I want to make you famous, Marcee Lee!

This is a story written by Jacquelyne Smith (Bless her!), run in the Independent Florida Alligator. Marcee Lee Winthrop is the kind of woman that inspired Janet Leigh's poem Ode to Woman. Ms. Winthrop has what's called the "irrepressible spirit" of woman; she has courage, resiliency and a vision of how she wants to be seen. She sees herself as "poet," and she's even come up with the title of her first poetry book, Poverty Revolution Part 1: Skimming the Surface. Winthrop wrote her first poem as a part of a New Year's resolution to live up to her potential and improve her life. The poem was written based on her own experience living in poverty. Winthrop is raising her 13 year old daughter after being left on their own by her husband who left in early March.

Winthrop faces a number of obstacles in her daily life. Starting with a full set of teeth, she now has 3 left, all in the front, and because of this physical characteristic and her lack of job experience, she remains unemployed. The loss of her teeth has been personally painful and brings her much anguish and hurt. Unemployment rules out medical and dental care, leaving the dental work she needs to improve her appearance, out of reach. Nevertheless, she manages to get past the resulting insecurity of her appearance to take the stage to read her poetry at places like UF's Orange and Brew during open mic nights. She hopes to educate people through her poetry to the hardships of poverty and stir action to eradicate it. I love that she is taking this initiative to help others while helping herself.

Winthrop wrote her first poem, I am a Face of Poverty in America, to address her anger with the government which she feels treats her as an "expendable soul" because of her poverty. She says her experience trying to get assistance from the government is frustrating because, for one thing, she lacks transportation. Winthrop says many poor people feel like "a number," or "cattle wandering from building to building."

A neighbor, Edwin Luciano, has known Winthrop since she moved into the neighborhood several years ago and admires her for "stepping out and doing something special. It just goes into people's hearts and makes a difference."

May the stars be aligned in favor of Marcee Lee Winthrop's goal to "live up to her potential and improve her life" through publication of her poetry.

pssst... Winthrop needs a kind benefactor. From my lips to God's ear!

Poetic Bytes

• If I handed you a 300-page epic poem about werewolves in modern-day Los Angeles, would you want to read it? William Weir of The Hartford Courant writes about Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow , a novel in free verse. Dare ya!
• Oh, oh. When is a poem a "poem?" The Queen's English Society in reference to contemporary poets has espoused that "too often strings of words are being labeled as poems despite the fact they have no rhyme or metre." (sniff, sniff) The QES believes The Sun Rising by John Donne is a poem, but not so for contemporary poet Michael Schmidt's poem entitled Pangur Ban, excerpt below. What say you?

Jerome has his enormous dozy lion.
Myself, I have a cat, my Pangur Ban.
What did Jerome feed up his lion with?
Always he's fat and fleecy, always sleeping
As if after a meal.
Perhaps a Christian?
Perhaps a lamb, or a fish, or a loaf of bread.
His lion's always smiling, chin on paw,
What looks like purring rippling his face
And there on Jerome's escritoire by the quill and ink pot
The long black thorn he drew from the lion's paw.

• From Richard K. Weems' drive-by poetry to Dave Johnson's charity poetry-on-the-spot, and the original Douglas Goetsch's poetry stand, we have the newest spin-off poetry-on-demand presented by Bainbridge Island West Sound Academy high school's celebration of National Poetry Month.
• The People's Poetry Gathering stretches a clothesline of poems from around the world across the streets of Lower Manhattan.
• WordFest 2008, a poetry showcase created by pioneers of Asheville's poetry movement, in Asheville, NC, starts Thursday - April 27 all over town. Featuring Pulitzer Prive-winning poet Galway Kinnell, four-time National Poetry Slam champion Patricia Smith, renowned translator of Sufi Poet Rumi, Coleman Barks, NC Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer, Jewish Arts Institute's Richard Chess, Cherokee poet MariJo Moore. Read WordFest highlights here.
• Dont Miss Out on This! LibraryThing, Favorite Poem Project, World Class Poetry, Poets Who Blog, or Blogsboro Poetry Club.
  
• New Hampshire poet Martha Carlson-Bradley reminds us to not overlook the wonders of nature - she uses them to tell us about ourselves - in her poetry book, Season We Can't Resist. Read article by Rebecca Rule of the Concord Monitor here.

