Tuesday, July 24, 2007

July 24th forum announcement

Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags


Tomorrow makes 4 years of Poetry & Poets in Rags. I started this by searching through the news, seeing what was out there one week, seeing if it made sense to use a search engine to come up with informative results. It worked. I posted links to the articles on both Melic's RoundTable and the Atlantic Monthly's Writers' Workshop, both great and former IBPC forums, and both now defunct. After a few weeks, Gina Bryson, the managing editor of the InterBoard Poetry Community, asked if she could publish the column in the Newswire section of the IBPC web pages at Web Del Sol. I hesitated on the commitment, got a similar offer from CE Chaffin of The Melic Review, and said "yes" to Gina.

This week, we begin with a superb Bill Moyers interview with Martín Espada, both the video and script. Then comes an article reporting that 100 Gabriela Mistral poems have been found. This is followed by the report of a lawsuit about Dorothy Parkers' 120 poems that were found. Then a lost poet is passed by everyday in Central Park.

But in News at Eleven, don't miss the Back Page. Meghan O'Rourke just got married. (Congratulations and best wishes!)

The InterBoard Poetry Community is still awaiting results from Maurya Simon for July's poems. I do not know if this has to do again with an e-mail issue on our part; a purposeful delay because of last month's delay; if Maurya simply is taking her time (which is fine); or something else or some combination.

Word is getting around, that a highly-esteemed poet has said "yes", that she will judge for the IBPC some time next year. It is her choice when. She may take a quarter stint, or she may decide to judge the POTY. So, if you get an e-mail about this great news, it is true (if not altered by the mill). Pass it on. I sent word to only one poetry confidante who posts at the forums, and said if she wanted to, she could tell one other, and so forth. As I said in that e-mail: pretty cool, pret-ty cool.

Okay, so just in case it does not come around to you, here's something else I said in that e-mail: "She was in Mark Doty's acknowledgements in Dog Years, and recently reviewed David Kirby's latest collection. So it seemed like a great circle is there that she was already in." This clue narrows it to one poet. If you know who it is, please, tell only one other, who may tell only one other--unless you receive an e-mail with the news, then you may tell another, as the e-mail states.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

IBPC Newswire

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2 comments :

Anonymous said...

Happy Anniversary. And congratulations on, wow, four years! I especially enjoyed the Bill Moyers piece--I went to see him in person once in Miami. He has a great social conscience.

Carol
PS
You write these columns faster than I can read 'em:-)

Rus Bowden said...

Hi Carol,

Thanks very much. It's great to see you here.

I have on video cassette, the set of interviews Bill Moyers did with Joseph Campbell. I love it. Bill Moyer is about as good an interviewer as there is, and it is astonishing the people he has met and the subjects he has talked about.

Yours,
Rus