Poetry
Poems for Chance
Chance: Poems
Tuesday night I attended the publication party and reading for “Chance: Poems,” an anthology of poems edited by Kathleen Roberts in honor of the art installation currently at the Tweed Museum. (more…)
Sonofmel & the Slideman – “Kissing Eve”
Sometimes it takes traveling far from home to find out where you come from. Sonofmel & the Slideman have farmed decades of life into a harvest of sounds, growing rows of song and spoken word around dreamscapes rich enough to farm. They’ve just begun an album together at Sacred Heart Studio and will debut one or two during a Jan. 17 performance at Bent Paddle Brewing.
Video recorded at Driftless Books & Music in Viroqua, Wis.
Laura Mae Sellner – “Awareness”
New video produced by Killy Kay, shot at various Duluth locations in 2016. It features poetry written and performed by Laura Mae Sellner for the Homegrown Music Festival.
“Colder than the surface of Mars”
Poet Dora Malech gets all Duluthy in a poem published in the May 29 issue of The New Yorker. It’s more that a reference — the poem is basically set in Duluth.
The text of “I Now Pronounce You” is available online, along with an audio track of the poet reading it.
Malech grew up in Bethesda, Md., and now lives in Baltimore. Her connection to Duluth is unknown, unless it’s as simple as the first line of the poem: “Our friends are getting married in Duluth.”
Now/Here: Poetry and Music
A few snapshots from Sunday’s event at Peace United Church. Jim Perlman of Holy Cow Press organized the poetry reading, which featured Crystal Gibbins, author of Now/Here, and Gary Boelhower, author of Naming Rites. The event included musical interludes by Sara Thomsen.
The Rumpus Interview with Connie Wanek
In an interview for The Rumpus, an online magazine focused on culture, Duluth poet Connie Wanek discusses her latest book, the challenge of looking back at older poems, and what prioritizing writing looks like.
Link: The Rumpus Interview with Connie Wanek
Connie Wanek said that she only started writing poetry seriously in her late thirties, but since then, she’s been published in Poetry and the Atlantic Monthly, has received a Witter Bynner Fellowship at the Library of Congress, and been named a George Morrison Artist of the Year, among her many other honors. Her fourth book, Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems, was released by the University of Nebraska Press this year, and makes the argument that she is one of contemporary America’s great poets.
Selective Focus: Moheb Soliman
This week we stretch the boundaries of Selective Focus — both geographically and conceptually. Moheb Soliman is a poet who will be installing his writing in the form of very official looking signs throughout Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and the four other major Great Lakes national parks at trails, vistas, and beaches as part of the National Park Service centennial celebration. Some of the installations are already done and this month he will be finishing up at Isle Royale National Park. (more…)
Walt Whitman’s Poem About Duluth?
There’s a new posting at the Reference@Duluth blog that involves a little literary detective work:
The Duluth Daily News of March 30, 1892, printed a letter offering an unpublished poem by Walt Whitman. The letter writer claims that Whitman had visited Duluth for his health the previous summer and had been so impressed with the Zenith City that he wrote a poem in praise of Duluth and had sent it to a friend in town.
In Defense of Duluth Poets
The arts and culture review website Partisan namedrops Holy Cow! Press of Duluth in an article by Harvard English Professor Stephen Burt titled “In Defence of Minor Poets,” published today. The namedrop occurs without actually mentioning Holy Cow! by name, but instead referencing Duluth with a hyperlink to Consortium Book Sales & Distribution’s page about the Duluth publishing company. (more…)
Split Rock Review, Fall 2014
The online literary magazine, Split Rock Review, recently released the Fall 2014 issue. Also, SRR is now accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, book reviews, graphic narratives, visual poetry, digital literature, and hybrid forms.
For more information about the magazine and submission guidelines, please visit the SRR website.
Sea Fog
A collaboration between Tina Marie Higgins and Dan Dresser. Filmed on the Isakson farm near Duluth. Scored by the Murder of Crows.
Oh boy! Another Open Mic! But this one’s outside by the lake!
Tonight, from 6 to 9 p.m., there will be an open mic at Leif Erikson Park, specifically meeting at the stone stage. Any short content is welcome, original material encouraged, but whatever you wish to share is fine.
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Video Archive: Robert Bly in 1976, interpreting Rumi’s poem “Feeling and Thinking”
This is an excerpt of the short film “From the Museroom: A Sampler of Minnesota Poets,” shot during a Poetry Collective benefit at the Firehouse in Minneapolis, Minn.
“Feeling and Thinking” by Rumi
Someone struck Zayd a hard blow from behind. He was about to retaliate, when his assailant cried, “Let me ask you a question: first answer it, then strike me. I struck the nape of your neck, and there was the sound of a slap. Now I ask you in a friendly way — ‘Was the sound caused by my hand or by your neck, O pride of the noble?'”
Zayd said, “The pain I am suffering leaves me no time to reflect on this problem. Ponder it yourself: he who feels the pain cannot think of things like this.”
Upcoming book publication for local poet
Hello, Kyle Elden here. A book of my poetry is going to be published and released this October. I am collaborating with local painter Kate Whittaker to create a coffee-table-style book with my poems and her paintings throughout.
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Poet Dara Wier – “Not That Lake”
Here’s a video of a poem concerning our lake. Video by Bianca Stone, Emily Pettit, Heather Christle, Guy Pettit and Ben Pease; poem by Dara Wier.
