The Mad Poets Blog

Hey hey, it’s Monday again. Let’s get shameless! What events are you promoting? Where are you reading? Can we buy your book? A journal that’s publishing your poems??? Let us know!!

As for us… it’s a slow week, no events. All the more reason for you to point us in a different direction!!

It’s Monday again, and with all the events that needed to be canceled or postponed thanks to last week’s snows, I expect there to be lots to promote! So, bring it on — your reading, your book, your poems online. Whatever it is, do share!

As for us…

*Week of Feb. 15*

Thurs, Feb 18th, 7pm: West Catholic student poetry reading at the Delaware County Institute of Science in Media. This is the first in a new series of events sponsored by the Mad Poets and the Greater Phila. Poets for Young Voices.

Snow — boooo!!!

Looks like the Delaware Valley is going to be deluged with snow – again. Twice in one week. Thrice in one winter. This is some historic stuff here, people. Unfortunately, this historic stuff is forcing us to cancel the MPS Critique Circle at the Coffee Club in Media, planned for tomorrow, Wednesday 2/10 @ 7 pm.

As for Thursday’s reading at Milkboy in Bryn Mawr, we’re playing it by ear. Check the blog & website for updates. And of course, we’ll be tweeting our updates as well, so follow us if you aren’t.

p.s. Considering the sheer volume of snow, not to mention its aforementioned historic nature, we expect inches and inches of snow poems whenever we meet again.

It’s Monday again. That means time to get Shameless with your good news. Reading coming up? Book getting published? Website we should check out? Type it in the comments & let us know. Or tweet it with the hashtag #ShamelessMonday. (And of course, if you’re not following us – @MadPoetsSociety – you should be!)

As for us, we’re really getting back in action this week!

*Week of Feb. 8, 2010*

• Wed, Feb 10, 6:30-8:30 p.m.: The MPS Critique Circle meets at the Coffee Club in Media, Pa. Please note, this is a new location & a new time for 2010. The critique circle is free, open to the public, and will convene in the Coffee Club’s glass-enclosed conference room.
• Thurs, Feb 11, 7 p.m.: We kick off our series at the Milkboy Acoustic Cafe in Bryn Mawr with our annual pre-Valentine’s Love/Anti-Love open mic. This is always LOTS of fun! No featured readers — just you, you, and you reading your poems about love, hate, lust, repulsion, and everything in between.
• Sat, Feb 13, 2 p.m.: Tamara Oakman’s Business of Words poetry workshop moves to the Blue Grotto (at Community Education Center) in University City. The workshop will meet monthly on the 2nd Saturday, Feb thru Nov.
• Sat, Feb 13, evening: The Mad Poets series in Pottstown kicks off… I don’t have full details, yet, but I’ll update later.

So, way back in the day when I first started blogging, before I started my current (ongoing) personal blog, and well before I took on the duties of the Mad Poets bloggette, there was thing that went around the blogosphere called The Friday Random 10… folks would put their music players on random & then post to their blog the first 10 songs that came up. It was always fun to see what connections came up.

Inspired by that tradition (does anyone still do it), I’m initiating the Friday Random 2 here on the Mad Poets blog. Every Friday I’ll select 2 random (or not so random, as the case may be) poems from the Mad Poets Review, the Internet, the Norton Anthology, or where ever I feel like. If you’ve got a blog, maybe you can point us in the direction of a few of your favorite poems (let’s keep copyright in mind, so link to external sites, get permission from your friends & be generally conscience of not just posting someone else’s stuff without their say so).

I thought it only fitting that we start off with a poem by the Queen of the Mad Poets, Eileen D’Angelo. This poem appeared in the Mad Poets Review, Volume 20, which was released in 2007.

South Wind
~Eileen M. D’Angelo

It’s one a.m. –
and nothing feels right:
My legs are too long for this small bed,
my feet dangle off the end, into cool air.
The stars outside hang just below the tree line,
and this cabin is not big enough for me
and this country brown spider.

It’s one a.m. –
and I want to pick up the phone,
hear your voice, tell you how cold the sheets are
here in the mountains, where four months
of rainless skies deluged into one day
of drizzle and downpours. The other night,
under cover of overcast sky, I slipped
into the dark cold waters, my nipples
hard as buttons, my eyes skyward
as smoky clouds moved across the moon.

Tomorrow I will walk around the lake,
rain or no rain. I will take what I can
for the journey home: This south wind
blowing off the lake, the damp pines
turning in sunlight. Fallen apples
circled by bees.

The second poem comes from one of my newer favorite web mags, Literary Mama. I read this poem a few months ago & it just rang so true of the pressures (read: neuroticisms of motherhood). Here are the first few lines, please link over for the full poem, it’s well worth it!

Junk food poem
~Rachel Levy

Start stressing about Halloween festivities at the kiddies’ school. Read flyer about Room 9 Halloween party. Experience disbelief that each family is to send in some kind of Halloween junk. Calculate that junk total for each child would equal twenty-five pieces. Wonder how so much junk will fit into little goodie bags that kids are supposed to decorate. Experience some level of disgust with emphasis on materialism given the recent economic downturn. Experience desire to not spend money on little plastic witches with little parachutes that will get destroyed after one day of use and go into a landfill. Realize that before landfill junk will come into home. Experience strong desire to keep junk out of home. Consider possibility of homeschooling kids…. READ THE REST OF THIS POEM.

It’s Monday. It’s February. Events are starting to get back into full swing — and there’s ALOT going on. So, help us fill our calendars by telling us where you’ll be reading or performing. Let us know where we can buy your books, CDs or other goodies! As for us…

*MPS Events, Week of Feb. 1st*

• Tuesday Feb 2, Open Mic @ Steel City Coffee in Phoenixville. (Note: the new schedules aren’t up on the main website, but you can check there for the address & directions. Need more deets? Leave us a comment or use the contact info on the main site.)

Also… it’s February, so this week we’re gonna kick off a new feature:  the Friday Random 2.  We’ll post two poems from the Mad Poets Review, the internet, the Norton Anthology, or where ever the heck we feel like finding ‘em.  So check in Friday and see what we’ve found.