Poetry Friday: The Gift Shift 2

Today's host is Buffy Silverman.
Pass the latkes and head on
over to Buffy's blog
for some delicious poetic treats.

Last week, I started a brief holiday series on gift giving. Instead of presents under the tree or gelt beside the menorah, I'm "buying" for some wonderful literary non-profits.

I love this stackable travel menorah from Traditions.
Menorahs are in the news: The New York Post ran this
 adorable article on celebrity's and their menorahs.

We have already looked at two organizations committed to social justice in the literary world and beyond. You can read about Split This Rock and We Need Diverse Books here.

Today, my focus is store-front literary centers. I picked one in Baltimore and one closer to Washington, D.C. Full disclosure: I am a member of both organizations.

What makes a great literary center? Things I look for are:

• Provides a venue for literary readings.
• Sponsors events such as literary gatherings, book signings, and plays.
• A library or bookshop including member's books and/or literary magazines.
• Writing classes focused on craft.
• Programs for young writers.
• Bonus: Workspace available for writers.

LITMORE

New on the local scene is Baltimore's LitMore. Poet Julie Fisher and company took over an unused rectory in Baltimore a little over two years ago. LitMore does all of the above, providing a cozy home for the sometimes scattered literary scene in our city. They also offer retreats and book discussion groups. Poet Christophe Cassamassima is in charge of the library. When my bookshelves get overcrowded, I like sending literary magazines and poetry chapbooks to Chris at LitMore.

Here is LitMore's schedule of upcoming events.
Interested in donating/becoming a member? Click here.

THE WRITER'S CENTER

Based in the DC suburb of Bethesda, The Writer's Center has been around forever. They are huge supporters of their members, who can share news in the center's regular publication, which also includes their extensive list of courses taught -- and attended -- by fine local authors. Every weekend, you'll find top-notch authors and members with new books reading their work at TWC. The library is a great place to browse regional and national literary magazines if you're looking for places to submit your work to. They also offer craft classes in Alexandria, Virginia and Annapolis, Maryland, if you want to avoid commuting. Sue Ellen Thompson, whose work I featured earlier this fall, is a favorite instructor. You can also take classes with children's authors like Mary Quattlebaum.

Donate to The Writer's Center here.

Since it is Poetry Friday, here is a winter poem by Sue Ellen Thompson.

Falling on Ice
by Sue Ellen Thompson

You're in a hurry, rushing
out the door, just as the January sky

begins to pale. You're looking
at the geese that rise

in a consensus from the river so nearby
and for a moment you, too,

leave the earth and fly.
But as their undersides

pass over you, you
drop the way that blossoms

drop, their momentary
weightlessness turned instantly

to weight when their trajectory's
completed. And all day,

as you hold the wrist you hope
is just a sprain, you're thinking

not about the pain and not
about that moment when your weight

was lifted from you, but of the suddenness
with which the earth reclaimed you--

like the husband who relinquished you
six months ago with your assurances

that he should take the job,
that you'd be fine here on your own.

And now you cannot scrub a pot
or hook your bra without him.

Click here to order a copy of They.

Do you have a great literary center in your home town? Tell us about it in the comments.

What Is a Prompt?

When I'm working with elementary schoolers, I define writing prompts as: "When authors give themselves a homework assignment." If we were athletes, prompts might be the drills we'd run through -- like running around traffic cones.

www.footiewallpapers.com

Getting a poem out of a prompt is like scoring a goal at the game after putting in a hard practice. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes not.


This week, I asked each of the poets visiting Little Patuxent Review from North Carolina to send me a poem and the prompt that inspired it.


You may have seen Richard Krawiec's response -- beware of prompts that are really just gimmicks. As in Debra Kaufman's poem yesterday, a good writing exercise is designed with room for the poet to make choices about subject, structure, and tone.


The third member of our literary exchange is Stephanie Levin -- a Baltimore native! and award-winning poet based in Chapel Hill, NC. She has a book, Smoke of Her Body, forthcoming from Jacar Press.

Stephanie says today's poem "was born from a self-imposed prompt that was meant to make me feel like less of an outsider to formal verse.  I’d studied meter and rhyme, admired sonnets and villanelles from afar, but never connected to formal verse in a way that made me feel as though I could, myself, write in that manner. And then I read Kim Addonizio’s poetry, and I felt the top of my head come off.

"For the first time, I recognized a matching of sound and sense that felt completely inevitable.  For the first time, I got it.  The poems that pushed me over the edge, though, into being determined to try form in my own writing were her paradelles – a form created by Billy Collins to make light of the elaborate requirements for forms like the villanelle.   

