Poets’ Roundtable September 15, 2016
Welcome
News and Jabber
This article isn’t half as provocative as its title may imply but it does interest me as I think about our upcoming event introducing our book or our next reading. Particularly, I’m looking for features, such as music, to add to our programs.
I also commend to you this article from the Stratfield Star about what to do with the Shakespeare theater. Read the article and the comments. Interesting and deplorable to find a region without the resources to keep the place going. Should be a no-brainer, should bring national attention and philanthropist-based funding.
So I googled Shakespeare and what do you think I find? An all female nude production of Shakespeare in the Park. Not the kind of thing we�ll find in Fairfield but I was wondering what a google news search for Shakespeare would cough up.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-theater-shakespeare-s-tempest-nude-idUSKCN11I2HN
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-theater-shakespeare-s-tempest-nude-idUSKCN11I2HN
Speaking of the book, 100 days from today is the target for publishing. Unfortunately today is the 259th day of the year and I want the publishing and its introductory event to occur prior to Dec 15. So, I’m shortening the calendar (but not removing Autumn) and targeting 90 days from today. That makes it the 349th day which is December 14, 2016.
Here is what I need: Your poems. Pick three you want to see in print. I will also go through my copies. I want you also to recall poems you particularly liked by others to recommend we include. Target date: October 20, 2016.
Additionally, I need a typist to put the poems into digital media. All I want here is someone to provide me with e-copies compatible with MSWord. Keep the formatting simple since I’ll probably end up reformatting the text once I assemble the first version of the MS. Target date November 3, 2016.
Additionally, I need cover art. I want a painting (to be photographed) or a photograph done by a member of Bigelow Center, this group or someone else. All work will be pro bono but credit will be given in the publication. Target date November 3, 2016.
I will need a couple of editors. They will read, recommend changes. The authors will then review the editions and agree or disagree. In the event of a dispute I will decide. This phase is the stickiest since I need the digital copies finalized before I can submit to CreateSpace. Target date November 17, 2016.
I would prefer these dates be seen as last, drop-dead dates and to achieve each one a week in advance. Also, we may need one or two meetings outside this group to work on the project. TBD.
The Current Assignment
Who did the assignment? Was it hard, easy?
The Next Assignment
Write about a happening or object in your childhood that majorly scared or frightened you. (Thanks Trish)
The Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on October 6, 2016.
Other Jabber
Today’s tech tip:
You can organize phrases into folders, grouping commonly-used concepts together, such as addresses, business greetings, favorite quotes, and boilerplate sections of text. The macro function included in PhraseExpress offers a level of interactivity, where a specific value can be filled in by the user when the phrase is executed. A common use is to enter a specific name into a generic message.
In addition to the keyword activation system, PhraseExpress also allows you to assign phrases to hotkeys.Particularly useful is assigning a hotkey to a folder of phrases, rather than a single phrase; the whole list appears as a popup, and you can navigate it with the keyboard, so you never need to go grab the mouse.
I use Phraseexpress for my address, copyright notice and a few other things I don’t want to have to type every time. It is an especially good place to put things like your statement that all characters in your book are fictional and all that stuff so that you don’t have to re-write it.
Great to see a new face and a gracious and willing participant with her beneficial comments. Looking for the return of our regulars, hoping you all had a good summer.
ReplyDeleteWrite about a happening, or object in my childhood, that majorly scared or frightened me. [Assignment for 10-5-16]
ReplyDeleteSister Marie-Joseph
Sister Marie-Joseph was our teacher in Second Grade.
Already known to 1st graders for her harsh discipline,
Some of us going into second grade very much feared
Sister Marie-Joseph because she was the only second
grade teacher in the lot of penguin nuns at St. André.
It was Richard D who thought nuns looked like birds
Who live in the North Pole. We had not learned, as of
Then, that penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere,
And this came up many years later, when a substitute,
Lay teacher, used a projector to show flightless birds.
So far, so good with Sister Marie-Joseph. We thought.
We had just started to believe that rumors of Sister’s
Satanic temper-tantrums were all demonic torments
But, wait! It all started of a sudden. We were sleepy,
Still, she babbled on, in her spitting crone of a voice,
When, all-of-a-sudden, a deafening scream emerged!
Pétardes exploded with dins afresh, and spittle flew.
What frightened us that forenoon was a crone’s cry
Of hate, and we, our minds confused and dumbstruck,
As if Satan had been called out to punish all little kids
Where we sat! Sister scattered loud vocal execrations,
Like a magistrate’s command to all paupers to “Stand
Forward” at their sentencing. He unafraid, while we,
Cowards, bunched hands to our eyes to isolate the art
That followed: She grabs him, spins him around like a
A beer barrel; swings her arms, his gristle ears crack
Apart with a deafening, reveborarting noise. Lightning
Strikes, exploding in the wet palms of her iron hands.
How old was I? I recall running out of class, of school
In need of Maman to explain the vision of a mad nun.
Mother stiffened, frightened to hold me to her bosom.
- 30 –
Happenings From When I Was a Child Did Not Stop as a Grown-up
A Fear of Hell
Hit a ball, break a window.
Step on a crack, fall on your ass.
Climb a ladder, slide off a roof.
Pitch a fork into chicken bedding,
spear a dead bird.
Push your brush inside a chimney,
disturb a nest of hornets.
Walk down the stairs, step on a toy.
Use a wrench in close quarters,
scrape your knuckles.
Say you will take out the trash,
sprain your back
Tell your wife that you will cook tonight.
On coming home, she will say, in a pique,
“That’s not how you cook potatoes.”
Tell her, “Go to hell!!”
She will calmly say, without hesitation,
“You first!”
That’s the one remark that frightens me.
-30-
From a David Brooks Piece
Op Ed page 9-20-2016
The New York Times
An Economic Survival Story
[Last paragraph]
“These are not the victims of postindustrial blight I’m talking about; they
are successful people who worked hard and built good lives but who are left
nonetheless strangely isolated, in attenuated communities, and who are left
radiating the residual sadness of the lonely heart.”