The Mad Poets Blog

Vincent Quatroche who read for the Mad Poets last year in Newtown recently wrote a poem about my 91′ Buick entitled “Vanishing Breed” at Rubber Eden following a visit to his town. This is the link if you want to have a look : http://www.rubbereden.com/poetry/

Lamont Steptoe and Samatha Barrows have agreed to interviews for the blog. As soon as I receive them I will post them. I also requested an interview with Heather Thomas.  I am hopeful all will appreicate the poets interviewed sharing with us.

Until next time,

G

There was a time when local book stores, diners and coffee houses defined a business district. Chain operations are quickly wiping out local businesses such as these. It doesn’t matter if the stores are located in boroughs, downtown districts or in suburbia, support for the stores declines as people flock to the chain stores. Stores such as Voices and Visions, Big Blue Marble and Robins in
Philadelphia, Harvest Books in Media support the local literary community. The shelves at these stores are packed with excellent literature by local authors and poets as well as the main stream material you will find at the big boys. Many write of the effects of commercialism on communities across the country, yet don’t support local home grown business.

If you are fortunate enough to have a local book store, coffee house, diner or other such business in your area, step up and support them by purchasing from them. If you would like to find an independent book store near you, check out Book Sense who distributes to local stores at: www.booksense.com . Type in a zip code and they will provide you with a list of stores near you.

Well it’s that time again, kids:

Anything exciting happening this week? Did you just find out about an acceptance or a reading invitation? Do you have an upcoming appearance in person or in a journal? Did you just have a set of poems accepted for broadcast at Skin Radio? Let us know what’s going on!

Bring on the self-promotion!

i lead a regular poetry workshop and a topic that keeps coming up is that of copyright/intellectual property/fair use… specifically around the use the epigraphs and or writing poems that come “after” another work, such as painting, song, or even a poem by another artist.

i found this thread from the wom-po listserv, but its pretty inconclusive — at least for me.  so i’m wondering about any of your experiences out there in the world.  do you need to get permissions for epigraphs taken from poems? how about song lyrics? is it based on the number of lines? could a poet/artist sue another poet for taking a few lines for an epigraph?

and where does allusion fit into this whole mix?  In Major Jackson’s recent book Hoops, there’s a long letter poem to Gwendolyn Brooks that is just riddled with allusion, in places he’s even weaving his own lines with the lines of other poets and writers, but in a very subtle, unannounced sort of way.  Does anyone out there have any ideas on how this works?

And do epigraphs turn off publishers?  Say, I’ve entered a poem or manuscript into a contest & its got a few well-chosen (or so I’d like to think) epigraphs… do the editors/publishers see trouble when they see epigraphs?

oh the list of questions goes on & on.

Last night I headed over to Bryn Mawr College with fellow MPS blogger Anna and our faithful poetry cohort Don Kloss for the last reading in the BMC Visiting Writers Series, given by Yusef Komunyakaa. The reading was held in the Wyndham Alumnae House, which was a lovely – if a bit formal – place. (Remember, I like my poetry with “guts and knuckles,” so parlors and flowered wallpaper are not always the thing for me.) There was a terrific crowd, including a host of students from the college, where Komunyakaa has been teaching a Poetry Master class.

(Continued)

Bloggers like to play games. Bloggers also like attention. So do poets. Come to think of it, I guess all people like a little attention every once in a while. So, in that spirit, I’d like to introduce a new, weekly feature of the Mad Poets Blog — Shameless Self-Promotion Day.

Every Monday, I (or one of the other MPS bloggers) will start a Shameless Self-Promotion post, shamelessly plugging some event or other in which we’re participating, be it as featured reader, host, or even excited audience member. In response, you dear readers, are invited to add comments shamelessly plugging something that you’ve got going on. A reading. A book. A new website or blog. Whatever it is, we want to know. Did I mention that this is your opportunity to be totally shameless??

And if you don’t have anything, checking the thread will probably give you some good leads to help you plan your week in poetry.

Let the games begin.

Two Madpoets events are scheduled for April 21^st.

Madpoets travel to Brooklyn to read for the Brownstone Poetry Series hosted by Patricia Carragon and Evie Ivy at:

FIFTH AVENUE RESTAURANT & DINER

Pottstown will be treated to the poetics of Lamont Steptoe and Aaren Perry at the Otherwise- Poetry at Churchills series hosted by Glenn McLaughlin.

Churchill Artisan Baker & Chocolatier- 7pm
137 E. High Street
Pottstown, PA 19464
484-941-5100

I’m just going to pop in here for a moment to give a plug:

The Quick and Dirty Poets are hosting an open mic on Friday night with featured poet Dan Maguire. If you don’t know Dan, you’re missing out on something great: he’s a good poet, a good reader, and generally speaking a good guy.

You can learn a bit more about Dan by reading this interview with Therese Halscheid for Camden County Cultural and Heritage Commission. You can also read his poem “Leaders” here at the Pedestal Magazine.

The reading will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 13th, at the Daily Grind Coffee House in Mt. Holly. Bring two poems to share in the open mic.

We hope to see you there!

Fiction writers: for some poets, like me, they are alien creatures who don’t break their lines into jaggedy bits, who are obsessed with making sure all their nouns and verbs go together in a certain order, and who abide by the nasty little narrative arc. *shudder*shudder*

Some writers are agile enough to not just walk the genre balance beam, but to do cartwheels and back-walkovers and flips on it. We’re lucky enough to have several such genre-gymnasts among the Mad Poets members. And Peter Baroth is one of them.

This week, the Guild of Outsider Writers posted a review of Peter’s novel Long Green, deeming it a “well-crafted, absorbing read.”

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t read the novel yet, but Peter is an engaging poet, whose work be-bops through space and time, travelling social, political, cultural and geographical distances. So, I trust the commenter who said that Long Green “is also a story that authentically depicts the angst of a generation” because that resonates with the tenor of his poetry, which I’ve come to know and admire. I look forward to reading the novel soon.

If you’re interested, you can get Peter’s novel in paperback or Adobe eBook at iUniverse. You can also read some of his poetry online, from Off the Record: An Anthology of Poetry by Lawyers.

Like Autumn, I have yet to catch up on Ashraf’s and Anna’s discussion below - but I’m going to post anyway. And it looks like I’m just in time, on the heels of Autumn’s post about bad poetry criticism, and how the writer concentrates on taking cheap shots at the poets rather than a valid look at the publishing houses. Along the lines of criticism (though not quite so critical), I wanted to look at another poem as a sort of counterpoint to my previous post on Ross Gay’s “Two Bikers Embrace on Broad Street.”

I suggested in that post that Gay’s poem is successful partially because it avoids using obvious Philadelphian imagery in a way that can be construed as cliche - Gay allows Philadelphia to become a backdrop to the poem: Philadelphia is important, but it’s not the most important thing in the poem. And then I got to thinking. And talking to myself in the car, which is not unusual, but probably not healthy.

But wait! I said to myself (out loud). I know a poem that totally embraces the landscape and pop-culture of Philadelphia, and is not a failure as a poem! So I’d like to take a look at a poem written by our very own Autumn - “Brotherly Love,” her gentle reminder to the Eagles that Philadelphia sports fans are entirely dedicated (and, in this blogger’s opinion, a little nuts. Sorry, Autumn.). (Continued)