Check out Chicago!

http://chicagopoetrycalendar.blogspot.com/

Newlights Press

I really like what these people are doing!
http://newlightspress.blogspot.com/

Trance Poetics: Your Writing Mind by Kristin Prevallet

I can't sing enough praises for this book! I just submitted my review on amazon. I hope it helps!

"This is a fantastic book, written by a poetic practitioner for sure! I admire Prevallet's poetry, and this work is a fantastic complement to it. For those interested in mystical traditions, neuroscience, or how to move past those "writer's blocks," Prevallet has done the practice and research around these fields of study. I am in awe of her examination of the body, language, neurology, history, poetic and religious traditions, memoir, and biofeedback--and how they relate writing to life, to open up creativity and "write without self-judgement." As practical as it is scholarly, I personally can vouch for this book. As a conceptual writer, this book helped me to reconnect with my lyric roots with the "Automatic Writing Process" section and other creative inspirations this book evokes. Really, stay away from those "how-to" books and give this one a try. This is the real deal."

LA Reading series

This looks amazing: http://www.poeticresearch.com/

William Stafford celebration at AWP 2014 Seattle

Although I consider myself a conceptual, hybrid poetics writer, I also like the other side--the one I first started in. William Stafford was born in Kansas, so it was easy to relate to his lyrical/narrative style. Also, the local station aired the conversation between him and Robert Bly in the mid-90's, when I started writing poems.

Now, the Press I am Managing Editor of is releasing an anthology in November. We are also waiting to hear if the panel for AWP is accepted, as well as have a reading.

Here are links:

The mind and heart behind this, who dedicated time, funds, and approached Woodley, Becca J.R. Lachman.

Reading at Caffe Ladro, event on facebook.

More to come!

The William Stafford Centennial 2014, from Kim Stafford

krs@lclark.edu

15 June 2013

Dear Friend,

I want to tell you about a project for 2014, the centennial of the beginning of World War I, and…

The William Stafford Centennial 2014:

100 Years of Poetry & Peace.

For twenty years I’ve worked as the literary executor for The Estate of William Stafford, the often rewarding

but sometimes overwhelming unpaid job my father left me at his death in 1993. The Centennial marks the

culmination of this labor by me and many others. We are publishing a spate of books for this occasion, the

Oregon Library Association has created a state-wide “Everybody Reads” program based on six of these books,

various schools and organizations around the country will feature the work of my father, and—with kind

support from Lewis & Clark College and the Oregon Library Association—I will be a pinball in ricochet from

one event to another.

Apart from these events, I will be available in two ways during this period for anyone interested in learning

more about William Stafford and the life of creation:

1. “Stafford Studies” (a retreat I will facilitate at the William Stafford Archives, Lewis & Clark College, to

delve into the creative practice of WS, 15-19 July 2013 & 21-25 July 2014).

http://graduate.lclark.edu/programs/continuing_education/events/info/?id=16024

2. “Daily Writing in the Spirit of William Stafford” (an online course beginning in January 2014).

For information or to register for either program, please contact Pam Hooten <phooten@lclark.edu>).

In addition, I and others will be hosting the William Stafford Symposium at Lewis & Clark on February 7-8,

2014, co-sponsored by Literary Arts.

http://www.lclark.edu/live/news/22143-lewis-amp-clark-launches-yearlong-william-stafford

https://www.lclark.edu/william_stafford/

http://www.literary-arts.org

And we will present programs and offer workshops at Oregon libraries throughout 2014. For information,

please check the Oregon Library Association website in July 2013: http://www.olaweb.org

The six William Stafford books to be featured by the Oregon Library Association:

Ask Me: 100 Poems, by William Stafford (Graywolf Press, 2014).

The Osage Orange Tree: A Story by William Stafford, ed. Kim Stafford, designed by John Laursen, with

illustrations by Dennis Cunningham (Trinity University Press, 2014).

Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford, by Kim Stafford (Graywolf Press, 2002).

Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace & War, by William Stafford, edited by Kim Stafford

(Milkweed Editions, 2003). Also the film by this name (Zinc Films, www.everywar.com).

Down in My Heart: Peace Witness in Wartime, by William Stafford, edited by Kim Stafford (Oregon State

University Press, 2006).

Everyone Out Here Knows, a poem for young children by William Stafford, ed. Tim Barnes, with illustrations

by Angelina Marino-Heidel (Arnica, 2014).

In addition, please watch for the following new books in 2014:

A Ritual to Read Together: Poems in Conversation with William Stafford, ed. Rebecca Lachman (Woodley

Press 2014).