"Collins’ own paradelle is so wonderfully ridiculous.  Its dead-pan tone brought to light the self-importance I feared would plague any of my attempts at formal verse.  The paradelle was an invitation to be shameless.  So here it is: my first paradelle.  I don’t love it.  But I love the door into formal verse that it has opened for me."

Turning 35:  A Paradelle 

by Stephanie Levin

It’s not aging, just an errant strand.

It’s not aging, just an errant strand.

White wire poking from my hair.

White wire poking from my hair.

Not just from poking it.  Wire hair.

Strand my white, an errant aging.

What’s next: deep creases in the neck?

What’s next: deep creases in the neck?

My arms as chilled pudding?

My arms as chilled pudding?

What’s chilled increases.  Put in

my next neck.  The arms as deep.

This is the only life.

This is the only life.

I won’t repeat this skin.

I won’t repeat this skin.

Repeat only this:  I won’t.

This is the life’s kin.

Here is an explanation of the paradelle form. You can also visit my friend, poet Ken Ronkowitz' literary blog, "Weekends in Paradelle." 

Meet Stephanie this weekend at one of Little Patuxent Review's events. Friday, March 2, LPR is sponsoring a reading.  Stephanie will be one of the featured poets. It runs 6:30pm until 9:30pm (reading begins at 7, open mic at 8) with light food, wine and maybe even music. The reading is hosted by Wisdom Well, 8955 Guilford Road, Suite 240, in Columbia.

Saturday, March 3, Stephanie, Richard Krawiec and Debra offer a workshop at the Bethesda Writers Center, "Crafting Images." This runs 12-3 PM and will cover all writing genres. Registration information is here. There is still space!

Saturday evening is Little Patuxent Review's Social Justice reading at The Writers Center. Debra will be a reader and panelist. The reading begins at 7:30 PM.

My favorite book on formal verse is A Handbook of Poetic Forms. It's a bit outdated. You won't find new/ currently popular forms like paradelle, fibonacci poems and haibun there. Maybe one of you can recommend a new book on form for me.

By the way -- a great prompt or exercise for revision: run your draft through an unexpected form. It might feel like you're racing around cones, but you may make some useful discoveries about the poem.

Goodbye to Barbie

Our daughter is a collector. When she was little, there were always pebbles, coins and bits of things in her pockets. She is an avid American Doll kid (even making food and knitting scarves for her dolls) and has more Littlest Pet Shop figures than I care to count. She even has -- against my better judgment -- Barbies.

I wasn't a Barbie person. When my friends brought their dolls out, I always wanted the doll who was a little different, with dark or red hair. Barbie made her way into my daughter's life via birthday gifts and Nana time. Nana is an expert at doing Barbie hair.


I was not sad, a few weeks back, when we said goodbye to Barbie. She and her friends were in plastic supermarket bags, naked or partially dressed, their hair entwined as only plastic hair can be. My sister-in-law said "no" to Barbie enjoying a second life with her daughter, age 4. I can't blame her.


Many women have mixed feelings about the fashion doll, especially as a play thing for our daughters.


Here is what Debra Kaufman, one of the North Carolina poets visiting this coming weekend, had to say about Barbie.

"There are good prompts and poor ones--the best ones work as talismans to stir some memory, fresh observation, or unexpected imagery or narrative and are in no way proscriptive. In this case the teacher laid out varied objects (a skeleton key, decorative cufflinks, a small glazed imperfect bowl, a nest, and so on) and asked us to take one and write about it. I chose a naked, disheveled-haired Barbie doll, and this poem came pretty much just as it is."

To a Barbie

by Debra Kaufman

She dresses you in evening gowns,

pushes shoes onto your

achingly arched feet,

bends you at the waist

and forces you into Ken’s car,

Ken’s boat, Ken always

whisking you away.

She moves your arms:

wave hello, better wear your windbreaker.

How tiring to have a pink

smile painted on

over a smear of white teeth,

your eyes, the blue of a chlorine pool,

always open.

Would you be happier alone

in the kitchen with your miniature

stove and tiny, unbreakable cups?
Mmm, this coffee sure tastes good,

she says for you, then strips

you again, rakes the comb

through your coarse, bleached hair,

then drops you in hot sand

under a killer sun;

grit gets in your cracks

while she eats an ice cream cone.

Naked, you wait—pert, expectant—

fated never to be loved for yourself,

but only as the plaything

of this moody little girl

now coming at you

with scissors in her hand.

