postponed

If you had already signed up for next weekend’s Poets in the Park, you have probably been notified, but if you were considering signing up, please be aware that due to an unfortunate convergence of problems, the Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP) has decided that it needs to POSTPONE Poets in the Park scheduled for June 5 & 6, 2021. RASP is currently hoping to reschedule for a weekend in August. We’ll keep you posted.

Keep track of updates on the Poets in the Park page.

on poetry

“I don’t come out of an oral tradition, I come out of silence.”
Colm Tóibín
(b. May 30, 1955)

It’s back!

The park may look a little more like your computer monitor than usual, but don’t let that fool you: Poets in the Park is back for a rollicking weekend of readings, performances, workshops, and open mics. It’s all happening on Zoom next weekend, Saturday, June 5, and Sunday, June 6, 2021, and it’s all FREE as long as you register.

Michael Dylan Welch has lined up an impressive schedule, with a pretty dazzling array of events and participants.

Have a look, sign up now, then prep your picnic and your poems and enjoy Poets in the Park right in your own back yard.

math-po

It has been nearly ten years since we mentioned Sea and Spar Between, the poetry generator created by Nick Montfort and Stephanie Strickland, which uses words from Emily Dickinson’s poems and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The information on the how to read page is very instructive.

There’s technology and mathematics involved here, and if you’re interested in the intersection of poetry and math, definitely have a look at Kaz Maślanka’s site, Mathematical Poetry (use the sidebar to navigate). You might also check out Maślanka’s home page, which is loaded with intriguing maps of that intersection. For example, Verbogeometry: The confluence of words and analytic geometry.

There’s more than one way to make a poem!

. . . . .
image by Kazmier Maślanka

finals

There are no Cascadia-region students among the 2021 Poetry Out Loud finalists, but today’s National Finals should still be inspiring. Tune in to the webcast this evening, Thursday, May 27, 2021, at 4:00pm Pacific (7:00pm Eastern) as the young competitors give their all to be the 2021 champion.

A total of $50,000 in awards and school or organizational stipends include a $20,000 award for the National Champion, $10,000 for 2nd place, $5,000 for 3rd place, and $1,000 for 4th–9th places. The representing schools/organizations of each of the top nine finalists receive $500 for the purchase of poetry materials.

planning: spring and summer

If your late-spring and summer plans haven’t quite taken shape, this might be a good time to browse the many offerings at Hugo House. The Summer 2021 catalog is now online and registration is open. There are also loads of events, including a free, every-Thursday-in-June Quarantine Write-In with Rena Priest and a free one-hour lunchtime writing Q&A with Rick Barot. The summer write-in events continue in July with Sierra Nelson and August with Jaimie Li. And that’s just a taste of what’s coming up.

Congratulations, Alexandra Huynh!

Congratulations to Alexandra Huynh, who has been selected as 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate. She has big shoes to fill, following, among others, Amanda Gorman, who served as the inaugural NYPL, in 2017.

Supported by the Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Parks Service, Cave Canem, and many more organizations, the National Youth Poet Laureate program works with local youth literary arts organizations across the United States to identify and celebrate exceptional youth poets who use their voice to inspire change.

A Sacramento, California, native and first-year student at Stanford University, Alexandra Huynh competed with three other regional finalists for the NYPL position. Learn more about her in The Sacramento Bee.

on poetry

“I think of words and, if we keep that [echo] chamber in mind, the way a word or sound is repeated. It has slight mutations as it goes along, so at the end it might just be a shadow of the word it originally was, but it’s still recognizable. I write for the ear. I start with sounds.”
Hannah Sanghee Park
(b. May 24, 1986)

. . . . .
photo
quote

poetry today

Join Village Books and friends today, Sunday, May 23, 2021, at 4:00pm Pacific, for a virtual reading from recent work by Richard Widerkehr, Gayle Kaune, Susan Landgraf, and Thomas Mitchell. To listen, register here.

your literary summer

Not sure about your plans for the next few months? Check out the Event Calendar at Portland’s Literary Arts. There are loads of activities — classes, workshops, book discussions, open mics, and more — starting with One Page Wednesday, on (yup) Wednesday, June 2, 2021, 6:30-8:30pm, hosted by Natalie Serber with guest poet Kelli Russell Agodon (free with advance registration). The events page includes the Portland Arts & Lectures series running from October 2021 to May 2022. Have a look.