Innagural Meeting
An experiement a long time coming. A desire for an input/outlet mechanism. This reading series is a work in progress, the aim of which is to inspire new work, in the spirit of creating a collective in which to share. It will evolve and change. Here is the basic outline;
Each month, a member of the group will select a theme / form / idea / image on which to focus. This can be as general as “wind” or as specific as “sestina using end words begining with q”. Following this directive, you are invited to create poetry relating to this theme / form / idea etc.
We will then come together for a reading of said work. The idea here is not nesecarily to have super polished work, but rather to see what kinds of avenues open up for us when pressed to write outside of our comfort / crutch zones. Ideally it will be interesting, suprising, enlightening, and fun to see what angles different people approach the center from.
What we have now then, is a deadline.
Saturday, May 30th : 6pm - 8pm
331 Club - Minneapolis MN
This will be the first meeting. In the spirit of keeping the opening open, we’ve got 2 options for this meeting. Bring what you will, share generously, and please pass this info on to anyone you know who may be interested in participating.
OPTION 1: Pick one of the poems / poets that has most disturbed /
disrupted your universe. Focus on 1 of their poems in particular. Now
write a poem in homage, reverence, informed-by, following from, or in
some other way related to the poem you have chosen. For this exercise,
Id like if people would be willing to read their source text as well
as their own work.
OPTION 2: Curse poems. Curse something, or someone. Put a hex, call
down locusts, etc etc. Be specific as a you like. The more bile the
better, I think.
Here is a sample curse poem, by Frank Bidart. Pretty heavy. Dig it;
Curse
May breath for a dead moment cease as jerking your
head upward you hear as if in slow motion floor
collapse evenly upon floor as one hundred and ten
floors descend upon you.
May what you have made descend upon you.
May the listening ears of your victims their eyes their
breath
enter you, and eat like acid
the bubble of rectitude that allowed you breath.
May their breath now, in eternity, be your breath.
*
Now, as you wished, you cannot for us
not be. May this be your single profit.
Of your rectitude at last disenthralled, you
seek the dead. Each time you enter them
they spit you out. The dead find you are not food.
Out of the great secret of morals, the imagination to enter
the skin of another, what I have made is a curse.
-Frank Bidart
