Baird Beer & Taproom Events Bulletin

Rainy Season Black Ale; World Cup Soccer; Fish Tap 10-Year Extravaganza

Dear Taproom Friend & Baird Beer Enthusiast:

The 2010 rainy season is right upon us. Given the amount of rainy weather we experienced this spring, though — particularly in the early stages, I am not anticipating an overly downcast season. I am a brewer and not a weather forecaster, of course, and the rainy season means just one thing to me as a professional — the annual brewing and release of a very hoppy dark ale: Rainy Season Black Ale.

New Seasonal Baird Beer Releases:
*Rainy Season Black Ale 2010 (ABV 6.1%):

A torrential down-pouring of hops define this otherwise roasty, toasty, espresso-like powerful black ale. 55 BUs of clean American (Warrior, Magnum, Horizon, Glacier, Santiam) lupulin as well as dry-hopped character from the spicy-peppery combination of Glacier and Santiam coat the tongue with a resinous stickiness that is pungently pleasurable. This is the Baird Beer antidote to the rainy season funk.

Rainy Season Black Ale 2010 will be available in both draught and bottle (633 ml) form throughout Japan at pubs, restaurants and liquor shops that constitute our wonderful and growing network of Baird Beer retailers. Check out the expanding list of Baird Beer retailers on the retailer’s page of our website: http://bairdbeer.com/en/bairdbeer/retailers. Of course, Each of our own Taproom pubs will be pouring Rainy Season Black Ale also, and individual consumers can order online direct from the brewery via our website E-Shop: http://bairdbeer.com/en/shop/.

*Setting Sun ESB (ABV 5.2%):

In case of much sun and fair skies this rainy season, we have prepared a beery complement to that also in the form of and English-style Extra Special Bitter (ESB). We concoct this quintessentially English style ale, however, with our own irreverent twists: addition of German base malt (Munich), hopping with a combination of American (Cascade) and New Zealand (Hallertau Aroma) varieties, and fermentation with an American ale yeast. If you want to ponder a beautiful early summer sunset with contemplative bliss, this ale will get you there.

Setting Sun ESB will be pouring exclusively in Real Ale form from the hand pumps of our three Taproom pubs. Please stop in for a pint while quantities last.

World Cup Soccer Kicks Off at the Taproom Pubs:
The soccer World Cup is about to kick off and we will be showing games live and with sound at each of our Taproom pubs. Just as beer is best imbibed in a socially convivial setting, so too is soccer best viewed. Our Numazu Fishmarket Taproom will be staying open late to show 11:00 pm kick-off matches in their entirety. Please feel free to contact any one of our Taproom pubs regarding the World Cup viewing schedule or to make special group reservations and/or requests.

-Numazu Fishmarket Taproom: fishmarket-tap@bairdbeer.com

-Nakameguro Taproom: nakameguro-tap@bairdbeer.com

-Harajuku Taproom: harajuku-tap@bairdbeer.com

Numazu Fishmarket Taproom 10-Year Anniversary Extravaganza:
Sayuri and I opened the doors of our Numazu Fishmarket Taproom on Saturday, July 20, 2000. This July, then, is our 10-year birthday and we intend to celebrate in vigorous style. Please mark your calendar for the three-day holiday weekend of July 17-19 (Saturday – Monday). This 3-day anniversary celebration will feature the following (with the Fishmarket Taproom opening each of these days at noon sharp):

Debut Release of a special commemorative Baird Beer: Tap 10.
Delicious 1,500 yen all-you-can-eat Taproom buffet (Sat & Sun: noon – 9:00 pm; Mon: noon – 7:00 pm)
500 yen Baird Beer bura bura cups for all beer styles sold at each venue
Brewery BBQ & Open House (1:00 – 6:00 pm Sat & Sun at the brewery — 500 meters from the Taproom)
Taproom sidewalk BBQ (3:00 – 8:00 pm Sat & Sun; 1:00 – 5:00 pm Mon)
Guided Brewery tours on Monday (1:00 pm and 4:00 pm)
Live Taproom music (Sat 9:00 – 11:00 pm; Mon 7:00 – 9:00 pm)
Open Mic Night performances (Sun 8:00 – 10:00 pm)
Numazu is at its best in the summer months. The surrounding beaches are lovely; fishing, hiking and other activities are aplenty; and fresh fish market sushi beckons. Most compelling of all, though, will be the extraordinary gathering of an eclectic mix of wonderful beer enthusiasts who have made the 10-year journey of the Fishmarket Taproom and Baird Beer possible. The Baird Beer won’t be bad either!

Cheers,

Bryan Baird

Baird Brewing Company
Numazu, Japan
HOMEPAGE


The Japan Blog List

———————————
Must-see tasting websites:
-Sake: Tokyo Through The Drinking Glass, Tokyo Foodcast, Urban Sake, Sake World
-Wine: Palate To Pen, Warren Bobrow, Cellar Tours, Ancient Fire Wines Blog
-Beer: Good Beer & Country Boys, Another Pint, Please!
-Japanese Pottery to enjoy your favourite drinks: Yellin Yakimono Gallery
——————————–
Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Many of you are now receiving my email that alerts you to when a new Vermont Poetry Newsletter is ready for viewing, along with a fully updated Poetz.com calendar of events. This procedure seems to be working beautifully, and seems to have had an invigorating effect on Vermont’s poetry “scene” as well as for Patrick Gillespie’s poetry blog: http://poemshape.wordpress.com/.

