The Poetry Scene

“Poetry is life distilled.” - Gwendolyn Brooks

The NewsBank database currently is featuring a special report on Poetry Around the World. The report covers poets, poetry news, events and trends from around the globe. For me, the highlight of this report is the extensive collection of photographs complete with original captions.

Many libraries offer the NewsBank database or can obtain the articles for you from another library. Please check with your local library for more information.

(For Hillsborough County residents, the Hillsborough County Public Libraries subscribe to this database and it may be accessed here.)

The Washington Post - “Poetry readers tend to lead active lives, listen to music, read a lot, use the Internet and volunteer at significantly higher rates than non-poetry readers, according to a study looking at U.S. involvement with poetry.”

Notable local poet Peter Meinke is the first author to be featured in this new lecture series at The Studio@620 in St. Petersburg. The event takes place Saturday, May 10 at 7:00 pm. The really cool part? There is no admission charge. 

More information about this event is available here.  

Since 1980, Edmund Skellings has served as Florida’s Poet Laureate.

Nature flourishes in May: birds warble pleasantly, flowers blossom and a heady spring scent fills the air.

For a few verses to celebrate May 1, I chose an excerpt from Maytime by Della Adams Leitner:

     Nature is kind in Maytime, then is borne
     To jaded hearts a newness and desire;
     Old dreams revive to make each glowing morn
     Alive with eagerness that does not tire;
     In glad response to feel the magic sway
     Of beauty’s charm; this is the gift of May.

Check out the Poets & Writers Grants & Awards Database for information about writing contests in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction.  Searches can be limited to contests without entry fees or to strictly poetry contests.

And, according to the Submission Calendar, there are over 25 contests with deadlines in the next month.

From the Poetry Foundation blog:

Verse by the Yard
By Izzy Grinspan

Hmm, can spam be poetry? Maybe some poems about spam in our digital world…I wonder how many have been written. (Note: added to my list of information needs.)

Why Don’t Poems Rhyme Anymore?
The Huffington Post
By John Lundberg

Interesting bit on traditional versus contemporary poetry.  

Poetry is meant to be heard and the Princeton Public Library has beautifully captured the spirit of poetry in a series of podcasts. The Princeton Public Library Poetry Podcast Blog publishes a poetry podcast once a day during National Poetry Month. The podcasts feature local poets reading original work. Most podcasts offer 2-3 poems and can be streamed directly from the site. Unlike other presentations of poetry recordings, the full-text of the poems are available as well. Recent poets include Sophia Latorre-Zengierski, Elizabeth Anne Socolow and Emily Nguyen. This is the second year for the project and all of the 2007 podcasts may be accessed here, too.

In this post on the Library Garden blog, Janie L. Hermann shares how libraries can implement this idea. Note to those public libraries who are new to podcasting, this is an extremely low cost project.

What a wonderful way to celebrate National Poetry Month!