Mary Oliver Event Rescheduled for Wednesday…

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POET MARY OLIVER RESCHEDULED FOR MAY

LAWRENCE – The Hall Center for the Humanities is pleased to announce that Mary Oliver’s visit has been rescheduled. Celebrated poet and winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Mary Oliver will visit KU as part of the Hall Center for the Humanities’ 2009-2010 Humanities Lecture Series. Best known for her poetry’s lyrical connection to the natural world, Oliver will do a reading and take questions from the audience on Wednesday, May 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the Lied Center. This free event, supported by the Sosland Foundation of Kansas City, is open to the public. Kansas Public Radio is a co-sponsor.

The public will have a second opportunity to visit with the poet during “A Conversation with Mary Oliver,” which will take place at the Hall Center Conference Hall on Thursday, May 6 at 10:00 a.m. The author of 18 collections of poetry, most notably the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Primitive (1983) and New and Selected Poems, Volume One (1992), which garnered a National Book Award, Oliver is firmly established among the most accomplished of American poets. She is especially renowned for her evocative and precise imagery, which brings nature into clear focus, transforming the everyday world into a place of magic and discovery. Her most recent collections are The Truro Bear and Other Adventures (2008), new poems and beloved classics about creatures of all sorts, and Evidence (2009). Red Bird (2008) was an immediate national bestseller.Mary Oliver has received the Lannan Foundation Literary Award, the New England Booksellers Association Award for Literary Excellence, and the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award, among others. In 1980, her creativity and skill were recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship. Oliver attended Ohio State University and Vassar College, then a women’s college. Over the past two decades she has taught at various colleges and universities – Case Western Reserve, Bucknell, Sweet Briar College, the University of Cincinnati and Bennington College in Vermont.

Founded in 1947, the Humanities Lecture Series is the oldest continuing series at the University of Kansas. More than 150 eminent scholars from around the world have participated in the program, including author Vladimir Nabokov, painter Thomas Hart Benton and author Aldous Huxley. Recent speakers have included Samantha Power, Michael Chabon, and T. R. Reid. Shortly after the program’s inception, a lecture by one outstanding KU faculty member was added to each year’s schedule.

For more information, please contact the Hall Center at hallcenter@ku.edu or call (785) 864-4798.                   # # #

Technorati Tags: Mary Oliver,Poetry

April is going…going…almost gone

It’s the eve of the final day of National Poetry Month. I’m conflicted as I write this tonight because I have been somewhat remiss personally in making the most of this month. I started NaPoWriMo and regular readers will already know, I bailed on it last week. For the past three years I’ve printed nicely produced broadsides to give away, but I departed from that this year, largely as a cutback in spending. In past years I’ve done other things- such as daily quotes by poets or favorite poems. For Poem-In-Your-Pocket day (today) I did carry a favorite W.S. Merwin poem on small slips of paper that I gave out to some of the people I cane in contact with. I carried this out with a sense of duty to inflict poetry on others.  ;)
Still, there have been remarkable things happen this month.  I participated in a 120 hour poetry filibuster reading to set a new record for continuous poetry reading passing the old record of 56 hours and 25 minutes set in 1978. We were successful in reaching the 120 mark and it was all documented in video.Also on the personal front, I had two poems accepted for publication this month.
I noted today that until mid-night tonight you can cast your vote for the Poet Laureate Of The Blogosphere. This is the 5th year I believe that this annual vote has been held.
Poet Kelli Russell Agodon has orchestrated the participation of some 55 poets and publishers all giving away at least 2 poetry books each in drawings this month. If you’ve not entered, you can find the list on the sidebar of her blog and quickly enter them, but time is running out. Each of the poets and publishers participating obviously are a important part of making this awesome April event – but Kelli has been organizer, solicitor and cheerleader as the event has grown to what it has become. Over 110 books – can you believe it?!! Kelli tirelessly has been promoting poetry – but then she seems does this year round. 
Has poetry month been good to you or challenging? Tell me about your Poetry month activities. 

Technorati Tags: National Poetry Month,NaPoWriMoiMo,Kelli Russell Agodon,Poet Laureate of the blogosphere,poetry filibuster

Confession Tuesday - The Trash Edition

If tomorrow is trash day… this must be Confession Tuesday. Come with me to the confessional.


