Pomo News, The ‘voice’ of Iran speaks through poetry

Neda Agha-Soltan photo credit: iranian.com

Neda Agha-Soltan‘s legacy (whose name in Persian means, ‘voice’), is honored by Persian poets, Sholeh Wolpé and Simin Behbahani, Iran’s National poet.  Ms. Behbahani’s travel was blocked last March when she tried to leave Iran.  Listen to an  interview with the ‘Lioness of Iran’ on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

Posted by Sue Zalokar

Pomo News, Poet Treats

Pascale Petit photo credit: Dafna Kaplan

Poet Paula Claire, and-until recently- the only female contender for the Oxford Professor of Poetry contest, steps down, alleges favoritism.

Pascale Petit  explores the way trauma hurts an artist into creation through the eyes of Frida Kahlo in her new collection of poetry:  ‘What the Water Gave Me – Poems After Frida Kahlo.’  Listen to the title poem,   What the Water Gave Me.

Frances McCue, founding director of Richard Hugo House, the Seattle center for writers and writing, is now a writer-in-residence at the University of Washington’s honors college and revisits the poems (and small Northwest towns that inspired the poems) of Richard Hugo.

Fans wrote verse for Vulture’s Erykah Badu Haiku Contest.  The winner, SASSLKCJNEIGHBR, submitted this haiku about Badu’s recent public disrobing:

View from window seat,
It’s Badu badonkadonk!
Dallas can’t handle.

View a poetry reading (recorded by Indigo Girl Amy Ray) by Salish poets Victor and April Charlo. April accompanied her Dad by reading a translation of the poems in their native language.

Posted by Sue Zalokar

PoMo News, Politika Poetika

Poets for Living Waters, a poetry action in response to the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, demonstrates how everything is connected.

Poet Saw Wei was released from Burmeese prison after a three year stay for “inducing crime against public tranquility” with his poem, ‘February the Fourteenth.”

Gary Sullivan is a proponent for flarf (or rubbish verse).

Peter Orlovsky, poet and partner of Allen Ginsberg died May 30th.  The two were lovers for nearly three decades.  Watch them preform here in 1984 (Orlovsky is the one meditating in a suit):

Posted by Sue Zalokar

At least 20 gallons per second

Kaia Sand, who has been featured on PoMo before, read one of the more powerful pieces of poetry I’ve ever heard read aloud this week.

Like many around the world, I have been on the edge of my seat watching the latest developments on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Sand’s reading of her poem, “at least 20 gallons per second,” made the entire crowd stop, and pause for a reflective moment on something that is completely out of our collective control, at least for the time being. Her rendition of the poem gave me goosebumps and literally, made me sick to my stomach.

at least 20 gallons per second

In the time it takes me to say this, at least 160 gallons of oil will have gushed out of the Deepwater Horizon site.And now 200.
And now 240.
And now 280.
And now 320 gallons of oil.
In the time since this poem began, gushing out of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil drilling site, I count 600 gallons of oil mixing into the Gulf of Mexico saltwater.
And now 640.
And now 680
And now 720
And now 760
And now 800 gallons

In the time since this poem began, rushing beyond the failed concrete seal poured by Halliburton, I count at least 1000 gallons of oil

By this time tomorrow, at least 1.7 million more gallons of oil will have leaked in to the Gulf of Mexico seawater.

This as we gather in a park in a city near the Pacific, far from Gulf Coast, and near it, too. This, as I go on, burning oil BP drills for me each day, despite myself, oiled ease. This, as each second, more than 20 gallons of oil defy barriers and become the difficult ecology of now.

Sand read the poem along with several esteemed published poets and authors, including Lawson Inada an emeritus Oregon Poet Laureate and professor of writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland.

The reading titled Poetic Excursions was the kick-off to a summer long project called “Writing Places,” a series of one-day writing “excursions” in changing locations, led by local writers, including Sand, David Abel, Joesph Bradshaw and the newly transplanted poet Alison Cobb. (Cobb’s reading also rocked.)

