writes.
Poetry Quote: “In comedy and poetry there is a kind of constant setup and slant delivery.”– Robert Peake
Did you know there’s a way to review websites on Amazon? Who knew? Poet Robert Peake for one. (Unrelated to poet Matt Peake?)
Robert reviewed my Page Half-Full site site, which one day, hopefully really soon, will have a new revision. Stay tuned…
Austin Kleon has started a blog of Blackout Poems and provides a weekly challenge of newspaper source text to do the poems from. [Found via Amy Nelson-Mile]
Here’s my kick at the can..Way
Heather Cardin’s poem is the poem of the week at Leaf Press.
For those in Ottawa area who don’t already know, rob’s next workshop is coming soon.
Steven Price will read at the next Tree from his book on Harry Houdini. It sounds interesting. I once enjoyed a biography on Houdini and his treatment in many forms sounds intriguing. I wonder if I will retain that information at the pertinent time tomorrow.
In another unrelated note, Internet Writing Workshop now has a blog with articles such as Using tiny URLs and, that ever popular subject, show don’t tell: Don’t Tell me Mary Cried
Joseph Massey points out that previously unpublished issue of Origin by Cid Corman will be released in a series of pdfs this spring.
I mentioned Spineless Books once before at least. It’s got some interesting things like this: Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter “E†by Ernest Vincent Wright, written in 1939. It’s a classic Lipgram.
Getting into the story proper:
Old Bill Simpkins was loud in his antagonism to what was a “crazy plan to dip into our town funds just to allow boys to saw up good wood, and girls to burn up good flour, trying to cook biscuits.†Kids, according to him, should go to work in Branton Hills’ shopping district, and profit by it.
“Bah! Why not start a class to show goldfish how to waltz! I didn’t go to any such school; and what am I now? A Councilman! I can’t saw a board straight, nor fry a potato chip; but I can show you folks how to hang onto your town funds.â€
Old Bill was a notorious grouch; but our Organization occasionally did find a totally varying mood. Old Lady Flanagan, with four boys in school, and a husband many days too drunk to work, was loud in approval.
“Whoops! Thot’s phwat I calls a grand thing! Worra, worra! I wish Old Man Flanagan had had sich an opporchunity. But thot ignorant old clod don’t know nuthin’ but boozin’, tobacca shmokin’ and ditch-diggin’.
And as we enter chapter 2 of 43,
By now, Branton Hills was so proud of not only its “smarting up,†but also of its startling growth, on that account, that an application was put forth for its incorporation as a city; a small city, naturally, but full of that condition of Youth, known as “growing pains.†So its shabby old “Town Hall†sign was thrown away, and a black and gold onyx slab, with “CITY HALL†blazing forth in vivid colors, put up, amidst band music, flag waving, parading and oratory. In only a month from that glorious day, Gadsby found folks “primping upâ€; girls putting on bright ribbons, boys finding that suits could stand a good ironing; and rich widows and portly matrons almost outdoing any rainbow in brilliancy. An occasional shop along Broadway, which had a rattly door or shaky windows was put into first class condition, to fit Branton Hills’ status as a city. Old Bill Simpkins was strutting around, as pompous as a drum-major; for, now, that old Town Council would function as a city council; his council! His own stamping ground! According to him, from it, at no far day, “Bill Simpkins, City Councilman,†would show an anxiously waiting world how to run a city; though probably, I think, how not to run it.
Blows my mind.
I wonder if I read it all and memorized it, if by that absorption, what it would take further to skew my thinking enough to start to avoid the E, automatic aversion?
The reading I mentioned earlier was a full house. Each successive cluster of people coming up the stairs said, oh, it’s full!. And rollicking amid the verbal frolicking. People all seemed to throroughly enjoy each of the readers.
Sandra Ridley read first 2 sets of poems, (quiet poems especially in comparison to the volume of the ceiling fan). A stylistic sample here.
Hugh Thomas read next. A few of his poems I’d read on the page but the inflection of voice and character that came thru as well as the whole live and lively atmosphere made them much funnier in person. He’s doing really interesting things with constraints.
Max Middle who wasn’t reading in the middle of the set delighted his fans with his infectious fun and enthusiasm.
It was organized, hosted and bantered by rob mclennan
More on the event: