Poets, Poetry, News, Reviews, Readings, Resources & Opportunities for Poets and Writers
Author: Jamie Dedes
Jamie Dedes is a Lebanese-American poet and free-lance writer. She is the founder and curator of The Poet by Day, info hub for poets and writers, and the founder of The Bardo Group, publishers of The BeZine, of which she was the founding editor and currently a co-manager editor with Michael Dickel. Ms. Dedes is the Poet Laureate of Womawords Press 2020 and U.S associate to that press as well. Her debut collection, "The Damask Garden," is due out fall 2020 from Blue Dolphin Press.
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Poetry rocks the world!
FEEL THE BERN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
Maintain the movement.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
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What else can we do but garden our shadows while far away the universe burns and vanishes. Andrée Chedid
The Final Poem
A forge burns in my heart.
I am redder than dawn,
Deeper than seaweed,
More distant than gulls,
More hollow than wells.
But I only give birth
To seeds and to shells.
My tongue becomes tangled in words:
I no longer speak white,
Nor utter black,
Nor whisper gray of a wind-worn cliff,
Barely do I glimpse a swallow,
A shadow’s brief glimmer,
Or guess at an iris.
Where are the words,
The undying fire,
The final poem?
The source of life?
The Voice
Where is the distant voice
That speaks like my soul?
Buried beneath daylight’s clamor
Gold and the seasons
Beneath groaning streets
And the ferment of cities
In my grave of care
And blond laughter
In what bare tomb must I lie
To summon the voice
That speaks like my soul?
The Ever-Patient Woman
In the flowing sap
In her growing fever
Parting her veils
Cracking out of her shells
Sliding out of her skins
The ever-patient woman
Slowly
gives herself
life
In her volcanoes
In her orchards
Seeking solidity and measure
Clasping her most tender flesh
Straining every fine-honed fiber
The ever-patient woman
Slowly
gives herself
light.
* On her site there’s a link to her “Creative Process.” Interesting. Worth your time.
Bibliothèque Andrée-Chedid, 36 Émeriau Street (Paris), Photograph courtesy of Celette under CC BY-SA 4.0
Andrée Chedid (1920 – 2011) was an Egyptian-French poet and a novelist of Lebanese descent. She was of the Syriac Maronite Church. I believe she is better known for her fiction here in the States but I appreciate her generally spare style and think her poetry is not to be missed. She questions the human condition and asks what binds us to the world. Not unexpectedly the perfume of the orient wafts through her poems. She denounced the Lebanese Civil War.
Ms. Chedid moved to France post-WW II and remained there for the rest of her life. She was the recipient of many literary awards and was a Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour (2009). A public library was named for her in Paris (2012). Her Amazon Page U.S. is HERE. Her Amazon Page U.K. is HERE.
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.
Poetry rocks the world!
FEEL THE BERN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
Maintain the movement.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“From analyzing poems to spending hours memorizing and honing their recitations, we know the extraordinary amount of hard work and personal effort that each student put into the program,” said Mary Anne Carter, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The National Endowment for the Arts and Poetry Foundation are recognizing and celebrating the 2020 Poetry Out Loud™ student champions by distributing cash prize awards, sharing videos of poetry recitations by participants across the United States, and announcing the winners of the Poetry Ourselves contest.
POETRY OUT LOUD
Honoring Champions Across the Country The 2020 Poetry Out Loud national finals were cancelled due to COVID-19, and several state finals were either cancelled or held virtually. Poetry Out Loud will honor both the students who won their state Poetry Out Loud competition (state champions) as well as students who advanced to the state finals in states that were unable to hold a competition.
In the coming weeks, videos of these students reciting a selection of poems from the Poetry Out Loud anthology will be released through arts.gov and poetryoutloud.org as well as on Twitter.
“From analyzing poems to spending hours memorizing and honing their recitations, we know the extraordinary amount of hard work and personal effort that each student put into the program,” said Mary Anne Carter, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “While we are disappointed not to have a national finals competition this year, we look forward to sharing students’ recitations through this video project and the resumption of the competition next school year.”
To honor the achievements of these students, each state champion will receive a $1,000 prize. In states where the finals were cancelled, the state arts agency will receive $1,000 to either award to a state champion named at a later date or divide among the students who advanced to the state finals. The Poetry Foundation provides and administers all aspects of the monetary prizes awarded for Poetry Out Loud.