Not the Sound of an Ax: Poems and Aphorisms, by William Stafford, ed. Paul Merchant and Vince Wixon (Pitt

Poetry Series, 2014).

Winterward, by William Stafford (a reprinting of the 1954 poetry dissertation, from Tavern Books, 2013).

We Belong in History, ed. Rachel Pass (Oregon students write in response to William Stafford poems, from

Oooligan Press, 2014).

William Stafford: An Annotated Bibliography, by James W. Pirie, et. al. (Oak Knoll Press

& Lewis & Clark College, 2013).

Are you starting to get an idea of how busy things have been, and will be?

As my father said, “Your job is to find what the world is trying to be.” This is our work now. We are inviting

individuals, schools, libraries, and organizations to use the occasion of my father’s centennial to pursue their

own most cherished projects in support of poetry, literature, learning, peace and reconciliation, and language as

the fundamental human alternative to dissension and violence.

Do not seek the old masters. Seek what they sought.

—Basho

My father sought the power of human inquiry and conversation to overcome division: “The greatest ownership

of all is to look around and understand.”

After 2014, I will be able to return to my own writing, teaching, speaking, and conferring for worthy projects.

Be well in all ways, Kim Stafford

What We Did Before Radio

Before you go, say a few words. Underground, or inside your heart

The world gave you a voice— a stream was chanting. You took

cry, whisper, laugh, hum. a little dipper, sipped, and some words

Birds called down to you, wind began for you. For this, the world

teaching through bare winter trees, gave you a voice. Before you go,

rain tapping the code for joy.

come down like an angel to laugh

In silence at the window inside a child’s mind. Invisible

sometimes you didn’t know everywhere, be the one singing.

what to say, and then in school

they asked what you had almost learned. —Kim Stafford

Trance Poetics

I've read Kristin Prevallet's Trance Poetics: Your Writing Mind, and I highly recommend it. I'll list those reasons soon.

For now, this is what is "freaking awesome" today. I write small bursts of writing last night, and out of one of them, I posted a phrase on facebook:

"I want to remand my man status."

An Emporia writer and acquaintence wrote this:

"The very root of the word denies this, Mano. And you know the Latin root of testify references holding one's testes, those things most dear and upon which solemn oath would be sworn..."

This is the freaking part: This is the seuquence I wrote.

"I want to unman my hands. My genes to be unmanned. Unnamed. To remand my man status. Unhand me, man."

Jungian? Shamanic? This concept is part of what Prevallet stresses in her book.

Maybe I need to switch my self-identification as a feminist?

Pro-feminist might help those people who doubt. I mean, really, I would still be doing the same things I do.

Can men be feminists?

A female poet whom I admire as both poet and facebook-posting activist posted about how she doesn't believe men can be feminists. I can't remember the exact wording, as she has removed her posts, but I thanked her for her honesty. It is a discussion that needs to be talked about, needs to be expressed. I understand where the distrust for men comes from.

I will never know what it is like to have that experience, of being a woman in our objectifying, violent, phallocentric culture. but I do have a clue based on being raised by women, having girls as friends throughout childhood, women as friends in my life, close colleagues and family.

That is why I moved from theory and thought into practice. It was time for me to finally speak up and not feel afraid about it.

Being vocal about it is a way to raise awareness. The next, to participate in marches--or help out, if it is Take Back the Night. Also, volunteer work. I've done all three.

You will get backlash, of course. You will have both men and women be critical, doubt, discourage, etc. So what. Don't listen to that. You need to do what you need to do.

It's not the vocalization and protests that change anyone, but the awareness. Action follows.

Also, poetry is a form of voice. For me, it is a feminist practice, a site for revelation and change.

Of course, I totally understand the doubt, skepticism, and, from men, chiding and hassling.

Bookstores in LA

Small World Books
Skylight

Bookstores in Colorado; Denver, Boulder, Estes Park, Fort Collins, and more

Denver:

Counterpath Books - 613 22nd Street

Tattered Cover - 2526 East Colfax Avenue
Anne Waldman here on Aug 7th
 

Boulder:

Innisfree Poetry -  1203 13th Street Suite A
Natalie Giarratano on August 6th

Trident - 940 Pearl St

Boulder Bookstore - 1107 Pearl St.
Anne Waldman on the 8th of August

Red Letter Secondhand Bookstore - 1737 Pearl St.

Estes Park:

Macdonald Book Shop - 152 East Elkhorn Ave.

Fort Collins

Old Firehouse Books, 232 Walnut St