Flier for Hickory's 100 Thousand Poets for Change

Flier for Hickory's 100 Thousand Poets for Change Event. Please post or print and post anywhere interested people might see.

Slight Change in Format for Poetry Hickory 4th Anniversary Celebration

The response from poets for the Poetry Hickory 4th Anniversary Celebration has been much greater than I anticipated. When I first planned on having this double book release party (my new book and The Best of Poetry Hickory anthology), I figured we would get between a half dozen and a dozen poets to come and read their one poem from the anthology, so I thought it would make sense to give the anthology a half hour and I would take an hour for mine. Then when we went over a dozen, I changed it to where we would split the time evenly. Now, we have 23 poets who will be there to read their poems from the anthology. So, I'm still having my book release party, but I'm going to do just a brief (10 minute) reading from "Something Knows the Moment" just as a "warm-up" for the anthology. We will split those readers in half and take a break in the middle so that people can buy books, get signatures and refresh their drinks.


I look forward to seeing you all at Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse in downtown Hickory on September 13. The readings will begin at 5:30 and should wrap up around 7:00. I will have plenty of copies of "Something Knows the Moment," which retails for $14.95, and the anthology, which sells for just $5. If you can't make it, but you want a book, let me know, and I will work out the shipping with you. And by the way, we will still have Writers' Night Out at 4:00.


Here is a complete list of the poets currently scheduled to read their poems from what is a truly wonderful collection:

Jeanne Ackley

Hazel Benau

Jessie Carty

Bud Caywood

Ann Chandonnet

M. Scott Douglass

Bill Griffin

Helen Losse

Dennis Lovelace

Doug MacHargue

Shane Manier

Ron Moran

Scott Owens

Tim Peeler

Julian Phelps

Ted Pope

Nancy Posey

David Poston

Tony Ricciardelli

Molly Rice

Donnie Smart

Kermit Turner

Devona Wyant

and maybe more


Should be quite the Poetry Party. Come for the anthology; come for my book; come for the poetry; come to meet some of these poets; come for the wine; just come for the good time!


I hope to see you there.

POETRY COUNCIL COMPLETES WORK, PREPARES FOR POETRY DAY

The Poetry Council of North Carolina, an organization that for 58 years has worked to foster a greater appreciation for and appreciation of poetry in NC by sponsoring contests and events for adults and children, has concluded its work on this year’s competitions and is preparing now to highlight the winners of those competitions at its annual Poetry Day, to be held October 16 at Catawba College in Salisbury.

This year’s big winners include Greensboro’s Rhett Iseman Trull, recipient of the Oscar Arnold Young Award for the best book of poems published by a North Carolinian, for her book, The Real Warnings. Trull will be spending a great deal of time in Hickory this year, appearing at Lenoir Rhyne as part of their “In Their Own Words” visiting writer series on September 16 with NC Poet Laureate Cathy Smith-Bowers, returning in the spring as Lenoir-Rhyne’s writer-in-residence, and reading at Poetry Hickory on March 8.

A recent visitor at Poetry Hickory, Tony Abbott, who read here on September 14, received second place in the book competition for his New & Selected Poems. Other finalists in the book competition who have read at Poetry Hickory in the past year include Linda Annas Ferguson and Alex Grant. Award recipients in other categories also include recent and upcoming Poetry Hickory readers: Sara Claytor and Bill Griffin, both of whom read last year; Richard Allen Taylor, who is part of November’s event; and Malaika King Albrecht, who will read with Trull on March 8.

Poetry Day events begin on October 16 with registration at 9:20, followed by the dedication of this years’ awards anthology, Bay Leaves, honoring Main Street Rag Publisher and Editor, M. Scott Douglass, for his unparalleled contributions to the NC poetry community. The highlight of the event will be the recognition of category winners and readings from those winners. Following lunch, entertainer Bob Whyte will perform. Poetry Day is open to the public. Lunch can be reserved for $8 at www.poetrycouncilofnc.wordpress.com. A complete list of this year’s winners and sample poems from Trull and Abbott can also be seen there.

