No costumes, props or music are allowed, except for the sounds you can make with your body. Only a poet and a microphone occupy the stage for three minutes. These are some of the rules of slam poetry, a spoken-word performance competition in which audience members are chosen at random to judge. Austin Poetry Slam, … Continue reading Austin Poetry Slam (via Impact News)
Favorite line: There are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. Poetry, perhaps more than any other form of writing, delves deep into emotions. And rhythm, from the haunting repetitions of to the taunting questions of plays a big part in evoking those feelings. Edward Hirsch, author … Continue reading How Rhythm Carries A Poem, From Head To Heart (via NPR)
After retiring from teaching, it would have been easy for poet Lee Mallory to stay at his Southern California beach-town home and bask in his well-established local reputation while penning the occasional free-verse love poem. Instead, he moved to Las Vegas a year ago and is trying to reinvigorate the poetry community. In the time … Continue reading Writer aims to revitalize the Las Vegas poetry scene (via LVReviewJournal)
Amy Bagwell — poet, artist, educator — sits on the back patio at Snug Harbor on a steamy May evening, sipping from a beading can of Sierra Nevada and holding forth on the NBA Playoffs, a new documentary about the rock band The National and sundry other topics. In the background, the bar's staff readies … Continue reading Poetry in plain sight (via CreativeLoafing)
Soledad Alfaro-Allah was sitting in her poetry teacher's class at Science Leadership Academy when the e-mail arrived. It said she would be named Philadelphia's new Youth Poet Laureate. "I got up and I just screamed," said Alfaro-Allah, 16, who lives in Mount Airy. So loudly that her teacher thought something was wrong. But in fact, … Continue reading Sixteen-year-old named Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate (via Philly)
Click on the link below for interview highlights! Douglas Kearney's new book of poetry, Patter, is not something you pick up casually. It demands a lot from its audience — one reviewer the book's readers must be "agile, adaptive, vigilant and tough." But the payoff is worth it. Kearney takes his readers into an extremely … Continue reading Painful Path To Fatherhood Inspires Poet’s New Collection (via NPR)
Ruby Dee, the award-winning actress whose seven-decade career included triumphs on stage and screen, has died. She was 91. Dee died peacefully Wednesday at her New Rochelle, New York, home, according to her representative, Michael Livingston. Dee -- often with her late husband, Ossie Davis -- was a formidable force in both the performing arts … Continue reading Ruby Dee was a formidable force on screen, in civil rights movement (via CNN)
The Library of Congress is to announce on Thursday that the next poet laureate will be Charles Wright, the author of nearly two dozen collections of verse that fuse the legacy of European modernism with mystical evocations of the landscape of the American South. Mr. Wright, 78, a retired professor at the University of Virginia, … Continue reading Charles Wright Named America’s Poet Laureate (via NYTimes)
The 2014 CRHS Poetry Festival delighted the Cumberland Regional school community with performances weaving together words, music, and storytelling in a celebration of poetry and the arts. The language arts fete, made possible through the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, welcomed to Cumberland Regional guest poets Charlie Bondhus, Christine Salvatore, J.C. Todd, Gretna Wilkinson, and … Continue reading Cumberland Regional High School hosts annual poetry festival (via NJ)
The poets completed the first leg of their marathon Friday afternoon at the Library of Congress — saying 37 poems in two hours — without breaking a sweat. They replenished themselves with Salamancan almonds that José María Prieto had brought from Spain. But they hardly needed a break. The drive to create and share the … Continue reading Poets from the Spanish-speaking world join ‘poetry marathon’ (via WashPo)
