Thanks Where Thanks is Due… from ImmaStar Productions

Mostly I seem to get announcements until some days I feel like a human Blackberry and appreciate follow-ups and fill-ins about events. Not just more fun and interesting for me (vicarious participation for the nearly housebound), but they also build interest and potential following for the next one. So thanks for filling me and I hope there will be videos too (hint, hint). 

Carlos writes, 

I don’t think it is a stretch to say there were nearly 100 people packed in a room that led onto the Nexus Brewery patio (people were sittin' on the floor), to watch I’ll Drink To That! IDTT, is a series I dreamt up well sippin’ on IPAs one day…

Now it’s here – a poetry and music series, that strives to be top-notch, inclusive, and engaging – entertaining, and relaxed in its approach. The first one went real well. The next one is scheduled for May 20 (at Tractor Brewery) and boasts a fun and impressive line-up.

The whole post is at Thanks Where Thanks is Due… | ImmaStar Productions. Carlos also asks performers or musicians who would like to be involved, please send a youtube link of your performance(s) to soothxsayer@yahoo.com.

#Literature, Meta-Analysis Goes Mainstream

Will this enhance or diminish reading? One wishes for the former but suspects the latter. Understanding references is hard won and a measure of ones own reading and life experiences. Touchstones are not gifts outright but treasures earned on the quest. Still, one cannot but wonder how they have done with Dante, hoping too that Godot flummoxes them.

The website Small Demons and the X-Ray feature of Amazon’s e-readers are the first in a new crop of digital literary tools that promise to change how readers interact with texts. By equipping users with digital reference frameworks, these new meta-analytical approaches give readers immediate access to the contextual worlds of literary works.

Fixed & Free poets read Sunday April 29

.. at Sunday Chatter to celebrate the recent release of Fixed and Free Poetry Anthology 2011, a collection of 79 poems from 79 poets—all of whom have read poems at the monthly Fixed and Free poetry reading founded by Billy Brown in 2008. 

Copies of the anthology will be available for sale at Sunday Chatter on April 29. 


Four Fixed & Free poets reading are

Dee Cohen is a new resident of Albuquerque. Her poems have been published in various journals on and off line. Her chap book Lime Ave Evening was published by the Laguna Poets.

Deborah Coy has loved words since the first time she was read Winnie The Pooh. They are her playthings, and sometimes they can be built into poetry.

Kenneth P. Gurney edits the New Mexico poetry anthology Adobe Walls. He participates in Albuquerque’s poetry scene at open mics and by hosting the monthly Adobe Walls poetry reading. His poetry appears on the web and in print regularly.

Aaron Trumm was a repeat member of the Albuquerque and Houston (TX) Slam Poetry Teams, and was the number 10 ranked slam poet in America.  He also is a musician and owner of NQUIT, a recording company with a studio in Albuquerque. 

#Writing Summaries, Tips & an Exercise from @WritersDigest

Because I'm trying to shift focus just a bit so that Fb page and plog (poetry + blog) are not just about poetry. After all, the name is Poets and Writers. 


Yes, I could have started with a survey or crowdsourcing and a FAQ page or something about shift and project. They are on the list, which, so far, has contributing more to procrastination than progress. Just do it time.

One of the challenges writers face when writing a novel is balancing scene with summary. Today’s tip of the day focuses on what you should not include when summarizing a scene or event. Plus, try your hand at writing summary with a free exercise from Novel Shortcuts.

Try This: A Summary Writing Exercise
(I shared this exercise with the Manzano Mountain Scribes, writing group and plan to adapt it for my online ESL self paced study and writing group. Handy for NaNoWriMo too)

Take a year of your life and try summarizing it into one paragraph. See if you find the most significant aspects to highlight. What changed that year? What would someone need to know in order for the next year of your life to make sense? Read it to someone else and see if they get a sense of that shortened journey through time. If you have trouble with a year of your own life, try summarizing a year of someone else’s life, a season of your favorite TV drama or comedy, a season for your favorite sports team. Repeat until ease sets in.

5 Tips for Writing Summaries From Novel Shortcuts | WritersDigest.com


PS no I haven't forgotten about Billy Brown's Fixed & Free or other area events ~ working on that post too.

