What was your most memorable experience giving a reading of your poetry? Was it in a new place or an unusual setting? Did you connect in some special way with other poets or your listeners? Share your story with us, and share the experiences of other poets by reading their stories.

We’re launching our collection of poets’ reading stories with a good one—Bill Seaton’s “Reading near the Roof of the World” in Kathmandu, Nepal. And Bill has very kindly given our About Poetry library two of his poems to accompany this article:

• “Mahashamsana,” from India
• “Boca de Tomatlan,” from Mexico

We’ve been collecting poets’ stories for many years here at About Poetry—here are some of the old ones:

• Reports from poets around the world
• Festival, reading and performance reports, 1997 - 2004

Curiouser and curiouser.... It’s been more than six years since the local authorities in Alfacar, near Granada, Spain began the initiative to dig up the mass grave believed to hold the remains of Federico García Lorca, assassinated at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War because of his left-wing sympathies and his open homosexuality. Divided public opinion and various court edicts have gone back and forth since 2003, and the digging finally began in October 2009. But the project will end this week, and they haven’t found Lorca:

from The Telegraph (UK):
“Lorca’ civil war grave found empty,” by Fiona Govan
“One of Spain’s most enduring mysteries has remained unsolved after archaeologists exhumed a mass grave without finding the remains of Federico García Lorca.... The project on a remote hillside outside the southern city of Granada was intended to trace the fate of the nation’s most celebrated modern poet and playwright. But the two-month excavation of an area of parkland about the size of half a football pitch will come to an end this week and as yet no human remains have been unearthed.”

More on Federico García Lorca:
Our biographical profile of Lorca
Federico García Lorca’s body to be dug up (2003)
Artistic power remains in the place where poetry was made: the poet’s home (2007)

Al Gore says he wrote the poem in his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis (Rodale Books, 2009), because his chapter describing the apocalyptic effects of climate change didn’t fit in a book focusing on solutions to the crisis of global warming. So he kept trying to condense the chapter down to its essence—and ended up with a poem. “I’m not a poet, but I did my best...” What do you think, dear readers? Is it a poem? Is it a good poem?

Both The Telegraph and The Huffington Post (linked below) quote the full text of the poem—and of course you can find it in Gore’s book. Better yet, you can see and hear Gore’s own reading of the poem on video at CNN’s American Morning Web site. Give it a listen and come on back to comment!

from The Huffington Post:
“Al’s Poem,” by William Petrocelli
“‘When I submitted the manuscript to the publisher,’ Gore said, ‘my editor wanted to know who wrote it, because I hadn’t attributed it to anyone. I told him, William Butler Yeats.’ Then Gore burst out laughing.... ‘When he acted like he might believe me, I had to tell him No, no, I wrote it!’.... a poem—one that Yeats might have been proud of.”

from Vanity Fair:
“Al Gore: The Poet Laureate of Climate Change,” by Mark Hertsgaard
“Now, with the publication of his new book, Our Choice, Gore has unveiled a fresh and most unexpected talent: the book’s opening chapter concludes with a poem he wrote—21 lines of verse that are equal parts beautiful, evocative, and disturbing.... It’s odd that none of the reviews of Our Choice have mentioned this poem.... a surprisingly accomplished, nuanced piece of writing.”

from The Telegraph (UK):
“Al Gore pens bleak climate change poem”

More on William Butler Yeats
Biographical profile of Yeats
Library: Poems by Yeats
Things Fall Apart: A Study Guide to “The Second Coming”

A selection of our previous notes on poetry in the political world:
Neruda: Politics and poetical judgment (July 2004)
Rediscovered: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Poetical Essay against war (July 2006)
The Intersection of Politics and Autobiography in Poetry, Obama&8217;s poetry (March 2007)
Poetry vs. Prose in the Presidential Campaign? (February 2008) -- This one has a poll asking “Would you vote for a poet for President?” Stop in and see how our readers voted.
Found Poetry on the Campaign Trail, Sarah Palin’s statements made into poetry by Hart Seely (October 2008)
Poetry in the White House (December 2008)
Poetry and the Presidential Inauguration (January 2009)

Last week IBPC judge Majid Naficy announced his selection of the winning poems in the November InterBoard Poetry Competition—none of which came from our Poetry Forum:

• In first place, he chose “Certain in my Immortality - 1947” by Alice Folkart, a “beautiful and meaningful poem” that plays on the association of polio and water and evokes the child’s innate assumption of invulnerability in the face of danger.
• In second place, he selected “String Theory (Schrodinger’s Coffin)” by Jessica Haynes, a “touching and whimsical poem” that meditates on words and the emotional ties that can reach through the border between life and death when a loved one has crossed over.
• Majicy awarded third place to “Clothespin” by Sarah J. Sloat, a “Rorschach of the laundry sack” in which the poet spins out the metaphorical implications of a homely object.
• He also made honorable mention without comment of “‘Appy ‘Our,” an English-accented vignette by Stuart Ryder.

Poems for the December competition went to the judge this week, and we’re proud to announce the three poems entered from our Poetry Forum:

• “Night Sepia” by Tim J. Brennan (68degrees), a deft and delicate evocation of the poet’s dream visitors in the night “time when the strange bird / sings its own dark song.”
• “Education of Our Condemned” by Robin Taylor (bitoftruth), a poem that twists familiar nursery rhymes to recreate the horrors of the contemporary urban classroom.
• “Tree Planting” by Christine J. Schiff (cumin), a sweet, direct and natural elegy.

We sent these poems in with all good wishes, and will be back to report just as soon as the judge has made his choices. In the meantime, please remember to keep your nominations coming in—post the best poems you see on our Forum in the InterBoard Poetry Competition folder and be sure to address your post to the poet whose work you are nominating, so that the poet will be notified and can post the required permission and information before Poetry Guide Margy Snyder selects the next month’s three entries.

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum
Background information and reading links for October - December IBPC judge Majid Naficy