Letter Writing Campaign Continues: More Poetry in the Post

The Washington Post's Book World "Summer Reading Issue" published on June 19th included no poetry books. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Continuing our letter-writing campaign to encourage Book World editors to include more poetry in the publication, Split This Rock 2012 Festival Planning Committee member and poet Yvette Neisser Moreno had her letter to the editor published in this past Saturday's Post.

You can read it here: Why no poetry in Book World special?

We encourage you to join in on the conversation in the "comments" section and if you live in the Washington, DC, area or read The Washington Post, please write a letter to the editor urging more reviews of poetry. We hope to continue to swamp the Post with scores of letters demonstrating the wide audience for poetry among its readership. Use our Sample Letter to the Post, or write your own.

For inspiration and more details, read our flyer and check out some of Split This Rock's favorite sites for book reviews! Please let us know what response you receive. Contact Yvette Neisser-Moreno for more information.

If you live outside the area, write a similar letter to the book review section of your local newspaper. Even better, launch a local campaign! Together, we can make this a national campaign to increase coverage of poetry books in major newspapers and begin to restore poetry’s place as a major genre of literature in this country.

Your Activism Pays Off!

Great news everyone! Today the Washington Post published an article on the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. As many of you know, Split This Rock, in cooperation with local poets, has been leading a letter writing campaign urging the Post to publish more poetry reviews - and it now looks like the effort is making an impact. Details of the campaign are here.

While this is great step, we can't stop now. Be sure to read the article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030806408.html

and leave feedback thanking the editors for publishing commentary on this vital art form. While you're at it, keep the pressure on by writing a letter letting the Post know that you want to see more poetry.

Note: to comment on the story, click here and login or register

Thanks so much for your work on this, and lets keep the momentum going!

Examiner Article on our Book World Campaign!

A few days ago the DC Examiner published an excellent article about Split This Rock's campaign to increase the frequency of poetry reviews in the Washington Post. The story does a great job of introducing the campaign and includes an interview with Sarah Browning, director of Split This Rock. Here's a excerpt:

Poets from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, of all ages, are writing, publishing, and performing work in a huge variety of styles and taking on the pressing issues of our time, helping us wrestle with our difficult and contradictory world. We know that more residents of our area, including many Washington Post readers, would benefit from exposure to these voices, the poets who are telling the true stories of our times.

Be sure to check out the rest of the article here and for more info on the campaign, check here.

Thank you for the support, and keep writing letters!

Letter-Writing Campaign: More Poetry in Major Newspapers!

If you live in the Washington, DC, area or read The Washington Post, please write a letter to the editor urging more reviews of poetry. We hope to swamp the Post with scores of letters demonstrating the wide audience for poetry among its readership. Use our Sample Letter to the Post, or write your own.

If you live outside the area, write a similar letter to the book review section of your local newspaper (even better, launch a local campaign!). Together, we can make this a national campaign to increase coverage of poetry books in book reviews of major newspapers and begin to restore poetry’s place as a major genre of literature in this country.

For inspiration and more details on our early progress, read our flyer and check out some of Split This Rock's favorite sites for book reviews!

Please let us know what response you receive. We'll post more links and updates on the campaign soon. Read on for more details and Contact Yvette Neisser-Moreno for more information.

In January 2011-in response to a special year-end "Best Books of 2010" issue that included an appallingly small number of poetry books-Split This Rock decided it was time to let the editors of The Washington Post's Book World know that we expect them to publish more reviews of poetry books. Following is an excerpt from the letter we sent on January 14^th:

To the Editors: We take issue with the gross lack of poetry books included in the Book World's "Best Books of 2010" list (Dec. 12, 2010). The section (misleadingly) titled "Fiction & Poetry" included 46 fiction titles and only 2 poetry titles. The insinuation that only 2 poetry books in 2010 were worth recommending-and that poetry is some kind of inferior sub-genre of fiction-is appalling, inaccurate, and completely inappropriate for a major literary publication like the Book World. . . . These statistics reflect the dearth of poetry book reviews in the Book World throughout the year, in striking contrast to the vibrancy and diversity of contemporary poetry. . . .We believe that the Book World should be publishing at least one poetry book review each week.

This letter was co-signed by several well-known local poets, university professors, leaders of literary organizations, and editors of local presses and literary magazines, including Grace Cavalieri, Kyle Dargan, Carolyn Forché, and E. Ethelbert Miller.

We received the following encouraging reply from Book World Editor Rachel Shea:

Thank you for your letter. We did have a debate about whether to call the section "Fiction" or "Fiction & Poetry." We decided on the latter to signal that poetry books were included. In an ideal world, there would have been more, but our coverage of poetry has been limited since Book World stopped being published as a separate section in 2009. We will continue to do as much as we can, with occasional reviews (for instance, Michael Dirda will be reviewing a biography of Andrew Marvell this Thursday) and roundups of collections. In the meantime, may I forward your letter to the letters page? I think it is fodder for discussion among our readership.

