April 12, 2008 Meeting Notes

=== April 12, 2008 ===

--- New node ---

--- Announcement text ---

Hi All!

The next meeting of the Wit and Wisdom Writers Club (Manchester Chapter of the Connecticut Poetry Society) is our annual dining event and will be on Saturday, April 12, 2008 from 1-4PM at the Marco Polo Restaurant 1250 Burnside Ave, East Hartford, CT 06108 (860) 289-2704. It is next to Wickham Park. We will order from the menu and will have separate checks. The assignment is to write a poem about food-any kind of food, any style of poem, happy, sad, neither, both.

'Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare,
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

Lewis Carroll

--- WWWC Items ---

--- Relocation ---

I've stalled somewhat here due to being busy with family stuff.

The 8th District space is unavailable per Charlie

I think we may hang fire on this until September, as we did last year, since we only have one meeting left for Mahoney Rec Center this year.

I spoke with Calvin Harris who advised me we'll be moved to the second floor for the May 10 meeting.

--- Member notes ---

Ed's lunch is on us.

LeeAnn sends her best from Fl. She's not writing much but is enjoying the sun.

--- Treasurer's Report ---

--- Minutes of the last meeting ---

We met as usual at Mahoney and had a good meeting replete with discussion about our poems which were all pretty good and done in rhyming couplets.

Today's assignment, a poem about food, nurturing etc.

Attendance was okay but we really need higher numbers, new members to enhance the mix, alter the chemistry some.

--- News Item ---

Who is America's Poet Laureate?

From the April 11 edition, The Christian Science Monitor

Poetry is essential to politics, and to us

The deepest reading of a good poem isn't just a wistful hobby, it's a revolutionary act.

By Danny Heitman

from the April 11, 2008 edition

E-mail Print Letter to the Editor Republish del.icio.us digg

Baton Rouge, LA. - While observance of April's National Poetry Month might prompt a shrug from the throngs of Americans who no longer read poetry, John Adams never seemed to doubt that poetry mattered. And as the nation prepares to elect another president, Adams's views on the subject couldn't be more timely.

The second president of the United States has renewed celebrity these days, thanks to HBO's "John Adams," a miniseries based on the acclaimed biography by David McCullough.

In the first few episodes viewers see that Adams was no sissy, following the Founding Father as he braves freezing horseback rides, pitches manure on his New England farm, and faces British cannon fire during a dangerous diplomatic voyage to France.

But as Mr. McCullough mentions in his chronicle of Adams's life, this man of action also loved poetry, a form of expression often dismissed as a dainty pastime for wallflowers.

In his attempt to fathom human nature, writes McCullough, Adams "was drawn to Shakespeare and Swift, and likely to carry Cervantes or a volume of English poetry with him on journeys. 'You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket,' he would tell his son Johnny."

In poetry, Adams found the graceful rhythms that would inform his development as a master of rhetoric. And in poetry, Adams found insights into human nature that sharpened his political skill. Clearly, Adams didn't rise to the pantheon of political leadership in spite of his love for poetry, but in some measure because of it.

No one should be surprised that this key player in the American Revolution loved poetry, since the deepest reading of a good poem isn't just a wistful hobby, it's a revolutionary act.

"Great poetry can alter the way we see ourselves," author Roger Housden writes. "It can alter the way we see the world." At its best, Mr. Housden adds, poetry "dares us to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind; it calls to us, like the wild geese, from an open sky."

Despite Housden's modern-day musing on poetry reading as a radical, relevant exercise in change, my guess is that many will regard Adams's poetry habit as a quaint period oddity, something as charmingly dated as powder wigs and quill pens.

After all, Americans aren't reading a lot of poetry these days, as evidenced by its relative absence from bookstore shelves. And let's face it: If poetry were popular, then earnest awareness-raising exercises like National Poetry Month wouldn't seem so plaintive.

But another Massa-chusetts leader who followed Adams into the White House once reminded us that poetry's power to drive change is timeless, and that it can also be a useful check on the less flattering impulses of governance.

"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations," John F. Kennedy said in 1963. "When power narrows the areas of man's concerns, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

Which is why, this campaign year, we would do well to rediscover the power of poetry - and to ask if any of those who want to be president are following Adams's advice, and keeping a poet in their pocket.

• Danny Heitman is the author of "A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.

After all, this is National Poetry Month

--- Today's Assignment ---

A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the

streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit

supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles

full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,

Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the

meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price

bananas? Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and

followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting

artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does

your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel

absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to

shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in

driveways, home to our silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you

have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and

stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Allen Ginsberg

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market

Among the market greens,

a bullet

from the ocean

depths,

a swimming

projectile,

I saw you,

dead.

