The Poetry Library at Art from Ashes

This is just a very quick post about the main project I am working on right now. Info follows below:

The Poetry Library at Art from Ashes


The Poetry Library at Art from Ashes aims to build community surrounding Art from Ashes, the Denver Poetry Community, the poetry community at large, and the youth that Art from Ashes empowers on a daily basis. This is a community outreach project, just as much as it is a community support program.


For news updates, and more, please check out our blog: http://afapoetrylibrary.blogspot.com/
To watch the poetry library grow, check out our Library Thing:http://www.librarything.com/home/ArtfromAshes

Comics at Thirty Plus: Introduction

My foot is in my mouth about comics. Throughout my teens and early twenties I believed that comics were not worth my time. I was your run of the mill snooty-toot on the matter. I had plenty of friends with comic book collections, some of whom had boxes and boxes of them carefully packed away in their plastic wraps. I was curious what the allure was, and at times, I looked over the shoulders of someone who was reading a comic, but I never committed myself to reading one cover to cover. I never asked to borrow one. I never searched them out in the library (nor did I know they could be found there). I never really gave them a chance until quite recently, something like wintertime, 2009.

At that time, I had been invited to join a group of writers and artists at Denver's Drink and Draw, which meets at Leela's European Cafe every Tuesday. I was introduced to many artists and a few writers with whom I became enamored right away. It wasn't difficult to see the amount of talent contained in one room. It also wasn't difficult to see that the main emphasis at this particular shindig was comics.

Because I was so impressed, I began asking some of the artists I met what their top five comics suggestions were so I could become savvy to the medium. I wanted to be able to talk about comics with the Denver Drink and Draw Crowd. I had my mind blown by quite a few of the suggestions, which resulted in my deeming comics as a medium more than worthy of respect and study.

That is why I have decided to do a series of little articles featuring these top five lists. I hope to relay what I have learned from the artists and a little bit about the artists surrounding Cellar Door and Denver's Drink and Draw.

I hope you enjoy what is to come!

originally published at the Cellar Door Anthology Blog (http://cellardoorbook.blogspot.com/2011/03/comics-at-thirty-plus-introduction.html), March 27, 2011.

Last night, while preparing for an upcoming shindig that will feature poets, musicians, actors, and more, I noticed this poster (pictured left) on our hostess's wall. I was reminded of some of the conversations we have had in R.A.W. about the pertinence of growing our own food.

This is something I would like to discuss further. I know that there are many people, locally, nationally, and globally working on this, practicing this, teaching others, etc. I would especially like their input, ideas, and expertise. How can this be done? Is it feasible?

Also, what are we giving up if we are not participating in the creation of our own foodstuffs? Some of this is evident to me, but I want to hear from others on this! Let's talk. Let's continue this conversation:

This post originally appeared 3/27/2011 at the R.A.W. blog.

faux haiku on being a poetry judge for a student literary magazine:

I wrote this very quickly the other day after reading a few very good poems and many poems that flustered me (maybe I just didn't get them?) in a packet of poems sent to me by the editor of a student literary magazine. I am honored they thought of me to be a poetry judge. It means that I have perhaps done enough in my community to merit this (what seems to me) recognition.

I realized quite a few things while I was reading, most of which could be summarized in this faux haiku:

let me get out the gavel....

i've learned the reason

editors delegate.

I hope that the faux haiku at least evokes a few giggles. I also hope to remember to utilize what I've learned here, not to judge others' work, but to consider graceful ways in which to frame how a writer may create more effective poetry and why some of the commonalities in each of those poems should be avoided.

I consider the term "poetry judge," strange and unsettling, quite possibly because I consider poetry an art I am still and will always be learning. I am a student and I hardly consider myself an expert. I also think that poetry is for everyone.

I found myself wanting to write all over the poetry pages with yearnings, suggestions and questions for the writers. While I read, I had a general feeling of reaching out so that each writer could eek out of the abstractions, used as crutches, what they really meant. I yearned so much for the stories that were hiding behind those tall, tall abstractions....

I suppose that means that I should definitely pursue, amongst other things, my MFA. My heart seems to be in it, even if it takes ten years before I am able to formally coach this craft.

I want to share something with you:

A lot of people know about the poetry therapy and other therapies workshops that Art from Ashes (AfA) uses to empower youth. Many do not know that AfA also hosts poetry therapy workshops for adults. I have attended two of their workshops now, have seen many youth workshops, and have adored the work that the folks at this organization do. I have adored the organization for many years now. What they do is powerful, beautiful, effective, and very close to my heart.

