Disappearing book (from Ron Silliman)

disappearing book no. 1 from disappearing books on Vimeo.

Dead Poets Live at the Poe Museum Thursday 7:00pm

Dead Poets Live

Sponsored by the Dead Poets Society of America
& The Poetry Society of Virginia

May 20, 2010
7:00 P.M.

Poe Museum, 1914 East Main Street, Richmond, VA

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome
Chris Semtner, Curator, Poe Museum

Opening Comments

Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Former Poet Laureate of Virginia, 2006-2008

Readings

Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda . . . . ... . . Anne Spencer

Hollis E. Pruitt . . . . . . . Andrew Jackson Andrews

Nancy Powell . . .. . . . .  . Margaret Junkin Preston

Ann Shalaski . . . .. . . .  . . . George Palmer Garrett

Edward Lull . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . Joseph F. Awad

Shann Palmer . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . Bess Gresham

David Wojahn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Larry Levis

Ron Smith . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . Edgar Allan Poe

Closing Comments & Announcement of the Photo / Video Contest

Walter Skold, poet and founder of the Dead Poets Society of America

Refreshments, courtesy of The Poetry Society of Virginia

The Dead Poets Society of America and The Poetry Society of Virginia are grateful

to the Poe Museum for hosting this event.

The new Martin's at Dumbarton Square (and all of them really)

No one asked me (well, actually, the store manager did ask me while I was there and I intend to send this to him) but here are my thoughts on the new “Martin’s” at Dumbarton Square.


Good things - mostly the same great people, friendly as usual and busy trying to find things that had been moved - think of a friend who moves into your house with all their stuff and you can’t find your keys- though everything was really sparkled up, it felt and looked clean. Double coupons every day is nice. This store will close at 10pm- Good call!!!

Uncomfortable things- beer and wine jammed into a very small store, in fact EVERYTHING was jammed in, as if someone forgot to note this is a small store and doesn’t need to have all the items other stores carry. The shelves are crushed with product- it’s not that easy to remove a can or box without knocking things off (I did, twice). Also, everything is piled too high- frankly, all I could think of was “an embarrassment of riches.” In contrast, the meat section is a flat landscape displayed so you have to leer over the bins to see what’s there- and it’s all crammed in, too.

on that note- all those guys in white shirts standing around watching things and talking about the shoppers and stuff- go home- there are capable people in this store who know how to do their jobs.

Sad things - all the ‘cheap’ looking packaging- sorry, GIANT- your logo looks dated (so does the Martin font). I felt like I was in a Dollar Store. There are also so many new brands the variety of sizes is not available, and I guess crammed up so they can get the beer & wine in. I wish someone had done local research to see what works here- it’s not a big city, we have room to spread out a little. A LOT of the new clerks looked uncomfortable. I’m glad for their jobs, though.

Bad things - The hang tags under products are very misleading- at least twice I had to explain to some older shoppers the bottom price is what you SAVE- not what the item costs. Yes, it says so, but it’s difficult to tell, particularly if your vision is not perfect. Believe me, clearer info will help- I’ve stood in line at this store behind an old person arguing over ten cents. The tags don't cleary indicate what is and what isn't on sale- some say 'new price'- huh? It's a new store, all the prices are new.In addition the stores are junked up with displays and freestanding products (I mentioned this on the UkropsInsider survey I sent in). It makes it difficult to negotiate a basket.

Disappointing things - The prices. Sorry. Overall they are not that good- I know my prices and I am a careful shopper- you can fool some of the people but not me (most of the time). I won’t slip over to Kroger (none close) or Food Lion (Yuck) but some of the produce prices in particular make Whole Foods look pretty good. In fact, considering the current emphasis on health and good eating, the produce selection seemed a little wanting. It may be there is more content there but the section is sprinkled with packaged crap- and the vegan/vegetarian selections are tough to locate.