I must say that what many of you bring to the Vermont poetry table is really astounding to me. We have Geof Hewitt doing so much for our youth, in Slam Poetry. A David Weinstock, Joni Cole and April Ossmann making available writing seminars. Poetry groups and guilds seem to be around every corner. BigTown Gallery in Rochester coming up huge as a great new poetry venue. The list goes on and on. Now I’ve learned a little about a project that poet Martin Gil is putting together beginning this month, a 44 page one act play, 6 poems enfolded in the playscript. Believe me, I’d love to attend every poetry-related event that comes across my desk, but I guess my job is to bring the news of such events to all of you to enjoy. The VPN is my particular calling, my project. Please know, though, that I’m with all of you in making your ambitious, dedicated efforts more successful (willingly promoting it in the VPN), that I am very much interested in what you’re doing, and that I would be there with you if I could. Please accept my apologies if I can’t be right there with you bringing your remarkable gifts to the world of poetry.

Ron Lewis
VPN Publisher
247-5913

3.) WRITING ASSIGNMENT/SUGGESTION/EXERCISES

CURRENT WRITING ASSIGNMENT/SUGGESTION/ EXERCISE/PROMPT:

What could be better for a writing prompt that a dream, a really BAD dream. The Laker’s beating the Celtics, your Mom finding something out about you that you had wanted to keep secret, a blown head gasket – you name it! If you can’t think of anything worth writing about, take a nap and try recalling where your mind had been.

PREVIOUS WRITING ASSIGNMENT/SUGGESTION/ EXERCISE/PROMPT:

April-June Poetry Challenge

In his book, Richer Entanglements, Gregory Orr suggests that there are four temperaments to a poet. He explains:
I’d like to propose that poets are born with a certain innate form-giving temperament that allows them to forge language into the convincing unities we call poems. This form-giving gift is more important than any other a poem might possess. Different poets are born with different temperaments, and the nature of their temperaments determines essential qualities of the poems they write. (….)

4.) Alan Sillitoe, 1928–2010

Lucifer’s Decision
by Alan Sillitoe;
introduced by Michael Caines

Alan Sillitoe died earlier this week, on April 25; compared to his novels, his poetry has received relatively little critical attention. The bestselling author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner was also the author of “The Rats” (1960), a poem in which all bureaucrats are condemned as the rodents of the title. He was also married to a poet, Ruth Fainlight, and both writers contributed to the TLS, with varying degrees of regularity, over the past five decades.

“Lucifer’s Decision” is part of a verse sequence, “Snow on the North Side of Lucifer”, of which the TLS published four extracts in July 1978. (….)

5.) Looking for a great Poem-of-the-Week?

TLS, The Times Literary Supplement, offers up out-of-the-ordinary poems that tell me they’re mingling with today’s finest contemporary poets.

6.) A note from our friends at Bloodroot literary magazine:

Here’s a new publication opportunity for those of you writing about life after 50.The (electronic) literary magazine is featured in the current Poets & Writers issue, and is called Still Crazy. It’s “written by and about people over fifty.” They are looking for poetry and prose that “challenges patronizing, sentimental, or stereotyping attitudes toward aging.”

You can’t see sample poems without registering, but it’s only $3.00 to purchase the PDF version ($9 for the print version). You can also form an idea of the style of work they appreciate from their submission guidelines and the titles in the table of contents:

7.)

  • I’ve had several poets ask me which poets are expected to be at this year’s Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. Here is my personal list (to see original click on image at right), which I use to cross reference books in my poetry library so that I can get signatures on the books that I have. You might want to use it for the same purpose.

Poets @ Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference 2010

Marianne Boruch is the author of six collections of poetry: Grace, Fallen from; Poems: New and Selected; A Stick that Breaks and Breaks; Moss Burning; Descendant; and View from the Gazebo. Her two books of essays on poetry are Poetry’s Old Air and In the Blue Pharmacy: Essays on Poetry and Other Transformations. Her awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and residencies from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the MacDowell Colony, and Isle Royale National Park (the country’s most isolated national park). She has received a number of teaching awards from Purdue University where she developed the graduate writing program, directing it from 1987 until 2005 and where she remains on the MFA faculty.  Since 1988, she has also taught in the low-residency Warren Wilson MFA Program.

Linda Gregerson’s fourth collection of poetry, Magnetic North, was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. Her three other collections include Fire in the Conservatory, The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep, and Waterborne. Gregerson is also the author of two volumes of criticism and numerous literary essays. Her many awards include the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Humanities Center, the Mellon Foundation, the Poetry Society of America, and the Modern Poetry Foundation. Gregerson is the Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor of English at the University of Michigan.

Jane Hirshfield’s sixth book of poetry, After, was named a “best book of 2006″ by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and England’s Financial Times. Among other honors, she has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets, and her work appears in the New Yorker, Atlantic, Times Literary Supplement, New Republic, Poetry, American Poetry Review, and five editions of The Best American Poems. She has been featured in two of Bill Moyers’s PBS documentaries and her work appears frequently on Garrison Keillor’s public radio program, “The Writer’s Almanac.”

