on-demand poetry…

Some months ago, we posted a story about Holly S. Morrison and other on-the-spot poets. On April 17, NPR ran a story by Cindy Carpien, “A Poem Store Open For Business, In The Open Air,” that introduces Oakland, California, poet Zach Houston and his sidewalk Poem Store, open for business since 2007! Click on the article name to read or listen to the NPR story. (And before you set up shop on a nearby street corner or start busking poems at the farmer’s market, you might check to see whether you need a vendor permit.)
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photo by Ralph Wiedemeier/NPR

on poetry…

“The only people who have trouble with poetry are the people who link it with ‘Literature.’ It’s much more akin to mountain walking and dancing by yourself at 2 A.M.” Theo Dorgan

more poetry in public…

Eugene, Oregon, is the latest city to welcome poetry in public places. This week was the official unveiling of “Step into Poetry,” an installation of poems in the Oak and 10th Street Overpark Stairwell.

Initiated by the City of Eugene in cooperation with the Lane Literary Guild, Oregon Poetry Association, and the Young Writers Association, the project features year-long displays of poems by Gary Adams, Barbara Drake, Cecelia Hagen (photo, above), David Laing, Carter McKenzie, Nancy Carol Moody, Deborah Narin-Wells, Paulann Petersen (Oregon poet laureate) and John Witte.

Read more about Step into Poetry in The Register-Guard.
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photo Brian Davies The Register-Guard

this, too, just in!

this just in…

Conversations Across Borders ~ Village Books ~ Saturday, April 28, 2012, 4:00pm.

poetry in public…

Bringing poetry into the public eye is a central element of the Sue Boynton Poetry Contest. Occasionally on these pages we note other places that have made a commitment to poetry in public. Here’s one.

Between 1992 and 2008, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, in collaboration with the Poetry Society of America, “brought more than 200 poems or excerpts before the eyes of millions of subway riders and rail commuters.” The program has been on hiatus since 2008, but has now been revived, beginning with a poster that combines art from “The Flora of Bensonhurst,” by Joan Linder, with the poem “Graduation,” by Dorothea Tanning, an American poet, writer and visual artist who died at the age of 101, in January 2012.

To see a larger image of the poster and learn more about the Arts for Transit program, see the MTA website. Find additional details in the New York Times. Plus, read the story in yesterday’s Gothamist, which explains that the selected poems will be screened in brief animations in New York’s taxicabs!

Egress Studio is working feverishly to design placards of the winning poems from the 2012 Sue Boynton Poetry Contest. We hope to have drafts on view at the awards ceremony, May 10, 2012, and have the poems installed in Whatcom County’s buses sometime in July.

poetry reading 101

If you’ve found your way to this site, it’s quite possible you’ve attended plenty of poetry readings. Then again, perhaps not. If you’re uncertain about the etiquette or attitude, first have a look at this good humored article from Nashville Scene: How to Attend a Poetry Reading, then click over to the NW Lit Events page and cozy up to a reading coming soon to your neighborhood.
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Illustration by Paula Becker

choose a poem for tomorrow…

Tomorrow, Thursday, April 26, is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Are you ready? It’s a simple idea: choose a poem that you love, and love to share — one of your own or someone else’s. Tomorrow morning, tuck it in your pocket and then, throughout the day, share it. When you’re standing in line for coffee, picking up a few things at the store, taking a break at work, riding the bus, turn to the person next to you and ask, “Would you like to hear a poem?” If he or she does not run away in terror, share your poem, tuck it back in your pocket and continue with your day.

Here’s more information on Poem in Your Pocket Day from the Academy of American Poets.  There are many events planned as part of the celebration. Here are just a few happening locally: Village Books, Bellingham; Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale; Washington State History Museum, Tacoma. Choose a poem! Show your poetry!

celebrate poets and poetry…

You are invited to join this year’s Sue Boynton Poetry Contest winning poets, their families, friends and fans, for a poetry reading and celebration of community creativity.

The awards ceremony will be held Thursday, May 10, 2012, 7:00pm, at the Bellingham Cruise Terminal, 355 Harris Street in Fairhaven. The winning poems will be read by their authors and all poems that were submitted to this year’s contest will be on display. As always, the awards ceremony is free. A chapbook of winning poems from this year’s contest will be available for purchase. Please join us!

post some poets…

Now at a post office near you: poets!
A brand-new Forever® stamp sheet honors ten 20th-century poets: Elizabeth Bishop, Joseph Brodsky, Gwendolyn Brooks, E. E. Cummings, Robert Hayden, Denise Levertov, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams. The back side of the sheet — the aptly named verso — includes an excerpt from one poem by each of the poets featured on the sheet.

Note: although the issue date is April 21, 2012, the stamps may not yet be available in all post offices.