We have followed up to urge the Book World to commit to publishing at least one full-length poetry review per week, and to devote its limited poetry space to contemporary poets. Please add your voice to the campaign by writing a letter today!

Show your support for the free voice of Artists

Please check out this Washington Post article about the removal of an installation from a National Portrait Gallery exhibit and comment with your opinions about the negative effects of censorship on art.

"Howl" in the City in the Washington Post

Check out David Montgomery's article in the Post about "Howl in the City":

There's a bit of a "Howl" boomlet going on -- books, photographs, an upcoming movie starring James Franco and, most immediately, a "Howl in the City" series of readings and music Friday and Saturday in Washington.

The timing of the convergence is mainly coincidental, the fruit of projects launched around the 50th anniversary of the poem, which Ginsberg first recited to spellbound hipster audiences in the fall of 1955, at the age of 29. He published it in 1956. Then came the obscenity trial in 1957, which Ginsberg's publisher won, a free-speech landmark. Ginsberg died in 1997, at 70.

Andy Shallal's Op Ed in the Washington Post

The excerpt below is from a recent Opinion Column by Andy Shallal in the Washington Post. To read the full essay, click here:

Sure, raising taxes for this reason is in my self-interest. I'm a business owner in this city, and I want more customers to have money to spend at my restaurants. Having a city with a widening gulf of haves and have-nots simply doesn't bode well for my long-term business plans.

My personal stake in this doesn't end there. One of the proposals I support is raising the income tax on the top 5 percent of earners in the city. I fall into this category, and I'm happy to tell the D.C. Council that I'm not about to move to Bethesda or Fairfax if it takes this step. My family certainly isn't going to leave behind our friends, neighbors, doctors, etc., just because of a half-percentage increase on our income taxes. I love this city and want all its residents, not just a few, to prosper.

Split This Rock Poetry in the Streets in the Washington Post

For the full article, click here.

Get Ready!

Are you ready? Split This Rock Poetry Festival starts on Wednesday!

To help get in the spirit, read what others are saying:

Mike Maggio of Everyday Citizen says:
For those of you who are in the latter group – clinging to those gut-wrenching, mind-bending poems you just can’t get out of your mind – Split This Rock Poetry Festival, to be held right here in DC, you’ll want to put on your literary calendar.
Full post here

The Washington Post Going Out Guide lists us as a great event this week!

The Washington Post also says:
Split This Rock celebrates the power of well-chosen words of protest, and at that moment, the crowd had much on its mind. It was an election year, wars had raged for half the decade, the economy was flagging and the air in Bell Multicultural High School felt electrified as Miller read out the refrain: "I'm going to split this rock/And split it wide! When I split this rock, stand by my side."

Next week, the festival returns to Columbia Heights and U Street, but don't expect that time has quelled that sense of urgency.
Full article here.

A student at the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College, where Featured Poet Mark Nowak teaches, writes:
Question: Is it possible to hear a slew of distinguished poets like Cornelius Eady, Martín Espada,and Quincy Troupe -- along with a preview of April's LitHouse guest and 4-time National Poetry Slam Champion Patricia Smith -- all at once over spring break? Well, in DC it will be. Welcome to Split This Rock.
Full post here.

The Washington City Paper says, simply, "Well, dang."
(A few other words about the festival from WCP here.

Send us your links and tell us how excited you are! Don't forget to follow us on Twitter!

Washington Post Article about 'Full Moon on K Street'

The following is an excerpt from the Washington Post article about Full Moon on K Street, the recent anthology published by Beltway Poetry Quarterly editor Kim Roberts. For the full article, click here.

Photo Credit: Dan Zak, Washington Post

Washington has seen its small-press and self-publication movements, its spoken-word renaissance, its uniting of activist poets in the Split This Rock Poetry Festival, and the anchoring of reliable venues like Busboys and Poets and Beltway Poetry Quarterly -- these separate communities, the old and young, the living and the dead, the scholarly and the streetwise, have a place in the anthology.

"We're living in a historical place in historical times in a city that monumentalizes itself," says District writer-editor Dan Vera, 44, as the reception wanes and poets wrap themselves in scarves. "Sometimes you feel trapped in amber, but you try to catch the normal in poetry."

As she ties up small talk with guests, Roberts has other projects on her mind, like putting down a literary history of Washington in book form in a couple years. But first, 1,500 copies of "Full Moon on K Street" will go out, perhaps answering for some people the question "Washington has . . . what, exactly?"

It has Reed Whittemore's "gray facades/Of pillar and portal."

It has Sterling A. Brown's swarmed alleys and deserted pool rooms along Florida Avenue.

It has May Miller's "Cool magnificence of space."

It has Betty Parry's red and yellow roses in a back yard in Brookland.