Student's poetry event will benefit American Kidney Foundation - NY

Tonight, in the Town of Ulster, the Catskill High School Interact Club will put on a "Night of Poetry and Song" at 6:30pm in the Barnes & Noble book store on Ulster Avenue. The students plan on reciting original and interpretive poetry readings in honor of William Shakespeare's birthday.  The poetry and song venue will benefit the American Kidney Foundation and former Catskill High School graduate Jedediah Berry who will read from his novel Manual of Detection at the venue tonight, as well as sign his book that will be on sale at the "Night of Poetry and Song" venue. 

Poetry for an America yearning for awakening

Poetry by Uncle Sam for Uncle Sam is the catch phrase for a featured poet in the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which will run April 25 & 26, 2009 on the UCLA campus. Uncle Sam, in this case, is poet Sami El-Soudani who will be having a book signing at the Xlibris Publisher's Booth, booth #238, from 11am-12pm on Saturday, April 25.

What I like about this poet is his intention to shake us up with a message about a "great nation in sedation, presently subjugated to the point of being captive by its homegrown military-industrial-media complex, which is dedicated to the service of special interest groups and personally profiteering war advocates." Whew! That's a head full.

But wait! There's more. Sami Uncle Sam El-Soudani is sounding an alarm, long overdue, that America's sword is being turned, slowly but surely upon its own people, as America's preemptive war escapade has already been set in motion, wrecking havoc in the world at large, and unleashing the dogs of war, skillfully trained by wicked war kindlers. This war is given the misnomer title of "war on terror," but in reality it is being waged with a mindset aimed at capturing Islam, as "a clashing culture" as prescribed in a recipe for World War III per Samuel P. Huntington. With such a mindset, Islam is regarded as "a threatening warring civilization," just another buzzword title, with both references being as bogus as a witch's broom. People of America: Awaken!" Wow! This is serious stuff, eh?

As serious as Dr. Sami El-Soudani's credentials; "an aerospace materials scientist specializing in fracture mechanics and failure analysis and has been engaged for over thirty years in averting failures of aircraft structures. For the past twenty years, however, he has been conducting independent theological and sociological research prompted by regrettable world events clearly showing that failures of the human spirit are of far more devastating consequences than failures of aircraft structures." [emphasis mine]

Have You Given These Sites Some Love Lately?

• C'mon, dear readers, it's time to Get Your Love On over to Poets Who Blog, an active community blog run by Sara for poets to get to know each others work, participate in group poems such as the Patchwork poem (check out Patchwork Poetry for some great examples of this form) and poems-by-prompt. Plus you can learn other forms of poetry like the "cento" which is a poem comprised of lines from other poets works; write poems based on words or lines donated by group members that must be incorporated into your poem; try your hand at a villanelle or ghazal or sestina.

• Next, please go visit Billy the Blogging Poet for a look at his blogging prowess; his powerful poems; his penchant for bringing important issues to the forefront. Billy Jones is a true friend to all poets - he likes to showcase poets he finds of interest and provides a community blog for poets to share their poetry with the public. Why not join up with the Blogsboro Poetry Club where you'll find a potpourri of talented poets!

• Next stop, the World Class Poetry Blog, where you'll find just about everything you need to know about poetry, poets, and the makings thereof; Allen definitely knows his stuff and also likes to mix it up and have fun while informing his readers!
  
  
• Allen has written about the 11 Mistakes Poets Make When Seeking Book Reviews, The Importance of Explosive Imagination in Poetry, Using I As A Persona, Modern, Postmodern, & Post-Postmodern: Why Poetry is No Longer in Disintegration Mode, Mixing Poetry With Art is Good Exposure For All, 10 Poetry Articles You Must Read, and Millennial Poetics: A New Way Of Thinking About Craft (one of a series on his Millennial Poetics, a must read!)
  
  
  
• Can't give enough link luv to Glenn Buttkus, co-contributor of Feel Free to Read blog; a perfect blend of poetry, celebrity & singer quotes and bios, American history & photographs, album covers and song lyrics to keep you enrapt for hours. If you're a Sherman Alexie fan, as I am, well, you'll find a wealth of Alexie poetry & remembrance at Glenn's Feel Free to Read 7th Heaven haven, as well as other American Indian poets such as Standing Bear Chief of the Oglala Sioux, Simon Ortiz, and Harlan Atwater Mythical Spokane Indian Poet *wink,wink*
  

Ok, this ought to Get Your Poetry On! - until next time!

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!

Black Studies Dept. of Cal State hosts S. Pear Sharp, an accomplished author, poet and filmmaker

"Sometimes, you know, you write just to heal yourself, to get yourself through something, but you never know if it might also heal somebody else," Sharp said. "Poetry is very personal. You can spend your whole life just writing for yourself if you wanted to, so when it connects with somebody, then that's important. Then the poem is doing its work in the world."

--S. Pearl Sharp, author and poet, presentation "Voices and Visions of Color and Depth:
Poetry Readings by Artists of Color" at the Beach Auditorium,
Cal State Long Beach; Daily 49er