Today’s the last day to submit to the Poetry Instigator’s Fall for the Book poetry contest!
Send in those poems for a change to win
- a $50 gift certificate to Barnes and Nobel
- membership to the Writer’s Center in Bethesda
- subscription to Poet Lore
In response to Guest Prompt #1 (see below).
Marginalia has always fascinated me – mostly because, as long as I have a pen or pencil nearby, I will mark all over my books. Even library books. Actually, especially library books, I am a little ashamed to say. Partly, I love the idea of forcing someone else to read my random thoughts about St. Augustine, or Michel De Montaigne, or Emerson (I just finished an independent survey of pre-20th century nonfiction, sorry). But really my motivation is even more egotistical – I want people to discover my hidden gems years from now, after I’m a world-famous author (this blog is only the beginning!). In 100 years, you librarians will be thanking me for my book-defacing impulse. Just wait – before long my irrelevant observation in Phillip Burton’s 2001 translation of The Confessions that “Every boy has gone through this!” will make it worth millions. So, my fascination with the marginalia of others is really a fascination with my own. I want to discover the random scrawlings of famous people, so I can see what it’ll be like for you when you discover mine. (more…)
Reb Livingston will be appearing as part of Fall for the Book at the Firehouse Grill with three other breakthrough poets on Saturday, September 26 at 8 pm in Fairfax, VA. Reb is the author of Your Ten Favorite Words and co-editor of The Bedside Guide To No Tell Motel anthology series. Her next book, God Damsel, will be out in early 2010. She’s also the editor of No Tell Motel and publisher of No Tell Books. (more…)
Today’s guest prompt is from Reb Livingston, who will be appearing as part of Fall for the Book at the Firehouse Grill with three other breakthrough poets on Saturday, September 26 at 8 pm in Fairfax, VA. Reb is the author of Your Ten Favorite Words and co-editor of The Bedside Guide To No Tell Motel anthology series. Her next book, God Damsel, will be out in early 2010. She’s also the editor of No Tell Motel and publisher of No Tell Books.
My next book, God Damsel, is a series of translations of translations of religious texts. Meaning I took a bunch of texts, many of which were already translations, and ”translated” them into a poem. I’m using the term “translation” very loosely. As I read the texts, I wrote whatever my mind churned out. A number of the poems in my book were prompted from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.
How do you translate the following Sumerian translation into a poem:
He reached the holy byre, the byre of Nisaba. The goat trembled with fear at him in the byre. He made the goat speak so that it conversed with him as if it were a human being. “Goat, who will eat your butter? Who will drink your milk?” “My butter will be eaten by Nisaba, my milk will be drunk by Nisaba. My cheese, skilfully produced bright crown, was made fitting for the great dining hall, the dining hall of Nisaba. Until my butter is delivered from the holy animal pen, until my milk is delivered from the holy byre, the steadfast wild cow Nisaba, the first-born of Enlil, will not impose any levy on the people.” “Goat, your butter to your shining horn, your milk to your back.” So the goat’s butter was …… to its shining horn; its milk was made to depart to its back.
(http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.2.4&charenc=j# )
Mel Nichols will be appearing as part of Fall for the Book at the Firehouse Grill with three other breakthrough poets on Saturday, September 26 at 8 pm in Fairfax, VA. Mel is the author of Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon (a National Poetry Series finalist), Bicycle Day; The Beginning of Beauty, Part 1: hottest new ringtones, mnichol6, and Day Poems. Recent journal publications include New Ohio Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Abraham Lincoln, Van Goghs Ear, Westwind Review, and Poetry. She teaches at George Mason University.
Today’s guest prompt comes to us from Mel Nichols, who will be appearing as part of Fall for the Book at the Firehouse Grill with three other breakthrough poets on Saturday, September 26 at 8 pm in Fairfax, VA. Mel is the author of Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon (a National Poetry Series finalist), Bicycle Day; The Beginning of Beauty, Part 1: hottest new ringtones, mnichol6, and Day Poems. Recent journal publications include New Ohio Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Abraham Lincoln, Van Goghs Ear, Westwind Review, and Poetry. She teaches at George Mason University.
Find one or more books you have read whilst taking notes in the margins (or on post-it notes stuck on the book, etc.). If possible, the notes should be old enough that you don’t remember writing them. Use these notes as the first draft of your poem. Supplement with notebooks written in around the same time you read the book/s (related or unrelated). Revise to suit.
*Alternative: Find books with notes written by others, perhaps even an unknown other.
The Poetry Instigator introduces Ben Wilkins, who will be encouraging NON-poets to try their hand at poetry on the site! Welcome, Ben–and all writers and nonwriters who don’t consider themselves poets…yet.
Ben Wilkins is a 2nd year MFA candidate at George Mason University, specializing in…yes, Non-Fiction. He has been published widely on His Mother’s Fridge, and in His Computer, and is considered by many to be the Funniest Non-fiction Liason at the Poetry Instigator. He lives in Herndon, VA and can’t wait to marry his fiancee before she realizes how little money (but, O! The Glory!) there is in NonFiction Liaisoning.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the only reason I applied to graduate school was for the Title bump. Just by virtue of being in grad school, you get to stop being an ordinary person. No longer are you Student, or Waiter, or Dockworker. As soon as you start your graduate program a whole world of exciting titles opens up for you. There are the usual, but still exciting choices of Doctor or Lawyer, but there is also more exotic fare like Scientist, Economist, and Historian. The sexiest by far, however (which is how I make all my major life decisions), is Writer – conjuring as it does images of slovenly, rumpled cool. Ok, so maybe Musician is sexier. And Geographer – but Writer has got to be up there. (more…)
Poetry Contest
***deadline: SEPTEMBER 30***
Co-Sponsored by: Fall for the Book and The Writer’s Center
Guidelines:
I love how, in his “Why I Am Not a Painter,” Graham Foust just brazenly TAKES the title of Frank O’Hara’s oft-anthologized poem. Do that, too: write a poem called “Why I Am Not a Painter.”
Frank O’Hara
Why I Am Not a Painter
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery,
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.
Graham Foust
Why I Am Not a Painter
The most difficult beautiful
thing I think
to paint would be
a close-up, a close-up
of a single square
of toilet tissue
floating
in a bowl.
Or so I’m told.
No matter. My bad.
There is not genuine thinking
without a sense
of indignity.
This heart of earth of mine
can only hear
is only yours.
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