poetry

Sound poetry, also known as polypoetry, is a performance art, a live show, which combines many elements, such as the written word, human voice, musical instruments, electronic sounds, movement, mime and projected images.

A major proponent of this art form is Enzo Minarelli, performer and scholar from Bologna, Italy, who developed a Manifesto of Polypoetry, containing his theories of the performance of sound poetry, touching on the rhythms of language, exploitation of sounds and use of electronic media.

This Wednesday evening, November 18, starting at 6:30 pm, Enzo Minarelli, will be performing a one-man show of his polypoetry. The performance will be held in the Bruno Walter Auditorium of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. The entrance will be at 111 Amsterdam Ave. at West 65th St. The event is free and open to the public.  read more »

Final Week of National Poetry Month

Reader’s Den friends, we’ve come to the fourth and final installment of our month-long celebration of verse. I give you a poem from fellow New Yorker Don Marquis, originally published in 1915. Check out discussion questions after the break, and post comments!

SO LET THEM PASS, THESE SONGS OF MINE
by Don Marquis

So let them pass, these songs of mine,
Into oblivion, nor repine;
Abandoned ruins of large schemes,
Dimmed lights adrift from nobler dreams,

Still shall I struggle, fail, aspire,
Lose God, and find Gods in the mire,
And drink dream-deep life's heady wine--
So let them pass, these songs of mine.

Questions to Inspire Discussion:  read more »

Week 3 of National Poetry Month

To a “Friend”? Are you sure he/she is just a friend, Ms. Lowell?

This week The Reader’s Den offers up an Amy Lowell sonnet, originally published in the year 1912. Check out discussion questions after the break, and post a comment if the spirit moves you!

TO A FRIEND by Amy Lowell

I ask but one thing of you, only one,
That always you will be my dream of you;
That never shall I wake to find untrue
All this I have believed and rested on,
Forever vanished, like a vision gone
Out into the night. Alas, how few
There are who strike in us a chord we knew
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone
We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.
The world is full of rude awakenings
And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,
Yet still our human longing vainly clings
To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.
O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!

Click on for questions, and to learn about Amy Lowell: Rock Star. All posts will be read and responded to.  read more »

Week 2 of National Poetry Month: Seeing Things

The Reader’s Den is the NYPL’s online book discussion forum, but during the month of April we’re all about poetry. This week’s poem, City Visions, was chosen with a view to celebrating Immigrant Heritage Week, which starts April 17. It was written by the same poet whose words grace the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses…”).

CITY VISIONS by Emma Lazarus

I.

As the blind Milton's memory of light,
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,
Wrought joys for them surpassing all things known
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight,—
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone
Vex with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night,
I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight
From dismal now and here, and dwell alone
With new-enfranchised senses. All day long,
Think ye 't is I, who sit 'twixt darkened walls,
While ye chase beauty over land and sea?
Uplift on wings of some rare poet's song,
Where the wide billow laughs and leaps and falls,
I soar cloud-high, free as the the winds are free.  read more »

A work of art has often inspired a poem, like The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, which sparked Anne Sexton’s poem of the same name; and likewise, a poem can inspire an artwork, as with Charles Demuth’s The Figure 5 in Gold, motivated by William Carlos Williams’ poem The Great Figure.

But, it is often the case that the artist and the poet are the same person. A few artist/poets of variety include William Blake, Marsden Hartley, Francis Picabia, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Chinese painters of the Song Dynasty. Movements of Western art and literature, including the Pre-Raphaelites, Dada, and Surrealism also have embraced the artist/poet as an inspired partnering.

In this spirit of creative duality, please join the Mid-Manhattan Library Art Collection on Monday, April 27, at 6:30 PM, as we celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day with an images and poetry read by artists and poets Stephen Spretnjak, Johannes VanDerBeek, Geoffrey Young, and Bill Zavtasky.

In celebration of National Poetry Month the Jefferson Market Library will be hosting the 17th Annual Poets House Showcase Saturday April 4 through Saturday April 11, 2009.

The only event of its kind, the annual Poets House Showcase is a free exhibit featuring all of the new poetry books and poetry-related texts published in the United States in a single year—with more than 2,000 titles on view (including volumes by individual authors, anthologies, biographies, critical studies, CDs and DVDs) from over 500 commercial, university and independent presses. The Showcase provides writers, readers and publishers with a fascinating vantage point from which to assess publishing and design trends and linguistic, aesthetic and philosophical shifts.

The opening reception is Saturday April 4, from 1-4pm. The exhibit will be located in our first floor auditorium and is open during regular library hours. Please try and stop by and contact us if you would like more information.

Week 1: Isn’t it Romantic?

Welcome to Poetry Month with the Reader’s Den! Instead of the normal online book discussion this month, each Wednesday we'll post a poem for consideration and discussion. Feel free to use the questions below the poem as a springboard. Post your insights and impressions in the comments, and be sure to check back later in the week to see what others thought.

We begin with a poem by John Keats, composed in the year 1818.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the narrator’s strongest fears?

