A Few Poetry Workshops You May Have Missed
Wright Markets Poetry For the Consumer Mind
Award-winning poet CD Wright visits Columbia to deliver a lecture on the place of poetry in the public discourse.
Published Tuesday 10 November 2009 07:13pm EST.
How does poetry keep on keeping on?
This is what award-winning poet CD Wright will discuss for the Creative Writing Lecture Series at the School of the Arts on Thursday. Her lecture, “Concerning Why Poetry Offers a Better Deal than the World’s Biggest Retailer,” explores the position of poetry within the public discourse, as an artistic force in the commercial and social environment in which we now live.
Wright Markets Poetry For the Consumer Mind
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Sean Hannity and Rep. Michele Bachmann(R-MN) two peas in a pod!
I occasionally read the Books Blog at guardian.co.uk and today Jo Shapcott caught my attention with the title Do women write ‘female’ poetry?
I suppose my interest was principally raised because I’ve given a fair amount of consideration to the realization that my list of poetry reading as well as my favorite poets to read is weighted significantly in favor of female poets. I’ve not quite figured out for sure why though the exploration of this will likely make for a later post.
I don’t think Sharpcott really ever quite adequately defines what makes female poetry. I think I expected more of the blog post but it did come away with a couple of interesting thoughts. Sharpcott comes to this conversation by way of a panel discussion at the Aldeburgh poetry festival. I was somewhat taken back by the fact that she reported that the women on the panel decided it was important not to let gender dominate their writing ( at least initially ) in order that the language can lead it in unanticipated directions, BUT it was pretty clear that such thoughts are not expected of men, their poetry is set as a kind of default mode. I have trouble seeing this “default mode” she speaks of.
The second thing that bugged me about this piece was the the statement that women are happy to devour anything that is good (I hate the subjectivism of good here) male readers are sometimes nervous of poetry books by women. I suppose I was put here to be the counterbalance among men and I tend not be be unnerved by poetry written by woman.
First it was How to kill a poem (before it even starts) and now she gives us How to defibrillate a poem (before it's too late). Biddinger is cracking me up. But seriously I’m glad to know that "Just Me Being a Shithead” constitutes a poetic device.
A few lines from recent journal entries:
My wife was visiting my daughters in Arizona this past week and I got this test from her and as I read it come across my phone I was nodding my head… “yes, yes!” I acknowledged her message and she said what she sent me she was a quote on a poster at ASU. She said she knew I would appreciate it. She knows me well.
What she sent me was a quote from Alberto Alvaro Rios – poet and professor of English at ASU [pictured here left] and it’s a poignant expressing of the task of writing. What she texted me follows:
“The public job of a writer is to write. But the private and secret job of the writer is to listen. Writing itself is finally clerical but listening is a life’s work. By listening we must include the sweetwork of the eye the skin the tongue the nose. This then is the true language of writers. The language of listening.” ~Alberto Alvaro Rios.
A life’s work… This is so very much related to what my conception of being a poet is about. Listening, observing, seeing things that you might otherwise miss. Seeing things in a variety of perspectives. Searching the natural world, your own soul and the history of the human experience. Putting this all together and recording it. This is to me what being a poet is all about. Listening and letting what you hear inform what you write.
We all have heard the mantra, Read, write, re-write.. I believe listen needs to be a part of that cycle of process.