The Catawba County area is well-represented on the Poetry Council by locals Scott Owens (Vice President), Bud Caywood (Free Verse Contest Manager), Nancy Posey (High School Contest Manager), and regular Poetry Hickory attendee, Jessie Carty of Charlotte (Humorous Verse Contest Manager). The Poetry Council is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Further information on Poetry Day, or the Council’s annual contests, or details on how to support the Council is available on the website or by contacting President Ed Cockrell at edcockrell@hotmail.com or Scott Owens at asowens1@yahoo.com.

New Dead Mule Online

The new issue of Dead Mule is online with poems by my students, Ethan Sigmon, Jeremy Deal, and Bethea Buchanan. There are also poems by some of my favorites: Harry Calhoun, Bud Caywood, Joe Milford, Karla Merrifield, Jessie Carty, and Felicia Mitchell. Here is a link: http://www.deadmule.com/poetry/

Aroma of Art Winning Poems Selected

Aroma of Art Winning Poems Selected

Twenty-two poems were submitted for the 2010 Aroma of Art Ekphrastic Poetry Contest. Each poem was judged anonymously by two widely-published poets, and a consensus was reached on 9 poems that will be framed and hung next to the works of art that inspired them for the remainder of the Aroma of Art Benefit Auction at Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse in downtown Hickory. These signed, framed poems will then be presented to the winners of the corresponding works of art during the Aroma of Art Grand Finale from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 4.

Additionally, 3 of the 9 poems were selected to be read by their authors as part of the entertainment during the Grand Finale. The 3 poems to be read are “Fostering a Child” by Jeanne Ackley, “Faded Rose” by Ann Fox Chandonnet, and “Beloved” by Bud Caywood. My own poems “Once Upon This Balcony” and “Relic” were also chosen to be read, but unfortunately I will not be able to be in attendance at the Grand Finale.

Poetry Hickory and the Aroma of Art would like to thank all of those who participated in this interdisciplinary, charitable project and would like to encourage lovers of poetry and art alike to visit Taste Full Beans during the month of February to place bids on the many beautiful works of art that have been donated to benefit the AIDS Leadership Foothills Alliance and the Catawba County Humane Society.

Each of the 9 poems selected for display are printed below. Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to everyone who submitted work.


Fostering a Child
by Jeanne Ackley
after the Doug James’ painting “After a Swim”

Her eyes were not able
to shut out the violence.
Her ears could not help but hear
the curses, the threats.

We finally found
a swim suit
that hid some of the scars,
covered most of the bruises.

She wades into the pool,
waits silently
for the other children
to begin splashing and screaming.

Slowly, her hands hit the water,
with clenched fists.
She screams,
but not with glee.

Yesterday,
for the first time,
when I smiled at her,
she smiled back.

Faded Rose
by Ann Fox Chandonnet
after collage by Sara Frisbee

"years ago, but always like yesterday"
Miep Gies, 1987

Shards of memory
from a brain dig.
Scraps of pink net flutter in the breeze.
Bristles and dental picks probe
at what might be vertebra or vase,
shoe leather or locket.
More broken china;
is that a rose?
Carbon dating will settle the issue.
Was this chipped flask filled with chipped tears?
Will Homer tell this tale?

Sweet sisters giggle under the weeping willow,
making daisy chains.
Three children perish within four days.
Their mother buries them. Then their father.
Then she too is gone, and a neighbor takes the screaming baby home.

A horn button, a veal knuckle,
a flattened silver thimble.
Do we find what is lost
or only a faded dream of a faded dream?


Beloved
by Bud Caywood
after Sara Frisbee’s “Beloved”

In the beginning,
there was a loud clamor of many voices,
and men and animals were called to the beloved child;
their murmurs mingled with fears and dreams,
with old prophecies that had been told again and again.

Don’t blame us now that many are still blind to believing,
deaf to the songs, and lost to not knowing the truth.
There is still a child’s voice in the middle of the heart
that would have us rise from a restless slumber,
out of that tangle of fears and memories
to a soft halo of light where the beloved
still waits for us patiently.