2. Grain, stars, clouds, shadows, shore…why all the nature imagery?

3. How would you interpret the concluding lines?

Continue exploring this poem with a glossary and more:  read more »

I suppose April is National Poetry Month because it's the cruellest month. I don't know if that's true but I've planted some seeds and hope to have flowers for summer. Am I deluded by this into believing in a spring resurrection? Perhaps, but what's the alternative? I'll take my morning glories and moon flowers and if they smell sweet I'll try not to think of funerals.

April is a great time to drop by the Hudson Park Library and take out some poetry. Take your book, walk a couple of blocks to the Hudson River and doze off in the sun between lines by such great Village poets as Marianne Moore, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Stanley Kunitz. April will not seem cruel.

Marianne Moore worked at the Hudson Park Library in the 1920s, commuting 42 steps (I counted! If she had a long stride - 39!) from her home at 14 St. Lukes Place. Great, huh? Oh, but the hazards of too short a commute - no calling out sick and going to the beach for her.

Ginsberg, Hughes, Byron, and Poe
They wrote poems that we all know

On April 30th, Poem in Your Pocket Day
Add your own words to what they say

Thursday, April 30th, 2009 will be the seventh annual Poem In Your Pocket day in New York City, and this year, the Mayor's Office is working with the Poetry Society of America to bring poet John Waldman’s Envelope Project to New York City. We've offered up the NYPL blog as a space for everyone to participate, so if you want to write your own poem, simply follow these instructions:

1. Browse through these first lines of famous poems.
2. When you have found one that inspires you, continue writing your own poem based on the first line.
3. Once you have finished your poem, post it in the comments section below. Link the NYPL blog to your Facebook page, and share with your friends!
4. Be sure to check back on April 30th to see what other New Yorkers have written – as well as the original poems.
5. And don’t forget to print out a copy of your poem and tuck it in to your pockets, so you can be ready for April 30th.

Suggested first lines below the fold…  read more »

What better way to kick off your election night then an evening in the DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room – relax, listen to great new writers introduced by their editors, join us for a glass of wine afterward, all still with plenty of time to catch the election results. The line up begins with Editor Thaddeus Rutkowski (Many Mountains Moving) introducing fiction writer Jon Swan, followed by Levi Rubeck (Washington Square) introducing poet Elisa Gabbert and wrapping up with Michael Vazquez (Bidoun) introducing non fiction writer Anand Balakrishnan. Periodically Speaking showcases NYPL’s great collection of contemporary literary magazines. Lots of librarians have worked on building the collection over the years and for awhile now I've been doing it - lucky me! So - come back (either in person or at www.nypl.org) and check out the vast holdings of literary magazines, poetry titles, small & alternative press materials of all kinds!
Tonight the reading begins at 6:00 pm at The Humanities and Social Sciences Library – 5th Ave and 42nd St.

New Yorkers are celebrating poetry in a big way –
For today, April 17th, is Poem In Your Pocket Day!

For the next twenty-four hours, all New Yorkers are encouraged to put poems in their pockets – and post their original poems to the NYPL blog. There are events happening all day, and even the mayor's participating (no kidding!):

PRESS CONFERENCE
by Michael Bloomberg

Pardon me, sir, I’ve a question or two …
     You.
Sir, you said poetry is a delight…
     Right.
Reading it makes you smarter, more mature?
     Sure.
But is it better for people not to read verse?
     Worse.
Do you read sonnets? Limericks? Odes?
     Loads.
All these short answers. Why?
     I -
Follow-up! What do you in your free time?
     Rhyme.
Could poems appeal to the Press?
     Yes.
But can they help with traffic congestion?
     Next question.

As we mentioned yesterday, New Yorkers have been taking the first lines of famous poems and making them their own. Keep checking back throughout the day, in that thread or the comments below, to read the original poems of the latest and greatest Whitmans, Dickinsons and Poes (who, of course, moonlight at your local dry cleaners, law firm and…well…publishing house).

Remember, you can still participate!
Just take a famous first line below
Mold it, weave it and rework it to create,
A poem of magnificent proportions
Which you’ll soon have the world to show!

Post your poem here, print out a copy and put it in your pocket to celebrate April 17th – Poem In Your Pocket Day, 2008.

Write a poem right away –
Thursday’s Poem In Your Pocket Day!

It’s an easy project all you writing friends,
So let us begin in order to reach the end…

Thursday, April 17, 2008 will be the sixth annual Poem In Your Pocket day in New York City, and this year, the Mayor's Office is working with the Poetry Society of America to bring the John Waldman Writing Project to New York City. We've offered up the NYPL blog as a space for everyone to participate, so if you want to write your own poem, simply follow these instructions:

1. Browse through these first lines of – public domain (trust us, we’ve checked) – already published poems.
2. When you have found one that you connect with, continue writing it as though it were your own first line.
3. Once you have finished your poem, post it in the comments below.
4. Be sure to check back on April 17 to see what other New Yorkers have written – as well as the original poems.
5. And don’t forget to print out a copy of your poem, fold it up, and tuck it in to your pockets, so you can be ready for April 17th

First lines below the fold...  read more »