| POETRY CURRENTS | |
Florida is roasting poets. Line up at the rotisserie and pluck a succulent breast of image, metaphor thigh, or symbolic wing. While it is hot, some cool stuff is chillin' in the south....
ADAM'S RIB OFFERS MEATY OPPORTUNITY
Poet Donna Bartlett is publishing an anthology of poetry tentatively entitled The Adam's Rib Project, or I Knew There Was a Catch, scheduled for publication in autumn 2002. The poems will define and evaluate the condition and position of woman, in light of history, her biological baggage, and the women's movement, from the beginning of time to the day after tomorrow. Donna's looking for humor and wit, and for pathos. She wants strong opinions and a demonstration of opposing views. Her aim is to be amusing, entertaining and thought provoking with a light touch -- preferably without whining, but without pulling any punches either.
John Arndt, Artistic Director of Palm Beach Repertory Theater, will create a stage performance incorporating the best of the poetry. This Poetry Showcase Production will be assembled, produced, and directed by a quartet of women poets including Stacie Kiner and Marya Summers. It will be staged during the coming winter theater season and will include original music, plus at least one modern dance sequence. The performance(s) are planned for the Harriet Hibbel Gilman Theater at CityPlace, West Palm Beach.
In aid of this, the PBR Board has decided to sponsor a poetry competition with cash prizes, with a deadline of September 1. The Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation will provide $250 toward prizes and will help offset costs for wine and cheese at the theater production. If you are interested in helping, or to submit work, contact Donna at donnabartlett@cs.com or John Arndt at john.arndt@juno.com. Or send a SASE to Donna Bartlett, 11775 Laurel Valley Circle, Wellington, FL 33414, 561.798.5592. There are six suggested subject categories in the competition, including one for song lyrics, but all sections will be combined into one for a single awarding of prizes. All prizes will be awarded, but judges reserve the right to divide the top two prizes. Judges decisions will be fatal... uh... final. Any length poem will be considered, but realistically, poems of one or two pages will probably have a better chance at winning. New poetry is encouraged, but previously published material will be accepted if the poet owns copyright. Please provide publication information. No reading or entrance fees required. Submission of material to this competition indicates the poet's willingness to participate in the book and/or stage performance, although poets may be permitted to decline one or the other. Poets whose work is included in either the book or the stage entertainment will receive a standard writer's fee. Experienced actors will perform the winning poetry on stage, unless the poet is also an accomplished performer. Poets who wish to perform their own work will have an opportunity to audition in person, or may submit a reading on tape, CD or as a digital file attached to email. With contest entry, please indicate also if you would be willing to perform your own material, and perhaps to read others' work as well. Poets may submit one poem for each of the suggested categories, or a total of six, divided between categories as they wish. Or make up your own category, but no more than six poems/lyrics may be entered. Send entries by email or regular mail. Email entries will be acknowledged when received. Submit poems by regular mail on 8½x11-inch white paper, printed or typed, with no name indicated. Identify your poetry by submitting a separate list of the poem titles you're entering, with your name, address, phone number, plus email address if you wish. Or cut and paste into email. Files may also be attached to email if your entry is too long to cut and paste. Be sure to include your name and postal address, plus your email address and phone number. (Title sheet should be at the end of email content.)
The six suggested subject categories are:
- Voices from the Past -- imagined words by a woman from any period of history, living or dead, famous, infamous, or otherwise. (Eve, Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, Phyllis Schafley, Cleopatra, Mae West, Gloria Steinem, Margaret Sanger, Rosie the Riveter, Rosa Parks, Hillary Clinton, Shere Hite, Sandra Day O'Connor, Janet Reno, etc.)
- I Knew There Was a Catch -- About something that looks okay on the surface, but turns out to be not so fine. The words of the subject should be a part of the poem.
- Growing Up Female
- What Do Women Want? (No... What do they really want.)
- One Step Forward, Two Steps Back -- What wouldn't you change, what should be changed? What will never change? What are our hopes for our daughters? How will this affect our sons? What steps forward have women taken over the centuries. What important points have been conceded. What weapons have been used effectively, and which have been discarded without thought.
- Song Lyrics -- (Or words and music if poet is also a composer.) Songs may be sent on cassette, CD, WAV file on 3½-inch disk, or in digital file attached to email if the song is short enough. Winning entries will be set to music if no melody is provided.