Yusef Komunyakaa is the author of Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, 1977-1989, which won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Thieves of Paradise, a finalist for the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award. His books include Blue Notes: Essays, Interviews & Commentaries; Talking Dirty to the Gods; Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems, 1975- 1999; Taboo, and most recently, Warhorses. Komunyakaa is Senior Distinguished Poet in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Carl Phillips is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently Speak Low and Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems 1986-2006.  He has also written a book of essays, Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry and translated Sophocles’s Philoctetes. His awards include the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Poetry Prize, the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry, and awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Library of Congress, and the Academy of American Poets, to which he was named a Chancellor in 2007.  He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Alberto Ríos, a recent finalist for the National Book Award, is the author of ten books and chapbooks of poetry, including The Theater of Night-winner of the 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award-three collections of short stories, and a memoir about growing up on the border, Capirotada.  Ríos is the recipient of numerous awards and his work is included in over two hundred national and international literary anthologies.  His next book, The Dangerous Shirt, is forthcoming.  His work is regularly taught and translated and has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music.  Ríos is a Regents’ Professor and the Katharine C. Turner Chair in English at Arizona State University.

David Rivard is the author of four books: Sugartown, Bewitched Playground, Wise Poison, winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets in 1996 and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and Torque.  His poems and essays appear in the American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, and other magazines.  In 2006, Rivard was awarded the Hardison Poetry Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library, in recognition of both his writing and teaching.  Among his other awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.  A former poetry editor of the Harvard Review, he teaches in the University of New Hampshire MFA program.

Percival Everett is the author of twenty books of fiction, among them Erasure, Glyph, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier, and three volumes of poetry, the latest, Swimming Swimmers Swimming.  He has received the PEN USA Award for Fiction, the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Hurston/ Wright LEGACY Award, and the Hillsdale Award for Fiction. He is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he also directs the PhD Program in Literature and Creative Writing.  He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons.

Stanley Plumly’s most recent collection of poems, Old Heart, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography was runner-up for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. Plumly is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland. In 2009 he was appointed Poet Laureate of Maryland.

8.) Poet Pernette Du Guillet

Pernette Du Guillet (Lyon, c. 1520 – July 7, 1545) was a female French poet of the Renaissance.

She was born in a noble family and married in 1537 or 1538 a man with the last name Du Guillet. In the spring of 1536, she met the poet Maurice Scève (she was 16; he was 35), and she would serve as Scève’s poetic muse, inspiring his Délie. From this work has come the reputation of her beauty and significant culture. After her death, her poetry was published in Rymes de Gentille et Vertueuse Dame, Pernette du Guillet.

A book, Complete Poems Pernette du Guillet is forthcoming from The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria College in the University of Toronto.

Edited By Karen Simroth James
Translated By Marta Rijn Finch (of the Otter Creek Poets)

(416) 585-44656
$19.50

Congratulations, Marta! This looks to be quite the book.

9.)

How to Read a Poem
By Brett Millier, Reginald L. Cook Professor of American Literature

Reading poetry is different from reading prose. A poem is a concentrated experience, and so is reading one. Because of this strict economy, poetry must use multiple strategies to convey meaning. If prose makes meaning primarily from words, poetry makes it through the shape of the poem itself, the length of the lines, rhyme, meter, rhythm, and sound, as well as the words themselves and the images and ideas they express. William Carlos Williams said that a poem is “a machine made of words.” Reading poetry involves recognizing the working parts of the machine. (….)

10.)

Sin City
Poetry review: To Join the Lost
BY AMY LILLY [05.19.10]

Dante’s Divine Comedy — that poetic tour of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise written in the 14th century — never seems to get old. The latest proof is the new video game by Electronic Arts, Dante’s Inferno.

As in the poem, the game’s Dante character and his guide, Virgil, travel down through the nine circles of Hell, hearing sinners’ stories and witnessing their horrifying punishments. But — this being a video game — Dante is armored like a Greek warrior and can choose to absolve the shades or slash them to bits.

If that raises your literary hackles, you’ll appreciate another, rather different, Dante-inspired release: the book-length poem To Join the Lost, by Seth Steinzor of South Burlington. (…)

11.)

SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2010

Dennis Hopper (1936-2010)

“This is the way the fucking world ends! Look at this fucking shit we’re in, man! Not with a bang, but with a whimper. And with a whimper, I’m fucking splitting, Jack.”

-Dennis Hopper at “The Photo-journalist” In Apocalypse Now (1979)

12.)

The Salon

The Salon is now available at Briggs Carriage Bookstore, Vermont Bookstore in Middlebury, Book King in Rutland, Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, and Crow Bookshop in Burlington, for $5, or for $6 from our website, although we prefer that folks give their business to independent bookshops.

Into what is becoming a crowded creative field of at least 14 literary journals produced in Vermont alone, comes the first issue of The Salon: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction, edited by Burlington poet Ben Aleshire. This 59-page publication is resolutely non-electronic, its cover adorned with an astonishingly bright red block print. My copy came with a personal note Aleshire appears to have hammered out on an old manual typewriter. (….)

13.)

Announcing another new Vermont literary magazine – Route Seven.

Brought to life by The Saint Albans Literary Guild.

14.)

The Death of Fiction?
Lit mags were once launching pads for great writers and big ideas. Is it time to write them off?

By Ted Genoways | January/February 2010 Issue

IT’S INEVITABLE. At a dinner party or on the sidelines of my son’s soccer game, someone well-meaning will ask what I do. “I edit the Virginia Quarterly Review [1],” I tell them. “It’s the literary magazine at the University of Virginia.” They nod politely, sometimes with the vaguest hint of recognition. Yes, they remember seeing in the local paper that we’ve won some big awards, right? It’s well respected, isn’t it? But the idea of editing a literary magazine seems, to them, only slightly more utilitarian than making buggy whips or telegraph relays. It’s the sort of arcane craft they assumed was kept alive only by a lost order of nuns in a remote mountain convent or by the Amish in some print shop in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
And, soon enough, that may be where it winds up. After more than a century of founding and subsidizing literary magazines as a vital part of their educational missions, colleges and universities have begun off-loading their publications, citing overburdened budgets and dwindling readership.  (….)

