Write, read, buy

Ahhh April, when our minds turn from fools to taxes to poetry.  

It's official: the Academy of American Poets declares April as National Poetry Month.  Here are a few ways I'll mark the occasion:

• Host a Poetry & Prose Reading
It's my party and I'll write if I want to . . . Gear up for a fun (code: not stuffy and dull) reading event on April 24th at 7pm in Yachats, Oregon. Go here for details.

•  Enter the 2010 Poetry Giveaway
Over 30 poetry lovers are giving away books, including me!
Go here to enter my giveaway, and go here for even more. 

• Buy poetry
Sure, we all love Mary Oliver and Billy Collins, but for every ''bestseller" poet there are 100s of little known writers with books eager for your love. Support your local poets (i.e, friends, colleagues, neighbors) and buy their books. 

• Read poems
Toss aside the People magazine and reach for poetry instead. Don't worry about "getting it" or making sense of it, just enjoy the language and ideas. Let words wash over you and see what floats. 

• Write poems
I'm not a big fan of writing regimes. I've done my share of 'you must write' schedules and I tend toward sullen guilt rather than breakthrough art. Still . . . there is much to be said for commitment, and I applaud those who take part in the Write-a-Poem-A-Day-Challenge, or writing groups, or daily word counts. These practices make us accountable. Good writing doesn't just happen — you gotta show up.  

• Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day
My very favorite part of National Poetry Month is Poem in Your Pocket Day. This year it falls on Thursday, April 29th. Go here and get ready! 

How about you?  What are you doing to feed your mind and your writing? How are you making National Poetry Month meaningful?

Spring, when our prospects brighten

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant spring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors. You may have known your neighbor yesterday for a thief, a drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely pitied or despised him, and despaired of the world; but the sun shines bright and warm this first spring morning, re-creating the world, and you meet him at some serene work, and see how it is exhausted and debauched veins expand with still joy and bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence of infancy, and all his faults are forgotten. There is not only an atmosphere of good will about him, but even a savor of holiness groping for expression, blindly and ineffectually perhaps, like a new-born instinct, and for a short hour the south hillside echoes to no vulgar jest. You see some innocent fair shoots preparing to burst from his gnarled rind and try another year's life, tender and fresh as the youngest plant.

— Henry David Thoreau, from Walden, “Spring”

Poetry Giveaway 2010

In April, three of my favorite things will converge:

• poetry

• free stuff

• mail 

To celebrate National Poetry Month, a host of writers are sharing their love of poetry — with free poetry books! (Thanks to poet Kelli Agodon for orchestrating this worldwide event). For my part, I am giving away two books to two lucky winners (includes free shipping to anywhere in the world).

How to Win:

• Leave a comment on this post any time before May 1, 2010. 

   Include your name and contact info. 

• On May 1, two winners will be chosen in a random drawing of names. 

• Check back and see if you are a winner!

Win these Books: 

• Forecast

A word-art collaboration featuring poems by Drew Myron and interpretive paintings by Tracy Weil. 

 

• The Real Warnings, by Rhett Iseman Trull

Winner of the 2008 Anhinga Prize for Poetry, the Real Warnings earned high praise from poet/judge Sheryl St. Germain: “Open this book up anywhere and you'll find a poem of fierce and uncompromising energy and insight . . . I've never read a poet who understands more fully the brutal paradoxes of love and of loving damaged things.”

   

• Enter now!  Good luck and good reading. 

Update on Saturday, May 1, 2010 at 1:44PM by Drew

Winner of Forecast, a word-art collaboration by Drew Myron and Tracy Weil, is A.M, also known as Amber (Dean) McQuillan.

Winner of The Real Warnings by Rhett Iseman Trull (one of my favorite poets and poetry collections), is Matthew Thorburn, a poet living in New York City. 

The Poetry Book Giveaway was created by poet Kelli Agodon to celebrate National Poetry Month and promote a love of, and appreciation for, poetry. Over 50 bloggers took part, giving away more than 100 poetry books.

The event has been a wonderful way to explore and discover a world of new, unknown and established poets. Many thanks to Kelli at Book of Kells for including me as a Giveaway host, and to everyone for stopping by and entering the drawing. See you next year! 

Note: If you are a winner and see your name above, please email me with your mailing address so I can get your book to you right away.  dcm@drewmyron.com 

In Six Words

Life: Chocolate outside, cyanide filling inside.

— Vinnie

Inspired by Smith magazine's Six-Word Memoirs, the (Young) Writers* have embarked on their own short-form descriptions. (As an aside — remember when memoirs were simply autobiographies? Has this form faded? Is everything now memoir?)

The six word form is instant, fun and sometimes profound. I love 'em. (My own six-word memoir graces this website's home page). Here are a few examples from a recent Thursday night writing session:

Be your self

The world is

— Tyler

I love being right, watch out.

— Siri

Heart work

Speak the truth

Always

— Senitila

Have you penned a six-word memoir? If so, share it here!

*(see previous post for more on this unsolved matter)

Pesky punctuation

Is this what they call a 'teachable moment'?

The Young Writers don't want to be young.

Seashore Family Literacy has three writing groups — for ages 9 to 19 — and the teen writers have said they aren't all that young (compared to the nine-year-olds, I suppose this is true). Admittedly, I opened the door to this discussion, and they had a point.

The grade-school group is called the Happy Hour for Young Readers & Writers. The middle school group is the Writing Club. The teens, formerly the Young Writers, don't want to be confused for inexperienced, impressionable youth. After all, they are older and wiser than their younger colleagues. 'Young,' they say, is patronizing (until you are 40, I say, and swoon at anything pore-less and firm). They want to be the Writer's Group. Not teen writers, not young writers. They want the shorthand of Writer's Group. I get it.

But here's the rub: The pesky apostrophe vexes this choice.

Young Writers was easy. A collection of writers, no possession and no need for apostrophe. But how to punctuate Writers Group? Is it Writer's ? Writers' ? or Writers?

Begging of friends, pleas to teachers, and endless Google searches offer no relief. Where's the model? the rule? (I haven't been this muddled since the Farmer's Market debate of 2002 -- Farmers, Farmer's, or Farmers' ?). Instead of a clear answer, I find that I am in a room packed with equally befuddled writers.

For example, here's how others handle the apostrophe:

Pacific Northwest Writers Association

Writer's Market

Tallahassee Writers Association

The Kenyon Review Writers' Workshop

Tin House Summer Writers Workshop

The Alabama Writers' Conclave

Santa Barbara Writers Conference

Oregon Writers' Colony

Writer's Digest . . . . and on it goes

Clearly, I am not alone in this predicament. Can you solve this grammar dilemma? This could be your teachable moment, providing me — and a group of not-so-young writers — with great knowledge, comfort and relief.