ABG Show at the Williams Gallery

The Artist Breakfast Group which, although "breakfast" is part of its name does not actually have breakfast at its early morning meetings, has an art show opening Friday, June 24 at the Williams Gallery located at the First Unitarian Church, 220 Winton Rd., Rochester, NY. The show will run until August 22, 2011. Poets will be reading (myself included) at the opening which runs from 5:00 - 8:00 pm and refreshments will be served. I hope to see you there. http://artistsbreakfastgroup.com/ABG/events.html

New Publication Opportunity

Architrave Press, founded by Jennifer Tappenden, is a new venture committed to "bridging the gap between intelligent poems and artful readers." This is a unique publishing opportunity for your poems, under 33 lines per poem. For more information visit http://architrave.submishmash.com/Submit.

Reading at Books, Etc.

I will be reading with David Michael Nixon Sunday, May 15 at Books, Etc., 78 W. Main St., Macedon, NY. The reading begins at 4:00 PM.

A bit about David: He is a mainstay in poetry in the Rochester area. I first encountered David at the Genesee Reading Series several years ago when Writers & Books was located in its temporary space on East Avenue while its University Avenue home was being renovated. His powerful short poems and distinctive reading style made quite an impression on me. David has served as a president of Just Poets and is a member of the Golden Links Folk Singing group.

I hope to see you at our reading on the 15th.

Ophelia's Flowers

I hope to see you at this special performance.

Ophelia’s Flowers: Mythic Women and Love
Song Cycle for Piano and Voice to be followed by a Poetry Reading

Libretto and poems by E. Louise Beach; Jennifer Bellor, composer.

Thursday, March 24, 7:00 pm
Wilson Formal Lounge
St. John Fisher College
3690 East Ave.
Rochester, NY 14618

Free and open to the public. Reception to follow the performance.

*Please note this is not an open mic event.

Sponsored by Just Poets and St. John Fisher College’s Arts Minor Program
Additional support by Poetic Effect

E. Louise Beach is a lyric poet, critic, translator, and librettist. Recently, she has been published in Barrow Street, Many Mountains Moving, Rosebud, The Bitter Oleander and TriQuarterly Online, among others. Finishing Line Press has published her two chapbooks: Blue Skies (2006) and Sine Nomine, (2011). She was recently named a finalist in the May Swenson Poetry Book Award. Seven of her poem cycles have been set to music by composers Jen Bellor, Gerald Coleman, Bryan Page, and Robert Pound. In 2011, Ms. Beach received a grant to create a libretto for August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death.


Jennifer Bellor is currently a Ph.D student in music composition at the Eastman School of Music. She holds an M.M. in composition at Syracuse University where she was the recipient of The Brian Israel Award in Composition in 2007. She was a participant in the Buffalo Philharmonic Young Composers' Readings in 2007 for her orchestral work, "Chimera." She has been commissioned by The Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, NY, Society for New Music, Reuben Blundell and the Millersville University orchestra, The Women in Music Festival at Eastman, and Peachtree United Methodist Church in Atlanta, GA with organist Nicole Marane and brass members from the Atlanta Symphony. Her piece, "Stars," for soprano and marimba was performed on the 2009 Eastman China Tour in May.

Call for Submissions

From Rob Tyler: R-Spec is accepting submissions for their 2nd anthology, "Alternative Rochesters," until March 31. Don't be fooled by the hard sci fi feel of the home page (or the cryptic comments in the right hand column - the dangers of too much automation!) - they love experimental fiction, magical realism, slipstream, and fantasy, with the emphasis not on genre but on literary quality. So dust off your memoirs, change a date or two, add an extraterrestrial or a dragon, and submit. And - set it in or around Rochester. Now, it could be "New Rochester," under a dome in a Martian crater, or the UFP Rochester trans-generational colony ship en route to Andromeda, or.... The first anthology included work by Nancy Kress, Nick DiChario, Jonathan Sherwood and JacK Garner so you'll be in good company.
http://r-spec.org

Genesee Reading Series

Please join Kathy Van Schaick and me for our reading at the Genesee Reading Series Tuesday, March 8 at 7:30 PM. The reading will be held at Writers & Books, 740 University Ave., Rochester, NY.