A Sunday Poem for another day

A Poem For Sunday, originally, but now it's a poem for today or any day you read it. Here via Andrew Sullivan (source of copious and varied web curation as well as Sunday poems), the excerpt below is from The Awl, which also has videos and interesting articles.

Popout

An excerpt from "My God, It's Full Of Stars" by Tracy K. Smith, who won a Pulitzer this week:

Perhaps the great error is believing we're alone,
That the others have come and gone-a momentary blip-
When all along, space might be chock-full of traffic,
Bursting at the seams with energy we neither feel
Nor see, flush against us, living, dying, deciding,
Setting solid feet down on planets everywhere,
Bowing to the great stars that command, pitching stones
At whatever are their moons. They live wondering
If they are the only ones, knowing only the wish to know,
And the great black distance they-we-flicker in.

The poem continues.

(Footage from image sequences from NASA's Cassini and Voyager missions, from Sander van den Berg, via Philip Bump)

Fri Apr27 Reception & #OpenMic for #NPM/#NMSPS Convention @PageOneBooks

more #NMpoetry via Elaine Schwartz...

 

Page One Bookstore Celebrates National Poetry Month

and the New Mexico State Poetry Society

 

 Page One Bookstore and the NMSPS Albuquerque Chapter have partnered to present an open mic and reception to celebrate National Poetry Month and the NMSPS State Convention (April 28, 10am-8:30pm). This event is free and open to all. Please join us on Friday, April 27 from 6-8:30 pm.

Chandra Bales and Kenneth Gurney are coordinating with Page One on this free event. Page One will host a reception and Kenneth will host the open mic and featured poet readings.

When:    Friday, 27 April 2012

                Sign Up and Reception: 6:00 p.m.

                Open Mic and Featured Poets: 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

                Featured Poets: Jeanne Shannon and Hilda Wales

Where:   Page One Bookstore

                11018 Montgomery Blvd NE, Albuquerque

                southwest corner of Juan Tabo Blvd and Montgomery Blvd

               

We hope to see you there!

Belated for Hakim the Be-laureled

Late but in my defense, but didn't we all have a hunch the new laureate would be Hakim-Be? If not, then who has not heard so needs it announced another time? Besides, it's not as though there has not ample coverage before and after. This man is not invisible.

My own first encounter of a Be-kind was writing his  Poets & Writers Picnic Featured Reader introduction. Meeting him at the Picnic, he thanked me for "bridging page and stage" ~  immediately consigned to the favorite compliments collection and still cherished.

And selected links and comments  (far from comprehensive) to show not just respect but also give a sense of  both what Hakim brings to his latest role, Poet Laureate and a hint of what we can expect him to make of it.

Installation Sat Apr28 Community Mural" Tribute to Mountainair"!

A reminder from MMAC Events ...

 

The long-awaited community mural, "Tribute to Mountainair," will be installed starting at 9 AM on Saturday, April 28th! All are welcome to come and support the installation team on the side parking lot of the "B Street Market".

Volunteers and artists will add the final touches on the mosaic mural Wednesday the 25th from 10 AM to 1 PM at the Art Center on Broadway. This will include grouting and sealing the finished mosaics.  Please come, if you can help.

Thanks to all the many artists and volunteers who have donated so much time to the project, which is sponsored by the Manzano Mountain Art Council.

Mountainair mosaic process

Images waiting for assembly

Images in process

Laying out glass

Images taking shape

An owl awaits assembly

A flower laid out

Preparing the base

So what's on for tomorrow?

Try World Book Night, a celebration of reading and books which will see tens of thousands of people share books with others in their communities across America to spread the joy and love of reading on April 23.