15.) Poems about the Moon

  • Many of you know about my interest in astronomy. In fact, I head up an astronomy club in central Vermont, the Green Mountain Alliance of Amateur Astronomers. Although a lot of my viewing is for deep sky objects, the Moon offers a lifetime of objects by itself, and is often overlooked by amateur astronomers. There are quite a few wonderful poems about Earth’s favorite satellite, and Poets.org has gathered a few of these together for us this month.

16.) Quibbles

  • Leonard Gibbs, a member of the Otter Creek Poets and Poetry Society of Vermont, is the Magister Ludi of The Dead Creek Poets’ Society. Len offers this to poets (through a handout):

Dear Poet friends,

A request.

Would you be interested in sharing your poems with me, so that I may spend my time with them at leisure at my home?

This would allow me the opportunity to appreciate your art more deeply. I am slow in the group and often find myself not adding some, possibly, useful insights.

This is self-serving. I must spend much of my time sitting and thinking poetry. What better way than to “walk in beauty” with your poetry, and continue the great conversation we begin in the Group?

I promise not to intrude in your lives, except for doing the above!

Thank you.

Len

  • In other words, Len will critique a poem of yours for free. I have known Len for a number of years now, and welcome his expertise in poetry, and good-natured humor. He has had some health issues recently, so taking on something like this is great for him and for his fellow poets. This is a win/win relationship you can have with a Master Poet. Here is something Len handed out to our group (the Otter Creek Poets) last week:

I will have my standards, my dreams and desires, and my insistence that poetry is hard work, that it doesn’t get poured in one ear by the Muse and fall out the other into chapbooks. To me, poetry demands, at the very least, the following:

At least one poetic line, if not a combination of several of them. A poetic line is one that introduces music, feeling, beauty or some high-value description, a vocabulary of well chosen and possibly multi-meaning words, a general knowledge of the art, fearlessly used, and evidence that effort has gone into its structure.

A willingness to work through difficult issues. Eliot’s demand that a poem be difficult was a bit of his and Pound’s snobbery, but a demand that a poem must be well-done, and therefore difficult to compose, is quite fair. I don’t believe in natural-born poets. There are too many of them around to believe in.

A largeness of spirit and an ability to celebrate all the aspects of life, though not all in the same opus. Life, everything in between, and death are the only things worth singing about. A single flower and a collection of galaxies have the same possibilities.

A condensation. Not a few scattered remarks about the book of Romans. One topic, and rich comments on that topic.

Can be multilevel. Good ones frequently are, but this may be the work of the reader, who is always involved in the production of the poem’s final effect (a poem must be shared and read by another to be complete, y’know).

Rhythm is important . . . I would say vital. Rhyme is not good only if it comes “naturally” and smoothly. But rhythm makes the poem . . . it is the sine qua non. Moving without rhythm is staggering. A poem should not stagger.

These are some of my ideals for poetry. You are allowed to disagree, but I won’t budge, and I’ll look at your work in these lights. In passing . . . I haven’t written a poem yet that meets these standards, I’m still trying.

What else? Just this, for the moment . . . prose poetry is not poetry. It may not even be prose! Why mix up a good novel with a good poem? Plenty of ink and paper. Do one or the other, or both but on separate sheets.

  • Leonard Gibbs can be reached at: lenpoet@gmail.com

17.) Poets for Living Waters

Call for Work – Gulf Coast Poems

Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico begun on April 20, 2010, one of the most profound human-made ecological catastrophes in history.

The first law of ecology states that everything is connected to everything else. An appreciation of this systemic connectivity suggests a wide range of poetry will offer a meaningful response to the current crisis, including work that harkens back to Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing regional effects.

This online periodical is the first in a planned series of actions.  Further actions will include a print anthology and a public reading in Washington DC.

Please submit 1-3 poems, a short bio, and credits for any previously published submissions (….)

18.) When Poets Rocked Russia’s Stadiums

By DWIGHT GARNER
NY Times
Published: June 2, 2010

Andrei Voznesensky, who died on Monday, in 2004.

Since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991, Russian poetry has begun to resemble American poetry in ways that are both fascinating and sad. What’s fascinating is how talented, and how different from one another, Russia’s young poets are. What’s sad is how little they are read, and how little they matter. Whatever reach contemporary poetry had in Russian society has vanished like wood smoke.

The death on Tuesday of Andrei Voznesensky, a stirring poet of the post-Stalin “thaw era” in the 1950s and early 1960s, caused many to recall a time when that reach was enormous. Voznesensky’s generation of poets, which included Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Bella Akhmadulina, declaimed their work in sports stadiums to overflow crowds. A moment presented itself — the relative artistic freedom of the early Khrushchev era — and these poets pounced on the microphone. As Mr. Voznesensky put it, with a punk lip curl: “The times spat at me. I spit back at the times.” (….)

19.) Scientists identify meteor event in Walt Whitman poem

On the evening of 20 July 1860, a meteor fragmented as it grazed the Earth’s atmosphere, producing a “meteor procession” that inspired a painting by Frederic Church and a poem by Walt Whitman that ends with the following lines:

Year of comets and meteors transient and strange! – lo! even here, one equally transient and strange!

As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is this book,

What am I myself but one of your meteors?