I will be reading new work, some of which is inspired by my residency in Poland last fall. Kathy will be reading from her outstanding poetry--if you haven't heard her read before, or read her work in Le Mot Juste and elsewhere, you don't want to miss this opportunity to get acquainted with it. Her bio is below:

Kathleen’s love of poetry began when, as an elementary school teacher, she collaborated with several local poets including Judith Kitchen and Dale Davis. Her poems have appeared in The Dire Elegies: An Anthology of Endangered Species, Listening to Water: An Anthology of the Susquehanna Watershed, Sea Stories, journal of the Blue Ocean Institute, and ByLine magazine in addition to several online literary journals including Puffin Circus. Her poem “women fish” won the 2006 S. Portia Steele Memorial Contest sponsored by the San Francisco Peninsula Chapter of the California Writers Club. Kathleen is past editor of Le Mot Juste, the annual anthology of Just Poets, (FootHills Publishing, 2008-2010). She is very honored to have been a participating poet in the in the 2009 Women in Music Festival sponsored by the Eastman School of Music.

Wanda Schubmehl is the curator of the Genesee Reading Series. Many thanks to her and to Writers & Books for the invitation to read.

Haiku North America 2011: Rochester, New York, July 27–31

From Michael Rehling: Organizers of the 2011 Haiku North America conference are pleased to announce that Rochester, New York, will now host the 2011 HNA conference, to be held July 27–31, 2011. The conference will maintain the theme of education in haiku and will take place at the Rochester Institute of Technology, cosponsored by the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, by the Postsecondary Educational Network-International funded by the Nippon Foundation of Tokyo, and by the Rochester Area Haiku Group.

Led by Jerome Cushman, the local organizing committee also includes Carolyn Dancy, Deb Koen, and Deanna Tiefenthal, with local and long-distance help from Francine Banwarth, Randy Brooks, and others. Anticipated activities include an Erie Canal boat cruise, banquet, regional readings, a memorial reading, anthology, T-shirts, and possible visits to nearby cultural attractions, including the National Museum of Play and a guided tour of historic Mt. Hope Cemetery, the oldest Victorian municipal cemetery in America and burial site of Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglas, and poet Adelaide Crapsey.More details will be provided at www.haikunorthamerica.com and on the HNA Facebook page.

Huffington Post Article on the MFA

What do you think about this Seth Abramson's article on the MFA?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/creative-writing-master_b_772628.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=1221877,b=facebook. Are there too many poets for the world and do poets need advanced degrees?

Can you help me get published?

This is for all who wonder about becoming a published poet or have been asked to help someone become a published poet.

Poets, this is a must read.

Have you ever wondered why you received your poems back from a journal with no note, acceptance or rejection? Have you waited more than two years for a response? This is worth reading (and forwarding). http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2010/10/21/AnAppealToPoetryEditors.aspx

Just Poets Reading Series

Nancy Chalker-Tennant will be the featured reader Thursday, October 14 for the Just Poets Reading Series. The reading starts at 7:00 pm and will be followed by an open mic.

A bit about Nancy: Nancy Chalker-Tennant is both a poet and visual artist who teaches in both disciplines in the Rochester, NY area where she lives. While she is concentrating on poetry, her work has included painting, printmaking and small editions of hand made “artists’ books” some of which are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Library, and The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. Nancy is the recipient of several grants including a Mid-Atlantic National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and New York State Council on the Arts grants, among others. Her poetry has been anthologized in Le Mot Juste.

Home from Poland

After nearly five weeks in the land of my paternal ancestors, I am finally home.

This trip to Poland has been more than worth the time and effort. I am most grateful to Axis Mundi, the arts organization that sponsored the writer's residency through the Art Factory in Bialystok; Don and Betty Orr, who shared their home and their perspective on Polish life from the point of view of North Americans living there for more than 10 years; Jolanta Wolagiewicz who introduced me to numerous contacts in my search for information on old Polish legends and folktales; my family and friends, who came to the rescue both personally and professionally allowing me to devote the time to take this trip; and the Arts & Cultural Council of Greater Rochester, which financially supported my travel. I am also grateful to my fellow writers-in-residence: Toni Denis, Kelly Hayes-Raitt, Eveyln Posamentier, Mairin O'Grady, and Dianna Mertz for their support and friendship throughout this adventure.

