The National Beat Poetry Foundation (NBPF) has asked to partner with GUNS DON’T SAVE PEOPLE, POETS DO: Dueling with words to stop gun violence. Evelyn Agusto will be featured as a guest poet at Kerouac Cafe on Saturday, October 7, 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm EST. NBPF has dedicated the event, since the Las Vegas holocaust, to the work of stopping gun violence.
If you are in the area (Hartford, Connecticut), please go to this event and support this cause.
U R Not Your Gun
(For Shaun)
You are: The sound of your mother’s voice calling your name and your father’s
chance for a better life–not his,
but yours, because it’s too late for him,
but not for you…not yet, unless you forget
U R Not Your Gun.
You are your greatest fantasy and
someone’s best friend and another’s
first love. You are shelter
from the storm.
You are memory and risk and reward.
You are tougher han your
disappointments, you are kinder
than you imagine, you are everything
that child you once were
wanted to be and more. But
U R Not Your Gun–
not grey and cold and lifeless.
Not unforgiving like that. Not hollow or predictable. Not dangerous.
Evelyn Augusto of Guns Don’t Save People, Poets Do and Glen Falls House are coming together to host the even POET OUT: Dueling With Words To Stop Gun Violence on Friday, October 6th at 8pm EST at The Glens Falls House in Round Top. Tell others about the legacy of gun violence and share your experiences with gun violence through poetry.
While I was so taken up with chores related to the September and October issues of The BeZineand 100TPC 2017, I completely missed National Poetry Day (UK and Ireland), so here’s a little something in its honor courtesy of Wikipedia. The theme for 2017 was Freedom.
National Poetry Day is a British campaign to promote poetry, including public performances. National Poetry Day was founded in 1994 by William Sieghart. It takes place annually in the UK and Ireland on a Thursday in late September/early October.Since its inception, it has engaged millions of people across the country with live events, classroom activities and broadcasts. National Poetry Day is coordinated by the charity Forward Arts Foundation, whose mission is to celebrate excellence in poetry and increase its audience. Its other projects include the Forward Prizes for Poetry. The day is run in collaboration with partners including Arts Council England, Literature Wales, Poet in the City, Southbank Centre, The Poetry Book Society, The Poetry Society, The Scottish Poetry Library, Poetry By Heart and The Poetry School.
Prince Charles performed in the 2016 National Poetry Day, reading Seamus Heaney’ The Shipping Forecast. On 2015 National Poetry Day poems were included on Blackpool Illuminations.
This is our (The BeZine) new poster for 100TPC 2018. It was designed by Corina Ravenscraft (Dragon’s Dreams)
One hundred thousand
Poets for change,
so many voices and
carefully chosen words,
at times decay into a void
of the anechoic chamber.
Earthly Fathers praying
for the Establishment,
that sets our stage,
and casts our values
in concrete, steel,
plastic … and carbon.
Leaders of the World,
whose balance sheets and
logical, numerate intellect
measure only a notion
of success. What is that?
Temper your ambition.
For aren’t we just that,
a wealth of rich and
creative intelligence,
maybe the only hope
for our universe
to understand itself?
Heavenly Mothers ask us
why digitise and monetise
and worship at the alter
of the great god, Thworg,
when we are in the face of
richness beyond measure.
Escape to the stars, if you will,
but answers will be found not
in the vanity of space-time travel,
but here, with this unaided vision
they lie in the green and blue,
right before your disbelieving eyes.
Permit your heart to rule
even if only one day a week, when
the visceral, and the common sense
will sit above logic and intellect, and
that subliminal noise in our head
will slowly rise to the conscious.
Maybe, one day we’ll be
Seven Thousand Million
Poets for Change!
Our time will come. Atonement beckons.
It’s in the wind, this beating heart,
a movement beyond the gaze of mortals …
to the sweet past
to the savory present
to the hopeful future l’chaim
According to Wikipedia, among Argentine Jews, the Spanish name Jaime (xajme, a Spanish cognate of James) is often chosen for its phonetic similarity to Haim (life). I should change my name from Jamie to Jaime!
I believe “l’chaim” is generally used at weddings though it appears to have a complex history. At any rate, I have taken some liberty here.
With all the horrors in the news these days, there are still moments of peace, hearts at peace, sweet and savory pleasures and we haven’t lost our hope for the future. This week write a poetic toast to Life, to all that is good and blessed and persists even in the face of tragedy. If you are comfortable, please share your work on theme or a link to it in the comments section below. All work shared will be published here next Tuesday.
The variety of responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” September 27 are a pleasure to read. Thanks to Renee Espiru, Sonja Benskin Meshery, Gary Bowers and Paul Brookes for coming out to play and sharing their fine work.
Join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome to take part no matter the status of career. Beginners and experienced are welcome to come, be inspired, share their poems and get to know other poets.
A Life Betrayed
She lives the only life
she has ever known
inside someone else’s home
she wonders how she came to this
miles of fields and distance
a breeze touching her
now frail being
did someone leave her here
without her knowing and
will she wake one day
to find she’s dreaming
for she loved him so in her way
but was he a mirage or
just a ruse she wrote of
in her own knowing
before her body did betray
and stole her life
and youth
the characters for the most part
get themselves into such a muddle
usually intent on mirroring
the messes & muddles of others
closely observed by scheming clowns
with special peculiar insights
how will they get out of the muddle?
a question which keeps you entranced
turning the pages rapidly
never really wanting an unravelling
no linearity just sets of closed circles
of rather bizarre impossibility
occasionally a character will experience
a bright moment of illumination
or clarity which I have come to call
the specificity of the ordinary:
the cat on the terrace dust particles
lizard on a sunny bank
bare gritty floorboards leaves in the wind
ivy climbing on a rock as it might be
to refer it all to myself measuring
the impact of the ordinary
if only the characters had listened
to their author’s commentary
more carefully they might all have been
able to rescue themselves
he grips the tablets in his charge, this
courier of commandmenta, and takes umbrage or looks
askance at some person or
persons on
his left. on his head
are zigguratish lumps,
horns, that should have been
unsculptable rays of
light. julius the pope, the vicar
of christ, has left
his mortal remains entombed
here, and moses to guard
them. the likeness
of julius was to be
the capstone of the tomb
but it was never
done. the militant pope
had need of his hireling
visionary elsewhere,
as plasterer and muralist
for a now-renowned chapel.
the tomb was finished in 1545,
decades after julius’s promotion
to resident of Heaven.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 