Sunday Picnic In the Shade

[poetree_admin]

jjhunter

Sunday, every Sunday, let's have a community picnic. It's probably been a long week, and it's lovely to have a few minutes to sit back and relax and enjoy some good conversation in a less formal space. Feel free to bring something for the Picnic Basket - a poem you liked this week, a thought you had or something you experienced, or even something completely unrelated to poetry whatsoever that you just feel like sharing. Just take a moment to say hello, and maybe have a bite to eat; no one is going anywhere fast, and the shade promises some relief from the everyday heat. Let’s get to know each other a bit better, here under the branches of the poet’s tree.

Comments

weekly roundup thread - member associated posts

[poetree_admin]

Have a poetry-related post or posts this week from your own journal/space that you'd like to share with the community? Comment on this thread with the link(s) and a brief description of you're linking to.

weekly roundup thread - general poetry news

[poetree_admin]

This is the thread for non-personal, i.e. 'general' poetry news. Submission deadlines for poetry-related 'zines, news re: poets from outside the comm, and so on.

Upcoming Member Events

[poetree_admin]

Are you a member of poetree? If you plan on hosting an online poetry event of some kind this week, feel free to let the admins know by PM or commenting on this thread, and we will post a short advertisement on your behalf to the comm when the event goes live.

Re: weekly roundup thread - general poetry news

[jjhunter]

2016 Button Poetry / Exploding Pinecone Press Chapbook Contest

Prize: The winner(s) will receive publication, 50 free author copies, a $500 honorarium, and an invitation to perform at a Button Poetry event and be filmed by Button’s video crew. All finalists will be considered for publication and will be invited to perform at a Button show in Minneapolis.

Entry Fee: $15; all entrants will receive 15% off any purchase at the Button Shop (http://buttonpoetry.com/shop).

Timeline: The contest will open on July 15th and close at 11:59 PM CST on AUGUST 31ST!

Regardless of whether entering is of interest to you, I highly recommend buttonpoetry ("Button Poetry, promoting and producing performance poetry since 2011. Check out our YouTube, Website & Bandcamp!")

Poetry Is Not a Luxury

[jjhunter]

I stumbled across Jeremy Liu's essay Poetry Is Not a Luxury to Achieving Racial, Social, and Economic Equity a few weeks ago, and have been thinking about it and the referenced Audre Lorde essay ever since.

In her essay, Poetry Is Not a Luxury, Audre Lorde, the Caribbean-American writer, poet, radical feminist, lesbian, and civil rights activist, describes an often overlooked yet necessary process in community and equitable development:

Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so that it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock of experiences of our daily lives.

As they become known and accepted to ourselves, our feelings, and the honest exploration of them, become sanctuaries and fortresses and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas, the house of difference so necessary to change and the conceptualization of any meaningful action.

In defining poetry as vital to the human condition, Lorde reminds us that poetry is a step in the formation of ideas, rather than simply the expression of an already formed idea or feeling. Hopes and dreams are transformed into language, becoming coherent knowledge which can then catalyze action.

Would you agree? Disagree? Does this match your own experience with poetry, and/or what you look for in poetry?

Re: weekly roundup thread - member associated posts

[alexseanchai]

I wrote "All That Is Necessary For Evil" for the crowdfunding Creative Jam.

[alexseanchai]

"maggie and milly and molly and may" by e.e. cummings:

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Re: Poetry Is Not a Luxury

[alexseanchai]

This Lorde essay is vital reading for any poet or person appreciative of poetry, I think.

Re: weekly roundup thread - general poetry news

[jazzyjj]

Hi everyone. I thought I'd post a link to a poetry-related website that I found out about last week. If anyone sees this and wishes me to create a new entry about it, I'd be happy to do so. The site is http://www.allpoetry.com , and it's for all kinds of poetry. Registration is free, but the site contains some nifty perks as well.

Introduction

[ewt]

Hello! kaberett sent me.

I'm studying for a PhD in contemporary sacred choral composition, despite having no formal training in composing and no Master's degree. One of the deficits in my background is in analysing and understanding poetry... so I am here to look through archives and stuff.

Is there etiquette on whether it's okay to comment, ask questions etc on very old posts?

Re: Introduction

[poetree_admin]

Folks are always welcome to comment, ask questions, and otherwise participate on old posts.

Re: Introduction

[jjhunter]

And there's a good chance the comm will come off hiatus in the new year, now that at least one of the admins (me!) has her offline life on a steadier keel and several of her non-work commitments wrapping up this December.

In the meantime, you are more than likely to comment & ask questions on old posts - I for one tend to be thrilled that anyone's still reading stuff I wrote years ago, and I suspect I've got plenty of company. If you're coming at this with music in mind, you may especially enjoy the themed week luzula hosted on the pleasures & practice of reading poetry aloud (scroll to the first post on her tag and read in reverse order). You might also find the my post on making a practice of poetry useful - as with many arts, there's a deeper understanding that comes with dipping into trying it yourself, and there are a lot of great recs for exercises the comments.