The Aerial Lift Bridge
Hey Duluthers. I’m in college in Idaho and I lived in Wisconsin, but I’ve spent many good times at my grandparents’ on Jefferson Street in Duluth (when will the city repave it?). So I thought I’d share this poem with y’all. It was for a class last year. (c) Moses Bratrud 2011, mos_bratrud @ yahoo.com.
The Aerial Lift Bridge
At the terminus of plains and lakes,
Where the Rust Belt is buckled,
There is a bridge that shinnies up to let ships under.
Linking twisty sandbars
In this zephyr city of the unsalted seas.
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Four Poems by Ray Smith
Four poems by the late Ray Smith, director of the Superior Public Library, 1971-75, and visiting lecturer in English at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, 1975-83, have been posted by the Wisconsin Academy Review.
End National Poetry Month with a Bang, not a Whimper
Very proud to report that the Twin Ports sees the end of National Poetry Month out in grand fashion.
Friday, April 29th, 7pm| Jim Dan Hill Library UW-S: Reception & Booksigning by poet George Gott, Emeritus UW-S, for his new book The Willow Tree and Other Inclinations: Poems from the Lake
Saturday, April 30th, 7:30pm | Somers Lounge CSS: Spirit Lake Poetry Series reading by former national poet laureate, Ted Kooser. Don’t miss this living legend of Midwestern Verse!
Monday, May 2nd, 6:30pm| Teatro Zuccone: as part of Homegrown Music Festival, there will be an evening dedicated to a Homegrown Poetry Showcase
These are all sure to be great events – make as many as you can; look forward to seeing you there!
Season’s Greetings with The PlayList
On Thursday, Dec. 9, enjoy the sights and sounds of the season with ballads, opera, and choral music along with Hibbing’s watercolor master on WDSE-TV’s The Playlist.
The ballads of Arna Rennan and Brian Dack explore a rich musical landscape; the cast of Amahl and the Night Visitors previews this holiday classic; award-wining watercolorist Terry Maciej shares his techniques; and members of the Arrowhead Chorale prep for a spectacular holiday concert.
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Poetry Book Release – Deborah Gordon Cooper’s “Under the Influence of Lilacs”
Thursday, May 27, 7 pm. Please join us in celebrating the book release of Deborah Gordon Cooper’s newest collection of poetry, Under the Influence of Lilacs. Deborah will read selections, accompanied by folksinger-songwriter Sara Thomsen. Duluth Congregational Church, 3833 E. Superior St., Duluth. Refreshments will be served. For information, call 218-525-4552.
Echo & Lightning: Poetry/cello performance
Sheila Packa and Kathy McTavish
Feb. 20, 8 p.m.
Red Mug Coffeehouse, Superior, WI
“These poems are the story of following one’s own instincts to, in one way or another, migrate. They bring us to the exact moment when we surrender to our truest selves, when we allow ourselves to be transported, transformed, and resurrected. In these poems this occurs with the ease and necessity of taking one breath, letting it go and then receiving another. These are ecstatic poems. They are at once ethereal and profoundly grounded in the body. This has always been one of Packa’s greatest strengths and every piece in this collection is an awe-inspiring testament to that gift. These poems can help us find our way to the places we most need to go, to where ‘…music you haven’t heard/didn’t know you needed/opens deep.'” –review by Ellie Schoenfeld.
Sheila Packa is the author of The Mother Tongue (Calyx Press Duluth, 2007) and she has had her work read by Garrison Keillor on Writers Almanac (NPR). She has had her work featured in Finnish-North American Literature in English: A Concise Anthology (Mellen Press 2009), Beloved of the Earth: Poems of Grief and Gratitude (Holy Cow Press, 2008), and To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-territorial Times to the Present (New Rivers Press, 2006)
Kathy McTavish is a recipient of an American Composers Forum / Jerome Foundation Commission for new solo work premiering Oct. 2010. She also received an Arrowhead Regional Arts Council grant.
A North Country Holiday
A few months ago in this post about Bob Dylan’s Christmas CD someone remembered an old radio show that I did called “A North Country Holiday.” It was never released as a CD but it was distributed to stations and a few other media outlets using CDs since neither of the stations I did it for (KAXE-Grand Rapids and KUMD-Duluth) had a satellite uplink. (more…)
Fundraiser for Patrick McKinnon
Please join us for a fundraising and book release event for Patrick
McKinnon on Sunday, August 16, 7:00 pm at Teatro Zuccone, 222 E.
Superior St. in Duluth. Patrick, cofounder of Poetry Harbor and Poetry Motel, recently had a large non-cancerous brain tumor removed and needs help with expenses.
Readings by Jim Northrup, Al Hunter, Denise Sweet, Kyle Elden, Devin McKinnon, Bob Monahan, Ellie Schoenfeld, Deb Cooper, Cal Benson, Liz Minette, and Sheila Packa. Music by The Cherry Ferris Wheels, Andy & Vincent, Kathy McTavish, and Jim Hall.
$10 – $ 10,000 suggested donation. If cash is short and good wishes are what you’ve got, that’ll get you in the door, too. Also, Pat has a new book which will be released the night of this fundraiser – The Save My Butt Book: Poetry by Patrick McKinnon.
Celebrate with Ellie Schoenfeld
The public is invited to celebrate the release of Ellie’s new book: “The Dark Honey: New & Used Poems,” published by Clover Valley Press.
When: 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday, May 28
Where: UMD Library Rotunda (4th floor), 416 Library Drive, Duluth.
Free parking.
For information, call 218-525-4552 or visit www.clovervalleypress.com