May 01
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Uncategorized and the winners are, Clare Greene, Erika Ferrin, Jenny O'Grady, michelle jordan, poetry out of nothing challenge, yay poems!
I want to thank everyone who entered the Poetry Out of Nothing Challenge. Thank you for joining me in this new venture, and thank you for sharing your work with me and my readers–it was a treat. And now, the Challenge has come to an end. The poems have been read. Votes have been cast. Scores have been tallied. That means the only thing left to do is announce the winners of the Poetry Out of Nothing Challenge, which I am quite happy to do. So, without further ado:
1st Place: Clare Greene, “Juicy Love”
Clare’s poem will be the inspiration for a handmade book by Christina Gay.
2nd Place: Jenny O’Grady, “Folding Laundry”*
Avelino Maestas will create a unique framed photo based on Jenny’s poem.
3rd Place: Michelle Jordan, “Stink Bugs”*
Michelle will be receiving a unique handmade journal from Jenny O’Grady.
4th Place: Erika Ferrin, “Meat Dreams”
Erika will be receiving a $15 gift certificate to Powell’s Books.
Learn more about the prizes these amazing poets will be taking home.
*As stated in the initial challenge rules, the prize contributors were eligible for the challenge, but they are not eligible to win the prize they themselves have donated. Jenny O’Grady, who donated a handmade journal for the second prize, was voted into second place. To resolve this issue, the prizes for 2nd and 3rd place will be switched. Jenny will be awarded a framed photo based on her poem and Michelle will receive the handmade journal.
Apr 28
MeredithPoetry, Writing folding laundry, Jenny O'Grady, national poetry month, poetry out of nothing challenge, yay poems!
Folding Laundry
Think of how smart I’d be
if I didn’t know the inside of every
shirt you own.
That I can choose a ball of fabric
from the basket and know,
like some weight-guessing carnie,
its proper pile on the floor, simply
from the ridges and tags and
thinning cotton spots,
is obscene.
I once kept equations,
Promising math and poetic riddles,
Answers and details and
Cleverness beyond bound.
Now, each synapse
snaps to attention, at
the wrinkle of your
collar. Memory
recalls
proper care
instructions,
indelible as a
Sharpie stain.
Apr 22
MeredithPoetry, Reading declamation, guest blogger, Jenny O'Grady, national poetry month, the sounds words make
I’m happy to introduce today’s guest blogger, Jenny O’Grady. She’s a dear friend and mentor to me, and one of the first people I met when I moved to Baltimore (I actually met her at a poetry reading for the Little Patuxent Review). A former newspaper reporter, Jenny now serves as director of alumni and development communications at UMBC, as well as associate editor of UMBC Magazine. By night, she teaches book arts and electronic publishing classes in the University of Baltimore’s creative writing & publishing arts MFA program, from which she earned her degree in 2006. She also edits a web-based writing and arts journal called The Light Ekphrastic. You can see more of her work at www.kineticprose.com.
It is a true treat to hear a living writer speak his or her craft.
I have had the privilege of hearing many great poets read: Seamus Heaney revealing his early thoughts on where babies come from; my teacher, Kendra Kopelke, giving voice to the women in Edward Hopper’s paintings; Mark Doty speaking spunkily to the driver of a passing car. In every case, when I later read the words on the page, they leapt from the paper as if the poet was speaking directly to me.
This is no revelation; I’m sure it happens to many readers. What does surprise me, though, is the power of reading older poems aloud, of imagining an unheard voice and connecting to the words in a strangely personal way.
I love to read poems aloud. I love “Poem in Your Pocket” day. I love random surprise recitations of classics to unsuspecting co-workers. (I’m sure they love this, too. Or not.)
One of my favorites is “Oh Captain, My Captain,” by Walt Whitman. I memorized this poem for Mrs. Cutright’s seventh grade English class in the late ’80’s, and it’s been stuck fast to my synapses ever since. I can honestly say that at the time I had very little idea of the meaning of what I was memorizing, and I probably didn’t care. I recited the poem to my class, collected my “A,” and moved on to the next cool thing.