Yes, I will still shop there, I’m loyal and it’s close. I like the people- particularly the deli folks (where prices are a little better). I do hope things shake out and upper management listens to the locals. If they don’t, it’ll just be another big chain full of scuzzy people who don’t care (no matter what they say) selling us stuff we don’t want or need.

In the meantime, there's always farmer’s markets and places like Nadolski’s Butcher Shop in Goochland. Oh yeah, and Whole Foods.

Maybe I’m the dinosaur- but I don’t think so.

Poetry Festival in Williamsburg this weekend!!

Interesting people will be there- including myself, of course/

For more info, go to the Poetry Society of Virginia website.

Sofia Starnes and Eric Pankey will be doing workshops and readings, and many others!

It's probably too late to get meals but it doesn't hurt to email and ask- but the sessions are open to all.

Everybody ought to have a maid...

I knew it. This is my problem, frankly. I really need someone else to take care of me and my stuff so I can write.

And now I have proof...

I write a poem-a-day in April and my house is a mess. And now I have a full week's work and will not be home at all much until next Monday.

So my poetry will suffer!

Ah- maybe that's a good thing- it's not like it matters.

Raise money for Doctors Without Borders and hear great music!!!

http://www.icgr.org/power-of-music-2010-flyer.pdf

Thursday Night
7pm

Be there!!!

A Pulitzer in poetry!! And she's in Richmond Wednesday

Reading at UR Wednesday night!!

http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2010-Poetry

Awarded to “Versed,” by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press), a book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading.

April is National Poetry Month!

and I have been writing a poem-a-day for the past eight years during this month.

Many of them have been revised (later) and been published.

You can support my efforts by pledging to The American Academy of Poets, where my poem/drafts will be posted for the month (then removed in May).

Money raised is used for education and events.

Poet Kathleen Graber reads First Friday at the Richmond Public Library!

Brodie Herndon Poetry Series
7:00 pm

Join the Friends of the Library for the 2010 Brodie Herndon Poetry lectur at 7:00 pm on Friday, April 2. The program will be held in the Davenport Special Collections Room, lower level of the Main Library.

Kathleen Graber, author of Correspondence, and winner of the 2005 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize is the 2010 speaker. A recipient of the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton (2007) and the Amy Lowell Travelling Scholarship (2008), Ms. Graber is an assistant professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. A second collection of poetry, The Eternal City, is forthcoming.

April is National Poetry Month

I have created a google grooup (by invitation only) to post a poem-a-day.

If you are interested-

2010 National Poetry Month Poems

Visit this group

I will send you five mini-poetry books for $5.

I will send you five mini-poetry books for $5.

What an interesting site this is...

guess we'll see if anyone bites.

A poet dies, a poem lives

posting from Avoiding the Muse

CONVERSATION


We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

--Ai (October 21, 1947 – March 20, 2010)

and another poet survives, facing death for her words

Help art6 Survive! Call for Entries!

Call for Entries: "Women and Words"


A juried show at art6 Gallery for the month of April as part of MINDS WIDE OPEN: Virginia Celebrates Women in the Arts 2010. Curated by Shann Palmer.

Women artists and writers are encouraged to submit (in collaboration or individually) for this exhibit. Works must include text as part of the work. All media will be considered, though two-dimensional work will be favored for this particular show as we have limited areas for pedestals.

Size should be under 4 by 4 feet, please inquire before bringing or mailing anything larger. If a work is mailed, please include return postage if it is not selected or does not sell. Up to two pieces per artist will be considered.

The entry fee is as follows: $10.00 per piece for Art6 gallery members, $15.00 per piece for non-members. (Collaborators may send an additional piece each or another collaboration with a fee).

There is room for a few works by men about women (or women's words), but this is primarily an exhibit for women. All rules apply to men as written below.

We encourage you to price your work to sell, you will receive 70% of the selling fee, the gallery 30%. You may donate part or all of the proceeds to the gallery if you would like to help our gallery stay open, but this will not impact whether or not your piece is accepted.

