One of my old alma maters, The Parkersburg News, has a story this morning by Rachel Lane about a Paden City teacher who has written a book of poetry.

Belinda Slider-Baker’s “Psychological Melody of Words” is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The News mentions that Slider-Baker is spreading the love of poetry to her students in a short class. Wonderful! A reviewer at Amazon calls the book “beautifully inspirational,” and then says, “Belinda Slider-Baker expresses in words what can only be felt in the deepest part of the heart. You will smile and cry. This collection of poems is an inspiration to women in every walk of life. I highly recommend this book for personal enjoyment as well as the perfect gift for anyone you care about.”
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Widely published poet and teacher Savatore Buttaci of Princeton, W.Va., called in a poem titled “Thunder in the Hollow”…. Thanks! Dear listeners, I encourage you to Google his name sometime and read more of his work. Part of his bio mentions that he is the former editor of New Worlds Unlimited, and of Poetidings, the newsletter of the New Jersey Poetry Society, Inc. He has written several books, including “Promising the Moon” and “A Family of Sicilians: Stories and Poems.” Pudding House Publications put his chapbook, “Greatest Hits: 1970-2000,” in their American Poets series.
Buttaci says his wife is from McDowell County, W.Va., and when he retired from teaching college in New Jersey last summer, the move to West Virginia was natural. He loves West Virginia.
1:06 minutes

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To read one of your own unpublished short poems over the phone or recommend a book of poems, call (304) 348-5184 and wait for the voicemail to kick in, leave your name and number for verification and then read away. Your audio may appear on MountainWord. I’m looking for work of under 20 or so well-written lines. Nothing sentimental or old-fashioned. Prose poems of exceptional quality are eligible too. The tone can run the gamut from humorous to serious. You might do as Sue Ellen Anderson did and recite a short poem or two by one of your favorite poets, Stephen Crane in this case (thanks, Sue Ellen!):
2:38 minutes

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Poet Wendell Berry once wrote about coming into “the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief… For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” I thought of the “forethought of grief” phrase when I listened to Bill Robinson, who called in a poem titled “To My Dying Cat”:
51 seconds

 
Clipart.com photo of Pittsburgh

LAUNCH PARTY: “Along These Rivers,” a book that gathers work by photographers and poets to mark Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary, will be launched at a reception at the Silver Eye Center for Photography, 1015 E. Carson St., South Side, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19. Refreshments and readings.

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Let me share this intercepted e-mail with a link to short poems at hundredmountain.com:

Hey, Vic: In response to your short poems request at MountainWord, a subset of my Hundred Mountain home page online includes a section of short poems called “Epigrammar: Short Poems and Epigrams for a Post-Dow Industrial, Anti-Delusional Age.”

Take a read:
http://www.hundredmountain.com/epigrammar/

doug

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douglas imbrogno
Subscribe to the free weekly gazz events newsletter:
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Things that strike me about your short poems, Doug, at first reading: broad range of subjects (out of the box), light sense of humor, wit. I keep hitting next, next, next, can’t stop reading.

One of my favorites of yours so far:

LESSON PLAN

Sow the seeds of grief,
they will blossom in their time.
Sow seeds of equilibrium,
and you will harvest rhyme.

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Thanks, for all you do for the arts here in W.Va., thegazz.com and all that, thanks for cranking up all these blogs, and thanks also for the epigrams, the poems, the riffs, my friend.

Photo by Vic Burkhammer

I AM GLAD to have diverse tastes in poetry and in reading generally. I experience the joy of reading when I spend time with a book by poetic novelist Jayne Anne Phillips or a book by sometimes humorous W.Va. poet Bob Henry Baber. I’ll even read the pulp at the supermarket checkout, but I am laughing at the space alien approach. I like the surprises of good writing. What books shake loose your mind?

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Prize-winning Poet Terrance Hayes will give a poetry reading at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall in Oakland, Pittsburgh, Pa., at 8 p.m., January 30, 2008.

The event is hosted by the International Poetry Forum, for decades now the most impressive venue in the Appalachian region for poets of national and international acclaim.

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Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There.” –  Columbia Pictures

“Sometimes I think this whole world is one big prison yard. Some of us are prisoners, the rest of us are guards.” – Bob Dylan, “George Jackson“

 Let me key you in on the latest about the West Virginia International Film Festival, mentioned on this poetry blog because, hey, isn’t Dylan one of the greatest poets around? On an important level, some of us think so, to be ambiguous about it.

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In a New York Times op-ed piece, Donald Hall, U.S. poet laureate from 2006 to 2007, sketches snowy New Hampshire, where the first-in-the-nation primary takes place today. A good read, it’s headlined “Snow Falling on Voters.”

Not so long ago in West Virginia, we used to get Sunday New York Times on Thursday. These days I get the print edition on my front porch the same day it’s published. If I miss something in the print edition, there’s nytimes.com. As the late Gazette Editor Don Marsh used to say, “But I digress….” Read post »

Poets & Writers classifieds for January/February 2008 are out. I see much useful information, including deadlines for summer residencies, competitions, calls for manuscripts, conferences, events, jobs, miscellaneous, personals, publications, rentals, resources, services and workshops.