The night turned out to have another exciting development when two individuals, Inada a Japanese American who was held captive in internment camps for the duration of World War II, and Leo Rhodes, a Pima Indian raised on a reservation where an internment camp was stationed were brought together for the first time and read poetry about the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona.  You can read more about this very cool story over at the Street Roots blog.

To get involved with “Writing Places,” the one-day writing excursions this summer download the information here: POETRYCLASSES.

Posted by Israel Bayer

PoMo News: Poetry emotion

Christian Swenson preforms at the Fine Arts Center in Port Angeles, WA

In Port Angeles, Washington last weekend the  Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts celebrated its 17th year.  Christian Swenson entertained crowds with his improvisation of body and voice.  He read the poetry of his good friend, Lance M. Loder in between his own art:  a cross-cultural synthesis of theater, dance and music and its willingness to unbridle the imagination.

The Traveling Poet AKA Apollo Poetry hit the scene in 2007 claiming many awards and appearances on MTV and the Billboard Awards.  In 2009, he moved into his van and began the YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL campaign. Last month, his film short, ‘The Lost Poem’ took prizes for best director and audience choice award at filmfest21.

Posted by Sue Zalokar

PoMo News: remembering Dickinson, Hopper

Emily Dickinson gets a flowering tribute at the New York Botanical Garden, where the gardener meets the poet. Wimbledon gets a poem a day. The Defense Center of Excellence publishes a thought provoking poem titled “Murder, So Foul,” about a soldier’s experience during World War II.

Actor, rebel-rouser and poet Dennis Hopper passed away this weekend. Watch him perform the poem “If,” on the Johny Cash Show in 1970.

Posted by Israel Bayer

PoMo News, Read All About It

Posted by Sue Zalokar

On June 8th, Sugar Hill Records will release a  musical tribute to poet, storyteller,  song writer, cartoonist and musician Shel Silverstein.   The poet, who died in 1999, will be memorialized in the album,  Twistable, Turnable Man:  A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein.  You can preview the album here, on the Sugar Hill Records site.

Kris Kristofferson, Nanci Griffith, Todd Snider, and John Prine are some of the musicians who have come together to honor Silverstein’s work on this project.

Silverstein wrote many songs as well, including the entire second album from Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, “Sloppy Seconds.”   The single, “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” ironically put the band on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Silverstein was an icon, worthy of every nice (and twisted) word that is spoken about him.  He was, like the Giving Tree he created, a gift that keeps on giving even now, 11 years after his passing.

Poetry news you can use

The New York Times features poems submitted from words and phrases taken from the newspaper. Was Robert Frost a Modernist? The Portland Mercury asks if Allen Ginsburg is overrated, underrated, or simply rated… The Wall Street Journal explores poetry and golf.

After looking back on his bad poetry, poet and filmmaker Vernon Lott has created a documentary exploring bad writing, specifically poetry.  Check it.

by Israel Bayer

Poetry news you can use…

A poem written 237 years ago by a lab worker may be the first written expression of the animal rights movement. A unique poetry anthology reaching back to the 1700s is highlighted in Black Nature: Four Centuries of African-American Nature Poetry.

Poetry over advertising — only in the City of Roses.  Technology rocks. A 100-year old woman in Oregon writes poetry on her new iPad, and Urban poets mix spoken word and film. Check it.

Posted by Israel Bayer

Poetry news you can use

A poem written by a teacher in Turkey spurs an investigation by authorities for criticizing a number of top Islamic scholars. W. B. Yeats poem, “Death,” a clue in a 13-year old murder of a French filmmaker. Rare interviews with Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath are released by the British Library, and the Godfather of rap Gil Scott –Heron releases new works, “I’m new here.”

Plus, Natalie Merchant’s sets 26 poems from various poets to music in, “Leave Your Sleep.” It comes out today. Listen to Merchant talk about the five-year old project, and check out some of the poets from times long gone. The project looks very cool.