Uncovering one's roots affords the opportunity to make some sense of that which has often been taken for granted or gone unnoticed altogether. Background scenery--poplar, birch, and plum trees decimated by blight in Western New York thrive in the old country. Willows have more reason to weep in Poland, a nation all too often trounced upon by its neighbors. Poland is a nation long on tradition and determination. This is not a backward culture stuck in the time of cart and horse. This is a culture which has rebuilt itself time and again for a better future. This is a culture whose people, some whose courage enabled them to remain steadfast through the worst their enemies could do and others whose courage pressed them on to new lands where they worked to preserve their culture and language as they blended into foreign societies, have the resolve to persevere. It is this perseverance that remains in the genetic memory of those of us who lay claim to Polish ancestry, this unwillingness to be resigned to the acceptance of what is unacceptable.

Poem

I am happy to include the following poem, in both English and Polish, by Edyta Ślączka-Poskrobko, with her permission.

FAREWELL TO LHORIEN

I`d like to see beatiful Lhorien
again, in its passed glory
rest among the golden leaves
which fell down from Mallornes

listen to song of quiet river
which carried Elves' memories
and forget about my grief
and take the helm but oars

But there`s no forest any more
and memory is stray around
in gold Knyszyn-forest's deepness
in its clearings and wilderness

here under the bright blue sky
my heart changed into the wind
with Sokołda`s rapid current
wants to meet your hands again

But your hands not on the river
you are sailing far away
wind in shrouds whispers quietly
come back here come back, I beg you

I am waiting in Lhorien
like a gate closed long ago
but I`ll open myself as soon
as you say the password: darling

translated by
Paweł Poskrobko (the son of Edyta Ślączka-Poskrobk0)


POŻEGNANIE Z LHORIEN

Chciałabym Lhorien przepiękne
ujrzeć znowu w dawnej chwale
siąść wśród złotych liści cudnych
co z Mallornów pospadały

wsłuchać się w śpiew rzeki cichej
co wspomnienia Elfów niosła
i zapomnieć o swym żalu
w ręce chwycić ster nie wiosła

Lecz już nie ma tego lasu
i wspomnienie się tak błąka
po knyszyńskiej puszczy złotej
jej polanach i jej łąkach

Tu pod modrym niskim niebem
serce moje w wiatr zmienione
wraz z Sokołdy nurtem wartkim
chce napotkać twoje dłonie

Twoje dłonie nie na rzece
Twoje żagle na jeziorze
wiatr na wantach cicho szepce
wróć tu do mnie, wróć ja proszę...

Ja w Lhorien krainie czekam
jak zamknięta ongiś brama
lecz otworzę się gdy tylko
hasło rzekniesz: ukochana

Corrections to my last post.

The poet referenced in my September 7 post contacted me with some additions and corrections. I am so grateful that she did since I was unable to get all the information with my lack of knowledge of Polish. I am especially grateful since we poets don't get enough recognition for our work and I am more than happy to share more about her with my readers.

First of all, the art gallery is not part of the Bialystok university, but an independent institution – the Ślędzińscy museum. As for the poems, they were written by Edyta Ślączka-Poskrobko, her mother (Barbara Noworolska) and her father (Zbigniew Ślączka), not her grandfather as I had previously written on my blog. He was the grandfather to her son, who played his compositions on the piano – Paweł Poskrobko. The reading itself was titled Rodzinne Poezjowanie.

If Ms. Edyta Ślączka-Poskrobko allows, I will later post one of her poems that has been translated into English.

Witam!

Hello from Bialystok, Poland. As many of you know, I am here on a month-long writer's residency. Five other writers, one of which is also a poet, and I are absorbing Polish culture and the amazing richness of the cadence of the Polish language.

I am flattered that the people here view me as one of their own, a tribute to my half-Polish heritage. The complication is that it is assumed I speak the language when I only know a few words. Still, it is wonderful to be embraced so.

My poet-colleague and I attended a Polish poetry reading on Sunday. The reading was held at a small art gallery on the grounds of the University of Bialystok. The featured reader, a middle-aged woman who speaks no English, read not only her own work but that of her mother and grandfather. Her son also played a few piano compositions of his own. The poet herself was the embodiment of eccentricity, wearing neon green tights under her summery floral dress, a neon green shawl over her shoulders and a straw fedora on her head.

