I don’t usually post links to YouTube, but I think this is a piece of video poetry theater: Charlie Rose by Samuel Beckett In other future poetry news, Al Young’s poem “April in Paris” is animated and viewable at Blue’s Cruzio Cafe. I liked “Weeds” too, another animated video. This is the future of poetry online, blending visual art and poetry in motion with audio. Little poetry movies. I’d Paypal a dime apiece to view…
Thinking about magazines that focus on this, also books and anthologies. I have several anthologies, most of which are poor. Anyone know of other journals or zines that have an earth- or place-centered focus? I’d like to compile a list. In other news … Red Hen Press, publisher of Letters to the World, the fabulous (okay, I’m in it) anthology of the women poets listserv, just put up some new rave reviews of the book.…
Ecotone is an interesting journal I just came across, with an interesting mission: re-imagining place. They would like to see “creative work about the environment and the natural world while avoiding the hushed tones and clichés of much of so-called nature writing.” I don’t know about avoiding hushed tones. I rather like them. Their contest now running is for poems celebrating Charles Darwin. That’s as narrow-focus and fascinating as almost any poetry contest I’ve heard…
This one’s for the birds. Literally. A new lit-mag devoted to bird literature — poetry, fiction nonfiction, something called narrative scholarship (love the sound of that), all about birds. The LBJ is named for the birders acronym which = little brown job, i.e. small brown hard-to-identify birds. As someone who does a little birdwatching, I’ll be watching for their July debut issue. Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.
Still thinking about last night’s appearance by Robert Hass at Walnut Creek’s Lindsay Wildlife Museum, I found this article by Sue Gilmore in the Contra Costa Times announcing the upcoming event. It’s a good profile of Hass and captures some of the inspiring and hopeful quality of his talk and reading. He made a statement that impressed me: that he had learned about the importance of community from becoming Poet Laureate. It speaks to a…
Never let it be said there is no cultural life east of the Caldecott Tunnel. (That’s a local Bay Area joke.) Robert Hass, former U.S. Poet Laureate and winner — a few days ago — of the Pulitzer Prize, spoke tonight and read poetry in Walnut Creek. He appeared at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, a unique wildlife hospital and museum and a perfect venue for this highly earth-conscious poet. I just got back from the…
Check out Jilly Dybka’s article on Poetry Hug about Amazon’s move to restrict POD publishers from listing their books with Amazon unless they use Amazon’s own Booksurge printing service. Another monopoly grows bigger. Scroll down in the article to the link “Why This Sucks So Much For Small Publishers.” I’m concerned. The publisher of my book Femme au chapeau is David Robert Books (a WordTech imprint), uses Lightning Source. They say that quality is an…
Happy Poetry Month! For those of you in the U.S. And for those of you who think the header on this blog is gibberish, it stands for National Poetry Month Write More (or something like that). It’s an exercise started a few years back in which a group of poets commit to writing a poem a day for the month and either workshopping them or comparing notes in some way — or not. I am…
Living by candlelight is charming. For about an hour, and then I wanted to be able to read. Thank you, Thomas Alva Edison! And Phylo T. Farnsworth. The invention of the television is pretty good too. I mean, I can only read so fast. Now that I have the History Channel and PBS 24/7, I’m much better informed than I used to be. Tell that to the next person who whines about what a vast…
Turn off your lights for an hour tonight – 8-9 pm. Surely you can think of something to do by candlelight or in the dark. It’s a worldwide demonstration of the power that can be saved by thoughtfulness about energy use. You can sign up on the U.S. Earth Hour website — or if the website is overwhelmed, which it was when I tried to visit — just do it. An hour. A power beyond…