Posted by Israel Bayer

Rae Armantrout wins the Pulit Surprise!!

The wonderful poet Rae Armantrout has won the Pulitzer Prize. It really was unimaginable two or three years ago that someone associated with experimental poetry would win this.

What does that mean? I don’t really know, the history of the avant-garde is that it gets absorbed into the mainstream…so…

Do these prizes even mean anything to anyone but the winner? Probably not.

But hey, the most important point is that she is amazing and deserves the accolades, the $10,000 and (hopefully) the wider readership.

Congrats Rae Armantrout!!!!!

The following poem first appeared in Veil: New and Selected Poems:

Manufacturing

1
A career in vestige management.

A dream job
back-engineering
shifts in salience.

I’m so far
behind the curve
on this.

So. Cal.
must connect with
so-called

to manufacture
the present.

Ubiquity’s
the new in-joke

bar-code hard-on,

a catch-phrase
in every segment.

2
The eye asks if the green,

frilled geranium puckers,
clustered at angles

on each stem,
are similar enough

to stop time.

It has asked this question already.

How much present tense
can any resemblance make?

What if one catch- phrase
appears in every episode?

Does the language go rigid?

The new in-joke
is a pun

pretending to be a bridge.

-Rae Armantrout

Watch Armantrout read from “Versed” on the National Book Foundation’s Web site.

Posted by Noah West

Hissa Hilal’s ‘Message in a Bottle’ is heard across the sea

Hissa Hilal took an unprecedented, third place in"Million's Poet" competiton She stands here with the other finalists, including Nasser al-Ajami who took first place and runner up, Falah al-Mowraqi

Hissa Hilal did much more than take third place in a poetry competition, she blew through a previously indelible line in the sand.

Hilal was out ranked by her Kuwaiti male counterparts, Nasser al-Ajami who took first place in the Million’s Poet competition last week followed by runner up, Falah al-Mowraqi.  The Saudi poetess took third place, the furthest a woman has progressed in the poetry competition, now in its fourth year.

Hilal criticized religious extremism in her poem, “The Chaos of Fatwas” (translated here by blogger-editor, Nina Alvarez) which she read in the second round of competition.  In doing so, Hilal gained million’s of fans in the blogosphere.  She also received threats on her life.

Most of the acclaim that celebrated this brave woman’s journey was spurred from reports in the news and social media, like this podast on NPR’s Morning Edition or the following video from ABC news:

Get on your horse and ride— Cowboy Poetry is alive and well, up and around the bend

Cowboy poetry is alive and well in the West. According to Wikipedia (You didn’t? I did.), “Cowboy Poetry grew out of a tradition of extemporaneous composition carried on by workers on cattle drives and ranches. After a day of work, cowboys would gather around a campfire and entertain one another with tall tales and folk songs. Illiteracy was common, so poetic forms were employed to aid memory.”

From what I can gather, most Cowboy Poetry is read accompanied by an instrument, but not all.

Cowboy Poetry Week is coming up, April 18-24, in celebration of National Poetry Month. (Sigh.) Still, those lonesome wranglers over at the Western and Cowboy Poetry Music & More at the Bar-D Ranch don’t mess around. In 2003, the group help pass a Senate resolution declaring the week of April 18, National Cowboy Week. The group is currently asking Governors and Mayors to get involved. Throughout the month of April, there’s Cowboy Poetry events from Tennessee to Washington, Alaska to Texas. The Western FolkLife Center has also packaged an array of multimedia Cowboy Poetry, and puts together an annual gathering for poets and musicians in January.

Check out the video: It sure looks like they know how to have a good time. Being an urban creature myself, it made me feel all fuzzy inside knowing that poetry and community was happening on this scale, out on the range…

Posted by Israel Bayer

Poetry news you can use

Poetry reviews: What’s the point? Do reviews sell poetry books? Writer Craig Teicher with Publishers Weekly talks a lot about himself, and then offers readers an insight. (Skip to the what’s the point part.) I’m still not convinced that anything he wrote is accurate.