All around you

were lettuces,

sea foam

of the earth,

carrots,

grapes,

but

of the ocean

truth,

of the unknown,

of the

unfathomable

shadow, the

depths

of the sea,

the abyss,

only you had survived,

a pitch-black, varnished

witness

to deepest night.

Only you, well-aimed

dark bullet

from the abyss,

mangled

at one tip,

but constantly

reborn,

at anchor in the current,

winged fins

windmilling

in the swift

flight

of

the

marine

shadow,

a mourning arrow,

dart of the sea,

olive, oily fish.

I saw you dead,

a deceased king

of my own ocean,

green

assault, silver

submarine fir,

seed

of seaquakes,

now

only dead remains,

yet

in all the market

yours

was the only

purposeful form

amid

the bewildering rout

of nature;

amid the fragile greens

you were

a solitary ship,

armed

among the vegetables

fin and prow black and oiled,

as if you were still

the vessel of the wind,

the one and only

pure

ocean

machine:

unflawed, navigating

the waters of death.

Pablo Neruda

Watermelons

Green Buddhas

On the fruit stand.

We eat the smile

And spit out the teeth.

Charles Simic

--- Nest Assignment ---

It was suggested that I say some kind words about Ed. In truth, it has been done and he is our guest and we have all said what we have to say. Ed has become part of our experience hear, indvidual and collective. Since that is so and since we are poets, the assignment for the next meeting is to write a poem about or dedicated to Ed. It need not be an ode to Ed or even a tribute to Ed, rather a poem that by its mere presence is a thank-you to Ed for his presence among us and that exemplifies the quality of writer he has helped us to be.

--- CPS News ---

Annual dues of $25 are due April 1. Please mail to P O Box above

CPS Annual Meeting and reading will be Sunday April 29, 2-4 pm, Butterworth Hall, 1265 Asylum. Featured readers are Bob Jacob and Jean Tupper, followed by open mic.

AL SAVARD MEMORIAL POETRY CONTEST

Open only to Connecticut poets.

Submit poems: March 1-June 15 (postmark)

Prizes of $150, $100, and $50.

Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 40 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked Savard Contest. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $10 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Long River Run II.

Send submissions to Al Savard Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127.

BRODINE/BRODINSKY POETRY COMPETITION

Open to all poets.

Submit poems: May 1-July 31 (postmark)

Prizes of $150, $100, and $50.

Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 40 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked Brodine/Brodinsky. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $10 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.

Send submissions to Brodine/Brodinsky Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127

April 12, Saturday, 8 pm. Gallery on the Green, Canton. Poets who have recently published work with Antrim House: Rennie McQuilken, Geri Radacsi, Cheryl Della Pelle, and Jim Kelleher. For info, call 860-693-9391.

April 16, 7-8:30pm. "Calling all Poets!" reading followed by open mic. Featured readers Sandra Maneri, Lorna Cyr, Mary Elizabeth Lang and Victoria Munoz. Silas Bronson Library, 267 Grand St., Waterbury, CT. info: Anita Bologna 203-574-8222.

April 19, 2pm. Caduceus Book Reading. Editor Tony Fusco announces a reading to launch Caduceus 5, at which contributing poets will read their work. April 19 at 2 p.m. at the Yale Book Store, (Barnes & Noble, Broadway, New Haven.)

April 19, 1-3pm. Free poetry workshop with Eileen Albrizio, recipient of the 2008 Greater Hartford Arts Council New Boston Fund Individual Artist Fellowship. Cragin Memorial Library, 8 Linwood Avenue, Colchester, CT 06415. www.angelfire.com/art/albrizio.

Thursday, April 24, 6:30-8:30 pm, "Poetry Matters!" a community reading, featuring Ginny Connors and Jim Finnegan, Noah Webster Library, 20 South Main St., West Hartford. 860-561-6950.

Sue Holloway - a Remembrance in Prose and Verse, Wednesday, April 30, 6-8 pm. James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford. For info: call Carol at 245-5764 or Sally at 481-0061.

a CPS members-only journal

Long River Run II is a poetry journal open only to CPS members. CPS members receive it for free. The reading period for Long River Run II is May 1-June 30. Please submit one poem, maximum of 40 lines, typed, single-spaced. Include your name in upper left corner, and under that please put your town (and state if you are not a Connecticut resident). Previously published okay, provide credits. Simultaneous submission okay, please notify if accepted elsewhere. Enclose SASE.

Upon notification of acceptance, poem must be submitted to a specified e-mail address exactly as you wish poem to appear.

Send submission to:

Long River Run II

CPS

PO Box 270554

W. Hartford, CT 06127