Trying not to sweat it...

Hot and sweaty at the keyboard. No, I haven't been working on the great American Novel. Not to worry Eileen, I'm not compiling a poetry book even larger then the brick (grin) but rather I just got off the tread mill.

This afternoon I read at the second annual Kansas City Library Poetry Slam. I ended up doing three poems: Channeling Sylvia, Coming Out, and Freedom Summer Redux.

There were a number of really good readings but I was dismayed by some of the more "rap-ish" readings. For example, the winner was very good at presentation, but I'm not sure that it was not extemporaneous. Basically his message (and I'll give him credit for having one) was that he hasn't finished yet. He's just warming up. He can't NOT do poetry, he just has to get it out. A pretty generic message, but it was there. If you want to award points on passion (and I think passion is tremendously important) he had it. As to literary content - it was void. Somewhere along the line I think there should be a vortex. The two should actually come together. But hey, no one asked me to judge.

Postcards from Abu Ghraib

Photos mom wouldn’t approve
That would fail a test
Of community standards
Closing down a bookstore

Photos the government defends hiding
Of America in action
Telling a story

Photos the Pentagon fear
Will inflame
Embarrass
Incite

Photos
The Department of Defense
Has no defense for

Rx

Poetry wants to come out at a party in flashing attire. Poetry wants to shout with lungs of an opera singer from a mountaintop. It wants to say things unimaginable- cause you to think, to laugh, and to cry. Mostly it wants you to feel because the world has become so numb.

You don’t have to understand all of it- just let it be what it is. Poetry is the antidote.

These Last Days

Air like iceberg lettuce
Morning sun shyly holds back
Lower in the sky

Windshields are Post-it notes
For tiny fingers

Listen-
You can hear ballparks deflating
And birds packing for long trips

Mid-Week Madness

Christine has done it again....

OMG - the New Yorker - every issue since time eternal on DVD for $100 bucks!
Actually - there is as deal on this page that gets it down to sixty some bucks - see the side bar click for Amazon click button.

From Katrina comes poetic expression.

Three Weeks Of Mania in KC Poetry

The coming three weeks are ripe with poetry events in the Kansas City Area.


October 1 - Saturday 1 p.m. POETRY SLAM The Kansas City Public Library will host a poetry slam at the Central Library 14 W. 10th Street - Kansas City, Missouri. The event will be in the Nutter Family Cafe locate within the library. A $100 prize will be awarded.

October 5 - Wednesday 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. Branching Out Poetry Workshop
The Kansas City Library in cooperation with Branching Out - Poetry for the 21st Century will conduct a poetry workshop that is open to the public. Event in the Helzberg Auditorium. Central Library 14 W. 10th Street - Kansas City, Missouri.

October 7 - Friday 7 p.m. - Mary Joe Slater will present "More and the Writing Life" (Marianne Craig Moore 1887 - 1972) at Unity Temple on the Plaza - 707 W. 47th St - Kansas City, Missouri.


October 15 - Saturday 2 p.m. Branching Out Poetry Workshop This is a repeat of the October 5th workshop above with different presenters.
Everything else (location, etc. the same)

Get this!

Someone used the google search: Michael Brown super hero to arrive at this site. Talk about an oxymoron.