I also came across blogger Travis Nichols who writes a regular column on poetry over at the Huffington Post. One column that jumped out at me was, “Should poetry critics go negative?” (I already have.) And while I agree with most of his analysis, he is also an editor works for the Poetry Foundation. It made me wonder what he really thinks? Never the less, it’s great to see the Huffington has a dedicated place for several poetry columnists.

Meanwhile in Portland, Oregon the local transit authority is asking for “Dirty Word haikus,” and two women in Toronto are introducing Poetry Vendor Machines. The New York Times has put together a clever way to connect current affairs and poetry for students and Michael Lista publishes an epic poem called Bloom that looks very cool.

But still, in my humble opinion, none of it compares to this…

Posted by Israel Bayer

Tweet your verse

National Poetry Month is right around the corner. In honor of such an enormous event (chuckle) — the Seattle Times is hosting a poetry contest through Twitter. You can tweet rhymes, verses, musings, haiku or, my personal favorite, “what-have-you that is 140 characters or less.” Lets see, “On the bus, on the train, on the avenue, my uptick is faster than the speed of light. Try to keep up. Try, try, try. I bet you can’t.”

In other news, the head of the European Union is publishing a book of poetry. From the Wall Street Journal, “Herman Van Rompuy’s haiku poetry is already as much a part of inside-the-Brussels-beltway lore as endless summits, crooked cabbies and the question of whether the European Union will ever have a proper foreign policy.” Let’s hope Rompuy’s poetry is more of a reflection of what is happening inside-the-Brusells beltway, wild (I do mean wild) late-nights after those endless summits and something interesting about crooked cabbies— otherwise, snooze fest. Come on Herman, you’ve got it in you. Although this website does have Herman looking a little freakish. Maybe there’s hope yet.

Posted by Israel Bayer

“Remember to Wave” makes a splash in Portland

Poet Kaia Sand is on a mission. In her most recently published book “Remember to Wave” (TinFish Press, 2010), Sand is bringing political history from the Pacific Northwest to light through poetry.

From the Oregonian on March 25, “Concerned with displacement, both physical and temporal, Sand focuses on 60 acres along the Columbia River that now hold the Portland Expo Center. In the early 1940s, the area housed more than 3,000 Japanese Americans bound for internment camps; it was later home to Vanport, which flooded out in 1948.

With help from a Regional Arts & Culture Council grant, Sand spent several years walking the site and conducting research. In “Remember to Wave,” she folds her notes, personal essays and lyric lines between photographs and ephemera, essentially mapping the consequences of displacement.”

Read the interview with Sand from the Oregonian.

Sand’s project was also highlighted in Street Roots, a street paper in Portland, Ore.,  in January in an in-depth article written by Carmel Bentley. In the article Sand says, “I wanted to create a dynamic form for thinking about our local political history and its connections to the present. I wanted to create a participatory experience as well as words on a page.”

Kaia Sand will perform “Remember to Wave: A Poetry Walk” at noon April 10. Hosted by Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Submit Literary Magazine, the walk begins at the Expo Center’s MAX stop (in Portland) and will last about two hours. The walk is free and open to the public. To take part, e-mail sand@thetangentpress.org; for more information, go to pen.org/members/sand

You can purchase a signed first edition of Remember to Wave through Powell’s Books in Portland.

Photo Courtesy of Street Roots/Ken Hawkins.

Posted by Israel Bayer

The Chaos of Fatwas: Hissa Hilal’s veiled peace protest

Hissa Hilal, a woman poet from Saudi Arabia, criticized Muslim preaches during a poetry recital at The Million's Poet show, broadcast live every week across the Arab

Reading today about Hissa Hilal, I found myself at a loss for words.

Listen to this housewife and mother speak from behind her own veil:   The Chaos of Fatwas

Hissa Hilal’s ‘Message in a Bottle’ is heard across the sea

Posted by Sue Zalokar