Poetry Lincolnton Reading

Keith Flynn in Lincolnton

3 July Events

3 July Events

July is typically a pretty quiet month for poetry in the Hickory area, but this month I'm involved in three big events.

Poetry Hickory featuring Helen Losse and John York, July 12, 6:30 - 8:00, Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse. Open Mic readers are Kim Teague and Brooke Johnson (1 10-minute slot open -- call me (828-234-4266) or email me (asowens1@yahoo.com) if you want it. Writers' Night Out 5:00-6:30.

Poetry Lincolnton featuring myself, M. Scott Douglass, Jonathan K. Rice, Helen Losse, Devona Wyant, Shane Manier, and Morgan DePue, July 15, 7:00, Lincoln Cultural Center (403 East Main St., Lincolnton, NC)

Greatest Writing Prompt Ever, 3-Day Creative Writing Workshop with Scott Owens, at Minetta Lane Center for the Arts and Peace, July 21, 28, and August 4, 270 Union Square, downtown Hickory. This workshop will get you writing and keep you writing for years to come. Appropriate for all genres. Revision and publication will also be discussed. Cost is $75. Email michael.minettalane@gmail.com or call 828-446-4451 to register. For more information, visit http://minettalanecenter.org/events_calendar/

New Series in Morganton to Feature Local Writers

NEW SERIES IN MORGANTON TO FEATURE LOCAL WRITERS

The Burke County Public Library is beginning a new reading series to be called “Wednesday Night Readings.” The readings will be held at the main branch library in downtown Morganton, and at least initially will feature primarily area writers.

The series will kick off March 9, at 6:30, with Hickory poet, Scott Owens. Owens, who teaches at Catawba Valley Community College, is the author of 6 collections of poetry, editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review, Vice President of the Poetry Council of NC, and founder of Poetry Hickory. His work has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the NC Poetry Society, the NC Writers’ Network, the Poetry Society of SC, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology.

Owens’ latest collection of poems, The Nature of Attraction, is a narrative sequence focusing on the relationship of two characters, Norman and Sara. The collection was written collaboratively with Florida poet, Pris Campbell, and published in 2010 by Main Street Rag.

Joining Owens will be Lincolnton poet, Morgan DePue. Together, they will present a dramatic reading from The Nature of Attraction. They will each read a small selection of their own work as well.

Other readings in the series this spring will feature T.A. Epley, author of Ghosts of the Soon Departed, on March 30; Vale’s Ann Chandonnet, author of Write Quick: War and a Woman’s Life in Letters, 1835-1887 and The Pioneer Village Cookbook, on April 6; Morganton poet, Ted Pope and Hickory poet, Tim Peeler, co-authors of Waiting for Charlie Brown, on April 20; Caldwell Community College instructor, Nancy Posey, author of Let the Lady Speak, on May 4; Hickory poet, Kermit Turner, author of Sandy Ridge: Portrait of a Depression Family, on May 18; biographer T.J. Shimeld, author of The Four Foot Giant and the Vanishing Wheelchair, on June 1; and Winston-Salem poet, Helen Losse, author of Seriously Dangerous and editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, on June 22.

All readings in the series are free and open to the public. For more information on the series, contact coordinator, Mindy Evans, at 828-437-5638

The Reports of Poetry's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

The Reports of Poetry’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Over the past 20 years I have heard and read more times than I can count that nobody reads poetry anymore, nobody buys poetry anymore, and nobody cares about poetry anymore, that in effect, poetry is dead. But everywhere I turn I see evidence quite to the contrary. The most recent of that evidence came to me from a town where one might expect there would be little poetry and little interest in it, a town with a population under 10,000 and only a small branch of a community college, the town of Lincolnton, NC, where a group has started a series of Open Mic readings called Poetry Lincolnton that takes place at 7:00 on the first Tuesday of each month at Generation Bean Coffeehouse.

I read as part of that series recently and was blown away by the size of the audience and the enthusiasm the participants had towards poetry. Organizers of the series, Lincolnton poets, Devona Wyant and Shane Manier, and Generation Bean owner, Kym Miller have sparked a great deal of energy about poetry in a place where one might not expect to find any interest at all.

One of the things that I enjoyed most about this reading was the “performance vibe” of the local readers. For those not familiar with the notion of performance poetry, it is a diverse blend of poetry, song, recitation, music, theater, and sometimes movement that will vary greatly from place to place and person to person. Different manifestations of this oral art might be called slam poetry or spoken word. The particular style of performance poetry displayed during my visit to Lincolnton was clearly influenced by rap music, and characterized by confrontational themes, frequent rhyming in short lines, and a fast pace, all of which make for an enjoyable and often surprising event.

I so thoroughly enjoyed the readings that I invited the group to share their work at Poetry Hickory, and on September 14, at 6:30, Wyant, Manier, and Morgan Depue will do just that as their performances will constitute the Open Mic segment of Poetry Hickory at Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse in downtown Hickory. The featured writers that night will be NC Poetry Society President and retired Davidson Professor Anthony Abbott, and recent UNC Wilmington MFA graduate Jason Mott. To whet your appetite for the evening’s poetry, here is a poem from Shane Manier.

We are poets

We will raise the sun with hands like Gladiolas in bloom.
We will learn to walk like the elephants,
and our arms will extend like an art form
becoming triumphant trumpets.
We will push the laughing eyes back
with palms as steady as a Buddhist monk.
And we shall burn in the fires of ambition
while marching to our birth of revision.
Because this is our day.
This sky is ours to sizzle with our fingers,
we will drip the sound of inspiration
and it will flow sweeter than perspiration.
We will turn adjectives into nouns
because our thoughts are profound.
We are the carving on the stone,
after the monument has fallen down.
We are more than historians spoon feeding textbook givens,
more than story tellers or musicians,
more than friends, lovers and "fam".
We are the voice inside you
when you need the strength to rise again.
We are the wet rag that soothes your head,
the noble words that honor our dead.
We are the reminders, truth finders,
the seekers of wisdom,
and the power to break free from what imprisons.
We are individuals, defenders, dream welders.
We are poets.