We will accept work March 20th and March 27th during our Saturday hours 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.. Please call to make an appointment on other days- DO NOT COME TO THE GALLERY WITHOUT AN APPOINTMENT ON OTHER DAYS. Call 804-343-1406, email at art6ebroad@gmail.com or contact Shann Palmer at 804-335-9403 to make an appointment or with questions.

The show runs from Friday April 2, 2010(opening night) through Saturday April 24, 2010. Works Must be picked up Sunday,April 25th during the hours of 2:30 to 4p.m. The gallery will not be responsible for works left after that date unless other arrangements have been made in advance with Shann

Poetry at VCU- Linda Bierds

Acclaimed Poet Linda Bierds Reads at VCU
March 11, 2010 at 8:00 pm
VCU Harris Hall Auditorium
1015 Floyd Avenue

The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to host a reading by acclaimed poet, Linda Bierds. The reading will take place on Thursday, March 11, at 8 pm at the VCU Harris Hall Auditorium (1015 Floyd Avenue - PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS A VENUE CHANGE FROM THE PREVIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT).
Bierds has published eight books of poetry: Flights of the Harvest-Mare; The Stillness, the Dancing; Heart and Perimeter; The Ghost Trio (a 1994 Notable Book selection of the American Library Association); The Profile Makers (winner of the Pen West Poetry Prize); The Seconds; First Hand and Flight: New and Selected Poems (Putnam 2008) Her awards include four Pushcart Prizes, the Virginia Quarterly Review's 2005 Emily Clark Balch Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Ingram Merrill, the Guggenheim, and the MacArthur foundations, and twice from the NEA. She is a professor of English at the University of Washington.

Ms. Bierds will also be available for an open Q&A session at 4PM that Thursday afternoon at 4Pm in Hibbs Hall room 308. This session is free and open to the public.

This reading at VCU is one of several events for the Spring of 2010 sponsored by the VCU Department of English and the Graduate Writers Association. It is free and open to the public.

For more information, please contact (804) 828-1329.

Sorry I'm going to miss this- I'll be at a rehearsal! But YOU should go!

Poetry Wednesday night at the Library of Virginia!

2010 Series Kicks Off with Poets Jake Adam York and Kathleen Graber


RICHMOND, VA – The Visual Arts Center of Richmond, Blackbird/New Virginia Review, the Library of Virginia and Chop Suey Books present the first installment in the 2010 Fresh Ink literary series on Wednesday, March 3. The on-going series of readings by emerging authors continues with a chapbook festival and a fiction reading later in the year. Poets Jake Adam York and Kathleen Graber read from their work beginning at 6 p.m. at the Library of Virginia. The reading is free and open to the public.
Jake Adam York is the author of three books of poems: Murder Ballads (2005); A Murmuration of Starlings (2008); and Persons Unknown (2010), forthcoming in the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry as an editor’s selection. His work has been nominated seven times for the Pushcart Prize and has placed in numerous competitions. York’s poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Oxford American, Greensboro Review, Southern Review, Poetry Daily, and other journals. His work of poetic history, The Architecture of Address: The Monument and Public Speech in American Poetry, was published by Routledge in 2005. York is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Colorado Denver, where he directs an undergraduate Creative Writing program and produces Copper Nickel with his students. York is also a contributing editor for Shenandoah, a co-editor of the online journal storySouth, and a founding editor of the electronic journal Thicket.

Kathleen Graber’s first collection of poetry, Correspondence, was the winner of the 2005 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She was the 2007 Hodder Fellow in Poetry at Princeton University and the 2008 Amy Lowell Traveling Scholar. She is a member of the creative writing faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University, and her new collection of poems, The Eternal City, is forthcoming this summer from Princeton University Press. Poems from the new book are forthcoming this spring in Blackbird, The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, and AGNI.