Once Upon This Balcony
by Scott Owens
after Meredith Janssen’s photograph “Et Juliet”

Once upon this balcony,
or another one just like it,
the sun might have shone,
at least it might have seemed
that way from below.
The moon might have drawn
its curtain of day
across a humbled face.
One might have spoken
and remained unheard
yet still made an impression
the way anything not heard clearly
seems more important than the actual words,
and isolated on such a promontory,
only a tree and stars for company,
what was might easily have been
mistaken for what might seem.
One might have been seen
from afar through hyperbolic eyes,
just a girl really, one too young
at that for such talk of virgins,
such contrast with stars.
One might have been the object of obsession,
of overactive imagination,
of inappropriate desire.
One might have weighed
love and obligation, passion and truth,
counseled treason, conspired.
One might have deconstructed
names and words and the whole
premise of symbolism,
leading, of course, to the idea
of pluralism which proved
as always a better idea
than reality can ever bear.
Then again, given all that played out
before her, one might have just jumped.
There was, after all,
if any truth to be told in plays,
plenty of jumping involved
once from this balcony,
a simple balcony,
a bit aged,
and much too open.


Relic
by Scott Owens
after Joe Young’s photograph “Time Goes By”

Time does go by
not to mention around,
through, in,
and eventually over.
Tortoise-like it plods on,
patiently waiting
for the moment we stop,
stand still too long.

Even masters of space,
speed, and distance
know of this inevitable
reclamation but remain
unprepared, unbelieving,
just the sort of thing
we think happens
only to other people.

Who, possessing
even a shred of such
power, could be anything
but incredulous,
each thing its own
Ozymandias, pride
half sunk, only
passion surviving.


Disillusionment of Color Change
by Scott Owens
after David DeJesus’ photograph “China Town”

Pink shades, green walls,
fire escapes always descending
from perfectly squared landings,
places to stand still in.
Maybe a fan or a.c.
to cool the day’s oppression
break the monotony
of brick piled on brick,
carefully mortared to close
all hopes of anything open.
Pink shades, green walls,
only in one left open shades
of blue, a suggestion of clouds,
a hint of some horizon.


Motel in Memphis
by Cherie Berry
after Hulda Bewley’s photograph “Motel in Memphis”

Women had a place, on their back, beneath men.
She introduced an element of honesty, a balls-out competition
for customers.
The new kid on the block was by far the biggest earner.

Dressed in skyscraper heels, a red leather mini-skirt
and a blond wig, three times divorced, she had learned the
painful way that you make more money.

On a business and professional level, she didn’t like it then,
and she didn’t like it now.
This business chewed you up and spit you out like a bad taste,
but, sometimes you got lucky.

With the grace of the dancer she once had been, slowly and
insolently she turned in front of the seated man.
He was tempted to put his hands on her, but he did not get up.
No one wanted to be featured in a headline, no one wanted
to get caught.

She gave him a look from eyes that had seen it all and done
it all twice.
He smiled and mimicked putting tape across his mouth.
Every man has a weakness.
　
　

Event
by Patricia Deaton
after Sara Frisbee’s “Concrete Love”

Don’t hand me that. Flowers won’t do it.
And don’t tell me it will be all right.
This will NOT. EVER. BE. ALL. RIGHT.
All the party-color trappings in the world won’t make this a celebration.

I’m broken here.

The last slow dance is over.
The lights have come on.
The band is packing up.
Not even a chance for a one-night stand.

What happened to the hugs and kisses?
XOXO, love, for the record,
Happening carefree and written down.

Touching, talking, Not touching, not talking,
The X’s and O’s unfamiliar, gone wild
Like crazy confetti from hell raining down.

I’m a party of one and I’m broken.


An Invitation with Strings Attached
by Jeanne Ackley
after J.W. Baker’s painting “Black Bear”

If you are
a member of the Bear Clan,
or on a sacred journey,
follow me.

I will take you
to the Dakotas, to Bear Butte.
Follow me,
to our sacred circle.

We will gather in the Black Hills.
Follow me,
into the sweat lodge,
where our sacred ceremonies are held.

Follow me,
if your heart is in the right place.
Sacred knowledge is not for sale.
We will know if you are sincere.

