Pangaea 2 is Saturday at New Belgian

How'd I miss that one?

Pangaea

You Heard It Here First

Ted Kooser will be in Loveland at the Rialto in September. But I forget the date. Maybe 9/22?

Some Links

Billy Collins' web site includes a link to free audio downloads.

Videos, I think they're flash videos, of something like 12 of Billy Collins' poems are at the Billy Collins--Action Poet web site.


Quickmuse is an interesting site. Poets are asked to compose a poem in 15 minutes or under in response to a prompt. As the poet composes, key strokes are collected. On this site you can watch those keystrokes appear. It's almost like sitting beside Robert Pinsky as he writes. Click on their archive button, and you will see that plenty of notable poets have played the quickmuse "game." I kind of like Matthew Rohrer's rambling poem. Quickmuse asked Rohrer to write in response to Bill Zavatsky's poem "Imaginary Brother."

Born Magazine is also worth exploring. Click on Enter Born Magazine once you're in.

This is a link to the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. Their Directory holds links to the websites of all of their members. These websites contain submission info. After you click on the word "Directory" right here, or in the previous sentence, the index page will appear. Click on the words "All Members," and the links will appear.

Noodling or Grabbeling?

Check out Catfish Man!

Or maybe you should watch this first.

Also, there's some real and odd suspense in this noodling video.

Personally, I'd avoid "Gerhardt Goes Noodling."

Time Magazine (on 6/7) asks

Have we failed poetry by not bothering to read it? Or has poetry failed us, by not seducing us into reading it?

Or maybe Time meant to ask this:

Have we failed ourselves by not bothering to read poetry? Or have we failed by being seduced into not reading poetry?

Or maybe--
Has poetry failed to seduce us into bothering to fail? Or has bothering with seduction failed us?

What I want to know is this:

Have we bothered failure by not reading poetry to it? Or has failure seduced us into reading poetry by not bothering us?

Billy Collins Action Poet

It looks like all of Billy Collins video poems are here:

BCactionpoet

If you're ok with Billy Collins, you'll like this.

If you're not a Collins fan, but you still want some video poetry, check out BornMagazine instead.

I'm tired of Dan's exercises.

Here's something interesting:


Quickmuse


It's almost like being able to watch Pinsky or Moss or Rohrer or Muske-Dukes or whoever write a poem.

Almost.

Dan's exercises are inspired

THIRTEEN
WRITING PROMPTS.
BY DAN WIENCEK

4.

Write a story that ends with the following sentence: Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon.

So far, looks like it's just me and Dan

THIRTEEN
WRITING PROMPTS.
BY DAN WIENCEK

3.

Choose your favorite historical figure and imagine if he/she had been led to greatness by the promptings of an invisible imp living behind his or her right ear. Write a story from the point of view of this creature. Where did it come from? What are its goals? Use research to make your story as accurate as possible.

***
Favorite Historical Figure:
Herman Melville

Imp is from:
Nantucket

Imp's goals:
To understand whaling
To see the world

Story:
"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long
precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing
particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a
little and see the watery part of the world....

"...The unharming sharks, they glided by as if
with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with
sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and
picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in
her retracing search after her missing children, only found another
orphan."

Source:
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Let's Do Dan's Prompts

THIRTEEN
WRITING PROMPTS.
BY DAN WIENCEK

2.

Write a short scene set at a lake, with trees and shit. Throw some birds in there, too.

***

Forty-two years too late to make Mildred Minnig laugh again, a bus drove out of a lake and ran into a grove of trees. First, however, the bus hit an outhouse. One of the birds nesting in the grove got it right in the eye. Were she alive, this would have pleased Mildred Minnig. Poetic justice delivered by a bus. Once while standing in her backyard talking over the fence to my mother, Mildred looked up at a squirrel chattering in the crabapple tree. A robin was also in the tree directly above Mildred. Because of the robin, Mildred cut short the conversation directly, to wash her glasses, her face, her hair, and her shirt. Later, she and my mother laughed and laughed.

Let's Do Dan's Writing Prompts

THIRTEEN
WRITING PROMPTS.
BY DAN WIENCEK

1.

Write a scene showing a man and a woman arguing over the man's friendship with a former girlfriend. Do not mention the girlfriend, the man, the woman, or the argument.

***

Inside a bus, running red lights, a big bus, a city bus, there is a whoosh. It is the noise of a familiar bra and a dictionary open to the page containing the word "suspicion" beneath bus tires. As the bus rolls away, the dictionary flips to the page containing the word "accusation." It is the noise of specially-made, call them "surprise-gift," chocolate chip cookies left out on the pavement after something overheard before ringing the doorbell. Also, beneath bus tires, the cookies and the plate. It is the noise of going home, slamming the door, beneath the bus tires. It is the sound of the president's wife trying to convince him to read poetry. It is the last sounds of Joan of Arc. The only reason the sun, even at 93 million miles doesn't deafen us is because space is quiet. There is no atmosphere. The bus has atmosphere. It is, it's like opening a door into the street beneath traffic. The bus on its route has rolled over that door daily for two good years. It is two good years gone beneath the bus tires. It is the noise of late night text messages, telephone tones, pointing fingers. The bus runs all night. It is the noise of bus tires on pavement.

A red roadster passes the bus.

The bus halts.

The door opens. It is another kind of whoosh. Closes.

The bus pulls away into its noise.

***

Your turn.

More Truth

2 Futilists
by Bill Knott

Even if the mountain I climbed
Proved to be merely a duncecap It
was only on gaining its peak
That that knowledge reached me.

*

Is there a single inch--
one square millimeter
on the face of our planet
which some animal
human or otherwise
has not shit on?

Is there anywhere even a
pore's-worth of ground--
earth that has never
(not once in its eons)
been covered by what
golgotha of dung?

If such a place exists,
I want to go there
and stand there
at that site
in that spot, truly
and purely for an instant.

The Truth

HAIR POEM
by Bill Knott

Hair is heaven's water flowing eerily over us
Often a woman drifts off down her long hair and is lost

Durst

People like the President because he seems like a guy you could have a beer with. But now it's time to take away the car keys.
--Will Durst

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