Poets and Pies

United States of Writing
2.10.20

Last week, I was invited by poet, professor, and event organizer M. L. Liebler to take part in his reading series known as Poets & Pies. As the title suggests, this literary showcase brings together a mix of writers and delicious pie! While the series is held at various locations around Metro Detroit, the February 5 event took place at the Main Branch of the Detroit Public Library.

The Main Library is a historical building listed in the National Register of Historic Places that is part of the city’s Cultural Center Historic District in the Midtown area. It is home to various spaces that are open to public use. For Poets & Pies, we found ourselves in the Explorers Room, a basement-level performance space complete with a stage, piano, and private bathrooms.

I shared the stage with Lori Tucker-Sullivan and Ruben Guevara. Lori is a Detroit-based writer whose poems, essays, stories, and reviews have appeared in various magazines and journals. Her essay “Detroit, 2015,” which explores her decision to return to Detroit after the death of her husband, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Midwestern Gothic and received a notable selection in Best American Essays 2015. Ruben is best known as the front man of the 1970s experimental rock band Ruben and the Jets and shared his history with the band and other encounters in the world of rock music. He also read a couple poems.

This event was funded in part by a Poets & Writers mini-grant. We enjoyed poetry, pie, and hilarious reflections on the life of a rocker. I think that Poets & Pies is a perfect example of how to curate a literary event that serves Detroiters of all artistic backgrounds while keeping things fresh and exciting. Their upcoming events will be held at the Hannan Center every month beginning on May 4. Check it out if you’re in town!

Justin Rogers is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Detroit. Contact him at Detroit@pw.org or on Twitter, @Detroitpworg.

Deadline Approaches for Yemassee Chapbook Contests

G&A: The Contest Blog
2.7.20

Submissions are open for the 6th annual Yemassee Poetry Chapbook Contest and the inaugural Yemassee Fiction Chapbook Contest. Sponsored by the literary magazine Yemassee, each contest awards a prize of $1,250, chapbook publication, and 25 author copies.

Using only the online submission system, submit 20 to 26 pages of poetry or 20 to 40 pages of fiction with a $18 entry fee by February 15. Gabrielle Calvocoressi will judge in poetry and Sarah Gerard will judge in fiction. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Based at the University of South Carolina, Yemassee publishes two print issues each year as well as ongoing Monthly Spotlights featuring new poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Previous winners of the journal’s poetry chapbook contest include Taneum Bambrick and Mick Powell.
 

Indiscernible Relations

The Time Is Now
2.6.20

In artist John Baldessari’s “Eight Soups: Corn Soup,” he borrows an image of a Henri Matisse painting of goldfish and writes the words “corn” and “soup” underneath it, while another piece includes a photograph of himself standing beneath a palm tree with a caption that says, “wrong.” In Deborah Solomon’s New York Times piece on Baldessari, who died earlier last month, she writes of a postcard the artist once sent from the Cincinnati Zoo to a friend: “The message bore no discernible relation to the photograph of the tiger cubs. In this way, it resembled his work. Text plus image and many possible paths between them.” As you go about your week, keep an eye out for readymade images—a photograph, a painting, an advertisement—and jot down words that immediately come to mind. Write an essay that uncovers, or makes discernible, the paths between the image and what it conjures up for you.

Deadline Approaches for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry

G&A: The Contest Blog
2.5.20

The inaugural Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry is open for submissions. Sponsored by Arrowsmith Press, in partnership with the Derek Walcott Festival and the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, the award will be given for a poetry collection written by a living poet who is not a U.S. citizen. Books published anywhere in the world during the previous calendar year, in English or translated into English, are eligible. The winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000, a reading at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, the publication of a limited-edition broadside by Arrowsmith Press, and a weeklong residency at one of Walcott’s homes in either St. Lucia or Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. If the winning work is a translated book, the prize money will be shared between the translator and the poet.

Publishers may submit books published between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019 with a $20 entry fee by February 15. Multiple submissions are permitted, but each book requires a separate submission and fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

The winner of the prize will be announced in May and will be invited to give a reading in Boston in October 2020. Glyn Maxwell, the editor of Walcott’s Selected Poems and a friend of the late poet, will judge. The prize was established by Walcott’s family to honor his lifelong support of emerging writers.

Photo: Derek Walcott

Community Book Center: Opening Doors for Black Writers

United States of Writing
2.5.20

For Black History Month, I will be writing about Black writers and institutions that have contributed to the Black literary experience in New Orleans. This first post is dedicated to Community Book Center.

When I walk into Community Book Center, I feel like I am stepping into my grandmother’s house. I’m usually greeted by the straight talk of Mama Jen (Jennifer). “Where yo ass been?” is usually her first question to me followed by, of course, a hug. It is the balance of realness and love that makes this place so special, not only for me but for so many Black writers in the city.

If you are a Black writer in New Orleans, it’s likely not every literary door is open to your work. At Community Book Center, the emphasis on community allows Black writers of all levels and genres an opportunity to promote and sell their books, and discover authors that make you feel represented and invited in.

Community Book Center is owned by Vera Warren Williams and is currently the only Black-owned bookstore left in New Orleans, to my knowledge. It has thrived for more than thirty years and survived Katrina, gentrification, and the ever-changing publishing industry.