Your Pocket Guide to Poetry

This post is a product of an article by Cornell Green for the Erie Times-News about around-the-town National Poetry Month activities and particularly about the "Art House, 201 E. 10th St., where kids are learning to express themselves in colorful, constructive ways." Last evening (I just learned this) the Inner-City Neighborhood Art House celebrated Poetry, presented the winners of the "Keep a Poem in Your Heart" contest, hosted a performing poetry troupe and also poetry readings by adult members of the community.

But wait - there's more - 13 year old Rokey Butler, who along with other children who take after-school classes in 'everything from poetry to violin' at the Art House, recited a poem at the celebration entitled "The Rapper as Light," a poem by Kate Rushin. Rokey not only put the poem to memory, but did a little 2-step shuffle while he belted out verse, "When the sun sees me coming he hust steps aside. ..So listen to my rap, see the glint in my eye. You'll feel a glimmer of hope. I electrify." Rokey didn't think much of poetry before, but now in his own words, he says, "poetry is amazing. Say you're mad or something.. you can just write it in a poem, and you can just get all your anger out in that poem." (This is an astute youngster, by my estimation. :) Poetry has become a way to let loose, say other students at the Art House.

Twelve year old Shane McClelland, a student at Pfeiffer-Burleigh Elementary School, says, "It's fun. You get a chance to express yourself and move around and act funny. You get to see what other people's ideas are, and their moves." At last night's Celebration of Poetry, Shane performed the poem "Monday" by David L. Harrison. It's a poem about how the beginning of the week starts out as a "bummer" but he also likes Langston Hughes' work the most. Sharon Szymanski, a 6th grade reading teacher at Wattsburg Middle School, said poetry helps to deveop speaking skills, learn to fine-tune the English language, and most of all, for me anyhow, really boosts their self-esteem. She told Cornell Green that her students went from being "literally petrified" at the thought of performing in public to being "cool and confident." Sharon Szymanski further goes on to say that poetry provides the most effective way to teach metaphors, figure of speech and similes, all things that a student needs to know for their state achievement tests. She goes on to encourage every teacher to have a poetry slam at their school. Once the kids are "hooked on poetry," she can "throw anything at them, and they love it."

Rokey Butler and Shane McClelland get your poetry on!

Seabuscuit's Chris Cooper Reads Walt Whitman for PBS

Wow, how cool is this! Chris Cooper, who starred in Seabiscuit, will be reading poetry by Walt Whitman for PBS tonight at 9 PM. The movie, Seabiscuit, is the true life story of the famous, under-sized racehorse that lifted the spirits of a nation and symbolized hope during the Great Depression, memorialized by author Laura Hillenbrand.

Cooper says he felt a shared experience with Whitman when reading from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry: "Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh'd; Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried."

"That's the beauty of his writing," Cooper says. "One hundred years later, he's talking to the person of the future."

Excerpt from USA Today, 4/14/08

Huffington Post Reader 'picodegallo54' Gets My High-Five for 'Comment' Poem

The Huffington Post carries a feature article "A Quick Guide to National Poetry Month" by John Lundberg, well worth reading, that elicited a response from picodegallo54 in the Comment Section a la poem:

my generation

they call us boomers
and we go boom
throw ourselves
on the floor
hold breath
turn blue in face
get our way
with our dollar
and our vote

we don't die and refuse to get old
we hold on tight and won't let go
this land is our land
not your land
this land is our land

[...]

You can read the rest of picodegallo54's poem here, near the top of the Comment Section.

I glean several layers of meaning here.. heh heh.. so kudos and a cartwheel to picodegallo54 from Poetmeister !

If You Dig Slam Poetry.........this is 4 U!

I had to chuckle when I came upon an article about National Poetry Month activities which included a plug for "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Slam Poetry" by Marc Kelly Smith and Joe Kraynak. I grinned - finally! - someone's read my thoughts! Not thoughts that I have about slam poetry but that I'm an idiot, and someone's finally given me recognition for it!! Until I read further that it was Marc Kelly Smith who actually invented Slam Poetry in 1984 - at which point I bowed in reverence to the man who jump-started a resurgence of poetry readers and writers as well as branded poetry into the nation's conscience. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but probably not by much.

"Slam poetry attempts to invigorate poetry by giving equal weight and integrity to the poetry and the performance," stressed Marc Kelly Smith. In his book he goes about explaining the concept and gives up the skinny on how to go about it. Cool!