Donald Olson, a physicist at Texas State University, is the world’s leading practitioner of forensic astronomy – examining classic works of art and literature that include references to celestial phenomena.

In many of his investigations, Olson and his students use the methods of modern astronomy to determine precisely where and when a particular work of art was created or to pinpoint the event that inspired it. For example, Olson analysed Vincent van Gogh’s Moonrise, a painting depicting a glowing yellow orb looming behind the silhouette of a rocky outcrop. Olson was able to determine the exact spot in France from which van Gogh viewed the rising moon, as well as the precise time: 9:08 pm, 13 July 1889. (….)

20.) Did You Know?
Peter Orlovsky, poet and partner of Allen Ginsberg, has died (in Vermont)

Los Angeles Times
May 31, 2010

Photo: Peter Orlovsky, right, with Allen Ginsberg in 1978. Credit: Ludwig Urnig via Wikimedia Commons

Peter Orlovsky, longtime partner of Allen Ginsberg and a poet in his own right, died May 30 in Vermont of lung cancer. He was 76.

Orlovsky met Ginsberg in San Francisco in 1954, before Ginsberg wrote his seminal poem, “Howl.” Published in 1956, “Howl” was the subject of a 1957 obscenity trial that became a landmark free-expression case. Afterward, Ginsberg and Orlovsky moved to Paris, where they stayed with Gregory Corso, William Burroughs and others in a boarding house that would become known as the Beat Hotel. (….)

21.) “Ponderings”

Dennis Hopper, who passed away this week, reads a poem on The Johnny Cash Show

The poem is “If” by Rudyard Kipling (1899). The scene (audio and video) is The Johnny Cash Show, 1970. Hard to beat this…

22.)

“Poetry is like a bird;
it ignores all frontiers.”

Poetry Quote by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

23.)

Loser Flare
Heather Kirn

Winners wear
the hats, the shirts, the flare

that say so: CHAMPION
in cotton-poly neon.

And what about the other T’s?
No television sees (…)

24.) linebreak

  • Linebreak is an online journal with a bias for good poetry. Here is a poem from their web site this week:

Salina, Kansas
BY TREY MOODY

Trey Moody’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Best New Poets 2009, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, and Indiana Review, among others. He holds an MFA from Texas State University and is pursuing a PhD at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where he lives with his wife, Jennifer.

This flatness is a sickness.
But this sickness can be cured
with a house.

So for Susan
he built one. Till his hands were tired,
he built one, then added

on, etc.
“As much as the sky
swallows the landscape,” (….)

25.)

  • Here’s a poem from Copper Canyon Press, in its “Reading Room”.

Richard Jones

Drinking with My Mother and Father

My mother and father arrive
for their annual visit.
They tell me they love me.
They open a bottle of wine.
“Salud. Health.”
We spend the day together
under trees, drinking.
My mother gets a little tipsy
and tells a dirty joke. (….)

26.)
American Life in Poetry: Column 268
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

If writers are both skilled and lucky, they may write something that will carry their words into the future, past the hour of their own deaths. I’d guess all writers hope for this, and the following poem by Peter Cooley, who lives in New Orleans and teaches creative writing at Tulane, beautifully expresses his hope, and theirs.

The One Certain Thing

A day will come I’ll watch you reading this.
I’ll look up from these words I’m writing now—
this line I’m standing on, I’ll be right here,
alive again. I’ll breathe on you this breath.
Touch this word now, that one. Warm, isn’t it? (….)
American Life in Poetry: Column 269
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

It is enough for me as a reader that a poem take from life a single moment and hold it up for me to look at. There need not be anything sensational or unusual or peculiar about that moment, but somehow, by directing my attention to it, our attention to it, the poet bathes it in the light of the remarkable. Here is a poem like this by Carolyn Miller, who lives in San Francisco.

The World as It is

No ladders, no descending angels, no voice
out of the whirlwind, no rending
of the veil, or chariot in the sky—only
water rising and falling in breathing springs
and seeping up through limestone, aquifers filling (….)

American Life in Poetry: Column 270
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

We are sometimes amazed by how well the visually impaired navigate the world, but like the rest of us, they have found a way to do what interests them. Here Jan Mordenski of Michigan describes her mother, absorbed in crocheting.

Crochet

Even after darkness closed her eyes
my mother could crochet.
Her hands would walk the rows of wool
turning, bending, to a woolen music. (….)

American Life in Poetry: Column 271
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Barnyard chickens, which are little more than reptiles with feathers, can be counted on to kill those among them who are malformed or diseased, but we humans, advanced animals that we think we are, are far more likely to just turn away from people who bear the scars of misfortune. Here’s a poem by Ned Balbo, who lives and teaches in Maryland.

Fire Victim

Once, boarding the train to New York City,
The aisle crowded and all seats filled, I glimpsed
An open space—more pushing, stuck in place—
And then saw why: a man, face peeled away,
Sewn back in haste, skin grafts that smeared like wax (….)

27.)

Poets Laureate of the U.S.A.