“Poetry Out Loud is a premiere event to celebrate months of preparation culminating with poetry at center stage, and we share in the disappointment of cancelling the national finals,” said Henry Bienen, president of the Poetry Foundation. “We preserved our commitment to recognize the students’ passion and hard work by awarding the prizes in as equitable a way as possible.”
POETRY OURSELVES
Celebrating Original Work by Young Poets
Competitors also had the opportunity to participate in the Poetry Ourselves competition by submitting original works of poetry in spoken or written form.
Carmen Giménez Smith (b. 1971) is an American poet, writer and editor from New York City. In 2009, Giménez Smith was named to Poetry Society of America’s biennial New American Poets Series.[5] In 2011, she was named a Howard Foundation Fellow in Creative Nonfiction; her memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds, received an American Book Award; and her third collection of poems, Goodbye, Flicker, was awarded the Juniper Prize for Poetry.[8]Milk and Filth was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.
Carmen’s website is HERE. Carmen’s Amazon Page U.S. is HERE.
A companion to Poetry Out Loud, the Poetry Ourselves competition gives students the opportunity to submit original poetry. This year, Poetry Ourselves submissions were judged by poet Carmen Gimenéz Smith. The competition was open to state champions as well as students who advanced to their state final in states that were unable to hold a competition this year.
Tessa Kresch, a student at Saint Johns School in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is the 2020 Poetry Ourselves spoken poetry winner for the poem I Wonder What Will Happen Tomorrow. Kieran Ellis, the 2020 Idaho Poetry Out Loud State Champion and a student at Kuna High School in Kuna, is the 2020 Poetry Ourselves written poetry winner for the poem Drought.
Eden Getahun, the 2020 California Poetry Out Loud State Champion and a student at CK McClatchy High School in Sacramento, is the 2020 Poetry Ourselves spoken poetry runner-up for the poem Never Forget. Max Feliciano Laracuente, a student at Residential Center of Academic Opportunities of Mayaguez (C.R.O.E.M.) in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, is the 2020 Poetry Ourselves written poetry runner-up for the poem Going Home.
This post is courtesy of Poetry Out Loud, Poetry Ourselves, The National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, and Wikipedia.
About Poetry Out Loud
A partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, and the state and jurisdictional arts agencies, Poetry Out Loud™ is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country. By performing poetry, students can master public-speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn more about literary history and contemporary life. Since 2005, more than four million students from 16,000 high schools in all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have participated in Poetry Out Loud. Starting with the 2020-21 school year, Poetry Out Loud will expand to Guam and American Samoa.
For schools that choose to participate, the program starts in the classroom, where teachers may use the Poetry Out Loud toolkit to teach poetry recitation and run classroom competitions. Students select, memorize, and recite poems from an anthology of more than 1,100 classic and contemporary poems. Winners advance from the classroom to the school-wide competition, then to the state competition, and ultimately to the national finals in Washington, DC. More information about the program and how to participate in the 2020-21 competition is available at poetryoutloud.org.
About the National Endowment for the Arts
Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the Arts Endowment supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit arts.gov to learn more.
About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in American culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, visit poetryfoundation.org.
Follow the Poetry Foundation and Poetry on Facebook, Twitter @PoetryFound and @Poetrymagazine, and Instagram.
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“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art . . . it has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” C.S. Lewis
Moon-glister spilled itself over
The city the night you died,
The night the fire of your life
Leapt into the heavens to, no
Doubt, make minestrone for
The angels . . .
You left the good and not so
Good, your fave armchair for
Thursday Coffee Klatch and the
Walker you found so awkward
You left us too, your neighbors
And friends, we’ll miss your wide
Smiles and throaty laughter, the
Roll of your eyes, your dry humor
Your singular irreverence . . .
During the night of May 12 we lost a neighbor and friend. By “we” I mean all of us here at this apartment building where I live, which is adapted for disabled elders. Our friend’s name was Carol. She had a stroke . . . and Yes! she was droll and irreverent but also thoughtful and generous. I am largely bound to my apartment and often to my bed, but Carol would pop in for a little chin-wag and would bring me some of her fabulous minestrone. Pre-COVID-19 when we still had Thursday Coffee Klatch, Carol would stake out comfy chairs for us both and hold mine until I arrived. Since Thursday Coffee Klatch was held on my floor, I only had to travel a few feet to attend. It was doable.
The hardest thing about growing old is not aging. It’s not the proximity of one’s own death. It’s the unremitting loss of relatives, neighbors and friends. One day you wake up to find so many are gone.
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.
Poetry rocks the world!
FEEL THE BERN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
Maintain the movement.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 