Writing Happenings Around Philly–Winter/Spring 2015

So many great events for writers coming up as spring season slowly arrives in Philly! Check these out! What are YOU doing? Click the links for details. Leave a message about other events!

Thurs. March 26, 2015 – Small Press Symposium and Book Fair — Spring Poets & Writers Festival – Community College of Philadelphia
https://www.facebook.com/events/406861889476687/?ref=notif&notif_t=plan_user_associated

Wed., April 1, 2015
Visiting Poet Eduardo C. Corral
Location: S2-3, Winnet Building, 2nd floor.·
Community College of Philadelphia
11:30-12:30 Reading, Q&A and book-signing with poet Eduardo Corral. Special focus: Immigration and the Latino Diaspora: Bridging Cultures through Poetry.

Friday, February 27 at 7:00pm
Poetry = Sound: Carolina Maugeri, Marion Bell, & Sex Panic!
Brickbat Books in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
https://www.facebook.com/events/1558635827726018/?ref=22&pnref=story

Sat. March 14, 205 – Rathalla Review Write-a-Thon at Rosemont College https://www.facebook.com/events/1593328014246046/?ref=notif&notif_t=plan_user_invited

Thurs., March 19, 2015
One Book, One Philadelphia author Christina Baker Kline at Spring Poets & Writers Festival – Community College of Philadelphia
9:30 – 11:15 a.m., Room S2-3 *Winnett Building, 2nd Floor

Penn Shelley Seminars every Monday night at 5:45 through spring term 2015. Free. Van Pelt Library. U. Penn. https://www.facebook.com/events/1391867347781107/?ref=22&pnref=story

Poetry at Moonstone — Fergie’s Pub, 2/25/15

Poetdelphian Kelly McQuain reads with Elizabeth Scanlon and Kasey Jueds on Wed. Feb. 25th. Full details on Facebook at this LINK.

 

Journal Spotlight: Thrush

Happy New Year!

The January edition of Thrush Poetry Journal offers an opportunity to give a couple shout outs to the Poetdelphia community. Poetdelphian Valerie Fox has work in the new issue, as does friend of Poetdelphia Craig Moreau. Check it out at the link. Thrush has distinguished itself in only a few years as a journal to watch. Kudos to Valerie (and her collaborator Arlene Ang) and to Craig! Valerie and Craig have books out if you are curious for more. Valerie’s books include The Glass Book (Texture Press, 2011). Craig is the author of Chelsea Boy (Chelsea Station Editions, 2011). Thrush is named after the songbird whose cry is among the most distinctive and beautiful. It’s published six times a year online in alternating months.

http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/january-2015.html

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Image from the Audubon Index.

Winston Smith was Black

Philadelphia novelist and educator Simone Zelitch tackles the Orwellian state of police-citizen relationships in this thoughtful and provocative essay. Check it out! #ICantBreathe #GeorgeOrwell #1984

Simone Zelitch

George Orwell 1903-1950

I’m always afraid to teach George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. Frankly, I feel too close to the book. Full disclosure: my husband gave me a facsimile edition of the original manuscript as an engagement present.   It’s the size of a coffee-table and has insertions in Orwell’s spidery handwriting.   We quote lines of the novel to each other like a secret code.

What motivated me to teach it last Fall?   I’d read an excerpt from David Eggers’ The Circle, a satirical novel about the seductive power of internet transparency, and I decided that the only way to help my students understand that novel’s  ironies would be to open with the Orwell. I thought I’d teach the first hundred pages of Nineteen Eighty-four, show the film version to fill in the narrative gaps, and move on to the breezier, easier world of Eggers’ social-media addicts.

But…

View original post 1,027 more words

Open Letter to White Poets

Poets, what is an artist’s responsibility to the political moment? Poet Danez Smith raises that issue here. http://donshare.blogspot.com/2014/11/open-letter-to-white-poets-from-danez.html
Read his powerful, succinct poem “juxtaposing the black boy & bullet” here: http://blogthisrock.blogspot.com/2014/01/poem-of-week-danez-smith.html
#DanezSmith #Ferguson #poetry

Danez Smith, from Split This Rock

June 20th, 2014: ERNEST HILBERT & NATE KOSTAR, featuring JUSTIN “J-BOOGIE” HATCHER.

