Poets’ Roundtable, February 4, 2016
- Welcome
- Our blog address: http://bigelowpoets.blogspot.com/
- My books that I loaned last time
- Julie has asked me about a Writers’ Roundtable. It would be similar to this but include all genres of prose as well as, presumably, poetry.
- News and Jabber
- It came to me that a suggested list of poets to read would be useful and so
I would like a suggestion from each of you. In addition, I offer here Allen Ginsberg’s Celestial Homework including text and live links.
Allen Ginsberg’s Celestial Homework
We have our friends at the Paris Review blog to thank for pointing us to Open Culture where they’ve posted the celestial syllabus to Allen Ginsberg’s 1977 course at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. A bit about the class:
“Argh, you’re all amateurs in a professional universe!” roared Allen Ginsberg to a young class of aspiring poets in 1977 at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Their offense? Most of the students had failed to register for meditation instruction. The story comes to us from Steve Silberman, who was then a 19-year-old student in that classroom and a recipient of Ginsberg’s genius that summer.
[…]
[The syllabus is] a particularly Ginsberg-ian list, with a healthy mix of genres and periods, most of it poetry—by Ginsberg’s fellow beats, to be sure, but also by Melville, Dickinson, Yeats, Milton, Shelley, and several more. Sadly, it’s too late to sit at Ginsberg’s feet, but one can still find guidance from his “Celestial Homework,” and you can even listen to audio recordings from the class online too.
b. News
We have been offered March 31 as a date for a reading. Julie proposes a 6:30 start with sandwiches and socializing followed by a 7PM reading. Center is open until 8 that evening. I would suggest a reading at 7 preceded by a little social meet and greet sort of thing first. What do you all think? We will have a podium with microphone. Is there any difficulty getting here at night? Is there a better time? Who will read?
(CNN)A Saudi Arabian court has overturned the death penalty for Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, but upheld his guilty verdict on a charge of apostasy.
The court, instead, sentenced Fayadh to eight years in prison and 800 lashes, a statement from his lawyer said.
Fayadh was initially sentenced to death by a court in the southwestern Saudi city of Abha in November on a series of blasphemy charges related to his poetry, causing an international outcry.
Fayadh will be lashed 800 times over 16 sessions, serve eight years in prison and must publicly declare his repentance in the media, said his lawyer Abdulrahman al-Lahim.
Al-Lahim said the defense planned to appeal the court's decision, saying Fayadh is innocent and should be freed.
- The Current Assignment
- Who did it?
- Did anyone write more than one poem?
- What was the writing process like?
- The Next Assignment
- I’ve been reading Wordsworth’s “Prelude” and found an interesting bit about coming home to his bed. He had been away at school for nine months and was talking about the things he had missed:
Not less delighted did I take my place
At our domestic table: and, dear Friend!
In this endeavour simply to relate
A Poet's history, may I leave untold
The thankfulness with which I laid me down
In my accustomed bed, more welcome now
Perhaps than if it had been more desired
Or been more often thought of with regret;
That lowly bed whence I had heard the wind
Roar and the rain beat hard, where I so oft
Had lain awake on summer nights to watch
The moon in splendour couched among the leaves
Of a tall ash, that near our cottage stood;
Had watched her with fixed eyes while to and fro
In the dark summit of the waving tree
She rocked with every impulse of the breeze.
Book IV, lines 80-91
So, the next assignment is to write a poem about your bed, one you sleep in now, one you have slept in, whatever.
- Next Meeting
- The next meeting will be in two weeks on February 18, 2016
- Writers to read as suggested by the group (the links will take you to The Poetry Foundation website for bios and poems)
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