My Birthday

Today is my birthday... a year closer to perfection!

I got a copy of Ariel Restored, a Burkowski book, another book on Plath and a couple pairs of new slacks! Yeah!

My daughter in Phoenix just called to wish me Happy Birthday... so nice to hear her voice this morning. She said as soon as all the football stuff is gone and the spring baseball stuff is out I can look for some San Francisco Giants apparel or something. (warm smile)

Saturday night I went to a reading and book signing at the Writers Place for Drew Dorsey who just released Breaking Bones With Pencil Tips. It was very well attended. It had been billed as work that Burkowski, Plath, and Ginsberg fans would find inspiration in. I guess I'd have to say that while it was enjoyable, I think comparison with those three poets is a bit of a stretch.

Sunday afternoon - Northland writers met. My awesome wife was nice enough to provide an ice cream cake to celebrate my birthday a day early with these writing friends. I read a couple new drafts of some work. There were like thirteen of us so it was well attended.

Ivy had a quote from Ginsberg over on her blog that I have to repeat here. It really struck me because birthdays always remind me of mortality and to me writing is often about trying to beat mortality. I love this quote and today was the first time I had ever seen it....

"A poem is like a radio that can broadcast continuously for thousands of years." -Allen Ginsberg

The Poetry of Place

My only planned post today I made over on my other blog site: Against The Flow where I wrote on the poetry of "place". It is in the "poetics" catagory.

Around Poetry Blogland

Few things happening on other poetry blogs....

Check out the TSUNAMI RELIEF information on Eileen's blog.

what's wrong is the title of a new chapbook by Ivy.

Christine Hamm has a new chapbook too! Discount Heaven.

And yes... I passed 10,000 hits! Yeah!

Hitting the 10,000 mark...

Drum-roll please...

Stickpoet is about to roll over the historic 10,000 hits mark- likely sometime tonight. An insignificant bit of trivia to some... Ok, I admit, it is exciting!

Exposure

Words Unwrapped

First Annual Kansas City New Years Day Read-a-thon

Gloria Vando - joined by her mother and daughter - rounded out three generations of talent at The Writers Place on New Years day for the first annual read-a-thon. More on Gloria here.

Gloria's mother, Anita Velez charmed the crowd.



Gloria's daughter, Anika Paris was sassey, brassy and classy as she read of New York exploits. More on Anika here.

The event ran from 1 p.m. till midnight. I was there from 1:00 till about 8:45 p.m. The talent was pretty consistent throughout my presence and the event stayed remarkably on target time-wise. I can't speak to how the late night crew was, but those of us there during the segment I was present offered an enjoyable event with a full range of poetry style and taste.

Here is moi - reading an epigram that I recently had published in the Park University Scribe. I did as I recall six or seven poems total.

I was joined by two other writer colleagues who belong to the Northland Writers group.




Scot Isom - one of the Northlanders took a break from a non-fiction book he is working on to join us.

Terry Weide another Northland member read from some of his "flash-fiction" and poetry.


There were far too many readers to mention all of them by name, but my hat is off to The Writers Place for putting this together. There were a steady stream of people in to hear us most of the day.

Sharon Eiker who organizes the monthly open-mic at The Writers Place patterned this off an event that has been ongoing in New York for many years. Her two very talented daughters Deborah Sweeney and Sarah Eiker also participated in the event.



Deborah Sweeney Singing - what a voice!




Sarah Eiker - both read her poetry and contributed greatly to the overall success as she helped organize Phi Theta Kappa's participation. This was their first service project for 2005. Great Job!!!

Looking forward to next year.

Long Assed Day of Poetry

Kicking off the New Year at The Writers Place - I was there from 1:00p.m. till 7:45p.m. to participate in their New Years Day readings. Some kick-ass poetry - very enjoyable evening that was still running till midnight tonight when I left.

I have some pictures that will follow - likely tomorrow. I'm too tired to download them right now. It was a great start to the year to be able to share my own work with so many other inspiring writers as well. I'll do a recap tomorrow!

Happy New Years form Stick Poet!