Poetry Day to Have Hickory Flavor

POETRY DAY TO HAVE HICKORY FLAVOR

Every year since 1950, the Poetry Council of North Carolina has held a one day celebration of poetry, designated as Poetry Day, at Catawba College in Salisbury. This year Poetry Day will take place on October 10, and it will have a definite Hickory flavor.
This year’s Poetry Day will include the usual speeches and exciting performances by the group, Chambergrass, and Poetry Out Loud (a national high school recitation project) participants, but the highlight of Poetry Day this year, as in every year, is the series of readings by winners in the Council’s annual poetry competitions. The Hickory flavor in this year’s celebration comes in the Sam Ragan Contest for High School Students and Undergraduates, where three of the winners are students from Hickory. Recent St. Stephens High School graduate, Liz (Megan) Monish placed second in that competition, and CVCC students Jacob Gryder and Keegan Blankenship were both recognized as honorable mentions by judge Joseph Milford .
Readings will also be given by the winners of the Council’s six other competitions. These winners include, among others, such NC notables as Shelby Stephenson, long-time editor of Pembroke Magazine; Sara Claytor, author of Howling on Red Dirt Roads and a recent reader at Poetry Hickory; Joseph Mills, author of Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers; Dannye Romine Powell, former Book Page Editor at the Charlotte Observer; Tony Abbott, author of Leaving Maggie Hope; and Bill Griffin, author of Snake Den Ridge and another recent visitor to Poetry Hickory.
Another highlight of the day will be the debut of the Council’s annual awards anthology, Bay Leaves, which will include all the winning poems from this year’s competitions. Copies of Bay Leaves will be available for $9.50. Copies of Bay Leaves, first published in 1952, and all books entered into the Council’s Oscar Arnold Young Book Competition are archived in the Catawba College Library.
Poetry Day activities will begin at 9:20 A.M. in the Peeler-Crystal Lounge on the campus of Catawba College. Admission is free and open to the public. Lunch will be available for $15 per person. Questions about Poetry Day or the Poetry Council of North Carolina can be addressed to Ed Cockrell at 919-967-5834 or by email at edcockrell@hotmail.com. Additional information, including registration forms, are also available at the Council’s website: www.oldmp.com/poetrycouncilofnc.com

CVCC Students In Mule and Goose

“Musings” for May 14
CVCC STUDENTS IN MULE AND GOOSE

I was in graduate school before I had my first real publication as a poet. The poem was called “Preserving the Horn,” and the journal was Southern Poetry Review. It was a big day for me. I was finally able to say that I was a “published poet,” and I felt like I must have finally figured something out about the world of writing and publishing poems.

One of the things I try to do with my own creative students is help them find the concrete encouragement to keep writing that publication brings. I’m very proud to say that this year, nine of my students at CVCC have had or are having their work published in two online journals. As of May 1, five students’ work went online in the journal Dead Mule, at www.deadmule.com. The students and their poems are as follows:
Keegan Blankenship: “Note to Life,” “Junkie,” and “Failed Remorse;”
Heather Carl: “Fleeting Innocence;”
Jacob Gryder: “Mirror,” “Ours Is the Night,” “The Story of a Rock,” and “Upon Having Read His Own Poem Aloud in Class;”
Theodora Netza: “For Maurice Krafft” and “Nightmare;” and
Kristen Sealy: “Dash.”

In a few weeks a new issue of the journal Wild Goose Poetry Review will also go online and will feature poems from six of my students, including Keegan’s “Steve,” Jacob’s “Like Van Gogh But More Ears,” and four others as follows:
Jenni Conklin: “Freckles” and “If You Ask Me Why I Brought a Bowler Hat to a Funeral;”
Houa Lee: “Helplessness” and “Scribbles;”
Deanna Mullins: “Self Service;” and
Graham Ponder: “Icarus.”

One of the joys of teaching creative writing at a community college is having the opportunity to see the wide variety of people who are still interested in poetry. This group is no exception to that variety. Keegan, from Hickory, is a dual enrollment homeschooled high school student preparing to attend UNCG to major in theater. Heather is from Newton and will dual major in English and Business at UNC. Jacob, from Alexander County, will major in Comparative Literature at ASU. Jenni is a Challenger High School student at CVCC who wants to study illustration at Rhode Island School of Design. Houa, from Taylorsville, wants to study political science at UNCC. Deanna is another Challenger student who wants to study forensic anthropology at Western Carolina. And Graham is a product engineer from Claremont with a degree in business administration from UNC Asheville.

I’m very proud to reprint two of these poems below:

Upon having read his own poem aloud in class
by Jacob Gryder
the man reads,
not a poet anymore
just a vocalist—
an orator
his oration no longer
a piece of his soul.
clears the throat,
but still the words
are whispered,
creaking phlegm
infiltrates his meaning.
and mournful silence falls
his peers wear quiet contemplation
as he sports a blush,
ruddy face and a million quiet heart beats,
his fate will, here, be decided.
in his chair he does not move,
but in the boy his spirit writhes
“out with it” he yells,
echoes resounding in his mind.

A note to life
by Keegan Blankenship
Next time you are feeling generous,
keep your lemons to yourself.
If you are freely distributing fruit,
I would much prefer grapes.
For with these grapes
and ample time,
we can sit on my back porch
and get drunk on the wine.
And then when you are good
and drunk;
that’s when I’ll take full
advantage of you.