Left In Lowell

Looks like the City of Lights parade is expanding its scope. CM Lynch has the details on his blog, and new events feature art and music, and for kids, a “Holiday Express” on a decorated trolley with a reading of the Polar Express and hot chocolate and cookies. That sounds really fun!

I’ll admit it. I have not yet once attended a City of Lights parade. Two reasons: we’re usually recovering from Thanksgiving and feeling really lazy (especially since I now host my whole family), and also, I really, really hate the cold. Same reason I skip Winterfest every year. Helps that I don’t have children for whom I must constantly find diversions…

Maybe this year I’ll make an exception. The City of Lights events start at 4:30 p.m. on November 29th.

What do you get when local talent working out of Lowell Telecommunications gets a little punchy? Why, SNAFUtv of course.

You can see them on the local cable channel, or now, on You-Tube. Just a fair warning, some of it is not safe for work! (Net-speak for a bit racy.)

This PG-safe segment mocks PBS stuffy interview styles and so-called “experts” in a field.

Congrats to SNAFUtv for getting the First Place Award from the Alliance for Community Media!

The City of Lowell and NPS are seeking volunteers for this years City of Lights Parade.

The schedule of the day will include:
12– 4 pm: Stroll downtown for affordable and original gifts and be
entertained…with holiday street performers, hay rides, face painting, art
exhibits and warm winter treats!
4:30pm: City of Lights Parade begins along Jackson Street
6:30pm: City of Lights Parade concludes, and Photos w/ Santa at Lowell City
Hall
6:30 – 8:00pm: Parade of Lights Choral Concert at St. Anne’s Church

We could use your help in the following ways:
greeting visitors at various locations
assisting with coordinating and setting up downtown venues
guiding street performers
marching in costumes to entertain children
providing crowd control at key intersections downtown
assisting in photos w/ Santa

Your commitment would be minimal (a 2-3 hour shift), and all volunteers
will receive a City of Lights fleece holiday scarf as a token of
appreciation.

Please contact Michael Paglia in the Mayor’s Office to RSVP as a volunteer:
978.970.4040; mpaglia at lowellma.gov

You could go watch “Tom Dowd and the Language of Music” at the Music on Film series by the Lowell Film Collaborative, Sunday, November 2 at 5 p.m. It will be held at UMass Lowell’s O’Leary Library, Room 222.

Then there are the various galleries around Lowell. If you’ve never been to the Whistler House, you have to go. I love that place (and Whistler). Though if you wait until November 5th, they are having their Annual Juried Members Exhibition, with the reception happening on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2 to 4 PM.

There, your non-political post of the week. Enjoy.

I headed to jackiedoherty.org as I am wont to do most days, and read a post by Margaret in poem form referencing a Dan Phelps column, also in poem form (well, the form, maybe, but you can’t call it a poem) ridiculing the idea of poetry without rhymes. He doesn’t get it, he says.

But you know what is easy? Writing a poem that doesn’t rhyme. You just write an essay, then break it up in the middle of the lines so it’s hard to follow. There’s no flow, no meter, no sense.

What happened to poems that rhyme?
[…]
Modern poetry is kind of like verse. Only worse.

Lowell recently hosted the annual Massachusetts Poetry Festival. I didn’t want to say anything beforehand — heaven forbid anybody poke fun at an upcoming event in the city lest they be looked on as Lowell bashers. I don’t want to seem uncouth (though it’s probably the truth).

But now that the festival is in the past, I gotta tell you, the “poems” from which The Sun published snippets in a special section promoting the festival — I didn’t get ‘em. To be honest, they just sounded pretentious to me.

If you’ll excuse my indulgence, for a moment. Mr. Phelps, if there is something about which you know very little, please, refrain from writing about it at all. You’ll only hurt yourself.

“But you know what is easy? Writing a poem that doesn’t rhyme.” That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Ever. So blatantly untrue for anyone who actually knows anything about literature, or writing, I don’t know where to start.

Having taken intense poetry writing courses with very excellent, established poets like Charles Simic, I can tell you first hand it’s not “the easiest thing in the world” to write a poem, just because it doesn’t rhyme. The line breaks, the rhythm, word choice, everything is a part of the writing, rhymes or not. You spend a lot time time working over the same ten lines, and might create ten seperate revisions. Most poets write about very intimate subjects, getting a breath’s away from a flower petal or a heartbreak…the only other art in the world which scrapes so close to the artists’ soul is acting, where the actor must pull emotions from his own experience and serve them up to an audience. Poetry writing is raw, often painful, work. Unlike ranting incoherently in a column…

And there are rules to free verse poetry. Yes, you forgo iambic pentameter and rhymes, but actually, that makes things harder. Working within restrictions means it either works, or it doesn’t, and you know that instantly. A looser set of rules makes deciding on what sort of line breaks you want, what needs to be cut or added to (most often, cut!) much harder, and much easier to critique. Shorter lines in a poem are energetic, and longer ones more languid. The word at the end of a line gains emphasis, by virtue of the mental or physical pause evoked by going on to the next line.

By the way, it didn’t take much education for me to learn that. We’re talking middle school English.

He refers to one of Robert Pinsky’s works as a “poem” with all the condescension and derision that “quotes” can portray. He then takes this one small excerpt as evidence of why modern poetry is stupid. Because he doesn’t understand the four lines. Well, duh. It’s an excerpt from one poem from one poet, out of context. Beyond that, there are thousands of modern poets in the world…there are cerebral poets and there are imagery-driven poets and those that write long epics and those that prefer short. There are poets that write about their own experiences and poets that write about others’ experiences and poets that write using big, big words. And some writing with little words. No one says you have to like them all. It is largely an aesthetic choice and often one of just how hard you want to work for your reading enjoyment. I myself, even as a mature poetry reader, enjoy the more visceral, lyric, imagery-laden poems of the late Jane Kenyon, to those of her husband, Donald Hall, which are sprinkled with lots of literary references.