Whenever I’m there, I feel a sense of pride because I don’t have to look for the African American section like in other bookstores—the entire store ignores the white gaze that Toni Morrison often spoke about. When I browse the shelves and see all the books for children, women, parents, and families that span the Black and African experience, I know that I am home. Thank you, Community Book Center!

Kelly Harris is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in New Orleans. Contact her at NOLA@pw.org or on Twitter, @NOLApworg.

More Than Meets the Eye

The Time Is Now
2.5.20

In “The Machines Are Coming, and They Write Really Bad Poetry (But Don’t Tell Them We Said So)” on Lit Hub, Dennis Tang writes about the results of using GPT-2, an artificial intelligence language program, to generate poetry in the style of Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, and Sylvia Plath. Phrases, snippets, and passages are submitted to the program, which then produces several lines of writing that attempt to mimic the original text’s style. Using the Talk to Transformer website, try feeding the program one or two sentences from a story you’ve written in the past and see what the machine generates. Then, go with the flow of AI and use its verse to continue the story in a new, unexpected direction. 

Literary Community Outside the Box: Part Five

United States of Writing
2.4.20

This will be the last in my series of posts exploring the unique platforms that contribute to the literary community in Houston, which have included Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, the blogs and podcasts Dear Reader and Bootleg Like Jazz, and the ekphrastic series Words & Art. Today I want to let you know about the Afrofuturism Book Club.

Educator and Detroit native Jaison Oliver founded the Afrofuturism Book Club in 2016 with the hope of building community around a shared interest for fantasy and science and speculative fiction written from a Black perspective. The format is real chill. The group meets monthly to read and discuss short stories by authors like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Octavia Butler, and Samuel Delany, as well as comic books, films, and television series. I haven’t had a chance to attend a meeting yet, but I know they are happening, because every time I see Jaison post about the book club, I want to kick myself for not attending.

I know from the last invitation I saw online, the book club covered the new HBO television series adaptation of Watchmen for their January meeting. Every month is something new to enjoy! Meetings are usually held at a cozy, local coffee shop and you can sign up to find out more.

Lupe Mendez is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Houston. Contact him at Houston@pw.org or on Twitter, @houstonpworg.

Biodiversity

The Time Is Now
2.4.20

Marshes, rivers, forest, mountains, butterfly wings, fungi, fruits, flowers, birds, leaves, foxes, bears, wolves, and whales. The Biodiversity Heritage Library, billed as the “world’s largest open access digital library,” is a free archive of over fifty-seven million pages of sketches, illustrations, diagrams, studies, and research of life on Earth from the fifteenth century to the present. Browse through their Flickr gallery and choose a group of images that you find particularly intriguing, striking, curious, or beautiful. Write a poem that considers the life forms and ecosystems depicted in the illustrations and how they affect your imagination today.

Venue Check Again

United States of Writing
2.3.20

It’s time to take another look at Detroit’s literary friendly venues. I hope that these recent discoveries of mine are useful to you, and be sure to check out their upcoming events.

ZAB Cultural Collective is a community-driven coworking space on Detroit’s East Side. ZAB is a cozy, artistic space that has hosted writing workshops and performances, and has open mic nights on the first Saturday of every month at 7:00 PM. They offer Wi-Fi, tables, and free coffee and tea for working writers and artists. The space doubles as a retail contemporary art gallery featuring a wide range of local and traveling artists.

Motown Museum in Detroit’s New Center area has been home to Motown Mic: The Spoken Word, a poetry slam series dedicated to the Motown legacy and the next generation of creative artists, for the past four years. The museum recently hosted a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day tribute performance by recent winners of the slam. In addition to the historic building, the museum is undergoing an expansion that will undoubtedly include additional performance space. Keep your eye out for this gem!

Eastern Market Brewing Co. is a craft brewery that opens its doors to an event called First Draughts every third Tuesday of the month, which is organized by Writing Workshops Detroit. The mission of First Draughts is to “bring writers out of the wilderness and into the community.” Writers meet other writers, talk literature, and share work. This is a great low stakes way to get involved with a tight-knit literary community.

If you find yourself at any of these venues, I would love to hear about your experience! You can also help spread good news about venues and literary events by tagging me on Twitter, @Detroitpworg, or listing them on our Literary Events Calendar.

Justin Rogers is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Detroit. Contact him at Detroit@pw.org or on Twitter, @Detroitpworg.

 

Deadline Approaches for Prize in Southern Poetry

G&A: The Contest Blog
1.31.20

Submissions are open for the 5th annual Prize in Southern Poetry, sponsored by the Atlanta restaurant White Oak Kitchen & Cocktails. The award is given for a poem written by a Southern writer on a given theme. This year’s theme is “shared spirit.” The winner will receive a cash prize of $1,500 and their poem will be featured on the restaurant’s Valentine’s Day menu on February 14 and 15, 2020. 

Submit a poem of up to 40 lines by February 7. Writers who reside in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, or West Virginia and who have published no more than one book are eligible. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

The winner of the competition will be announced on Valentine’s Day. The 2019 prize was awarded to Heather Elouej of Johnson City, Tennessee for her poem “Hindsight.”

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