Fresh Ink is supported in part by the Carole Weinstein Endowment for Creative Writing at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond.

me and the RTD

“I never stop talking,” Shann Palmer said as she stood on the ragged wooden floor of art6, a gallery on East Broad Street. Palmer is passionate about so many things—the gallery, downtown Richmond, poetry, music, life in general—that her passion spills out in words.

Often, in fact, the words are written. Palmer is a poet known around Richmond for giving readings, organizing readings, volunteering at readings and encouraging other poets to read. She’s also a church organist and choir director.

Palmer is curator of “Women and Words,” an exhibit and series of readings that is art6’s contribution to
Minds Wide Open. She expects the exhibit will be “90 percent by women,” but she will include a few
works by men that pay tribute to women or are collaborations with a woman.

“It’s a marriage between spoken word and art,” she said. The visual art for the exhibit must include text
in some way, whether it’s a collage made from pages torn out of a book or words painted on the wall or even “a poem put in a frame and hung on the wall.”

Although art6 has had women-focused exhibits and literary events numerous times before, Minds Wide
Open is another opportunity for women to show their work and receive promotional assistance from
the statewide initiative.

“I’m certain there will be work created new for this exhibit,” Palmer said. “Some of us have trouble not
doing something new.”

“Women and Words” will run during April in honor of National Poetry Month.
beginning April 2 check www.art6.org for updates.

photo by Alexa Wekch Edlund for the RTD

article by Angela Lehman-Rios

The scary truth of too much poetry

The inevitable truth is here-

I know exactly how bookninja feels, at an event I attended the other night at least two people wrote something to read WHILE OTHER PEOPLE WERE READING. They were not participating in the experience, they were trying put some unfinished thoughts on paper so they could get up in front of everyone and share their mental drool. If I want raw, I'll eat my carrots uncooked.

That's not craft, that's not attention to words and the magic they hold. That's just masturbating in front of a microphone.

Yes, I host readings. Yes, I support my local poets. Jotting down your thoughts, journaling is not poetry. Writing while other people are reading is rude. Period.

(to be fair, I was not the host- who did an excellent job- and the event was an open mike, not a poetry reading. I'm still sick of it.)

Women and words exhibit coming to art6

Women writers and artists wanted for an exhibit during April celebrating women and words.

If you are a poet or novelist, readings will be held. If you are a visual artist, you may collaborate with a woman writer or exhibit your work that has text as part of the art.

Work due by March 28th at art 6, 6 East Broad St, Richmond, VA 23219

For more information or specific entry requirements email shannp (at) gmail (dot) com

Books for Sale, mostly poetry (MORE!!)

Books for sale cheap- make me an offer ($3-$5 each) for one or more- all are paperback unless otherwise noted, most are poetry (a fewcommentary) If you are in or around Richmond, email me and we'll meet somewhere. Sometime you just have to make room for stuff.

(revised list 2-16-2010)

LIST ONE

Adair, Virginia Hamilton Ants on the melon (hardback)
Aiken, Conrad Selected poems
Alvarez, Julia Homecoming (poems)
Amichai, Yehuda The Selected Poems of...
Ammons, A,R, The Really Short Poems of....
Ashbery, John April Galleons
Belieu, Erin Infanta
Bendall, Mollie Dark Summer
Bernstein, Charles Dark City
Berrigan, Ted Selected Poems
Berrigan, Daniel And the Risen Bread
Carroll, Jim Fear of Dreaming
Clark, Jeff Music and Suicide
Clifton, Lucille The Book of Light
Cohen, Leonard The Spice Box of Earth
collection SLAM
collection Ain’t I a Woman (Hardback)
collection Victorian Woman Poets 1830-1900
Crawford, Robert Talkies
DiPrima, Diane Pieces of a Song
Disch, Thomas The Castle of indukgence
Doran, Geri Resin
Dunn, Stephen The Insistence of beauty
Glazner, Gary Poetry Slam
Gluck, Louise meadowlands
Gray, Janet A Hundred Flowers
Hegley, John Love Cuts
Holstad, Scott C. Artifacts (chapbook)
Jewel A Night Without Armor (hardback)
Levertov, Denise Poems 1968-1972
Logan, William Macbeth in Venice
Lourde, Audre The Marvelous Mathematics of Distance
Mueller, Lisel The Private Life
Nisbet, Jim Small Apt
Plath, Sylvia Ariel
Reed, Lou Between Thoughts and Expressions collected lyrics
Rich, Adrienne What is Found There (plus 2 other books in one)
Talcott, William Benita’s Book
Turow, David The Torchbearer