NOT SO SPEECHLESS IN SEATTLE
Marya Summers, slammistress at Dada, headed a four-member team at the Slam Nationals in Seattle. Here's her scoop:
Delray Beach competed at its first-ever National Poetry Slam and good-god was it fun! It's like a poetry Woodstock but with lodging and better hygiene. On Wednesday (August 1) we had a dream of a preliminary bout in the Seattle Poetry Slam's home venue, Sit-and-Spin, a nightclub-restaurant-laundromat that redefines “cool.” Delray went up against Vancouver BC (a perpetual poetry orgasm), LA (some crowd-pleasing poetry here), and Flagstaff (a first-year team with kick-ass words!). Each of the teams was supportive and completely in the spirit of things. Delray's team -- Mahogany, Marya, Nicole and Tanya -- did an outstanding job performing their poetry, but alas, we were up against some real powerhouses and came in fourth place. On Thursday (August 2) we lived the nightmare version of our dreamy first night. In an armpit of a venue, we went up against three California teams -- San Jose, Hollywood, and Oakland. Yeah, there were some good poets in the bunch, but what a bunch of bad sports... no one who was affiliated with their teams would applaud or respond to poetry done by any other team. Poor little Delray (with our four-person posse) couldn't make the noise necessary to be considered “audience response,” and again we came in fourth. Next year, we hope more fans will come out to support the team. The coolest thing about this year's nationals was the World Record stage open 24 hours at The Hurricane, the diner with a taste for poetry. After competitions, poets headed over for mediocre food served really slowly and some free-for-all poetry. Once we were eliminated during the preliminary bouts, the Delray Beach team became voyeurs and tourists -- we buddied up with Pittsburg, Providence, and Dayton teams and checked out the city, did some cross-dressing, imbibed poetic substances, and took lots of pictures. We even dressed up real purdy for finals in our pink and blue team hair (yes, Delray Beach had team shirts and team hair). The camraderie and the poetry is really the best National Poetry Slam has to offer. If you're going to see the best team win, you'll be disappointed. The best part of the finals show was the showcase (not part of the competition), where the organizers hand-selected the performers. Unfortunately, some of the most amazing poets -- like Vancouver BC this year -- don't even make the semi-finals. Slam, indeed.
Marya hosts the poetry slam every Tuesday at 10:30 pm at Dada Restaurant & Lounge, 52 N. Swinton Avenue, Delray Beach. Call 561.330.3232 for the latest on the Delray Beach slam, or check out the Web site.
THERE'S GOLD IN SOUTH FLORIDA
The Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation will co-host two magical appearances of none other than Albert Goldbarth in South Florida. The first event, co-hosted with Florida Atlantic University, will take place at 8 pm on Tuesday, November 13 in the Ritter Art Gallery above the campus cafeteria located at 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton. A book signing and wine & cheese reception will take place following the reading.
On Saturday, November 17 (time and room to be announced) HKPF will once again join forces with the Miami Book Fair International to host Mr. Goldbarth at one of the world's most prestigious literary events, located on the Wolfson Campus of Miami Dade Community College in downtown Miami.
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O WHAT A POETIC WEB WE WEAVE
The Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation has signed on with Webmaster Cody Smith of Nova Southeastern University to design and build a savvy, glitzy, professional Web site which will feature streaming audio and video (so we can weave sound and images of poets weaving, uh, reading, at one of our many poetry series), links, bios, photos, poetry of HKPF-hosted poets (including local poets) and a calendar of events of all HKPF readings, workshops and lectures. The site will also feature a calendar of all other South Florida poetry events.
HKPF plans to announce a new national poetry competition with a $500 prize on the new site. A members' area will offer local poetry. We think Hannah would be proud. (Hannah Kahn was teacher, mentor and friend to many in South Florida. She was the unofficial poetry editor of the Miami Herald for 16 years prior to her death in 1988. It is her vision that HKPF projects in nurturing poets great and small in South Florida.)
ON THE PAGE, ON THE WEB
Poetrybay and Long Island Quarterly editor and publisher George Wallace will lecture on the differences and similarities between editing and publishing in traditional print and online at 8 pm on Saturday, September 15 at Books and Books, 265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables. The lecture is co-hosted by Books and Books; admission is free.
George also will read from his many books of poetry, including The Poems of Augie Prime, at 3 pm on Sunday, September 16 at the Bienes Center, 100 S. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale. Admission to this event is also free; a booksigning and wine & cheese reception will follow. The reading is co-hosted by the Florida Center for the Book.