By the way, modern poetry written with rhymes often comes across as archaic and self-conscious. Anyone who writes in rhyme has to be careful. Rhymes can be babyish (like the ones in Phelp’s column) too easily. If art needs to change with the times, meter and rhyme in the strict historic sense shifted to free verse, and to do anything else is a sign of an inexperienced poet, or else one of a brave poet. There are good poets who can pull of rhyme and strict meter in this day and age. They are exceptionally rare. But that’s not because free verse is easy so most poets just stick to that.

But one thing is clear to anyone with half a brain for literature: poetry, “even” free verse, isn’t easy.

Now, writing a column in the Lowell Sun, apparently, is like a cakewalk. Anyone seems to be able to do it. All you have to do is have some outrage, a computer, and a lack of understanding of your subject.

My advice to Mr. Phelps: stay away from writing about poetry. In fact, I think you should entirely stay away from writing about writing at all. Given your history with it, I mean.

I haven’t done a lot of writing about last weekend’s Massachusetts Poetry Fest, except to say I loved it, opting instead to take the little time I had to post some audio so you can listen in on some of the great events. (I’ve also been a bit busy to blog as you might have noticed this week and last.)

So it’s nice to see other blogger/writer impressions of the event, especially people from outside Lowell. Here’s a post by Dell Smith, with lots of goodies and context. (I really like his writing blog, already. He’s good!) And he sort of nails us…

It was great to see a festival of any literary pedigree in Lowell. Lowell is home to a vibrant poetry scene and carries its literary history with a fanatical, domineering pride.

Heh. That’s Lowell all right… Dell also lovingly describes for us one of the discussions he attended (one I was interested in except for a conflict with another event - something that deliciously happened all too commonly that weekend). Go read!

For my part, I was definitely inspired and had a great time. I focused on writing workshops because well, it’s been ten years since I had the pleasure of being part of any. I miss college! And what happens? That night, I couldn’t go to sleep until I wrote out a new poem kicking around in my head. So, I can even say that the Poetry Fest did its job.

My compliments to the hardworking folks who put this Poetry Fest together in record time. It was remarkable. I can’t wait til next year!

[Link via Paul at richardhowe.com.]

(PS: you can read Paul’s own take on the event too.)

Update: OK quick correction. Dell Smith actually does live in Lowell. Shows me up for not reading sidebar bio info. But don’t hold that against him, it’s still a great post about the Mass Poetry Fest.

With permission of both poets, I present a selection of today’s afternoon special reading at the Massachusetts poetry festival.

The first is of Marjorie Agosin reading her poem, “The Obedient Girl” about a girl caught up in Pinochet’s horrible reign, and a couple of poems from her book Dear Anne Frank. Then you’ll hear “Hollywood” and “The Collector.”

The second is from Ed Sanders, reading from his new book, Poems For New Orleans, as well as singing a Blake poem.

I have left in the introductions of both poets for your listening pleasure.

Oh, and sorry about the background noise, the chair apparently had a deep squeak I didn’t hear (like a dog whistle?). Believe it or not, that was me sitting quite still (for me anyway). However, the microphone was better today and you can hear everything…I didn’t have to amplify the audio!

On a personal note, the festival was incredibly uplifting - besides the special readings and a lunchtime reading at the Mambo Grill, I participated in two lively writing workshops, both well attended. Kudos to the entire festival committee, COOL, the Lowell Poetry Network, and everyone who participated. I was expecting the coolest event all year, and it delivered.

(You can toggle through each podcast using the “play now” link next to the listed MP3.)

 Marjorie Agosin - Readings from Mass Poetry Fest [12:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Ed Sanders - Readings from Mass Poetry Fest [14:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you didn’t come to the special reading last night featuring Rhina P. Espaillat, Regie Gibson, and Nick Flynn, you missed out. But here’s a taste of Regie Gibson reciting his poem, “How to Become an Ex-Jehovah’s Witness Without Losing Your Mind.” (Since I don’t have the text in front of me, I’m not sure how he spells out his title). Take a listen.

(PS: sorry for the poor quality, but the room had ambient noise and the mikes weren’t the greatest!)

Also, don’t miss today’s free and special events! So far the Mass Poetry Fest has been a resounding success, and I’m glad I get to take it all in.

 Regie Gibson recites: How to Become an Ex-Jehovah's Witness Without Losing Your Mind [1:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today on TOL, Charlotte and I will be bringing in some of our favorite poetry in honor of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival being held in Lowell this weekend. So join us for our reading and chat about poetry! On WUML at 10am, 91.5FM or stream it live on the web.

Update: You can now listen to the archive, click “play” below. Besides reading poetry from some of the participants in this weekend’s Poetry Festival, I also brought a few other faves, and actually did read one of my own as well.

 Thinking Out Loud - Celebration of Poetry [15:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The coolest event ever is coming to Lowell this weekend. The Mass Poetry Fest.

No one has written more stuff on this than Paul over at richardhowe.com. Go read up on what’s ahead this weekend, and see you there!! I’m excited. The only part I will (sadly) miss are the Saturday night events. Previous engagement (superheroes fighting the forces of evil and all). Poetry all weekend long, baby! (And superheroism.)