Poetry Posts

Duluth Chapbooks: Poetry, Fiction, Comics, etc.

Apr 27, 2020 1 Comment

From laureates to total hacks, writers and other artists have compiled their works into inexpensive little booklets for hundreds of years. The history of street literature in Duluth has perhaps not yet been explored in depth.

Gathered in this post is by no means a comprehensive collection of chapbooks produced in Duluth, but rather just a smattering of publications that happened to be gathering dust in the Perfect Duluth Day library.

Got one to add? Mention it in the comments and/or email the cover art if you have it to: paul @ perfectduluthday.com.

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Local Poet on Social Distancing: “Viral Two-Step”

Apr 04, 2020 No Comments

Julie Gard’s prose poem on social distancing, “Viral Two-Step,” appears in issue 25 of the online poetry journal Unbroken. You should read it.


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Split Rock Review, Spring 2020

Feb 25, 2020 No Comments

The new issue of Split Rock Review, formerly edited from Duluth, now finding its home in northwest Wisconsin, is now available.


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Duluth All Souls Poetry Celebration

Nov 11, 2019 No Comments

I went to the Day of the Dead / All Souls event at the Depot Underground on Friday. The theme of the reading was remembering ancestors who have played important roles in our lives and community. Featured readers, of whom I took pictures, were Zomi Bloom, Brady Kamphenkel, Sheila Packa, Ellie Schoenfeld and Gary Boelhower. An open mic followed; I got a pic of Eric Chandler reading. Richie Townsend played electric guitar.


Events

Iwen wins prize

Sep 03, 2019 No Comments

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports that UW-Superior professor Jayson Iwen has won a $5,000 poetry prize.

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Eavesdropping in Britain

Jul 29, 2019 No Comments

Local author Julie Gard has published new poetry in Coldnoon, from a project rooted in eavesdropping called “Eavesdropping in Britain.”

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“Rule 15” by Ryan Vine

Apr 27, 2019 No Comments

Duluth poet Ryan Vine reads “Rule 15,” from his 2018 book To Keep Him Hidden.

In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.


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“Anyone’s life is smooth from far away. Anyone’s life close up is cracked.”

Dec 01, 2018 No Comments

Julie Gard’s new poetry is awesome.

“This piece consists of 51 texts I sent to myself first thing in the morning during the 2016 presidential election season. Hopefully some of them will speak to you,” says Gard, describing her work in Superstition Review.


Art

Local Poet, Global Community, World Literature

Jun 26, 2018 No Comments

Jayson Iwen has co-translated a significant poem by Salim Barakat, a Kurdish-Syrian poet.

It’s a love poem, and as co-translator Huda Fakhreddine says, “Dylana and Diram’s love infiltrates and overwhelms the landscape. Barakat does not use images of nature to draw analogies with their relationship. The spiritual and sensual bond between them consumes nature and natural scenery and transforms it into a mere manifestation of a surging emotional deluge.”

The poem can be read in the prestigious World Literature Today.


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Poems for Chance

Feb 22, 2018 No Comments

Chance: Poems

Tuesday night I attended the publication party and reading for “Chance: Poems,” an anthology of poems edited by Kathleen Roberts in honor of the art installation currently at the Tweed Museum.

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Sonofmel & the Slideman – “Kissing Eve”

Jan 15, 2018 No Comments

Sometimes it takes traveling far from home to find out where you come from. Sonofmel & the Slideman have farmed decades of life into a harvest of sounds, growing rows of song and spoken word around dreamscapes rich enough to farm. They’ve just begun an album together at Sacred Heart Studio and will debut one or two during a Jan. 17 performance at Bent Paddle Brewing.

Video recorded at Driftless Books & Music in Viroqua, Wis.


Music, Videos ,

Laura Mae Sellner – “Awareness”

Sep 11, 2017 No Comments

New video produced by Killy Kay, shot at various Duluth locations in 2016. It features poetry written and performed by Laura Mae Sellner for the Homegrown Music Festival.


Videos

“Colder than the surface of Mars”

Jun 19, 2017 No Comments

Poet Dora Malech gets all Duluthy in a poem published in the May 29 issue of The New Yorker. It’s more that a reference — the poem is basically set in Duluth.

The text of “I Now Pronounce You” is available online, along with an audio track of the poet reading it.

Malech grew up in Bethesda, Md., and now lives in Baltimore. Her connection to Duluth is unknown, unless it’s as simple as the first line of the poem: “Our friends are getting married in Duluth.”


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Now/Here: Poetry and Music

Apr 25, 2017 No Comments

Jim Perlman Crystal Gibbins

Gary Boelhower Duluth Sara Thomsen

A few snapshots from Sunday’s event at Peace United Church. Jim Perlman of Holy Cow Press organized the poetry reading, which featured Crystal Gibbins, author of Now/Here, and Gary Boelhower, author of Naming Rites. The event included musical interludes by Sara Thomsen.


Events

The Rumpus Interview with Connie Wanek

Sep 09, 2016 1 Comment

Connie WanekIn an interview for The Rumpus, an online magazine focused on culture, Duluth poet Connie Wanek discusses her latest book, the challenge of looking back at older poems, and what prioritizing writing looks like.

Link: The Rumpus Interview with Connie Wanek

Connie Wanek said that she only started writing poetry seriously in her late thirties, but since then, she’s been published in Poetry and the Atlantic Monthly, has received a Witter Bynner Fellowship at the Library of Congress, and been named a George Morrison Artist of the Year, among her many other honors. Her fourth book, Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems, was released by the University of Nebraska Press this year, and makes the argument that she is one of contemporary America’s great poets.


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