Each month, in addition to topics each blogger wants to discuss, we are selecting one essay or remark for bloggers to respond to if they wish. This month some bloggers are reacting to “The Mystery of Vachel Lindsay” by T.R.Hummer in a recent issue of Slate. You may want to read, too. We’ve marked these blogs with a blue arrow. 
Blogs that are date specific — that is, they refer to upcoming events — are marked with a red arrow. 
Jamaica Pond Poets: Poetic Convergence
Sunday, February 26, 2pm
Forest Hills Cemetery and the Forest Hills Educational Trust continue Poetic Convergence, a new poetry series in Forsyth Chapel.
Jamaica Pond Poets is a collaborative poetry workshop that meets every Saturday morning in Jamaica Plain, to creatively comment on each other’s work. Members of Jamaica Pond Poets have all been published in literary magazines, and several have won awards for their work. More…
Valentine Word, Love & Heartbreak Reading in Greenfield
Paul Richmond
I want to talk about format, the many different formats to poetry readings. Some are just a featured reader, sometimes one and sometimes two. Others have featured readers and also have an open mic where people can come to read. Some have the open mic before the features, in the hope to keep people around and others have the features first. An event in Greenfield is a little different and is how many are run here. A call goes out to all the writers in the area, announcing the day and the event. Those who call in, email, etc. and say they would like to read are put on a list. Their names are taken off the list and put on small cards. On the day of the event when a writer shows up at the event they find their name and the card goes into a hat. The cards of those that sign up at the door go into a second hat. More…
Chapter And Verse Literary Reading Series
Jamaica Pond Poets
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 7:30 pm, Loring-Greenough House, 12 South Street, Jamaica Plain Centre. Featured Poets MARY BONINA , KEN TANGVIK, and GARY WHITED. More…
The House of Seven Gables: Bringing Cultural Awareness Across Borders of Time and Place
Rhina P. Espaillat
I’d like to mention another cultural organization whose aims go beyond the stewardship and preservation of a national landmark to include service to the community: The House of the Seven Gables, one of the historical and literary jewels of Salem. Having been there years ago, I remembered it as a repository of wonderful artifacts that help to render the early history of New England palpable to those lucky enough to have a tour of the place. It’s full of items that illuminate the way people lived in 18th and 19th century Salem: how they cooked, served and entertained; what they wore and read; all the daily minutiae of real life, including some priceless gossip. More…
SOUTH OF BOSTON POETRY TRAIL VOL 2 NO 16
February 2012
Jack Scully
Find about upcoming poetry readings in your area, and opportunities to submit your poetry! More…
Spoken word — from child’s play to a permanent place in the mind
Jacquelyn Malone
Remember that childishly perverse jingle from elementary school: “I see London, I see France, I see so-and-so’s underpants”? That frivolous little chime started ringing in my head recently, perhaps because of two movements in our society. First is the campaign to stop bullying in the schools. I must admit that as a child I loved that chant and got a first grader’s excited giggle at being able to parrot it aloud with other children. I don’t think I meant anything malicious – though the poor victim might have thought otherwise. It was the pure joy a spontaneous recitation. More…
Judging a Book by Its Blurb
Michelle Gillett
Last year, several friends asked if I would write a blurb for their forthcoming books. Nothing delights me more than knowing a friend has succeeded in getting a book of poems published. I enjoy sitting down and rereading poems I am often familiar with, have often critiqued and discussed. Now here they are—parts of a whole and the whole creates a different and richer meaning, one I must translate into clear, concise language. I must capture the essence of the collection and convince a potential buyer of the book to purchase and read it. It is a challenge and a pleasure. More…
POETRY: THE ART OF WORDS/MIKE AMADO MEMORIAL SERIES
Jack Scully
The Plymouth Center for the Arts 11 North St, Plymouth, February 12, 2012. Poetry Features Charles Coe and Mignon Ariel King. Music Feature Nathan J. Notesworth. More…
Football
Carla Panciera
Ah, January. Wind chill and dark nights, black ice and white outs, arctic air masses and snow days, ice melt and road salt. What a season for evocative language– and as if all these aren’t poetry enough, consider this, gem of all January gems for those of us who love football: postseason. It’s a rich time of the year indeed, full of nose tackles and nickel backs, wide-outs and slot receivers, signal callers, pash rushers and those pesky wild cards. It’s deep backs and H-backs, it’s cover 2’s and man, slant routes and bombs, long squibs and hang time, end-arounds and keepers, i-formations and safeties coming on a blitz. The end zone, the red zone, the deep threat, the tuck rule. It’s blindsides, bootlegs, bump and runs. It’s dime packages, double teams and safeties roaming free. Shotguns, pump fakes, quick counts, stiff arms, sweeps, draws, and the option. More…
Discussions of African American Poetry
Lisa Olstein
One of the things I love most about poetry (find enlivening, necessary, joyous) is the way it creates habitats for associative movements of mind. Poems are exquisitely capable of progressing in ways underprivileged by our culture’s dominant (normative) modes of logic and narrative, ways that much more truly reflect how we think and feel as we sort, at lightning speed, through the various kinds of input—sensory/perceptual, emotional, intellectual—and multiple time zones—the present’s circumstances, the past’s memories (implicit and explicit), the future’s ideations—that make up the reality of any given moment. More . . .
Calliope—poetry craft workshops in collaboration with West Falmouth Library
Alice Kociemba
Calliope – Poetry Readings at West Falmouth Library is celebrating its fourth anniversary this January. Our series has grown by leaps and bounds and we are grateful to all the wonderful featured poets and open mike readers who have read thus far. This year, Calliope’s theme is “From First Draft to Feature” and is supporting the development of poetic craft through a series of three workshops. Plans are also in the works for a series on The Performance of Poetry, especially aimed for featured and open mike readers to develop their own, and effective style of relating to the audience. More . . .
Commentary on Hummer Essay
Rhina Espaillat
Hummer’s essay on Vachel Lindsay is very interesting. These poems of his are a revelation of sorts, so different in tone–but not in manner–from the ones that everybody of my generation knows. He feels like a precursor of rap, because of his snappy meters and repetitions and swift flow; there’s something almost “smart-alecky” about his lines, oddly out of synch with the moral earnestness and naive good intentions that make him feel dated. Even the way he seems to turn against jazz and the saxophone in these poems, in favor of the romanticized Irish harp, suggests a kind of narrowness, an inability to love opposites, to hold two things in focus at the same time. But isn’t that particular faculty for creative ambivalence exactly what poetry is good at? More…
Human Error Publishing January Vachel Lindsay
Paul Richmond
The mystery of Vachel Lindsay
One of the most visible poets in America
Consider the father of the Beats
Nearly forgotten
I didn’t recognize the name
Vachel Lindsay More . . .
POETRY: THE ART OF WORDS/MIKE AMADO MEMORIAL SERIES
Jack Scully
A line up of a Plymouth Center reading series. More . . .
No comments yet.