LA PALABRA! Tonight in ABQ

Elaine Schwartz shares this announcement from Julie Brokken

---

EVENTFUL ! Posted: 19 Apr 2012 10:09 PM PDT La Palabra: The Word is a Woman   Opening Reception Poetry and PhotoExhibit Friday, April 20, 2012, 7 – 10 p.m. FYI: what is la palabra? check this link ❤ photo by Denver photographer Mariah Bottomly  "Speak with your images from yourheart and soul. Give of yourselves. Trust your gut reactions. Suck out thejuices – the essence of your life experiences. Get on with it; it may not betoo late." Marion Post Wilcott AlbuquerqueCenter for Peace and Justice 202 Harvard SE, Albuquerque, NM  87112 La Palabra began as a dynamic workshop held in March as part of the annual Women & Creativity series.  The workshop explored the idea ofcreation myths and the female creative principal facilitated by Jessica Helen Lopez. Writerscreated a literal and metaphorical "body" of work focused on the topography ofthe body in the context of its beauty and flaws, functionality and health,sex-positivity and sexual/gender identity.  Essential to the workshop was an on-going writing promptutilizing a collection of black and white photographs that portray the uniqueand varied landscape of the female body. For those who can't make it I will share my poetic contributions to this event with y'all online next week...  If you're in ABQ please come and bring donations for Safe House ❤

You are subscribed to email updates from RIPPLES FROM THE CENTER To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Ancient MFA Program Discovered

Poet training now and then... a deliciously don't miss blog post by Garret Caples at the Poetry Foundation.

I’ve been ill for much of this week, so I devoted an even greater portion of it than usual to lying in bed reading poems. Illness seems to have brought me back to the motherland, which in my case is 1000 Years of Irish Poetry (1947), edited by Kathleen Hoagland (NY: Welcome Rain, 2000), wherein I found the following:

The File or Ollambh required twelve years of instruction in poetic elements, the bard seven years. The Book of Ballymote describes the file’s ordination: when he received the degree of Ollambh he also received the right to wear the mantle of crimson bird feathers, the right to carry the golden musical branch or wand of office, and to fill the highest post in the kingdom next to the king. (xxxv)

Picture the student loans on that! Twelve years—7 if you went to Bard—but understand that being a pre-druidic file also meant being a wizard/soothsayer and lawyer/legislator so those years weren’t simply spent workshopping poems. You needed a certain breadth to be a poet back then.

Read the rest of Ancient MFA Program Discovered

Monday Poem: Topology

Today's "new" (because #NPM is the month to meet new poets) is a poem by 3 Quarks Daily poetry editor, Jim Culleny, also musician, poet, blogger, architect, designer, teacher and more

Topology

I love the space of your soul
the way it tends up and out
like that wide field in Conway
near the sugarhouse
which one spring blossomed
with dandelions
so dense and profuse
its rising hump
in the morning sun
was a mound of gold
whose brilliance
was more fabulous
than that most coveted ore

I love the niches and coves
of a soul that billows
like vapor through a sugarhouse roof,
through its cupola

—your sugarhouse soul
its volumes and transformations
its rich continuity
sweetens the shape of me

I love a soul that pushes
envelopes......... I love
the edgy ellipse of your
horizon harrowing soul

a soul both
now and soon
here and there
turned in turned out
which, if I follow its piper's
Mobius band,
will lead me round

not to the place I was
but to the better side
of where I am
.

by Jim Culleny
4/12/12

Monday Poem from 3QD

today is a words day

 ... a big day all over for words, down in Albuquerque and out here in Torrance County.

In Albuquerque today, it's Make Way for Wordsmiths: the city, already a poetry haven from page to stage, announces its first Poet Laureate, joining 42 other U.S. cities with a Poet Laureate program. The inaugural Albuquerque Poet Laureate will be revealed at today's announcement ceremony at the Main Library (501 Copper NW). Santa Fe Poet Laureate Joan Logghe and Centennial Poet Levi Romero will read.

That's not the end of it for the day's poetry either. April is National Poetry Month; this weekend marking mid point is poetry packed. Want to make a day or even weekend of it? Check Lisa Gill's "Surrender to Saturday April 14 Mayhem" overview at the Local Poets Guild. The mayhem, somewhat moderated, continues Sunday and Monday. 

The Intermedia Poetry Project

National Poetry Month is ~ or should be ~ about more than just more poetry events, more poems a day, more challenges writing one a day, pocket poems and all the other more of the same. All previously blogged one April or another. Notes for the obligatory "about NPM" post have been sitting in a folder since April 1 growing, gathering links, like dust bunnies under the bed, but without getting any closer to becoming a post. Without neglecting friends, poems and poets, let's spend the rest of the month meeting new ones, exploring experimental forms.

The rest of April remains. Let the adventure begin, starting with the Intermedia Poetry Project. Do you have an adventure to share?

 

About | The Intermedia Poetry Project and the future of the poem: physical, digital and mixed.