New Review of Paternity

Here is a new review of Paternity. This one was written by Bud Caywood and published in the Taylorsville Times on February 3. My thanks to Bud and The Taylorsville Times

Book Review
Paternity
Main Street Rag


People who love this world, who pay attention, are poets. Because poetry is not just about writing. Poetry is about cherishing. And to cherish, one must be present in life. Scott Owens’ previous book of poetry, A Fractured World, was written to sustain a regenerative force inward, a personal witness to a troubling generation. In his newest work Paternity, Owens draws that force back out and finds solace in fatherhood. In this moving collection of poems, Scott Owens is at his most introspective. His poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing. His special sharing is to connect us with our feelings in his paternal world. Paternity completes a cycle in the context of his two collections. Here he has moved from the inside world of examining his history to the gentle yet powerful territory of being a parent and then celebrates memory with discipline—“I think of things I missed in my own childhood: / a father’s gentle reminder, the chance to try, / to help, to think that maybe I could.”…and then… “And even as you hold them up, / you have to be careful you’re not / holding them back.” The poems are controlled, yet dense with emotion. They are clearly located in a real world, but pay attention to cherished moments. Paternity enchants the reader with the experiences of fatherhood, the purity of love, and the glow of children’s imagination brightening life.

Bud Caywood

Poetry Reading

North Carolina Poetry Society Plays Vital Role

NORTH CAROLINA POETRY SOCIETY PLAYS VITAL ROLE
Recent Awards and Upcoming Events Include Area Poets

"Musings" for March 12, 2009

In one of my previous columns I featured information about one of the key poetry organizations in NC, the Poetry Council of North Carolina. Today I’m highlighting another of NC’s vital groups for the promotion of poetry, the North Carolina Poetry Society.

NCPS was created in 1932, making it the longest-active poetry organization I am aware of in the state. Since that time, the Society has served as an invaluable networking and development tool for poets across the state, bringing poets together at least three times a year for their annual meetings at the Weymouth Center in Southern Pines. Those meetings are usually the third Saturdays of January, May, and September. The January meeting concluded recently and included workshops by NC writers Maureen Sherbondy, Richard Krawiec, and Barbara Presnell, as well as Open Mic readings and book signings.

The Poetry Society is in the news again locally with the selection of its 2009 Contest Winners. Each year, the Society sponsors awards in 9 adult and 5 student categories. Those winners are invited to read their work at the NCPS Awards Day, this year on May 16, at the Weymouth Center. Winners also have their work published in the annual awards anthology, Pinesong. Among the winners this year are several writers with local connections, including myself and fellow Hickory native, Bud Caywood. Other winners, including Bill Griffin and Terri Kirby Erickson, have made or will make appearances in Hickory through the Poetry Hickory reading series held the second Tuesday of each month at Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse.

In addition to meetings and contests, the Poetry Society sponsors the annual Sam Ragan Poetry Festival, to be held this year at Weymouth on March 14 and highlighted by readings from poet Cathy Smith-Bowers. The Society also sponsors the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poets Series, which brings together outstanding poetry instructors with promising young writers, culminating in a series of readings across the state, one of which will be at the Patrick Beaver Library in Hickory on March 29, featuring incoming NCPS President, Anthony Abbott and Hickory native, Liz Monish.

The Poetry Society also sponsors the Brockman-Campbell Book Award for the best book of poetry by a North Carolinian in the previous year, maintains an online calendar of poetry events across the state, and distributes a monthly newsletter called E-Muse online. The Society currently has in excess of 350 members. Those interested in more information can find it at the Society’s website at www.sleepycreek.org/poetry/.

Fanjoy-Labrenz Photograph Inspires Caywood Poem

Fanjoy-Labrenz Photograph Inspires Caywood Poem
Musings for February 26, 2009

For the third week in a row, this installment of “Musings” features poetry and artwork from the Aroma of Art fundraiser auction going on this month at Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse in downtown Hickory.
Aroma of Art is a month long silent auction whose proceeds benefit three nonprofits, ALFA (AIDS Leadership Foothills-area Association), Humane Society of Catawba County, and Women's Resource Center. Local artists have donated works which are on display in Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse and can be bid on there. Final bid winners will be announced at Aroma of Art’s Grand Finale, slated for February 28.
In conjunction with Aroma of Art, Poetry Hickory is sponsoring an Ekphrastic Poetry Event. Area writers have produced poems based on works in the Aroma of Art display. These poems have been judged by a panel of local poets, and selected poems have been framed and are on display next to the work of art they were inspired by. The selected poems will be read by their authors at the Aroma of Art Ekphrastic Poetry Event at Taste Full Beans on February 26 and then presented to the winning bidder at the Grand Finale.
The poem below was written by Bud Caywood and inspired by the photograph, “Tree of Life,” by Fanjoy-Labrenz. This particular photo has inspired more poems for the exhibit than any other single piece. Caywood is a very popular Hickory-area poet and artist, who has published 11 books. He has also created handmade greeting cards available in the Hickory Museum of Art.
Sally Fanjoy and James Labrenz are Hickory photographic artists whose work has been shown extensively throughout the Southeast, most recently at the Hickory Museum of Art, the Wilkes Art Gallery, and the Caldwell Arts Council. They were recipients of the United Arts Council Innovative Artists' Grant and the Regional Artists' Grant.
For more information on Aroma of Art, visit the website at http://aromaofart.blogspot.com/ or call Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse at 828-325-0108. For information on the Ekphrastic Poetry Event or Poetry Hickory, contact Scott Owens at asowens1@yahoo.com or 828-234-4266.