I want to share the following because I deemed the exercise as helpful and I really love what came out it. Reading it almost every day has been empowering, and I plan on continuing in this vein. I want to live a happy and empowered life, to make decisions from my heart, not from my hurt, and to transform my view of everything about me that seems to me as broken into blessings, or gifts for myself and those around me. I hope that doesn't sound silly, grandiose, or egoic. I hope it sounds true, because this is what I mean it to be; true and healing. The experience, both times with the workshops, have been healing ones for me. I am grateful for the work that the organization does and I am grateful for the ways in which the workshops have begun transforming my mindset.

i.
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I choose to let others be where they are without expecting them to live up to their promises or my hopes, wants, or expectations.
I choose to enjoy my own company.
I choose to make myself the beautiful meals I would make for a lover.
I choose to love what I have considered my deepest faults.
I choose to believe that the colors green, orange, and red seeping in through the window blinds as the sun rises as healing colors. I see them, and they are healing my deepest wounds.
I choose to believe that I am as wise and strong and powerful and beautiful as the sign on my door says I am -- the one I read just before leaving my house.
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I hope you are all well, whoever is reading this.
Peace.

...an apple is a pome...

This is a decided prompt based on some Facebook comments that came after my post, "...an apple is a pome...". Here are the comments I received:

Jaime: "A potato is a pomme de terre..."

Nancy: "beware the bad pomme..."

Piper: "and a poem is a pomegranate. :)"

Here is my go after all the comments and ideas mixed (a quick three minute poem):

to eat, or to be eaten by the inevitable edit:
beware the poem that has eyes!
it is hungry, and can see you from any angle,
but so are you. The water pot
is already boiling and the knives
are poised to peel
away the skin and extract
its knotted vision.

Non-Sequitur Exquisite Corpse Pot Luck (October 24)

It is autumn, a long time away from the last Exquisite Corpse shindig. We've met again underneath Anita's apple tree, but with a variable cast:

Anita Lonergan

D. Shane Peterson

Craig Svonkin

Sandra Maresh

Tameca L Coleman

It's cooler now. There are no bees out doing their good work. There are greens left in the garden and apples on the tree. The tree has done well this year. The garden is tilled, readied for winter.

We have a wonderful feast, again. There's the Waldorf Salad that we almost all had a hand in. The apples and celery were cut in the car on the way to Anita's. There was a stop made to the store for walnuts and mayonnaise. At Anita's, we added the walnuts, mayonnaise, nutmeg and cinnamon and stirred them all together with a lovely old wooden spoon.

There were the sandwiches from a neighborhood Vietnamese restaurant, the Lonergan's buckwheat waffles, homemade jams from the garden, a lovely pan of greens and vegetables, and a beautiful, cocoa dusted Bundt cake. Tummies were pleased.

Despite a slight chill, and a greying sky, we decided to sit outside underneath the apple tree. We went three rounds, just as we went the time before. The first time, to warm up, we wrote with the ability to see the lines that came before. The second time, we folded the pages over, so that we were blind when we wrote our next lines. The third time, we wrote poetic bits on torn pieces of paper, scrambled them in a hat, and chose the pieces at random and read them in no particular order. The results of this activity follow:

Round 1:

We five sitting under the apple tree

contemplating life, love, & sex in the garden

A hole in the fence & grey skies

frame the circle, the squirrel in the compost,

taking chunks from the autumn harvest,

enjoying a discarded pumpkin,

The talk, the words, bees moving from

flower to flower,

none of us performing the role of bees.

The Bees do that.

Round 2:

The tree, the talk, enjoying an encounter between

diverse peoples, but similar

we are laughing, thinking, comparing life experiences.

Jets in the missing man formation. Who's not here?

The alliums are gone now, the peaches, too.

The pumpkins and the berries give way

to the greens, and the apples mulching

into the earth.

Can I live amidst the squalor?

Green of the hose, green grass, green

leaves, green house, all varied colors

by the same name.

Tapping and jet roar. Schmutz in the city.

Cover the windows. It's time. The season

has come to its next dot, resting

here until the next writer picks up the next sentence.

Schmutz dropping on his sweater, he

hesitates.

"Sum up air, sum up noise," Doe

says, but one can't sum up.

Round 3:

1) We are writers, the 5 of us, comparing notes, lives,

roommates, "I am best when I speak, not when I write."

2) I was gonna roll on the floor laughing.

I come from here. I ain't Chicano. I ain't shit.

No accent on the Dia De Muertos.

Kinda like the Hornada de Muertos.

3) Writing is not speaking

Is not singing or humming.

It has its own pains & pleasures,

rhythms & embarrassed pauses.

4) We're all just going to keep everyone guessing:

The hints of accents in our voices, misplaced & misinterpreted,

and the breadth of knowledge and interests

defy labeling.

5) Wrecked cars & broken sonnets litter the front yard: schmutzy.

Please stay tuned for future shindigs!

originally posted at the Exquisite (!) Corpse Pomes (!) blog: http://exquisitecorpsepomes.blogspot.com/2010/10/non-sequitur-exquisite-corpse-pot-luck.html