  • A Net-annotated list of all the poets who have served the Library of Congress as Consultant (the old title) or Poet Laureate Consultant (the new title). Biographies & general reference sites are linked to the poets’ names — for the recent Laureates these are our own poet profiles with book-buying links at the bottom. Many of the other linked biographies are pages from the Academy of American Poets’ Find a Poet archive, a growing & invaluable resource. If there is no general information site about the poet, we have searched the Net for sample poems or other writings or recordings & listed those below the poet’s name.
    Joseph Auslander 1937-41
    Allen Tate 1943-44
    Robert Penn Warren 1944-45
    Louise Bogan 1945-46
    Karl Shapiro 1946-47
    Robert Lowell 1947-48
    Leonie Adams 1948-49
    Elizabeth Bishop 1949-50
    Conrad Aiken 1950-52 (First to serve two terms)
    William Carlos WilliamsAppointed to serve two terms in 1952 but did not serve — for more on this & other Laureate controversies see the history in Jacket magazine.
    Randall Jarrell 1957-58
    Robert Frost 1958-59
    Richard Eberhart 1959-61
    Louis Untermeyer 1961-63
    Howard Nemerov 1963-64
    Reed Whittemore 1964-65
    Stephen Spender 1965-66
    James Dickey 1966-68
    William Jay Smith 1968-70
    William Stafford 1970-71
    Josephine Jacobsen 1971-73
    Daniel Hoffman 1973-74
    Stanley Kunitz 1974-76
    Robert Hayden 1976-78
    William Meredith 1978-80
    Maxine Kumin 1981-82
    Anthony Hecht 1982-84
    Robert Fitzgerald 1984-85 Appointed and served in a health-limited capacity, but did not come to the Library of Congress
    Reed Whittemore 1984-85 Interim Consultant in Poetry
    Gwendolyn Brooks 1985-86
    Robert Penn Warren 1986-87 First to be designated Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry
    Richard Wilbur 1987-88
    Howard Nemerov 1988-90
    Mark Strand 1990-91
    Joseph Brodsky 1991-92
    Mona Van Duyn 1992-93
    Rita Dove 1993-95
    Robert Hass 1995-97
    Robert Pinsky 1997-2000
    Stanley Kunitz 2000-2001
    Billy Collins 2001-2003
    Louise Glück 2003-2004
    Ted Kooser 2004-2006
    Donald Hall 2006-2007
    Charles Simic 2007-2008
    Kay Ryan 2008-Present

28.)

Historical List of Vermont Poets Laureate

July 26, 2007-Present: Ruth Stone, Goshen (b. June 8, 1915)
March 5, 2003 – July 25, 2007: Grace Paley, Thetford (b. December 11, 1922, d. August 22, 2007 of breast cancer)
1999-2002: Ellen Bryant Voigt, Cabot (b. May 9, 1943)
1994-1998: Louise Glück, Cambridge, MA (b. April 22, 1943)
1989-1993: Galway Kinnell, Sheffield (b. February 1, 1927)
July 22, 1961-1963: Robert Frost, Ripton (b. March 26, 1874, d. January 29, 1963 of pulmonary embolism)

Position History:
 According to a February 7, 2003 press release from the Vermont Arts Council, “Robert Frost was declared Poet Laureate in 1961 [upon the adoption of Joint House Resolution 54 by the General Assembly]. In 1988 Governor Kunin re-established the position. (Reference: Executive Order No 69, 1988) Galway Kinnell was the first State Poet named for a term of 4 years as a result of this order in 1989.” The Arts Council further notes that “at the direction of the Governor [it] conducts the selection process for the State Poet by convening an advisory/selection panel. The Vermont State Poet is a person whose primary residence is in Vermont; whose poetry manifests a high degree of excellence; who has produced a critically acclaimed body of work; and who has a long association with Vermont.”

29.)

Historical list of United States Poets Laureate from Vermont

1958-1959: Robert Frost, Ripton (b. March 26, 1874, d. January 29, 1963 of pulmonary embolism)
August, 2003-2004: Louise Glück, Cambridge, MA (b. April 22, 1943)

30.)

Historical List of New Hampshire Poets Laureate

March 2004 – Present: Charles E. Butts
January 2006 – March 2009: Patricia Fargnoli
March 2004 – December 2005: Cynthia Huntington
October, 1999 – March 2004: Marie Harris, Barrington
December 1995 – March 1999: Donald Hall, Wilmot
January 1995 – March 1999: Jane Kenyon, Wilmot
March 1989 – March 1994: Maxine Kumin, Warner
June, 1984 – January 1989: Donald Hall, Danbury
January 1979 – January 1984: Richard G. Eberhart, Hanover
August 1972 – December 1978: Eleanor Vinton, Concord
September 1968 – July 1972: Paul Scott Mowrer

31.)

Historical list of United States Poets Laureate from New Hampshire

2007-2008: Charles Simic, Strafford
2006-2007: Donald Hall, Wilmot
1981-1982: Maxine Kumin, Warner
1959-1961: Richard Eberhart
1958-1959: Robert Frost, Derry

32.) If you ever have a need to contact me, here’s how to go about doing so:

Ronald Lewis:
Phone: 802-247-5913
Cell: 802-779-5913
Home: 1211 Forest Dale Road, Brandon, VT 05733
Email: vtpoet@gmail.com

33.) VERMONT LITERARY JOURNALS

1) The Queen City Review

Burlington College’s The Queen City Review is a yearly journal of art and literature and accepts the work of new and established writers and artists in the areas of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, memoir, photography, and fine art, as well as essays and criticism on all aspects of the aforementioned. They seek to publish high quality work that ranges broadly in topic and genre.

The Queen City Review can be purchased by 2-year subscription or individually. The price of one issue is $8 plus shipping charges ($1) for a total of $9. Subscriptions can be purchased for #$14 plus shipping charges $2) and includes the Fall 2008 and upcoming 2009 issues. They accept cash, check, and credit cards. You can mail your payment to them or by calling (802) 862-9616 ext. 234 to place your order over the phone. If mailing your payment, mail details to:

ATTN: Heidi Berkowitz
Burlington College
95 North Avenue
Burlington, VT 05401

2) Bloodroot

Bloodroot is a nonprofit literary magazine dedicated to publishing diverse voices through the adventure of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Their aim is to provide a platform for the free-spirited emerging and established writer.