It might interest you to know that there seem to be some universal consistencies at poetry readings. No one, except for the host, sat in the first two rows of seats. There were late-comers. Someone's cell phone rang in the middle of the reading. Felt like just another second-Thursday-of-the-month reading at B & N. Speaking of B & N, I hope you'll join Anita Augesen who will be guest hosting for me Thursday night. Poet Victoria Korth will be the featured reader. As always, an open mic follows. The reading starts at 7:00pm. I hope you can make it.

Thank you in advance to my patient clients while my assistant works to keep your databases updated. In addition to helping me, she works full time and is a wife and mother. Thanks also to pet sitters and other family and friends for keeping everything in order at home so that I have no worries other than running out of paper while I'm here.

Please check back periodically for more posts as this adventure continues to unfold.

Do widzenia, for now.

Announcing the Black Mountain North Symposium, Rochester, NY, October 1-3, 2010. This conference celebrates the experimental arts tradition in upstate NY, while also commemorating the centenary of Black Mountain College rector Charles Olson and the life of poet Robert Creeley. In the collaborative and multidisciplinary spirit of the original Black Mountain, Black Mountain North will feature poetry and visual arts panels, as well as readings and performing arts performances. Distinguished speakers include poet and troubadour Ed Sanders, Black Mountain historian Mary Emma Harris, and Black Mountain College alumni Martha Rittenhouse Treichler, Basil King, and Martha King, among many notables. See http://www.blackmountainnorth.org/. For questions, contact John Roche at jfrgla@rit.edu.

Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book and Open Competition Award Results

The Wick Poetry Center at Cleveland State University has announced the prize winners for both its Open Book and First Book competitions:

Winner of 2010 Cleveland State University First Book Prize, selected by Rae Armantrout forthcoming Spring 2011, is The Grief Performance by Emily Kendal Frey.

Winner of 2010 Cleveland State University Open Competition, forthcoming Spring 2011, is
The Firestorm by Zach Savich.

For a complete list of finalists and semi-finalists visit http://www.csuohio.edu/poetrycenter/2010openbookresults.html.

Web Site for Women Writers

Whether you are looking for an opportunity for self promotion or would like to share your work with others for critiquing, check out www.shewrites.com. This online community of women writers from all genres recently reached 10,000 members. As a member you will be able to post your publication news on the site's weekly digest. You will also be able to join any groups relevant to your interests, ranging from spiritual writing, publishing and editing, and many more. Your participation can be as little or as much as you wish. Please take a look at She Writes and let me know what you think by posting a comment on this blog.

May Update

Update on contests, presses, and journals reading now: Nearly 20 chapbook publishers are reading via contests. Some of these are looking for manuscripts from specific demographics such as Midwestern poets only, poet-residents of NY and New England only, or LGBT poets only. More than 35 full-length book contests and presses are actively reading. While most college sponsored literary journals either have or are about to close to submissions, there are others that read exclusively from spring to fall. Plenty of journals read year-round though they may take a little more time to respond between now and autumn. Email me at info@poeticeffect.com if you'd like me to help your manuscript find a home.

Here's an online journal of high quality: Valparaiso Poetry Review, http://www.valpo.edu/vpr/. The current issue features work by Brian Turner, Sean Thomas Dougherty, and Michael Blumenthal.

Ha(nay)ku Reading

Over the winter, five teams of poets embarked on another form poetry project conceived by M.J. Iuppa, this time writing chains of ha(nay)ku. The form is simple: six words in any combination over three lines. Some teams, as decided by their captains, saw all of their team members' poems before writing their own in response. Since it worked so well last year with the Adelaide Crapsey project, I decided not to allow my team to see any poems other than that of the immediately preceding person's.

While there won't be a chapbook like Cinquainicity last year, there will be a reading Tuesday, April 27 at St. John Fisher College. The reading will begin at 7:30pm in the Hughes rotunda. For more information on the location visit http://www.sjfc.edu/.

My team members include Dave Tilley, Elaine Thayer Olsson, Ron Bailey, Ann C. Putnam, and Suzanne Slack.