LIST TWO (even more)

List 2


Bain & Beatty Norton Intro to Lit 6th ed HC
Barratt, Michele ed Virginia Woolf on Woman and Writing
Bryan, edited Where We Stand Women Poets on Literary Tradition
Budbill, David Why I Came in Judeville
Clark, Tom Like Real People
Fenza, D.W. The Interlude
Gallassi, Jonathan North Street
Gluck, Louise Vita Nova
Graham, Jorie The Dream of the Unified Field
Graves, Robert Poems About War
Heany, Seamus Opened Ground Selected poems 66-96
Heyen, William Diana, Charles, and the Queen
Kennedy & Gioia An Intro to Fiction 2nd ed.
Kirchway, Karl The Engrafted Word
Lattimore, Richmond The Odyssey of Homer
Levin, Phillis The Penguin Book of the Sonnet (signed)
Lowell, Robert Selected Poems
Lux, Thomas new & Selected Poems
Matthews, William Selected poems & Translations 1969-91
McCartney, Paul Blackbird Singing
McGrath, Campbell Pax Atomica
Merwin, W.S. The Vixen
Moss, Thyllias Small Congregations
Nemcosky, K.B. Drift
Olds, Sharon The Wellspring
Percham, Robert Mythic Instinct Afternoon
Pinsky, Robert Jersey Rain HB
Pinsky, Robert The Figured Wheel
Rivard, David Wise Poem
Roethke, Theodore The Collected poems of...
Sappho A garland trans Jim Powell HB
Schmidt, Michael Lives of the Poet
Seaton, translation The Wine of Endless Song from the Yuan Dynasty
Shapiro, Alan Covenant
Simic, Charles The World doesn’t end
Smith, Patti Auguries of Innocense
St. John, David The Red leaves of Night
St. John, David The Face
Stevens, Wallace The Collected Poems of ... HB
Suziki, Shunyru Zen Mind, beginner’s Mind
Swenson, Cole Goest
Tost, Tony Invisible bride
Tweedy, Jeff Adult Head
Wakoski, Diane Jason the Sailor
Wakoski, Diane Medea
Walcott, Derek Collected poems 1948-84
Waldman, Anne Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble
Wat, Phyllis The Fish Soup Bowl Expedition
Watts, Alan The Spirit of Zen
Watts, Alan The Book
Whitman, Walt Everyman’s poetry edition
Wiese, Anne Pierson Floating City
Williams, W.C. Paterson
Wright, Charles Appalachia
Wright, Charles Black Zodiac HB
Wright, Charles Chickamauga
Yeats, W.B. Great Irish Poets HB
Yeats, W.B. The Collected Poems of .....

write shannp (at) gmail (dot) com

Tony Hoagland's new poetry book is here!!!

Waiting for my copies of Tony Hoagland's new book
Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty

It's on the way from Fountain Books (my favorite local independent bookseller). I finally had to call and say "mail it". I don't know when we will have spring/no snow-

Here's a tiny bit for you to savor:

_______________________________________________
 Dialectical Materialism




My god there is so much sorrow in the grocery store!

You would have to be high

on the fumes of the piped-in pan flutes

of commodified Peruvian folk music



not to be driven practically crazy

with awe and shame,

not to weep at the scale of subjected matter:



the ripped-up etymologies of kiwi fruit and bratwurst,

the roads paved with dead languages,

the jungles digested by foreign money.