Writing Desk Envy
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Writer Yuvi Zalkow made this short video about his desire for a beautiful, creative workspace. After you watch it check out John Casey's writing desk as well as snapshots of writing spaces submitted by our readers.
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Genre: Poetry
July 25
Approach a poem (or revise an existing poem) as if you were writing a fable. Keep a third-person point of view. Address the anthropomorphic qualities of the objects you introduce. Invite an animal or creature into the poem. Allow an invisible force to alter time and space. Instead of ending with a lesson or moral, try closing the poem with a question.
Celebrity Shakespeare
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Jim Meskimen, an accomplished actor and voice artist whose long list of acting credits includes five movies directed by Ron Howard and two Paul Thomas Anderson films, recites Shakespeare with twenty-five different celebrity impressions.
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Bye Borders
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PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown gives an overview of the Borders saga, the last chapter of which begins today when the bookstore chain enters liquidation and offers going-out-of-business sales at its remaining locations, and talks with Slate's Annie Lowrey about the demise of the forty-year-old company.
Without Words
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Shot and produced by Almudena Toral, this video documents seventy-six-year-old New York poet Jack Agüeros's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Agüeros, a community advocate who directed El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem for eight years, is the author of four poetry collections, including Lord, Is This a Psalm? (Hanging Loose Press, 2002).
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Self-Taught Poet Among 2011 Pew Fellows
The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage in Philadelphia has announced its 2011 fellows in the arts. Poets CAConrad and Pattie McCarthy are among the twelve Philadelphia-area artists, musicians, and innovators awarded sixty-thousand-dollar fellowships.
Conrad, who has lived in Philadelphia for twenty-five years, is a self-taught writer for whom "poetry and other art disciplines are forms of courage.” Innovator of a type of writing he calls "(Soma)tic poetry"—"instructions and recipes that invite the reader-listener into deeply embodied experiences," Conrad is the author of six books including The Book of Frank (Chax Press, 2009), The City Real & Imagined (Factory School, 2010), Advanced Elvis Course (Soft Skull Press, 2009), (Soma)tic Midge (Faux Press, 2008), and Deviant Propulsion (Soft Skull Press, 2006). His latest, (Soma)tic Poetry Exercises & Poems, is forthcoming from Wave Books this fall.
McCarthy studied creative writing at Temple University, where she earned her M.A. in 1998. Experimenting with language and narrative, her collections include Table Alphabetical of Hard Words (2010), Verso (2004), and bk of (h)rs (2002), all published by Apogee Press, and she is currently at work on a project involving various Marys of history and fiction (from the Virgin Mary to Marys who figured into the Salem Witch Trials, for instance).
The awards, now in their twentieth year, are given to Philadelphia-area artists and writers at any stage in their careers. While there is an entry process for nominees, those who may apply for the annual fellowships are selected by an anonymous panel familiar with artists working in the region.
In the video below, Conrad reads from his most recent collection, The Book of Frank.
Olga Garcia's Body Poems
Poet Olga Garcia, author of Falling Angels: Cuentos y Poemas and the chapbook Lovely Little Creatures, blogs about her experience facilitating a P&W-supported workshop with young Latina women.
In July of 2008, I was invited by Calaca Press to facilitate a two-day workshop in San Ysidro with eight young Latina women. The goal was to nurture these emerging writers via an intense writing workshop, publication, and public reading. The participants ranged in age from eighteen to thirty-three years old, and came from a variety of communities in Southern California—San Diego, Los Angeles, Ontario, and Montclair.
We gathered at The Front, a San Ysidro art gallery exhibiting political prints. Zapatistas and workers in struggle from around the
world peered at us from the gallery walls as we began our journey. Our
objective: connect with our bodies and excavate poems buried therein. On that Saturday
and Sunday, for fours hours each day, we explored different concepts of the
body. We read Lucille Clifton’s “Hips,” Elba R. Sánchez’s “Me Siento Continente,”
Michelle Tea’s rant to America,
“The Beautiful.” Yusef Komunyakaa sang praises to the flesh in his sensational
poem, “Anodyne.” tatiana de la tierra gave us “Visions of Colombia.” And, Sandra
C. Muñoz gave us a body manifesto entitled, “For My Sister Who Thinks I'm Unhappy
Because I like her Don’t Wear a Size Six.”
The words of these writers were our guides, providing constant inspiration
and great poetic models.
Aside from reading and writing, we also played. Using collage materials from recycled magazines and newspapers, we created poster-sized body maps. These body maps served as springboards into writing exercises, allowing us to venture into poems about flesh, memory, and body scars. Sara Eslava, one of the participants, for example, wrote a celebratory ode to her curves, while Patricia Beltrán birthed a prose piece about a lover who failed to see the beauty in her cesarean scar.
In the weeks following, I worked with Calaca Press to compile and edit a small chapbook consisting of the women’s strongest work produced during the workshop. The women were encouraged to revise titles, flesh out gaps, and polish images. All of the women proved themselves extremely committed to the process and to improving their craft. Being a part of this unique project and working so closely with these women gave me more than they will ever know. They gifted me with the opportunity to be part of their evolution as writers, which has fueled my creative fire.
Photo: Olga Garcia. Credit: Weenobee.com.
Major support for Readings/Workshops events in California is provided by The James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
July 18
Focus this week on collecting images, drawing on as wide a range of sources as possible. Cull family albums for interesting photos, visit online archives of images, cut out images from magazines or newspapers, take photos of buildings, billboards, birds—anything that strikes you as you make your way through each day. At the end of the week, assemble these on a table or tape them to a wall in your work space. Write a poem inspired by this collage.
Secret Bookstore
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Okay, this is just about the best thing we've watched all summer. Check out this video of Brazenhead Books, a secret bookstore inside Michael Seidenberg's apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Why is it secret? Just watch this.
Brooklyn Poet D. Nurkse Up for U.K.'s Forward Prize
The shortlist for the twentieth annual Forward Prize for Poetry, the U.K.-based award given for a collection by an established writer, a debut book, and a single poem, were announced this week. Among the finalists for the ten thousand pound best-collection prize (worth more than sixteen thousand dollars) isAmerican poet D. Nurkse, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, for Voices Over Water (CB Editions; first published in 1996 by Four Way Books in New York City).
Criticized by the Guardian for its all-male composition, the shortlist also includes former winners Sean O'Brien for November (Picador) and David Harsent for Night (Faber and Faber), as well as John Burnside for Black Cat Bone (Jonathan Cape), Geoffrey Hill for Clavics (Enitharmon Press), and Michael Longley for A Hundred Doors (Jonathan Cape). While women writers have historically had a strong representation among debut prizewinners, only three women poets, including U.K. poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, have received the top award.
The debut collections cited for this year's one-thousand-pound honor are Rachael Boast for Sidereal (Picador), Judy Brown for Loudness (Sidereal), Nancy Gaffield for Tokaido Road (CB Editions), Ahren Warner for Confer (Bloodaxe Books), John Whale for Waterloo Teeth (Carcanet Press), and Nerys Williams for Sound Archive (Seren).
Nominated for best poem are R. F. Langley, who died in January, for "To a Nightingale," Alan Jenkins for "Southern Rail (The Four Students)," Sharon Olds for "Song the Breasts Sing to the Late-in-Life Boyfriend," and Jo Shapcott for "I Tell the Bees."
The winners will be announced in October 5, the eve of U.K. National Poetry Day.
In the video below, Nurkse reads an "ecologically correct love poem," "The Present," at popular New York City poetry venue Cornelia Street Cafe.
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