Tree of Life
(For the photograph “Tree of Life” by Sally Fanjoy & James Labrenz)

An ashen image
In a vapor waterscape,
Leaf-shade and mirrors

This is not the first reflection.
First black and white photograph or last ekphrastic poem.
Not the first craving to find something abstract in nature.
Not just an ashen image or the photographers’ whim.
It is curiosity in space and time missing.
It is liquid gone from existence.
It is a brain-spinning breach of a time-lapsed moment.
It is cinema, sun and sky spattering the lens.
This is not the sudden landscape becoming accidental.
This is not just one photographic dimension.
Not a mirror or twin sisters.
It is looking out into a dim curtain of mist,
Obscuring what might be there below the reflection.
It is light sliced away from reality.
It is an orbit of fluid under an eye.
It is patience and perfection in the groin of earth.
It is a face into the photograph.
With eyes squinting, pupils straining,
Searching to find birth in a vapor waterscape.
This is not a picture of a tree’s own image in water.
It is more than leaf-shade and mirrors.
It is glass reshaping the illusion of something not yet finished.
It is life found in the snap-shot of a tree.
It is a seed not yet fallen.
A root not yet sprouted.
It is more like a question growing.
It is an embryo.

Bud Caywood, October 16, 2008

It doesn’t pay to be a poet in the world today. I’m not sure that it ever did. There is still interest in poetry, but it seems the interest is more in writing poetry than in reading it, or, that even greater rarity, buying it. Faced with this reality, most of those who continue to pursue poetic expression after realizing the lack of financial reward for doing so, retreat to the halls of colleges and universities where they are at least encouraged and periodically rewarded, usually in the form of time, for publication.
There remains, however, a substantial number of impressive poets who somehow find the willpower and the means to continue developing their poetic talents outside the relative security of academia. Charles Bukowski comes to mind. And I recently discovered another such poet from my birth-town of Greenwood, SC: D.B. Cox. In Catawba County, the most recognized example of this sort of “grassroots” poet is Bud Caywood.
Caywood is the Staff Designer for La-Z-Boy Furniture and a freelance artist and writer. He has been creating art and poetry for more than thirty years and is preparing to publish his 12th collection of poetry: The Café Terrace at Night. Previous editions have included The Feather Collector, North Toward Noon, and Tomato.
Caywood has been an active fixture in the Catawba County arts and poetry community for years. In 2001, he began the original local poetry reading series called “The Writer’s Stage.” And in 2005, he founded an online writer’s group called e-Poets Society.
I am honored to print his poem, “The Rock,” which was originally published in his collection The River.

The Rock

That glimmer is not the moon rising from the river,
or fireflies tumbling out of the shadows,
but flickering mica slivers from a pyramid shapes spike

ripping through the river’s collar–a moving aqueduct
of silky sand splintered with billions of silvery specs;
its metallic current shimmering like a shattered mirror.

This three-mile cascade is an even flowing fallow of
nothing but water and rocks, an esophagus to heaven
with erratic currents tearing the ribs from each bank,

churning invisibly in a swirling spoke of cold drifts,
waiting for rain to rise up its belly around the rock
that shivers like mercury even in the dead of night.

It takes only several minutes, but you trace the flow,
the torrent trail of liquid sand, a tip slightly left, and then
right into the falls and out through a chute, then finally

down through the bruised gorge in long loping waves,
under each drooping tree whirring and swaying in a
hovering presence–the rock disappears quietly behind.