Dear Reader~


If I may speak of trash day for a moment… I confess to having missed paying the trash bill. This of course leads to no trash pick up. We should be good tomorrow, but the trash man will get an extra dose of trash. ~0~


The yesterday in a conversation with a co-worker there was a discussion of food people stay away from. I confess, as I did then, that there are a number of food items I will not eat. To name a few, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise (don’t even like to say that word… it creeps me out) to name a few. I don’t do toad stools – they are fungus for God’s sake. There are more, but you get the picture. I confess that I may be an OCD food person. Let me go further on this point. When eating food on my plate, I will often stick to finishing on dish before moving on to the next. Especially if there is something I’m crazy over on the menu. If this is the case, I confess that I don’t want to share my taste buds with anything but that food. I will often save it till last and not for example meander all over the plate, a bite of corn, a taste of roll and then onto another. I prefer not to commingle my food that way. Odd, I know. ~0~


Feeling the obligation to speak of poetry here, and since I am confessing, I am a NaPoWrMo failure for 2010. I’m raising my hand as I confess so that all may see. (Woof whistle) “Yeah, over here, I’m talking about ME!” Last week I threw in the towel and said f*** it.


You see, I had gotten behind a day and continued running behind a day for about three days and was not happy with what I was writing anyway, so I just decided the world was not going to end if I stopped. Little did I know, my wife was going to miss reading them. She sent me an e-mail to that effect and I then stopped and wrote one and sent it to her.


I’ve written since, I just am not following the prompts from “poetic asides” which I was not as impressed with this year as last. It seemed like everything was something (filling the blank) or (fill in the blank) something. I’m not trying to blame the prompt maker for my failure; I’m just saying this didn’t add much extra incentive to remain committed to the write.


So there you have it… standing bare before you… you see me as I am.

Unconscious Mutterings Week 378

You Say.... I think:

• 1.Hell :: go to
• 2.Scott :: Dred
• 3.Dominion :: over earth
• 4.Stunt :: driver
• 5.Cougar :: wild cat
• 6.Columbia :: sportswear
• 7.Gasp :: surprised
• 8.Cancerous :: cigarettes
• 9.Bitty :: Beans
• 10.Quit :: fed up

Get your own list here

Dogs Dream in Splotches

Dogs dream in splotches
all my dreams are linear

I wish for them the color
of my dreams—  but I want novellas
not epics.


I want my dreams to stay in one place
for a while—  my mind is weary
of the night time journeys;


I long for one that cuddles up to me
not orders me to march in night madness
bayonet at my back across continents
for years on end...   Just a little smudge will do—
till morning comes.

The Darnedest Things

The rain seems to have settled in for a spell. Ominous looking sky moved in and had sort of frozen in place like it moved in to stay. When I was out earlier it was a bit muggy but inside there is the chill that one normally associated with a damp chilly day and there seems no in between.

My daughter called from Arizona and asked if I saw their Governor on the news.  If you’ve caught any news in the past 24 hours you’ve probably seen her, Governor Jan Brewer. My daughter’s voice wasn’t beaming with pride in the Governor but rather embarrassment maybe…

The law essentially instructs local law enforcement to seek out illegal immigrants in the state. It establishes an authority for them to ask for documentation where they believe the person appears to perhaps be an illegal (undocumented person) in this country. Interestingly enough the Governor believes that while she doesn't  know what an illegal looks like, she is pretty confident others in the state do. Listen to the video clip below.

 

Oh… I also fount this hysterical… The Sue Lowden Health Care Plan.  Sue is running for Senate against Harry Reid in Nevada.  Anyway, time to get back to my regularly scheduled weekend.

Technorati Tags: Governor Jan Brewer,Arizona,Sue Lowden Health Care

Hugo House to Host Their First Writers' Conference

The Richard Hugo House will be hosting their first ever writers' conference over the weekend of May 21-23 and boy, have they got some good stuff in store for participants. The conference will include panels and workshops, among other festivities, to the theme of Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century.

Not only are we in the middle of a terrible economy, but the modern publishing world as we know it is going through a historical transition and looking fairly uncertain for many professionals and book lovers. Local bookstores are closing; our favorite magazines and newspapers are increasingly becoming thinner; the industry has seen hundreds of lay offs; and as this decade's most popular saying goes, "Everything is moving to the web."

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