You have a few chances to meet Debra and check out her award-winning book this weekend.

Friday, March 2, Little Patuxent Review is sponsoring a reading. Debra will be one of the featured poets. It runs 6:30pm until 9:30pm (reading begins at 7, open mic at 8) with light food, wine and maybe even music. The reading is hosted by Wisdom Well, 8955 Guilford Road, Suite 240, in Columbia.

Saturday, March 3, Debra, Richard Krawiec and Stephanie Levin -- our other two visiting poets -- offer a workshop at the Bethesda Writers Center, "Crafting Images." This runs 12-3 PM and will cover all writing genres. Registration information is here -- the price was recently reduced!

Saturday evening is Little Patuxent Review's Social Justice reading at The Writers Center. Debra will be a reader and panelist. The reading begins at 7:30 PM. We'll have copies of the ground-breaking issue and posters of the amazing cover, art by Theaster Gates, for sale.

I like the writing exercise that Debra shared. For a high school, or even middle school class, writing produced from this grab bag of junk might produce an interesting group project. If you're working alone, try raiding the junk drawer, or write about something that should have -- like my daughter's Barbies -- gone out with the trash long ago.

Friday Night Reading at Wisdom Well

I have some exciting poetry news. But first, a few updates are in order:


This weekend, we attended services for Grant Learman. Several of his teachers told stories about Grant's sly, silly humor and love of hanging out with kids his age. My kids said I should buy a tissue factory. Grant's just one of those kids you meet and think of as one of your own. (My post about his death is here.) After the service, we shared some of his favorite foods: Cheez Doodles, pizza and chocolate.

I will not be traveling to Nottingham for Auntie Mary's funeral. However, I will be there in spirit. Her daughter asked me to look for a poem for the services. Mary's love of flowers and long-term marriage to my uncle, Howard, brought Wendell Berry's "The Wild Rose to Mind."

Last piece of business. I have a new poetic obsession. I am working on something connected with photographer Francesca Woodman. Have you seen the documentary, "The Woodmans?" It's about Woodman, her artist family, and how her suicide has affected them. Highly recommended.


Now for some exciting poetry news. One of the other 100,000 Poets for Change hosts got in touch with me. Would Little Patuxent Review be interested in doing a literary exchange? Would we?! Of course. The exchange coincides with the recent release of our powerful Social Justice issue.

This weekend, we have three poets visiting from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I will be featuring their work this week.


You'll have a chance to hear Richard Krawiec, Debra Kaufman and Stephanie Levin on:


1. Friday Evening, 3/2 LPR at Wisdom Well
Our three visiting poets will be featured at a free reading, with open mic! I'm hoping we'll also have some snacks, wine and music. The reading is at a brand new wellness center that you'll want to check out -- they offer acupuncture and other healing arts.


Details:
Friday, March 2, 2012 
6:30pm until 9:30pm (Reading begins at 7, open mic at 8)

Wisdom Well 8955 Guilford Road Suite 240, Columbia Books by the featured poets and issues of LPR will be on sale. 2. Saturday workshops at The Writers Center (I'll post details soon, but you can find the workshops: Crafting Images (register here) and Ripped from the Headlines: Writing Poems about Hot Topics (register here.)) 3. Saturday evening at The Writers Center, LPR Social Justice reading with our visiting poets, and LPR contributors, including Dr. Tony Medina On to today's poem, by Richard Krawiec.        Richard is founder of Jacar Press, which supports local authors in Chapel Hill, and haibun editor for Notes from the Gean. This poem resonates for me today, as my family lets go of two important human beings. "Truly See" originally appeared at Prime Number.

Truly See

by Richard Krawiec.

 

They leave you, these ghosts,

and just when you think

they will never return

a single word aneurysm

pulls your grandmother

shuffling into sight,

wearing hairnet and apron,

smiling as she lifts the pot holders,

that memory more real

than the muted crackle

of dusk light on Fall’s red

leaves.  The sound of seizure

and your beloved

dog of twelve years pants

forward, cocks her head,

gives out a single yip, eager

for one more walk.  

Drowned swirls

Arlene’s purple-stained face

up from the whirlpool

of dish suds in the sink,

as if she’s rising

from the muddy bottom

of the lake where she took her final

sleep.  Everyone is so weary.

The ghosts miss you

as much as you miss them.

Can anyone say

what’s real?

Michael’s choir-smooth face

no longer gunshot

as you once again sprawl

on the rug whose mold

scent makes you sneeze

even now, forty years later.

