A Busy Week of Poetry

It's been a packed four days, beginning with my poetry reading on Wednesday. I was invited by the South Jersey Poets Collective, a group based around the Jersey shore, to be their featured reader, along with member Cole Eubanks. The Atlantic City venue, Dante Hall, is a beautifully renovated former church owned by Richard Stockton University, with a 214-seat theater. I rode down with poet friends Dave Worrell and Barb Daniels (and her husband Dave), both of whom read at the open mic. Needless to say, I didn't fill the place, but there was an appreciative audience of about 40 or so. I got to read for half an hour, a mix of old and newer stuff, including poems from my newest chapbook, of which I sold five copies. Thanks to Cole Eubanks, Aubrey Rahab Gerhart, and everyone else who organized and attended the event. Most of my performance is available on YouTube, too, if you care to watch it. (I felt I was "in the zone" that night, very at ease with my reading, although I think I should slow down my delivery a little.)

The other event was the annual Poets Forum in New York City, presented by the Academy of American Poets. This three-day event includes readings by the Academy chancellors (a who's-who of American Poetry), panel discussions, lectures, and award presentations. The Thursday night chancellors reading included Victor Hernandez Cruz, Toi Derricotte, Mark Doty, Marilyn Hacker, Juan Felipe Herrera, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ron Padgett, Claudia Rankine, Arthur Sze, Anne Waldman, and C.D. Wright. Of course I made a point to say hello and chat with my favorite of that bunch, Jane Hirshfield, at the reception afterward.

Friday started with a walking tour of the West Village, former home of an astounding number of poets, including Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, W.S. Merwin, e.e. cummings, James Merrill, Stanley Kunitz, Emma Lazarus, and many more. The afternoon featured panel discussions and a keynote lecture by Carolyn Forché, on the topic of "Poetry of Witness". Ms. Forché, a poet and social activist for many years, compiled an anthology several years ago called Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, which contains international poetry by poets who experienced war, persecution, political imprisonment and/or torture, and wrote about those experiences. (She has a "sequel" coming out in January about poetry of witness in English, going back as far as the 1500's and Sir Thomas More.) Her lecture about the poet's mandate to document the injustices of the world, and her anecdotes about how poetry has literally helped to change the tide of history and international relations, was moving and inspiring. Saturday evening was the presentation of the Academy's annual awards to poets such as Ms. Forché, Philip Levine, Patricia Smith, and Walt Whitman Award winner (for outstanding first book of poetry) Chris Hosea. I got to speak to him afterward, and also briefly again with Jane. The evening also honored the winners of the student poet awards, five very talented high-school-age poets from different areas of the country.

Saturday was a day of panel discussions and a complimentary luncheon. The most interesting and entertaining panel was led by Juan Felipe Herrera and Naomi Shihab Nye on the topic of teaching poetry to young students. They offered many ideas on how to keep students engaged and interested in poetry, including helpful tips for materials and exercises. Mr. Herrera's activity which could be called "The Stroll", involves lining up two rows of students, standing face to face, and instructing them to start a conversation with the student directly across from them. Then, one by one, each student "strolls" slowly between two lines with a pad and pen jotting down snippets of conversation they hear. At the end, everyone gets together to make a poem from these notes. Though I'm not a teacher, I may find some use for these tips some day, either leading a workshop or -who knows? - teaching in my retirement years. Another interesting panel featured Jane Hirshfield, Arhtur Sze and C.D.Wright on the topic of "ecopoetics" - the poetic practice of making the audience aware of nature and the environment and our relation to it - a particularly pertinent topic in this day and age. I didn't stay for the evening closing event, but I still had a great time at the conference, as well as having the opportunity to spend some quality time with my two sons who live in New York (lunch and dinner at some trendy but reasonable places, "game night" on Saturday, and lots of walking around the city).

Music: The results are in for WXPN's "885 Best Songs of the New Millennium" (2001 to present). Here are the top 20:

1	Adele	Rolling In The Deep	2011
2	Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros	Home	2009
3	The Lumineers	Ho Hey	2012
4	The White Stripes	Seven Nation Army	2003
5	Bruce Springsteen	The Rising	2002
6	Gnarls Barkley	Crazy	2006
7	Amy Winehouse	Rehab	2006
8	Wilco	Impossible Germany	2007
9	Coldplay	Clocks	2002
10	The Avett Brothers	I And Love And You	2009
11	Dawes	When My Time Comes	2009
12	Johnny Cash	Hurt	2002
13	Ray Lamontagne	Trouble	2004
14	Dawes	A Little Bit Of Everything	2011
15	The Black Keys	Lonley Boy	2011
16	Mumford & Sons	Little Lion Man	2009
17	Adele	Someone Like You	2011
18	Coldplay	Fix You	2005
19	Adele	Chasing Pavements	2008
20	The Black Keys	Gold On The Ceiling	2011

If you are interested, you can find the whole list at http://xpn.org/music-artist/885-countdown. Comparing my list to theirs, I only had 5 of my top 10 make the whole list of 885, and only 8 or my top 20. (I did have "Rolling in the Deep" for #1 though.) Still, about 57 of my top 100 made the list, which isn't too bad.

Poem: Continuing with my series of "greatest hits", here's the first of my two Pushcart Prize nominations. It appeared as the closing poem in an issue of Schuylkill Valley Journal (whose editor nominated me), as well as the closing poem of at least two of my chapbooks, and my reading last Wednesday night. It's got a lot of mileage.


Last Frame

When I go out
let it be as a bowling ball:
sixteen-pound, resin-polished,
black as a January night.

Lob me down
that smooth varnished lane,
hardwood rumble,
a graceful arc –

scattering ten pins with
cacophonous clatter,
valedictory strike,
X in the box, a perfect frame.

Don’t wait for me
at the ball return.