poetry and film…coming up!

Mark your calendar for what promises to be a memorable poetry event: 3 Days of Poetry: Poetry and Film. Beginning the evening of Friday, February 22, 2013, and continuing through Sunday, February 24, Seattle-based  independent poetry press Wave Books will present contemporary and vintage films, video and television featuring poetry and poets as well as a studio where poets can record their own short film. Events will be held at Gallery 1412 in Seattle. Full details here.

shout it out…

Perhaps, like many writers, you’ve made a commitment to go public by posting your words on a blog. Some people subscribe, click Like or leave comments. But you’re not exactly burning up the internet with traffic. Well, Andreea Ayers over at Launch Grow Joy has some suggestions for you. Have a look at her chart, 30 Ways to Promote Your Blog Posts. If you’re selling products, Andreea has lots of marketing suggestions for those, too, so browse around. You can also find Launch Grow Joy on Facebook.

another poetry walk…

The 8- and 9-year-olds started by studying the Taylor River, which runs through the town of Blenheim, at the north end of New Zealand’s South Island. The water was not as pristine as the students expected. They did some cleanup and installed hundreds of blue plastic fish at storm drains, warning visitors of the hazards of polluting the river. Then they wrote up their findings, including poems.

A local organization, Go M.A.D. (Making A Difference) helped to establish a poetry walk along the river, and in 2010 the first student poem was engraved on a granite plaque that was secured to a large boulder, inaugurating the Taylor River Poetry Walk. They later won a prize for their accomplishments.

Although it was initially seen as a one-time project, the challenge has passed from school to school and each year a new group of students adds a poem to the walk. In 2012, students from Mayfield School added the third poem-boulder in the celebration shown above.

See other posts tagged poetry walk or scroll down the right sidebar to the Poetry Walk section for links.
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photo by Derek Flynn

meet me in Elko, darlin’

Six days, four venues, seven stages, dances, films, panel discussions, a whole herd of workshops and more than 50 poets, musicians and musical groups from the U.S. and Canada (and butteri, cowboys from the Maremma area of southern Tuscany). That’s the 29th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which begins today in Elko, Nevada. Many performances will be added to the Western Folklife Center‘s National Cowboy Poetry Gathering YouTube channel. Click here for all the details and don’t miss the lineup of performers, audio files and very fine cowboy hats. Yee-haw!

street reading…

Perhaps you’ve noticed that little “libraries” are cropping up all over the place. Old phone booths, newspaper boxes, mailboxes and other serviceable containers have been cleaned up, painted up, set up and stocked with books that passersby are welcome to borrow and replace.

Well, here’s another one, in Berlin. Created by Baufachfrau Berlin and known as Forest Books, this sidewalk library is constructed of bolted-together tree trunks, each inset with several protected book-holding niches. Read the story and see more photos on Inhabitat. Read more about the international book-distribution movement spurred on by the folks at Little Free Library.
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photo by Lori Zimmer

visualize poetry – 2

Need a prompt? Here’s something quirky that’s just asking for poems… The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, a part of the Smithsonian, has in its collection a large number of objects that are cataloged but do not have accompanying images, as, for example, here. As the site explains, the image is not displayed because “we have not yet digitized this object or, if we do have a digitized image, we don’t hold the rights to show it publicly.”

Now, Micah Walter in the Cooper-Hewitt Labs has posted a random assortment of these un-imaged objects to a tumblr site, Curatorial Poetry. What you see is the object catalog number and its description. You get to imagine everything else…and, if you’d like, submit it, though there’s no knowing where submissions go or whether they will be displayed.

You can also visit Curatorial Poetry on Facebook and find out more about the tech behind the tumblr (and Micah Walter) here. And if Curatorial Poetry doesn’t ring your chimes, have a look at the Cooper-Hewitt’s Object of the Day, which just might propel your imagination in new directions.
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photo

visualize poetry…

The Ferndale Arts Commission invites you to visualize a poem, take a photo and submit it to the Free Verse Photo Project. Select a few words or lines from a favorite poem and present them off the page in a non-traditional way. For examples and inspiration, see the Academy of American Poets Free Verse Project.

• Open to all ages.

• Photographs must be at least 8″ x 10″ and must be mounted for display.

• Entries will be accepted at Ferndale City Hall (2095 Main Street, Ferndale, WA 98248) in person or by mail between February 1, 2013 and March 20, 2013. Online entries cannot be accepted.

• Entry forms are available online from the Ferndale Arts Commission and at Ferndale City Hall.

• Entries will be displayed in participating Ferndale businesses during National Poetry Month (April) and prizes will be awarded to three selected entries.

For additional information, contact Marla Morrow at 360-384-0050 or ferndalearts@cityofferndale.org.
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photo: Seamus Heaney words visualized by J.I. Kleinberg

still a chance to sign up!

James Bertolino will offer a workshop entitled Images on the Edge: A Poetry in Writing Workshop on Saturday, January 26, 2013, 10am – 3pm, at the Jansen Art Center in Lynden. There are still a few openings, but don’t delay…

“During this one-day writing workshop, we will develop images that will energize your poems, and create a lasting impact for the reader or listener. We’ll examine what kind of language is most effective for a given image, and utilize sound repetition and echo to make the image irresistible. We will also discuss the use of internal or hidden rhyme. Each participant should expect to go home with two or more new poems.”

More details here.

Take some time to explore the Jansen, a handsome multi-arts facility with exhibition, performance, studio and teaching spaces. It’s a wonderful addition to Whatcom County’s robust arts community.

are you ready?

Only eight days left til February, the shortest month and, appropriately, National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo). To learn more about NaHaiWriMo, visit the NaHaiWriMo website or Facebook page. To find out why the symbol indicates NO 5-7-5, read this essay by Michael Dylan Welch.

simply poetry…

There’s no shortage of online places to submit your poetry, but here’s one more for your list. And Other Poems is an unadorned WordPress blog site — “simply a quiet, uncluttered place to read poems by different writers posted by Josephine Corcoran.” Poets submit, she selects and posts. More than a hundred to date. Have a look.

For more submission possibilities, online or print, see Duotrope (now by subscription), New Pages or Poets & Writers.