Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Some Upcoming Poetry Events

Just taking my first lunch break all week and wanted to send out a quick shout to you all ... HOWDY!

I'll be coming out of my shell this week to feature for Pure Kona. Hoped to have more new stuff to read, have some, but not as much as I'd like ... it's all rough and stuff at this point ... so I'm trying to figure out what to read. So, if you have any ideas, preferences, notes to avoid drop me a line and let me know ... not that I expect you to remember all my work ... my ego's not that huge ... but I know I often go, you know that one about the bird and the wire thing ... that one's good .. read that ... anything really to help me narrow down my options ... hope to see you there!

Here's the latest scoop from a plethora of poets:


PURE KONA POETRY OPEN MIC

Here are the new features for Pure Kona Poetry Open Mic:

May 8 - Marie Starr
May 22 - Joel Dow
May 29 - Jeremy Fernaays


Pure Kona Poetry Open Mic is held every 2nd and 4th Thursday at The Mez
(389 Gregory St in the South Wedge of Rochester) at 7:30PM.
Norm Davis and Rick Petrie are the cohosts. 15 years running this June.

Sincerely,
Rick Petrie


From Frank Judge:

Monthly RP reading: Wednesday, May 7, 7-9 pm, in the Hughes Rotunda room at St. John Fisher College. Featured reader will be poet Rick Petrie, co-host of the Pure Kona reading series, followed by an open mic.

The Rochester Area Haiku Group will meet Sunday, May 18, 2-4 pm at the annual Bonsai Show at Monroe Community Hospital.

The May Rochester Poetry Workshop will be Wednesday, May 14, 7-9 pm at Panera Bread, 12 Corners.


The Mez (http://www.houseofhamez.com/) could be forced to close because rising costs have outpaced rising sales. Please spread the word about this important, supportive venue for poets and musicians. And don't forget Mezapaolooza, a 3-day celebration of art, poetry & music, Friday, May 16 (4-11 pm) Saturday, May 17 & Sunday May 18 (Noon-11 pm). Poets will be reading Noon-1 pm on Sunday the 18th. If you'd like to read, contact (Frank Judge: 260-9005) ASAP.


From Sally Bittner-Bonn:

BIG authors coming to Buffalo in 2008-2009! Check out this line-up folks, and buy your tickets now, if you're interested (they're already 50% sold out!)! Maybe we can get a caravan of Rochester folk to these 4 events (though I might be otherwise engaged for at least a few of these...)

Sally


Michael Kelleher

LITERARY BUFFALO

BABEL 2008-2009 SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW

Just Buffalo is happy to announce our 2008-2009 lineup for Babel:

Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, September 25. Book: Things Fall Apart.

Michael Ondaatje, Canada, October 29. Book: The English Patient.

Marjane Satrapi, Iran, April 1. Book: Persepolis.

Isabel Allende, Chile, April 17. Book: House of the Spirits.



Previous subscribers can re-up for $75. New subscription (four events): $100. Patron subscription $250. Patron Pair $400. Patron subscribers receive VIP seating and attendance at all pre-event author receptions. We expect to sell out next season by subscription. If we do not, tickets for individual events will go on sale September 1.

Note: as of today, we are 50% sold out for next season.


From Donna Marbach:

ByLine Magazine - As of May, ByLine is changing its format from a monthly magazine to a thicker by-monthly magazine. As a result, the deadline for the ByLine Chapbook competition has been extended to September 2, 2008, although the announcement of winners is still expected to be December 2008. (See our website www.bylinemag.com for further details) Also note, that I continue to solicit poetry submissions on a regular basis, as well as articles on the craft of poetry, the marketing of poetry, poetic forms, and devices. Do note, however, that submissions for ByLine should now be sent to ByLinepoetry@gmail.com. rather than to my regular email address.


Women Celebrating Women – Palettes & Quills has issued a call for submissions for the third chapbook in the Women Celebrating Women series. Poems are being solicited from women writers on the theme of women who have made a difference. The deadline for receipt of submissions is July 5, 2008 and a reading and publication party is tentatively scheduled at Writers & Books for October 9, at 7:00 p.m. (Email me at dmarbach@rochester.rr.com


On Saturday May 10, from 10 a.m. until 1p.m., I am scheduled to lead a work shop on Basic Computer Techniques for Poets and other Writers ($32 for Writers & Books Members; $36 for general public) There are still openings in this class. Please call Writers & Books at 585-473-2590. Spread the word to friends who don’t get email. I promise they’ll find this easy to learn and essential to working as a poet in the computer age.

This course is geared to the literary technophobes out there. Some of the things we will explore together are (a) how to turn off the auto-format that capitalizes the first line of your poem (b) how to attach a document to an e-mail and send it, (c) how to download information and save it from a website, (d) how to copy and paste files into e-mails, (e) how to reformat fonts or styles without completely retyping your work, (e) how to save multiple versions of a draft without retyping it every time, (f) how to save files to a disc or merge a series of single files into a single manuscript file. This is a basic hands-on problem solving course for the practical needs of writers. It is not high tech. Your questions will be answered in plain English. You will have the opportunity to practice doing these things yourself. Bring your own laptop or use the Writers &Books computers.


On Thursday, May 8 at 7:00 p.m. The Poetry Rejection Club (i.e. Tricia Asklar, Tom Holmes, and myself) will be the featured readers at the Just Poets’ open mic at Barnes & Nobles in Pittsford. Celebrating the end of our first year of competition for the most rejections, we will share with you some of our funniest, meanest, and strangest rejection experiences. We will also read some of our most rejected poems as well as some of our accepted ones. But most of all, we want to entice you to become a member and compete with us in our new year which started May 1, 2008 and will run through April 30 2009. There are no special qualifications for membership, nor any dues. All you have to do is make a commitment to submit poetry and track rejections and acceptances for the next year. (Realistically, to be competitive, you will have to submit upwards of 100 submissions -but that’s totally doable -- really only about 10 a month or 2 a week). Come join us for some fun and moral support in marketing our poetry. We promise some laughs and a good time.


And Don’t Forget: My dear friend Wynne McClure will be reading along with Julie Damerell at the May 13th Genesee Reading Series at 7:30 p.m. at Writers & Books. Wynne hopes to have copies of her new book at that time too. Either way, she would really enjoy your company at her reading. If you can, please attend.



Well, that's all for now ... that I know of ... I'm sure there's more. I apologize for the sporadic announcements ... still no working computer (or car) and I don't always have time to check at work ... Late for my lunch break now! Gotta go! Hope all is well with all y'all!