A four-time New York Press Association Writer of the Year nominee, George Wallace is an award-winning poet and journalist living and working on Long Island. He has appeared recently in performance at The Knitting Factory, Orange Bear, Cornelia Street Cafe; at the Orlando Book and Music Festival, Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, Insomniacathon; and as featured artist in the Performance Poets Association's fifth anniversary celebration. Creator of the four-city Big Sur Marathon reading July 22, 2001, he will appear this fall in the London International Festival of Poetry and Song, and at the annual JD Salinger Festival in Central Park, New York. In 2000, he founded Poetrybay: an online poetry publication for the 21st century. He is currently working with members of the Suffolk County Legislature on a proposal to create a poet laureate for that region of Long Island.
2RIVER'S UNWATERED-DOWN CHAP
Part-time Margate resident, poet and editor Richard Long recently announced the newest publication in the 2River chapbook series, Sex With Trees and Other Things Equally Responsive, a collection of 18 poems by Rebecca Lu Kiernan, in which she conveys the delicious misery of being on the verge of satisfaction.
XANGO MUSIC TO HIS PEERS
Miami poet Geoff Philp's recent poetry publication xango music is now available at Amazon.com. xango music is a celebration of living and it confronts some of the angels Geoff has wrestled with in the past. He said, “Yeah, I know, [his book] hurricane center was kinda bleak, but we have to go through the fire before we can sing. Ultimately xango music finds its own peace and hints at a certain acceptance and grace.”
Geoff is one of four featured poets at HKPF's Quartetto Poetica series in October, now co-hosted by the Florida Center for the Book. Other poets include Mona Birch, Richard (This Means Something) Ryal and Jeanne (I met Jim Morrison in College) Sutton. Jeanne, by the way, runs an open mic at Borders Books and Music on the Intracoastal Waterway once a month on a Tuesday night. Jeanne and I appeared together (photo and poem) in XS Magazine (now City Link), which interviewed us a few years ago. Richard, of course, is Vice President of HKPF and drove Lyn Lifshin to the Everglades. (Richard, maybe it's time to bring her back.)
THEY ATTACKED THE MIC--NO SURVIVORS
Poets, rappers, wordsmiths, storytellers, lyricists and spoken word artists got together on Saturday, August 11 at the American Legion Hall, 6445 N.E. 7th Avenue, for Lip, Tongue & Ear's “Attack the Mic.” (LTE is (the premiere four-year-old Poetry and Storytelling Guild of South Florida.) Vibers of the word came to Miami from as far as Atlanta, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Broward County and the Florida Keys to slam dunk their words. Workshops were also offered to hone literary craft. Featured shops were: “Poetry 1.01: Tools of the Trade,” “Similes and Other Styles,” “How to Put Dramatics into your Work,” “How to Run a Slam,” “How to Self-Publish,” “How to Self-Record your Work.” The extravaganza was a fund-raiser for LTE members Nasheed Jackson, Diane Perez, Terry Newton and Kristoff Skalet, who began a tour of their play Everyday People in New York City in mid-August. Lip, Tongue & Ear Productions is run by Shamele Jenkins, a spoken word artist herself. I finally met Shamele at Dada's for the Tuesday night slam. (She drove all the way up from Miami). Not only does the woman shout with clout, she knocked me out when she told me that she was actually older than me. It's true. I ain't sayin' what our ages are.
POETRY IN SULTRY SONG
Lourdes Simón peeled ears from
the inside out at on August 18, in Little Habana when she performed “Noche de Feeling, con la voz que acaricia.” Her upcoming events include:
- September 1, Music Fest at PS 742
- October 3, Ife Ile Afro Cuban Festival
- October 11 through 15, gira con Cenizas sobre el mar, Santo Domingo, R.D. Welcome to Teatro Avante.com.
- Also in October, Thursday nights at Yerba Buena
- Deerfield Beach poet James Goodson sent me a pretty cool poetry link recently: Poetry Portal. Thanks Jimmy.
- Miami poet and Webmaster Michel Escoto announced his new e-book of poems. Check it out: www.privateerdesign.com/ebook3.
And here's a not-poetry-related personal note: I was up in New York for my nephew's wedding and took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan to see my friend Natalie, who recently moved to the Upper West Side. Here's a recommendation for the next time you do NYC: Have dinner at Nirvana. It's an Indian restaurant on Central Park South. (Can't miss the dude in the gold turban standing at the door). We sat overlooking all of Central Park. It's a great place to eat. The food was great and the atmosphere was as romantic as it was exotic. Thanks for the great time, Nats. (Come to think of it, the evening was poetry related....)
Ciao,
