BPG 2013: And the Winners Are…

The Random Number Generator has spoken.  The winners of BPG 2013 are…

Karen Weyant, AKA the Scrapper Poet
&
Deborah Kate Hammond

Karen gets a copy of my book, Grass Whistle, and Deborah gets Maya Smith Janson’s Murmur & Crush

Keep an eye on your mail, ladies!

Thanks to everyone for participating and most of all–thanks for being poetry writers and readers.

MAPOFEST 2013

Somewhat appropriately (or ominously), the venue for this year’s MaPoFest is Salem, MA, notorious for its history of dunking any citizens suspected of being…different. What better place for a bunch of poets to gather?

Lots of great readings, workshops and music will be going on, including the Boston Typewriter Orchestra (going to that!)

I’m taking part in two events Saturday, May 4:

New Books Reading

with Aimee Sands, Jennifer Barber, Howard Faerstein, Annie Finch

Amy Dryansky, Steven Cramer & Michael Cantor

12-1:30

Omen (really, that’s the name of the venue!)

184 Essex St.

&

Our Side of the Pond

a reading by poets publishing with the Irish Press, Salmon Poetry–

with Lori Desrosiers, Amy Dryansky, Mary Pinard, Valerie Duff

Aimee Sands & Mary O’Donoghue

1:30 – 2:30

Hawthorne Hotel Library

Hope to see you there! (No dunking)

in which Pokey gets asked questions and manages not to embarrass herself

Looking closer | The Recorder.

April 24 Reading in Northampton!

Come hear some of the “fellows” and finalists who write poetry & prose

and maybe something in-between

at the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC)  2013 Commonwealth Reading Series 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 7 PM

Forbes Library, 20 West Street

Northampton MA

Amy Dryansky, James Heflin, Brendan Mathews,

D.K. McCutchen, Patricia Stacey, Julie Wu

Yes, it’s free!

MCC_CommonwealthReadingSeries

big poetry giveaway – 2013 edition

Susan Rich over at The Alchemist’s Kitchen is guest curating the fourth year of the poetry extravaganza known as The Big Poetry Giveaway. Seeing as it’s The Cruelest (aka National Poetry) Month, I thought I’d get on board, and you can, too. If you want to get with the giving, go to Susan’s place and sign yourself up–you have until April 10!

This is the deal: leave a comment here with your name and at the end of the month I will draw the names of two readers (using the Random Number Generator) who will each get a free book of poetry. If you go to Susan’s blog you’ll see a long list of folks who are also doing poetry freebies—so get surfing, and get your poetry on!

One person will get a free copy of my brand spanking new book, Grass Whistle, and I’m also giving away a copy of Maya Janson’s new book, Murmur & Crush, just out from Hedgerow Books. And maybe some more, we’ll see what happens.

I’ll say more about The Giveaway and these books soon, but for now…here’s what some folks have said about Maya’s book:

“Wide-open love of the world and its mad inhabitants is one of the holiest of the heart’s affections. And that’s what you get in Maya Janson’s Murmur & Crush—total acceptance of the as-is world, seduced into being by that beautiful tag team, Bemusement and Sorrow.” —David Rivard

“Maya Janson’s richly evocative poems embody through visible things the turbulent cross-currents of the interior world where one thing spawns another in a wild tumult of images, producing an exuberant vision of beauty outlasting what destroys it.” —Eleanor Wilner

So, you could buy a bunch of Powerball tickets or…you can leave Pokey a comment for free and take a chance at getting one of these  fabulous books.

No purchase necessary. No obligation. No time-share tour. Let the words begin!

karen donovan talks ribosomes & poetry

Ms. Donovan

Here, at long last, is the Next Big Thing post from Karen Donovan!

Karen is the author of Fugitive Red (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), which won the 1998 Juniper Prize for Poetry. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as FIELD, Seneca Review, Conduit, THE GERM: A Journal of Poetic Research, Spiral Orb,and Prime Number. She was co-editor, with Walker Rumble, of the ¶: A Magazine of Paragraphs (where Pokey was thrilled to have some work many moons ago.). She works as the marketing and communications officer for The College Crusade of Rhode Island. (BTW, in case you want to read some of Karen’s work, here’s a link to a long poem of hers at Blackbird.)

I am especially pleased to host Karen’s post here, not just beacuse she’s so smart and I admire her work, but because it just so happens that lately, Pokey’s been having conversations with her daughter like this:

 Daughter:               I hate bio! I hate math! Why do I have to learn this? I’m going to be an artist! I’m never going to use any of this in my real life!

(Accompanied by much waving of arms, throwing about of one’s body and slumping over the counter.)

 Pokey Mama:        I know, I remember saying and feeling the exact same thing at your age. But now I love learning about weird science and math stuff and using it in my writing—maybe you’ll do the same thing with your art. Lots of artists do!

(This is Pokey at her best, when she’s not tired or stressed. So, about .06% of the time)

Imagine my delight, therefore, when Ms. Donovan’s post arrived in my in-box, chock full of poetry AND science.

Yes, ribosomes!

What is the title of your next book?

I just finished a final round of edits on a book-length poem. Next up for revision is my biochemistry book, which is called Ribosome 2.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Okay, so all the proteins in your body are made up of only 20 amino acids glued together, end to end, in a gazillion different
configurations. The ribosomes in your cells make every single protein this way, by reading the code in your genes and picking out the right amino acid to stick on next. It sounds crazy, but I found myself thinking about that all the time. Language as raw material that gets strung together into something useful to the body.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry. And obsession.

Which actors would you choose to play the characters in a movie rendition?

I can hear a soundtrack with xylophone and tabla.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of this book?

Poet imagines being a ribosome; ribosome imagines being a poet.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The answer to that question is in the stars.

What other books would you compare this project to within your genre?

You’ve totally got me on that. Anything with sentences? This might be
a good time to say that I acknowledge a debt of gratitude for my
dictionary.

Karen’s first book

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Amazement and grief, as usual.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I finished the first part of it in 2004 with a long poem called “5 Codon Sequences.” The next piece, called “Parts List Counted in Ogham,” took a few more years. Other pieces accumulated. Thanks a lot for helping me realize it’s been nine years so far.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Here’s a quote from Matt Ridley that I might use as an epigraph:

“Before the discovery of the genome, we did not know there was a document at the heart of every cell three billion letters long of whose content we knew nothing.”

                                                                 *     *     *

And there you have it ladies and germs. Can’t wait to have my daughter read this.

Looking for Grass Whistle?

Yes! My new book is out! But where?

So, the deal with Grass Whistle is that it’s being published by an Irish press, Salmon Poetry, and it comes out in Ireland and the UK first, and then it’s officially distributed in the US.

It’s available NOW at Salmon,and if you order 2 copies shipping is free. It’s actually quite fast, too. And Salmon gets to keep more of the profit if you order directly from them, so that’s nice because they are a tiny press under huge financial pressure and even so, they remain loyal to poetry.

But, if you’re a die-hard Amazon fan, you can pre-order it with Amazon now. And then write a review! That’s what they like there. And I would love to hear what you think of the poems.

Last, if you’re at AWP in Boston this weekend you’ll find me (and the book), where I’ll be celebrating and reading a couple of poems along with some other Salmon poets.

Salmon Poetry Reception/Launch
Friday, March 8
7:00 pm – 8:15 pm
Reception Room 303, Hynes Convention Center

and here:

Booksigning
Saturday, March 9
11:00am – 12:30pm
Salmon Poetry Booth, #203 Plaza Level

Come by and say hello, introduce yourself!