As time passed, though, and the poem stayed with me, it became something more. Each time I speak it, I feel a mix of pride and pleasure. The pride comes from having, in effect, a virtual poem in my pocket every hour of every day; from knowing that I am helping to spread the word (literally) about an important work of art; from being able to surprise people with such an unusual bit of knowledge, and to show proof of my devotion to poetry.
These points of pride bring pleasure all their own. But, more importantly, I draw immense happiness from the physical act of speaking this poem, of feeling the words click against my teeth, the spaces between words vary on a whim. I can’t know how Walt Whitman would have spoken this himself, but I like to imagine he would have especially enjoyed saying these lines out loud:
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack,
the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
I hope you’ll try reading this aloud right now, and maybe even look at the full poem here. There are so many lovely sounds to make, so many turns, so much drama and sadness all at once.
A teenager reads things differently than an adult. When I was 12 or 13 years old, I often focused on the “O heart! heart! heart!” line, thinking it very wild and dramatic. I would flail my arms and land on my knees, acting out the discovery of a corpse. My family found it amusing.
Today, I speak it and I know better what it means. I know the history of this poem, true, but I also have an adult perspective. I have lost people, I have lost faith, I have been disappointed. And when I read it, aloud or silently, I feel these things and love the poem all the more.
Apr 11
MeredithBookmaking, Poetry, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing a window into poetry, bookiness, Christina Gay, guest blogger, Jenny O'Grady, national poetry month, the bluest bird
I’m thrilled to introduce today’s guest blogger, Christina Gay. Christina is a crafter, marshmallow-maker, Marion Winik’s webmistresses, and the managing editor of Passager. She lives with her husband in the Pen Lucy community of Baltimore. She makes the most amazing cards and books–they are stunning in their beauty, craftsmanship, and innovation. I was so pleased when she told me that not only would she blog for us, she would be looking at how she turns poems into books. And so, without further ado…
When Meredith asked me to guest blog, I went back and forth in my head trying to pick a favorite poem to talk about. Of course, it took days, and I never settled on one. But then I thought, Why not talk about how I interpret poems, which is to make them into books.
I’m focusing on a collaborative project by myself and poet Jenny O’Grady. Jenny shared this wonderful poem with me as part of my FaceBook Poem Project, where I ask friends to share something they wrote with me and I make a mini-book interpretation of it.
When I start on a new poem/book, I first live with the poem for a little bit, trying not to over-interpret it. By the second or third reading, I usually have pretty good image of how I want to book to be. It’s not always an easy decision; I just try to keep it simple and go with my gut. One poem could have many books: it’s all about the bookmaker’s immediate interpretation. That excites me: you can experience the same poem in so many different ways. This book that I made with “Bluebird” by Jenny O’Grady is a good example of this (poem published here with permission from the author and for your reading pleasure only).
Bluebird
you escaped on horseback
the cotton of your hospital gown
unsnapped and
flying behind you,
the laces cringing, retaining
the shape
of your captivity
you trusted the mare
pushed your face into
her mane and
let your mind skip
ahead to now
~Jenny O’Grady
When Jenny shared this poem with me, she mentioned that although the title is “Bluebird”, that fact has little to do with the actual poem. For me, this poem is about the window and the thoughts and images it inspires. So for the physical shape of the book I made a classic four-pane window (of course there is plastic “glass” in the windows), attaching a small bluebird to the inside of the back cover. Although I try to stay away from such literalness, I used blue for the covers, because blue always seems to me to be the color of memory. As for the bluebird, the beauty of its blue is only matched by the reddish-orange of its breast. It was that color that inspired the type color.
In lieu of actual letterpressing, I “stamped” the text onto the pages. This is fairly simple to do, and I hope others will do it as well: print your page (reversed) onto acetate or some kind of plastic at the “best” setting on your ink jet printer, and then use a bone folder to rub the ink onto the page. This is easier than it might sound, and the emotional payoff is huge!
Because part of bookmaking is presentation, I bound the book with the piano-hinge method so that it can be opened fully. I love this poem, and have found a true personal connection to it. And now I can hold it in my hand, and see it through the windows. A true privilege.
I hope this will inspire you to make a book, either with your own work or someone else’s. And if you’d like to collaborate in making a book, please contact me through my blog. Thank you, Meredith, for this opportunity!
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