POETDELPHIA PRESENTS: ERNEST HILBERT & NATE KOSTAR, featuring JUSTIN  “J-BOOGIE” HATCHER.

Celebrating Music and Meter in Poetry! Friday, June 20, 2014 at the PHILADELPHIA SKETCH CLUB, 235 South Camac St., Philadelphia, PA 19107. 5:00 – 7:00 pm. (Upstairs on the second floor.) Doors open at 5:00 for a meet and greet, with the reading to begin at 5:30. About this special event: From spoken word to libretti, from structured sonnets to free-styling, join poets who find innovative ways of infusing their work with ideas old and new. How does form and innovation shape their work? Music and poetry combine in this lively performance and Q & A. Join us in a new space, the lovely surrounds of the Philadelphia Sketch Club (this month, an art show that benefits Philadanco will be on display). Browse the art, hear good poems (and a little music) and peruse our journal swap (trade a literary journal or poetry book for another from our stash). The arts are alive and well and inspiring each other in Philly!

ERNEST HILBERT is the author of the poetry collections Sixty Sonnets (2009) and All of You on the Good Earth (2013), as well as the spoken word album Elegies & Laments (Pub Can Records, 2013). He supplies libretti and song texts for contemporary composers Stella Sung, Daniel Felsenfeld, and Christopher LaRosa, as well as scripts for the post-punk conceptual band Mercury Radio Theater. He works as an antiquarian and first edition bookseller for Bauman Rare Books and teaches a summer graduate course on the art of the opera libretto at Western State University of Colorado Master of Fine Arts in Poetry program.

NATHANIEL KOSTAR FEATURING JUSTIN “J-BOOGIE” HATCHER: Originally from New Jersey, Nathaniel Kostar now lives in New Orleans where he fronts a local hip-hop blues band and is an MFA candidate at The University of New Orleans. His work has appeared in The Legendary, Haggard & Halloo, Burlesque Press, The Litro and Buried Letter Press. A travel junky, Nathaniel has roamed to Argentina, South Korea, Thailand, Edinburgh, France, Italy, and Costa Rica. He is writing a book that details his journey to six different countries to study a different skill at each stop—an idea expected of Italian Renaissance Men. So far the project has taken him to Italy for Poetry, Thailand for Muay Thai, Paris for Art, New Orleans for Music, and Puerto Rico and Mexico for Salsa.

JUSTIN HATCHER hails from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He currently lives in New Orleans where he sings, plays guitar, bass, congas, and orcarina in the hip-hop blues band Tha Neighbors. According to Tha Neighbor’s frontman, “If a songbird and angel had a love child, his name would be Justin Hatcher.”

 

Poetdelphia reader John Gery is lauded in the Inquirer!

The link to the review at the Inky. http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/literature/20140427_Poet_Gery_s_declamatory_new_collection.html

#poetry #poetdelphia

Dawn Manning Interview

Get to know one of our Poetdelphians: Dawn Manning!

http://inthegardenofeva.com/2014/04/28/myths-about-modern-poetry-an-interview-with-poet-dawn-manning/

Cool Events listed at our brother blog by Poetdelphian Kelly McQuain

Michael Cunningham, Edward Hirsch –FREE!   #EdwardHirsch, #MichaelCunningham #Philadelphia

http://kellymcquain.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/michael-cunningham-free-edward-hirsch/

Hello, writer friends! The podcast of Edward Hirsch’s talk at the Free Library of Philadelphia is below at the link. I was happy to introduce him when he visited the Library recently, and I am likewise excited to introduce Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham on May 22^nd. The new novel tackles religion, drugs and politics and is called The Snow Queen. The event is free! Learn more at http://libwww.freelibrary.org/authorevents/index.cfm?ID=42446&type=2   –Kelly McQuain

Edward Hirsch on The Poet’s Glossary (podcast)

http://libwww.freelibrary.org/podcast/?podcastID=1222

Poetdelphia Guests Nominated for Lambda Awards! Groff & Parker

Congratulations, Suzanne Parker and David Groff! The Advocate, at this link,  asked each nominated poet from this year’s Lambda Literary Awards to submit one from their collection. Read the poems at the link. We enjoyed having Suzanne and David read for us in December 2013, and celebrate this fine accomplishment. If you read the poems at the link, you’ll also find Brian Teare, a Temple prof who is also a nominee.  We hope you enjoy these poems!