For the third year in a row I've produced a Poetry Month broadside featuring one of my poems that has been previously published elsewhere. They have finally arrived from the printers. I have 100 of them and they are available at your request as long as they last. If you would like one of these please drop me a note with your snail mail address at stickpoet@aol.com. It's just a little something I started doing to celebrate poetry.
Counting the poem for today (which I'm still working on) there are 6 remaining in the April challenge.
I must say that a very badly want to do a free write, without a prompt, without a pre-determined
topic and the pressures that have come with this challenge. Yes, April is the cruelest month!
On another note, I was reading the comments on a post by Kelli and checked out Ouroboros Review that received a thumbs up by Maya. It has a very professional on line presence. I was truly impressed. I also noticed Deb Scott has a couple of poems in the most recent issue.
Two other reviews I like have releases up...Right Hand Pointing - issue 25 and Autumn Sky Poetry - issue 13
Meanwhile, back to the poem I was working on.
I suppose one could argue that poetry has become a habitual aspect in my life. Without considering this in a negative connotation that is often associated with the word habitual, I have up till now viewed this in the context of what I have considered a lifestyle. For several years, I have convinced myself that a poet (or any artist) would only enhance their level of creativity by developing a lifestyle that had a vigilant awareness to their surroundings that allowed them to constantly be open the the poetry in things.
What would follow or at least one would hope- transforming theory to reality, is that by achieving this poetic point of view, it could only result in good things in connection with their work. If you hand not fully achieved a poetic lifestyle, to the extent you were striving to get there, again would be a positive thing, no?
Perhaps achieving such a state of mental awareness and focus has noting to do with improving the poet's work. What if it is simply symptomatic of a neurosis?
Ugh! I almost forgot to mention that I'm reading tomorrow at the Westport Branch of the K.C Public Library.
118 Westport Road, Kansas City, MO 64111I
4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Yes, I've been silent a couple of days, but don't think that I'm not still going on the poem-a-day challenge! I was sifting through some of them this evening and I can say there are four or five that could have some potential. Yes, there are some really bad ones, but truth is you've got to be willing to put a lot of bad ink on a page to get there.
In poetry news elsewhere, I was delighted to see W S Merwin win a Pulitzer for his book The Shadow of Sirius. I cannot say that I believe the book warrants the prize as I have not read it. But I am very fond of Merwin's work and have nothing but praise for Migration for which he won a National Book Award. I am anxious to read his new one. You can find an interview for NPR by Terry Gross of Merwin here. Also, Ruth Stone was a runner up this year. I must remember to read some of her work, I haven't read her for a while.
Oh, and three cheers for Sandra Beasley - 2009 BARNARD WOMEN POETS PRIZE AWARDED TO SANDRA BEASLEY
If poetry should address itself to the same needs and aspirations, the same hopes and fears, to which the Bible addresses itself, it might rival it in distribution. ~Wallace Stevens
KANSAS CITY, MO.- The exhibition The Poetics of Space is on view April 10, 2009–March 14, 2010, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Through photographs by William Christenberry, Lynn Davis, Walker Evans, Todd Hido, Anthony Lepore, and Mike Sinclair, among others, the exhibition reveals the mysterious and poetic worlds dwelling within domestic, urban, and natural spaces. The exhibition includes more than 20 photographs by 17 artists from the Kemper Museum’s permanent collection.
Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net
