Poetry Posts

Selective Focus: Moheb Soliman

SF-TeaserMohebSoliman
This week we stretch the boundaries of Selective Focus — both geographically and conceptually. Moheb Soliman is a poet who will be installing his writing in the form of very official looking signs throughout Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and the four other major Great Lakes national parks at trails, vistas, and beaches as part of the National Park Service centennial celebration. Some of the installations are already done and this month he will be finishing up at Isle Royale National Park.

Walt Whitman’s Poem About Duluth?

There’s a new posting at the Reference@Duluth blog that involves a little literary detective work:

The Duluth Daily News of March 30, 1892, printed a letter offering an unpublished poem by Walt Whitman. The letter writer claims that Whitman had visited Duluth for his health the previous summer and had been so impressed with the Zenith City that he wrote a poem in praise of Duluth and had sent it to a friend in town.

In Defense of Duluth Poets

Holy CowThe arts and culture review website Partisan namedrops Holy Cow! Press of Duluth in an article by Harvard English Professor Stephen Burt titled “In Defence of Minor Poets,” published today. The namedrop occurs without actually mentioning Holy Cow! by name, but instead referencing Duluth with a hyperlink to Consortium Book Sales & Distribution’s page about the Duluth publishing company.

Split Rock Review, Fall 2014

Violet 18The online literary magazine, Split Rock Review, recently released the Fall 2014 issue. Also, SRR is now accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, book reviews, graphic narratives, visual poetry, digital literature, and hybrid forms.

For more information about the magazine and submission guidelines, please visit the SRR website.

Sea Fog

A collaboration between Tina Marie Higgins and Dan Dresser. Filmed on the Isakson farm near Duluth. Scored by the Murder of Crows.

Oh boy! Another Open Mic! But this one’s outside by the lake!

Tonight, from 6 to 9 p.m., there will be an open mic at Leif Erikson Park, specifically meeting at the stone stage. Any short content is welcome, original material encouraged, but whatever you wish to share is fine.

Video Archive: Robert Bly in 1976, interpreting Rumi’s poem “Feeling and Thinking”

This is an excerpt of the short film “From the Museroom: A Sampler of Minnesota Poets,” shot during a Poetry Collective benefit at the Firehouse in Minneapolis, Minn.

“Feeling and Thinking” by Rumi

Someone struck Zayd a hard blow from behind. He was about to retaliate, when his assailant cried, “Let me ask you a question: first answer it, then strike me. I struck the nape of your neck, and there was the sound of a slap. Now I ask you in a friendly way — ‘Was the sound caused by my hand or by your neck, O pride of the noble?'”

Zayd said, “The pain I am suffering leaves me no time to reflect on this problem. Ponder it yourself: he who feels the pain cannot think of things like this.”

Upcoming book publication for local poet

Hello, Kyle Elden here. A book of my poetry is going to be published and released this October. I am collaborating with local painter Kate Whittaker to create a coffee-table-style book with my poems and her paintings throughout.

Poet Dara Wier – “Not That Lake”

Here’s a video of a poem concerning our lake. Video by Bianca Stone, Emily Pettit, Heather Christle, Guy Pettit and Ben Pease; poem by Dara Wier.

The Aerial Lift Bridge

Hey Duluthers. I’m in college in Idaho and I lived in Wisconsin, but I’ve spent many good times at my grandparents’ on Jefferson Street in Duluth (when will the city repave it?). So I thought I’d share this poem with y’all. It was for a class last year. (c) Moses Bratrud 2011, mos_bratrud @ yahoo.com.

The Aerial Lift Bridge

At the terminus of plains and lakes,
Where the Rust Belt is buckled,
There is a bridge that shinnies up to let ships under.
Linking twisty sandbars
In this zephyr city of the unsalted seas.

Four Poems by Ray Smith

Four poems by the late Ray Smith, director of the Superior Public Library, 1971-75, and visiting lecturer in English at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, 1975-83, have been posted by the Wisconsin Academy Review.

End National Poetry Month with a Bang, not a Whimper

Very proud to report that the Twin Ports sees the end of National Poetry Month out in grand fashion.

Friday, April 29th, 7pm| Jim Dan Hill Library UW-S: Reception & Booksigning by poet George Gott, Emeritus UW-S, for his new book The Willow Tree and Other Inclinations: Poems from the Lake

Saturday, April 30th, 7:30pm | Somers Lounge CSS: Spirit Lake Poetry Series reading by former national poet laureate, Ted Kooser. Don’t miss this living legend of Midwestern Verse!

Monday, May 2nd, 6:30pm| Teatro Zuccone: as part of Homegrown Music Festival, there will be an evening dedicated to a Homegrown Poetry Showcase

These are all sure to be great events – make as many as you can; look forward to seeing you there!

Season’s Greetings with The PlayList

On Thursday, Dec. 9, enjoy the sights and sounds of the season with ballads, opera, and choral music along with Hibbing’s watercolor master on WDSE-TV’s The Playlist.

The ballads of Arna Rennan and Brian Dack explore a rich musical landscape; the cast of  Amahl and the Night Visitors previews this holiday classic; award-wining watercolorist Terry Maciej shares his techniques; and members of the Arrowhead Chorale prep for a spectacular holiday concert.

Poetry Book Release – Deborah Gordon Cooper’s “Under the Influence of Lilacs”

Thursday, May 27, 7 pm. Please join us in celebrating the book release of Deborah Gordon Cooper’s newest collection of poetry, Under the Influence of Lilacs. Deborah will read selections, accompanied by folksinger-songwriter Sara Thomsen. Duluth Congregational Church, 3833 E. Superior St., Duluth. Refreshments will be served. For information, call 218-525-4552.

clovervalleypress.com

Echo & Lightning: Poetry/cello performance

Sheila Packa and Kathy McTavish
Feb. 20, 8 p.m.
Red Mug Coffeehouse, Superior, WI

“These poems are the story of following one’s own instincts to, in one way or another, migrate. They bring us to the exact moment when we surrender to our truest selves, when we allow ourselves to be transported, transformed, and resurrected. In these poems this occurs with the ease and necessity of taking one breath, letting it go and then receiving another. These are ecstatic poems. They are at once ethereal and profoundly grounded in the body. This has always been one of Packa’s greatest strengths and every piece in this collection is an awe-inspiring testament to that gift. These poems can help us find our way to the places we most need to go, to where ‘…music you haven’t heard/didn’t know you needed/opens deep.'” –review by Ellie Schoenfeld.

Sheila Packa is the author of The Mother Tongue (Calyx Press Duluth, 2007) and she has had her work read by Garrison Keillor on Writers Almanac (NPR). She has had her work featured in Finnish-North American Literature in English: A Concise Anthology (Mellen Press 2009), Beloved of the Earth: Poems of Grief and Gratitude (Holy Cow Press, 2008), and To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-territorial Times to the Present (New Rivers Press, 2006)

Kathy McTavish is a recipient of an American Composers Forum / Jerome Foundation Commission for new solo work premiering Oct. 2010. She also received an Arrowhead Regional Arts Council grant.