another good idea

Over the course of two days in December, film buffs in New Delhi, India, viewed more than 20 films that were screened as part of the 4th Sadho Poetry Film Festival. The international film festival showcased films from all over the world, mostly shorts, and included “poetry films, poetic films, sign language poetry films, poetry discourse films and film on poets.” Read the article in The Indian Express and learn more about Sadho.

Earlier in 2013, The Huffington Post and Flavorwire both ran articles on films based on poetry and poets. There’s some overlap, but less than you might expect. Here’s more, from an earlier post on the Boynton Blog. What will you be screening at the poetry film festival of your dreams?

on poetry…

 
“I don’t have / to write the first poem on a given subject, / or the best, just one that’s unmistakeably mine.”
Jack McCarthy
 
from ‘The Top Ten Reasons Why I Take Notes at Poetry’
What I Saw (EM Press, 2012)
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poetry: ROMP

Who knew that there is a poetry museum, let alone that it is in rural northeastern Oklahoma, about 50 miles from Tulsa and a few miles west of Locust Grove? The Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry, Shaun Perkins, Curator, is just such an institution, occupying a converted garage/barn and displaying “ways to interact with and personalize poetry. From a vending machine that dispenses handwritten, one-of-a-kind poetry to add-a-line poems on the chalkboard wall, the displays ask you to think creatively and to take your place in the poetry populace.”

In addition to displays, ROMP offers workshops and hosts Poemcrossing, a postcard exchange. Send ROMP a poem on a postcard and it will become part of the exhibit, plus you’ll get one in return.

The Times (Pryor Creek, Oklahoma) reported this week that ROMP received a $5,000 Douglas A. Noverr Grant from the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association for Collection Enhancement for Institutions to Build Popular Culture Research Collections. Perkins hopes to use the funds to renovate an additional building for the museum.

You can visit ROMP online or in person (here’s why) and mail your poem postcards to
The Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
6619 S. 4382 Road
Locust Grove OK 74352
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photo: Ida Red, museum mascot, greets visitors to the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry

A Place for Words

Here’s a UK project that has discovered numerous wonderful ways for words to escape the page. Founded in 2006, Urban Words is a literature consultancy that “specialises in projects which use creative writing as a way to explore and question our relationship to place.” The program is run by writer Sarah Butler.

One Urban Words project is A Place for Words, which is “the beginning of a conversation about the role creative writers can play in the regeneration of our towns and cities.” A Place for Words takes both temporary and permanent form, the latter including a series of collaborative public art projects involving poetry and architecture.

One of them, Text and the City, includes the work of Benjamin Zephaniah (shown), whose words were cut from the steel window guards of a student apartment block at Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. More photos here.
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photo by Paul Swales

on poetry…

“Don’t write the kind of poetry you think people want to publish. Write the kind of poetry you want to read.”
Mark Haddon
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Merry Christmas!

ornament © j.i. kleinberg

List Season, part 3

Here’s the third and final installment in our collection of this season’s poetry book recommendations. This should provide you with an adequate supply to get you through the holidays and into the New Year!

Find JD Scott’s list, 10 of 2013′s Best Books of Poetry, on Flavorwire.

At HTMLGiant, you can see Christopher Higgs’s 2013 Holiday Shopping Guide: Poetry Recommendations.

The Jewish Daily Forward offers a list of Best Jewish Poetry of 2013, including some names you’ll probably recognize.

The Tin House blog expands upon Desiderata: Our Favorite Poetry of 2013.

On her blog, The Alchemist’s Kitchen, poet Susan Rich give us her list of a few poetry books she has enjoyed this year.

Once you’ve caught up with this list, as well as List Season part one and part two, please leave a comment and share the names of poems or books that our recommenders missed!

Happy Reading and Happy Holidays!
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image: list of books reserved by W.H. Auden from the Swarthmore Library

Listen!

Here’s some good news: the New Yorker, long a repository of printed poems, has initiated a podcast series, New Yorker Poetry Podcasts. In each podcast, poetry editor Paul Muldoon will interview a poet, who will read from his/her own work as well as that of another poet.

Listen to Muldoon’s 20-minute conversation with Philip Levine, or download New Yorker Poetry Podcast at iTunes.

Season’s Greenings!

Holiday spirit year round

The Poetry Caravan doesn’t have much of a website and it’s not on Facebook, but since the group was founded in 2003 by Usha Akella, Poetry Caravan’s volunteers have brought their words and voices to “hospitals, senior centers, assisted living facilities, shelters, jails” and other sites throughout Westchester County, New York. Now numbering 35 poets, the group’s mission “is to bring poets and poetry to people in our community who cannot reach poetry on their own.” At these free readings throughout the year, they read their own work along with classics. Bravo, Poetry Caravan!

Learn more about Poetry Caravan from Dr. Ruth Handel, the organization’s current manager.
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