The price of a single issue is $8.

Editor, “Do” Roberts
Bloodroot Literary Magazine
PO Box 322
Thetford Center, VT 05075
(802) 785-4916
email: bloodroot@wildblue.net

3) New England Review

A publication of Middlebury College, a high quality literary magazine that continues to uphold its reputation for publishing extraordinary, enduring work. NER has been publishing now for over 30 years.

Cost: $8 for a single issue
$30 for a single year (4 issues)
$50 for two years (8 issues)

New England Review
Attn: Orders
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753

NEReview@middlebury.edu
(800) 450-9571

4) Willard & Maple

A Literary and Fine Art Magazine of Champlain College, Burlington.

Willard & Maple
163 South Willard Street
Freeman 302, Box 34
Burlington, VT 05401

email: willardandmaple@champlain.edu

5) Vermont Literary Review

A Literary and Fine Art Magazine of Castleton State College, Castleton.

The first issue of Vermont Literary Review was published in 1994. The review is published once a year. Work featured in the review includes poetry, fiction, drama, and personal essays from and about New England.

From its inception until 2006, students and professors reviewed the work submitted and selected work to be published. They used to jointly edit and design the review as well. After a brief lapse, the Vermont Literary Review has resumed publication in 2008 as a journal edited and designed solely by English Department faculty. The Literary Club, which used to help create this journal, is now putting out a publication of student work. (….)

6) Green Mountains Review

A Literary and Fine Art Magazine of Johnson State College, Johnson; in publication since 1987.

The Green Mountains Review is an international journal publishing poems, stories, and creative nonfiction by both well-known authors and promising newcomers. The magazine also features interviews, literary criticism, and book reviews. Neil Shepard is the general editor and poetry editor of the Green Mountains Review. The fiction editor is Leslie Daniels.

The editors are open to a wide range of styles and subject matter. If you would like to acquaint yourself with some of the work that we have accepted in the past, then we encourage you to order some of our back issues (….)

7) The Gihon River Review

“The name of the second river is Gihon. No sooner has it come out of Paradise than it vanishes beneath the depths of the sea . . .” -Moses Bar Cepha

The Gihon River Review, published biannually, was founded in the fall of 2001 as a production of the BFA program at Johnson State College. Issues are $5 each. Submissions in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction are read from September to May. Poetry submissions may not exceed five poems; fiction and nonfiction may not exceed twenty-five pages. Send all correspondence to The Gihon River Review, Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont 05656. Please enclose a SASE. For further info by email, grr@jsc.vsc.edu.

8) Burlington Poetry Journal

The Burlington Poetry Journal is a new nonprofit publication interested in creating a means for provoking opinions, ideas, and thoughtful responses for poets in the Greater Burlington area. While there are numerous outlets for writers to gather and share privately in Vermont, there is no publication that brings together poetry of all styles and writers of all ages for the enjoyment of the general public. It is our hope that this journal will inspire writers to share their work with others who may be unaware of their talent, and for those who have never considered themselves writers to try their hand at poetry. We invite you to submit your work and share with others your thoughts and abilities with the Burlington community. The work you share will produce a dialogue as writers become aware of each other and begin to expose themselves and others to new poetry. The eclectic nature of the Burlington Poetry Journal will serve to stimulate its readers and authors.

8) Tarpaulin Sky

Founded in 2002 as an online literary journal, Tarpaulin Sky took the form of 12.5 internet issues (see the archive) before its first paper edition in November 2007. The magazine continues to publish new work both online and in print, often curated by guest-editors.

Tarpaulin Sky focuses on cross-genre / trans-genre / hybrid forms as well as innovative poetry and prose. The journal emphasizes experiments with language and form, but holds no allegiance to any one style or school or network of writers (….)

10) The Mountain Review

Colchester High School’s English Department has been publishing an interesting literary magazine: The Mountain Review. The Mountain Review is sponsored by the Vermont Council of Teachers of English Language Arts (VCTELA). Generally, the mission is to publish work from Vermont students, K-12. The Mountain Review has published poems, essays, short stories, excerpts from larger works, and art work. Wayland Cole and Katie Lenox have been the editors for several years; both teach at Colchester. Before them, Shelia Mable, a South Burlington teacher, was the editor for many years.

2009’s Mountain Review is over 100 pages long!

Students at all Vermont schools can enter the competition to be published in the Mountain Review. If you have questions, feel free to call them at (802) 264-5700 or email at colew@csdvt.org or lenoxk@csdvt.org. Send orders for copies of The Mountain Review to Katie Lenox at: Colchester High School, PO Box 900, Colchester, VT 05446. Send $5 per book; $2 postage to ship 1-3 books. Checks payable to the VCTELA.

11) The Salon: A Journal of Poetry & Fiction

WELCOME to the temporary on-line home of the Honeybee Press, a brand-new writer’s cooperative based in Burlington, Vermont. The first book from the press will be the debut issue of its bi-annual literary magazine, The Salon: A Journal of Poetry & Fiction. The goal of the press is to produce high-quality local literature and make it more affordable and visible to the public. [....]

  • Go to web site for submission guidelines.

12) Hunger Mountain

Hunger Mountain is both a print and online journal of the arts. We publish fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, visual art, young adult and children’s writing, writing for stage and screen, interviews, reviews, and craft essays. Our print issue comes out annually in the fall, and our online content changes on a regular basis. (….)

