postcard poems

This is Rolf Parker and Eric Blomquist. After our reading, we (Tara Gorvine included) went to Flat Street Brew Pub for drinks and dinner. I'd tried taking video, but it didn't come out too well, especially since the battery on the camera blitzed out shortly after I started taking photos.

Other news: I've been asked to teach a couple of poetry workshops for an extra-cirricular series focusing on creative writing, for middle schoolers. I'm excited about it. That's happening on November.

Projects: Throughout September, some friends and I participated in a postcard poetry exchange. Meaning, each day we wrote a poem on the back of a postcard and sent it to the next person down the list of participants. It was really fun. And though I started late, I was able to get all but one sent out before the end of the month.

My method: creating them on my computer and laying them out in postcard-sized boxes and printing four at a time. There were some days I wrote 8 or 12 small poems, just so I could catch up. Surprizingly, the work wasn't that hard. I had plenty of material to work with. And though many of the poems were predictable (to me at least), I liked them, for their readability, their music, and my relationship to them. Most of them I was proud to send off to my friends, unedited as they were. It was a great reminder to me that I liked writing poetry and that I have a natural talent for it.

The best part of this whole exchange,though, was receiving a steady stream of poems in the mail. Each of them speaking, as if to me personally, of flowers and monkeys and mermaids and conviction. It was awesome. And this most of all, helped to fuel my writing.

new news

yeah, Grace Paley also died this past week. Former VT Poet Laureate, she moved here from NY with her family. She will be missed.

Looks like in September, The Poetry Society of Vermont will celebrate its 60th Anniversary. Congraulations.

Poet Jay Parini was recently featured in Seven Days.

Jan Fazier has a couple openings in her writing workshops in Southern Vermont. JAN FRAZIER'S FALL WRITING WORKSHOPS start the week of September 10. There are still several openings in the Tuesday workshop in Guilford, which meets from 7 to 10 p.m. Tuition is $250, with some financial aid available. A $30 deposit holds a space. The fall weekend writing retreat, co-led with Kate Gleason, will be November 2-4 in Gill, MA. Tuition is $195, with a deposit of $50 needed to hold a space. Contact Jan at jan.frazier@verizon.net or (413) 498-5435.

What else? Burlington Book Festival is soon approaching, so check out their list of poets slated. Includes David Budbill, Major Jackson and Neil Shepard among others.

I'm continually updating my links and calendar. So keep 'em coming.