AWP Wrap Up: What People Are Saying

Things have been a little crazy in Split This Rock's post-AWP world. In many ways we're still recovering from our mini-festival, and in the lull we sometimes forget to mention how tremendously pleased we are that our programs were well received. Rather than rehash anything we've already said, we opted to share what other bloggers have been saying- enjoy:

(click on each excerpt to read the rest of the post)

Jessica Vooris
From The Bucknell Afterword

This conference made me remember how much I love writing and has made me want to finish some new poems. Hopefully this newfound determination will help me produce some new things. Also, with the political poet panelists voices in my ear, perhaps I can rekindle both my activism and writing at the same time. Here’s to a productive 2011!

Barbara Jane Reyes
From barbarajanereyes.com

Espada does not romanticize the existence of the poet dissident, and neither should we; we should recognize this as the power of the word, a potential all of us poets have when we take pen to paper, indeed why we come to poetry in the first place.

Adam Pellegrini
From THEthe

Nor do I think, looking back on my full experience, that AWP should be cornered as some sort of backwoods, yet fancy, family reunion, rife with inbreeding, as was my initial cynicism. I did hear moments of life, feel excitement, swallow poetry and sweat it out.

Lyle Daggett
From A Burning Patience

The events I found particularly worthwhile included Undivided: Poet as Public Citizen, sponsored by Split This Rock, an excellent panel featuring Martín Espada, Carolyn Forché, Toi Derricotte, and Mark Nowak, and emceed by Melissa Tuckey of Split This Rock. Each of the panelists talked about various ways in which politically conscious poetry, and poetry in general, has engaged with the larger world; each quoted from the work of other poets as examples of the relevance of poetry in people's lives.

Sandra Beasley
From Chicks Dig Poetry

Most moving moment: Hearing Sonia Sanchez read Langston Hughes' work and reflect on his legacy. I got the shivers.

Serena Agusto-Cox
From The Examiner

Among some of the featured presenters this year are keynote speaker Jhumpa Lahiri, Sarah Browning of Split This Rock, Former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Eric Webb
From TriQuarterly Online

The next panel, in the same room, “Dream the Dreamers Dreamed: A Tribute to Langston Hughes,” reinforced that understanding, and also sparked a need to express political outrage in my own work.


Thanks again to everyone who helped make AWP a success- we'll see you there next year!

TransVerse Blog: Thinking about Film and Poetry

I also want to find a relationship in the non-narrative ability of poetry and film. While they both can, and often quite successfully are, narrative projects, poetry by virtue of its concentration of language and form on the page (not just verse, but short blocks of prose because of the plunge into whiteness that follows each one, use the void, the break of the line to create this possibility) can exist in a momentary eternity. That is, one moment that is comprehensibly infinite and universal. Of course, there is a temporality locked into the reading of the poem - you must read one word, one line at a time, there is no way to instantaneously take in the entirety of the poem in an atemporal experience. Rather its the subject matter that, by breaking the bonds of the temporality of the medium, the printed page, can free itself to express something beyond history, beyond time. In the same way, film, while constrained by the linear succession of images on a screen, can yet break these narrative bonds and express something beyond.

From TransVerse. The full entry is very interesting, and I encourage you to go read it. The call for film and video submissions can be found here.

The Poetry Instigator: A New Writing Blog for Prompts

Check out this new blog for writing prompts: The Poetry Instigator at www.writingprompts.org. Lucy Biederman and Eleanor Tipton, two George Mason University graduate students, created this new blog that we think you'll be interested in.

On July 20, we're launching a four week SUMMER JOURNALS CHALLENGE, for which we're collaborating with four awesome national literary journals to bring you four weeks of cool prompts, literary discussions, special features, and more. Each of the four weeks, an editor from one of the featured journals will read the poems based on the week's prompt & choose a winner, who will receive a free year's subscription to the journal, not to mention bragging rights!

*Visit The Poetry Instigator and register for the summer challenge today

*Forward this announcement to any friends who might be interested

*Visit us on Facebook, become a fan, and/or update your status with our website to help us advertise!