Hunger Mountain SubscriptionsVermont College of Fine Arts
36 College Street
Montpelier, VT 05602

Subscription Prices
One Year $12.00
Two Year $22.00
Four Year $40.00 (Save $8!)
Back issues $8.00

13) The Onion River Review

The Onion River Review is a literary journal whose annual edition features poetry, prose, and visual arts. The Onion River Review is edited by the students of Saint Michael’s College in Vermont, and is committed to publishing work from students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the greater community.

The Onion River ReviewWilliam Marquess, Advisor
One Winooski Park #171
Colchester, VT 05439

14) Route Seven – The St. Albans Literary Guild Magazine

The first issue of the Saint Albans Literary Guild’s magazine, Route Seven: A Vermont Literary Journal, is a 56-page publication featuring new and established writers and artists with an emphasis on Northwestern Vermont writers. Strong literary and non-fiction voices from other regions are also featured and are encouraged to submit to future issues.

ST. ALBANS: The Saint Albans Literary Guild is proud to announce the release of the premiere issue of Route 7, a new Vermont literary journal, on Sat., Feb. 20, at the STAART Gallery in St. Albans. The event will feature readings from contributing authors, as well as hors d’oeuvres and beverages.
Route 7 is a 56-page magazine featuring fiction, non-fiction, humor, poetry, and artwork. The first issue includes a wide range of moods, from the introspective and idyllic to the offbeat and humorous. The more than 20 contributors included hail from Franklin County, and across Vermont and New Hampshire. The magazine aims to highlight creative voices from across the region.

“Our hope is to enliven and nurture the writing and reading community in Northwestern Vermont by featuring writers and artists from the Guild’s backyard. But the magazine exists to promote writers, not just a specific zip code,” said Co-Editor Jedd Kettler.
     Contributors include new and established writers and artists: Gillian Ireland, Carolyn Eno, Janet Hayward Burnham, Krystal Vaughn, Jess River, Karen Day-Vath, Mathias Dubiler, Stephen Russell Payne, Rebecca Hamm, Shawna Cross, Leon Thompson, Heidi Mosher, Em Frappier, Jay Fleury, Pat O’Shea, Tammy Flanders Hetrick, Joy Perrino Choquette, Al Salzman, Jonathan Billings, Walt McLaughlin, Cynthia Messier, Barbara Beskind, Lisa Judge, and Melvin Harris.

“It’s a 56-page salon — you provide the refreshments,” said Co-Editor Launie Kettler.
     The release party for the new publication will be held at the STAART Gallery on Sat., Feb. 20 from 4-6 p.m. Copies of the magazine will be available for sale at the event, online at www.route7magazine.org, and at bookstores across Vermont.
     Proceeds from the $5 cover price will go to support future outreach programs of the Saint Albans Literary Guild. Even as they celebrate the release of this first issue, editors continue to accept submissions for future issues on an ongoing basis.

The Saint Albans Literary Guild organizes readings, author appearances, classes and many other book-related activities for both authors and book lovers of all kinds. To learn more about the guild or to join, check our website, www.SaintAlbansLiteraryGuild.org, or call 527-7243.

Submission guidelines

Route Seven: A Vermont Literary Journal, the St. Albans Literary Guild magazine, is currently accepting submissions of non-fiction, fiction, journalistic feature writing, theatrical writing, historical writing, and poetry for its premier issue. We welcome submissions from all genres.
     Writers from all regions are encouraged to submit. One of the Guild’s goals is to support and nurture the literary community in northwestern Vermont and weight will be given to northwestern Vermont writers. However, Route Seven is not looking only for writing that seeks to express the region and its history. Editors will primarily look for original voices and perspectives, and powerful writing and storytelling.
     Submit up to three poems and two prose pieces. Feature writing should be 500-1500 words in length. Short fiction should not exceed 3500 words. Excerpts from longer works and previously published works are also welcome. Submissions will be accepted for future issues on an ongoing basis.
     Send submissions to magazine@saintalbansliteraryguild.org in .rtf, .txt, .odt, or Word format. Please include “Route 7 literary magazine submissions” in the subject line. Hard copy submissions may be sent to Route 7 Magazine co/Launie and Jedd Kettler, PO Box 101, St. Albans, VT  05478. Submissions will not be returned. Provide email or SASE for results.

Contributors retain all rights to work included in Route Seven.

Artwork submissions

Route Seven: A Vermont Literary Journal, the St. Albans Literary Guild magazine, is also accepting submissions of full-color and black-and-white artwork for its premier issue.

We welcome submissions in all mediums. Color artwork will be considered for the journal’s front cover and should be vertically oriented. Black-and-white line art, illustrations, and photography will be considered for inside layout and display. There are no theme requirements for submissions. Route Seven hopes to feature the varied talents of Vermont’s visual artists. Editors will look primarily for visually compelling images to include.

Submissions should be received by December 15, but will be accepted for future issues on an ongoing basis.

Send email submissions to magazine@saintalbansliteraryguild.org in .jpeg, .tiff, .png, or .psd formats. Contact us you if you prefer sending work in other formats. Please include “Route 7 literary magazine submissions” in the subject line. Hard copy submissions may be sent to Route 7 Magazine co/Launie and Jedd Kettler, PO Box 101, St. Albans, VT  05478. Please do not send original work as submissions will not be returned. Provide email address or SASE for results.

Contributors retain all rights to work included in Route Seven.