Mart greeter
picking up the slack
the life coach
the mom
the wife
spiritual guru
on the scrapheap of life
Michael A. Wells
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