The Mad Poets Blog

news & chatter from the Mad Poets Society

Monthly Archives: May 2010

The Mad Poets Week in Preview: 31 May 2010

It’s Memorial Day, so that means its officially summer, right? That may mean that the flow of poetry slows in some parts, but not these. This week, we’ve got two great events.

  • Tuesday June 1st, 7 p.m.: Open mic poetry at Steel City Coffeehouse in Phoenixville. Hosted by Stu O’Connor and Mary Kathryn Morgeneier. Bring your poems, your instruments, and your enthusiasm. This event is free & open to the public.
  • Thursday June 3rd, 6-8 p.m.: Light of Unity Association and Mad Poets Performance Series hits the University of Pennsylvania Bookstore in University City. This month’s line up features Jeffrey Ethan Lee, Dan Maguire, Quincy Scott Jones, Mel Brake, Tree Riesener, George McDermott, Bonnie MacAllister, and a musical/spoken performance by: Ian Wolf. Admission is $7 or $5 for students, seniors & MPS members. Proceeds benefit Philabundance.

Hope to see ya there!

Another game changing open mic at Milkboy

Thursday’s reading at Milkboy was another great one. Poets Katherine Bode-Lang and Cliff Lynn along with essayist Krista Eastman brought diverse and complementary styles that highlighted the surprising connections that arise from individuality.

Even more surprising was the dynamic open mic — which included a whopping 19 readers with talent a-plenty!!! And for the 3rd month in a row, the game has changed, and we have new leader in the open mic contest. The real shocker is that May’s winner — and now contest leader — actually made his Milkboy debut just this month. What’s still more mind blowing, he’s a high school student! That’s right, with just one poem, newcomer Elliot Levy, of Harrison High School, over took both Steve Delia & Howard Lieberman, to regulars who have been mounting votes for the past three months! But I wouldn’t count either of them out so quickly, since they’re still holding firm in 2nd & 3rd. It’s also important to note that there are alot of other regulars who keep on accumulating. Sure, it’s a cliche, but it’s still anybody’s game.

*Open Mic Contest Rankings*
as of May 13, 2010

1.  Elliot Levy (total votes: 9)
2.  Stephen Delia (7)
3.  Howard Lieberman (6)
3.  Betti Kahn (6)
4.  Linda Fischer (5)
4.  Jess Bouchard (5)
5.  Karen Stern (4)

The way this thing is going, I can’t wait to see what happens next month!!!

Thursday: Poets & Essayist at Milkboy

Join us Thursday night for another great mixed-genre reading at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe in Bryn Mawr, where we’ll feature poets Katherine Bode-Lang and Cliff Lynn along with essayist Krista Eastman. Bring your own poems to participate in the open mic that will followed the featured readings, and you could get a shot for a featured reading slot of your own later this year. The festivities begin at 7pm.

Here’s a bit about our readers….

Poet Katherine Bode-Lang

Poet Katherine Bode-Lang

Katherine Bode-Lang’s chapbook, Spring Melt, was chosen by G.C. Waldrep as the second place winner in the 2008 Keystone Chapbook Contest and was published last May by Seven Kitchens Press.  Her poems have appeared in Subtropics, The Mid-American Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Rattle, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, among others.  She was an Editor’s Choice for The Mid-American Review’s James Wright Poetry Award in 2007 and 2008, and she received Academy of American Poets Prizes three times from Penn State and Hope College.  Katherine holds an MFA from Penn State University and lives in Bellefonte, PA, with her husband, Andrew.

Krista Eastman was born and raised in the hills of Wisconsin. A couple of seconds ago, she completed her MFA in Women’s Studies and Creative Writing at Penn State. Her literary essays about travel, place, and gender are collected in a new manuscript entitled Some Other Sun, and her writing appears or has appeared in New Letters, Witness, The Massachusetts Review and others.

Poet Cliff Lynn

Poet Cliff Lynn

Like most other poets, Cliff Lynn auditioned for, and was rejected by, the Gong Show at an early age.  Cliff was the 2006 editor-in-chief of the Anne Arundel Community College Literary Journal Amaranth.  With multimedia poet Rocky Jones, he has hosted monthly poetry readings since 2005, bringing great poets (established and up-and-coming) to Annapolis, MD, while providing the local poetry community a safe and nurturing environment to share their work. Cliff is establishing a poetry series in Birdie’s, a new Westminster, MD coffee shop.  An award-winning poet, he has over 35 poems and short stories published in small-press journals such as Free Lunch, Fledgling Rag and Grub Street, and is the inaugural featured author on the Baltimore-based journal “Scribble”’s website. Cliff was a judge for the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2010 Poetry Out Loud Maryland Regional semi-finals, and for Delaware County, PA High Schools 2010 Poetry Competition.  Half of the inaugural featured poets for M.S. Sanders’ !Speak Your Piece! reading series in Baltimore (a series which is the literary equivalent of an orgasm), he has read poetry throughout Maryland, as well as in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Texas, Washington, California and Vegas.  Cliff has taken poetry into colleges, high schools, middle schools and elementary schools, and is the Tuscarora High School’s Poet-in-Residence in Frederick, MD, a post he has held since 2007.  They won’t let him live there, however.

Milkboy Open Mic Standings

Last month, we celebrated National Poetry Month at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe with great readings by John Yamrus and Minna Duchovnay, and a small but satisfying open mic. Those who participated may have been wondering who won, hitting refresh on the blog and wondering if I lied when I said I’d post the results. Well…

I apologize for the delay. As a poet and Aries in a family of Aries, April is a busy month — between trying to write lots of poems and celebrate lots of birthdays!! But as they say, better late…

After two months of open mic competition, here’s how things stand:

  1. Stephen Delia leads the pack with 6 total votes.
  2. Howard Lieberman runs a close second with 5 votes.
  3. And newcomer Karen Stern holds the third place spot with 4 total votes.

With so many more readings, that featured reading slot in November is still anyone’s to nab! So come out this Thursday, 7pm, to Milkboy Acoustic Cafe for a great mixed-genre reading — featuring poets Katherine Bode-Lang and Cliff Lynn and creative nonfiction writer Krista Eastman — and bring your own work to take a shot in the contest.