He giggles the word Gesundheit.

The dog licks you hand warm.

If you don’t look closely

at the rain drizzle which spots

the darkening windows,

you can truly see

your grandmother bending

to rattle a sheet of cookies

from her gas oven; 

hear the hissing warmth.

Here is a note from Richard on using this poem as a model in the classroom:

"In this poem I was thinking about the difference between observation and memory.  Your memories often seem just as real as the day to day life you walk through.  Really, why can't a memory be just as real as an observation? We don't know enough about reality to say the reality of memory has less substance than what our senses observe."

If you or your students are using this poem as a jumping off point, Richard advises:

Free write (in prose or list form) about people, pets, places you remember.  Could be friends who moved, fields you played sports on when you were younger, etc. Try to get down as much as you can  remember seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.  When this pre-writing is done, talk briefly about what constitutes an image. Next, turn these free writes into poems by pulling out and developing the images contained within it.

Next, pick a setting from your life now.  Begin the poem, if you like, by setting your in a specific environment. Where are you, what are you doing?

Give students (or yourself) permission to try, and fail, to find their own way into a poem, Richard advises. "Otherwise you're not teaching poetry, you're teaching gimmicks."

I hope to see you on Friday evening. Be sure to bring your own writing to share.

Poetry Friday: Writing about Current Events

Crazy things are going on y'all, keeping me up at night.


News in my life: the death of my aunt, Mary; I performed at a fabulous reading last night in Baltimore's Greektown -- 60+ people (was it the free spanikopita?); my son's rugby drama; Maryland's same sex marriage bill moving forward; plus it's three AM and I still haven't written my Poetry Friday post.

Awesome series hosted by awesome Rafael Alvarez.

It's all swirly in my brain.


What do you do when the events of the day create thought loops in your head? Some of my favorite options are meditating, stress eating (does spanikopita come in chocolate?), talking it over with my family, writing about it.


This week, I heard about an online literary journal devoted to current events poetry. What a great concept. I have written a few "inspired by the headlines" poems. My friend, Shirley Brewer, has a great newspaper-line love poem, "Kentucky Valentine." (I'll have to ask her permission to share it some time.)

Using headlines for inspiration works well for high schoolers. Just grab a stack of newspapers and go leafing until something catches each writer's eye. Need model poems to look at? Read on!

For Poetry Friday, I'm sharing two favorites from The New Verse News, edited by James Penha.

The first is "Never Having Seen a Wave" by Rochelle Adams. This poem is about the European deep freeze. Visit The New Verse News to see an accompanying photo of a wave frozen in mid-crash.


Never Having Seen a Wave
by Rochelle Owens

Never having seen a wave
frozen in mid-air the glassblower

manifold images in his brain
the rays of the sun

amorphous the forms boiling forming
a floating toothed leaved plant

floating Acanthus
a Black Hole a crucible a bubble glowing

one millionth one millionth of a second
an episode

a ferocious s c a t t e r I n g
white ovals glassy crystals orbiting
never having seen a wave
 frozen in mid-air the glassblower

turning spinning blowing hail-stones
shaping winds oceans storms

storms eddying
layers of ice cracking piling lifting

molten glass swelling lifting arching
never having seen a wave

frozen in mid-air the glassblower
dipping into the furnace

around and around rolling and shaping
around and around

a gob of molten glass
melting shards spiraling flaring
glittering hot glass
amorphous dazzling light frozen

in the glassblower’s brain

The rest of the poem is here.

I shared the next poem, "On the Death of Whitney Houston," with a friend who felt that loss deeply.

Whitney came on the scene when I was a teen.

On the Death of Whitney Houston
by David Feela

The news of her death arrives
in a paper cup, bitter and dark,
barely enough to cover the bottom,
its sediment like a fine powder,
and though you know it’s fresh,
you’ve tasted this cup before.

All day her songs will play
on the radio, on the television

The rest of the poem is here.

When I heard about my aunt's death, I needed to write about it. Within a couple of hours, I had a draft of a poem. It made me feel better to read the draft at last night's event, raw as her passing is, to share a little of her story.

If you live in the DC area and this topic appeals to you, come down to the Bethesda Writers Center next Saturday (3/3). Poet Patricia VanAmburg and I are offering a three hour workshop called, "Ripped from the Headlines: Writing Poems about Hot Topics." Link for registration is here.
(Wow! Registration just went on sale.)

Have a great Poetry Friday, friends. In today's PF news, Jone at Check it Out is our host! Stop by for more poetry posts.