There are a number of myths surrounding public performance that spoken-word poet and co-founder of Project Voice Sarah Kay helps to dispel. Perhaps the chief myth is that you can't both be nervous and enjoy the experience of public speaking. In reality, being nervous is an inevitable part of the experience, but understanding why the audience came … Continue reading How to Command an Audience: Tips from a Spoken-Word Poet (via Big Think)
It was a hot June evening last year when my wife and I received an invitation for a gathering at a rooftop garden here. No reason for the event was given, but when we walked in — carelessly, without gifts — it turned out that a monument of cinema was celebrating his 75th birthday. It … Continue reading Director Abbas Kiarostami Balanced Realism and Poetry, Censors and Viewers (via NY Times)
Erica Nicole's left hand shook tenuously, her poem wilted from the oppressive summer humidity. Approaching the vintage style microphone with a rainbow ribbon pinned to her chambray shirt dress, she spoke: One man might have done the shooting, but we have been loading the bullets for him for years. Erica has been coming to read … Continue reading At WAN Poetry, a Place of Home and Healing in Houston (via Houston Press)
Sitting in his office at the Museum of the African Diaspora, where he’s served as deputy director since September, Michael Warr holds a copy of the just-out Norton Anthology “Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin,” which he edited with Phil Cushway. “This makes me think of when I first graduated from high school in San Francisco, … Continue reading Poetry as form of protest in new Norton Anthology (via SF Gate)
As hundreds of teenagers thump into their folding seats in the cavernous downtown theater, the poets of Edison High huddle under the dim lights backstage. Turn in a pitch-perfect performance today and make the finals. Otherwise, season's over. The odds are not with them. Since February, when this citywide slam poetry competition started, the team … Continue reading Edison High’s poets use gut-wrenching verse as an antidote to adversity (via Philly)
Rhode Island For local poetry lovers, Sunday’s program at the Savoy Bookshop and Café should be the perfect ending of the old week ... or the perfect beginning of the new week, depending on how you look at things. And isn’t that what poetry is about? How we look at things ... and how we … Continue reading Savoy readies for an afternoon of poetry on Sunday (via Westerly Sun)
Full Title: "Suzi Quatro pens poetry book saying 'to leave the words inside would have killed me' (via Mirror)" Glam rock icon Suzi Quatro has written her first poetry book saying that if she hadn't put pen to paper it would have "killed her." The singer, 66, who also played the Fonz's girlfriend in Happy Days says Through My … Continue reading Suzi Quatro’s poetry: ‘To leave the words inside would have killed me’ (via Mirror)
While others will be grilling, tossing the football or catching up with Dad this Sunday, many people in East Liberty will be getting their fill of ... poetry? Janera Solomon, executive director of the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, said poetry readings are not just for academics. “Terrance Hayes and I ... have been talking for a long … Continue reading Celebrating 20 years of black poetry and Cave Canem on Father’s Day (via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Cool! (Event takes place in Mumbai) If stage fright has held you back from performing, here’s an open mic with a twist. This weekend, a ‘blind poetry’ event will take place in the city, where poets can recite original work to a roomful of audience, but in the dark. There will be all but two … Continue reading Does performing poetry in near darkness sound like your thing? (via Hindustan Times)
"It was splendid for me," says Indian poet Rajendra Bhandari. "We usually lose so many things by translating poems. But this time, we gained much more. We got to know the language, the culture." Bhandari was among the participants of a project established in 2002 by a Berlin-based center for poetry called Literaturwerkstatt. The project … Continue reading Project ‘Poets Translating Poets’ proves that poetry is more than art (via DW)
