Call for Poems

ON THE ISSUES:The Progressive Woman's Magazine

Seeks poems of the topic of women, around the world and in the USA, fighting for freedom and justice even when it puts them at risk or imperils their lives.

Women around the world and in the U.S. who are fighting for freedom and justice, even when it puts them at risk or imperils their lives ......what are the causes that command their attention and fuel their passion?.....what causes and movements bring them to step beyond themselves and stare down danger, despite the potential for personal harm?

If you have something you think will suit (previously published work is ok if you hold the copyright), please send to Judith Arcana (jarcan at earthlink dot net) before December 15; here are guidelines:

- no poem longer than two standard pages
- all poems typed in 12 point font
- 3 poems max
- all poems in a single attachment - .doc only

If the guidelines aren't followed, the work won't be read.

Poetics of Labor: A Reading Serie for Bittersweet Harvest

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History & Letras Latinas presents





Poetics of Labor:A Reading Series for Bittersweet Harvest

Saturday, DECEMBER 5, 2009:
11:00 AM & 2:15 PM
&
Sunday, DECEMBER 6, 2009:
12 noon & 3:00 PM

The readings will take place in the gallery space of the exhibit at the museum, located on the National Mall, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., in Washington, D.C.:

"Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942 - 1964"
American History Museum, 2nd Floor West

Naomi Ayala is the author of the poetry collections, This Side of Early (Curbstone Press, 2009)(see the Split This Rock review here) and Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press, 1997). A native of Puerto Rico, Ayala resides in Washington, D.C., where she
serves as the Executive Director of the Capitol Letters Writing Center. Until recently, she was Senior Writer and Editor for a communications company that specializes in public health education. Ayala also teaches at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD and is the recipient of numerous awards for her work. A third book of poems is slated for publication with Bilingual Press.

John Olivares Espinoza is the author of The Date Fruit Elegies (Bilingual Press, 2008), the inaugural collection in the new poetry series, Canto Cosas. In 2009, the book was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. Espinoza was born and raised in Indio, CA to Mexican parents. He holds degrees in creative writing from UC Riverside and Arizona State University (MFA), where he spent time writing about his experience working as a gardener with his father and brother. John and his wife live in San Jose, CA, where he teaches at the National Hispanic University.

Split This Rock Volunteer Party: RSVP by Tomorrow!

Want to get involved with Split This Rock? Not to worry, there's still room left for our December Volunteer Party this Friday December 4th, 2009 6:30-8:30pm. Please join us for refreshments, poetry and jolity! If you are interested in joining the Split This Rock team, this is a great way to meet other volunteers, board members, staff, and poets. And if you have worked with us before, we look forward to seeing you again!

Please RSVP with our Program Associate, Abdul Ali at ali at splitthisrock dot org by Thursday December 3rd, 2009.

Where: 626 Quebec Place, NW
(2 blocks from the Georgia Ave./Petworth metro)

When: Friday December 4th, 2009

Time: 6:30-8:30pm

Questions? Don't hesitate to give us a call: 202.787.5210

Upcoming Kensington Row Bookshop Poetry Readings

Kensington Row Bookshop Poetry Readings
3786 Howard Avenue
Kensington MD 20895
301 949 9416.
Dec. 2, 2009, then Jan-June 2010
Last Wednesdays of the month.
Come early to browse & chat.
Refreshments provided.
An open reading will follow. Free.

On Wednesday, 2 December 2009, 7 pm, Greg McBride and Lyn Lifshin will read their poetry.

Greg McBride, a Vietnam veteran who practiced law for 30 years, edits Innisfree Poetry Journal. His work appears in Cimarron, Connecticut, Gettysburg, and Southern Poetry Reviews; New York Quarterly, Poet Lore, and River Styx. He won Boulevard's 2008 Emerging Poet Prize, and has a 2009 chapbook, Back of the Envelope.

Lyn Lifshin is the author of the germinal "No More Apologizing" proclamation, editor of the mother-daughter Tangled Vines anthology, and subject of an award-winning documentary film, Not Make of Glass. Her 120 books include Marilyn Monroe, Blue Tattoo, the Ruffian and Barbaro race-horse books, and three Black Sparrow books, Cold Comfort, Before It's Light, and Another Woman Who Looks Like Me.

On Wednesday, 27 January 2010, 7 pm, Bonnie Naradzay, Lee Giesecke, and Nancy Allinson will read their poetry. They are members of the Federal Poets, the Metro area's longest running workshop, which publishes The Federal Poet.

Washington Read: Randall Horton

The following is an excerpt from the Capital Comment Blog's Washington Read's review of Randall Horton's new book The Lingua Franca of Ninth Street.

Toss aside your notions of poets swooning over starlight on windswept hillsides. The props in Randall Horton’s poems are razor wire, cigarette butts, and cinder blocks, the haze of weed smoke, the stripes of memory. His new collection provides a haunting and memorable tour of alleyway DC, a place where leaves falling to littered sidewalks cry out “dear mercy.” A broken place where words are the only splint.

Randall read at Sunday Kind of Love in October and he'll be back to read again at the Split This Rock Poetry Festival in March.

Photo of the Week: Ishle Yi Park

This new feature will highlight a different photo each week from the 2008 festival. For more photos from the last festival, check out Split This Rock's Flickr.



Featured poet Ishle Yi Park reads at the 2008 Festival.

Split This Rock Poem-of-the-Week: Lenelle Moïse

Mud Mothers

the children of haiti
are not mythological
we are starving
or eating salty cakes
made of clay

because in 1804 we felled
our former slave captors
the graceless losers sunk
vindictive yellow
teeth into our forests

what was green is now
dust & everyone knows
trees unleash oxygen
(another humble word
for life)

they took off
with our torn branches
beheaded our future
stuck our breath up on pikes
for all the world to see

we are a living dead example
of what happens to warriors who―
in lieu of fighting for white men’s countries―
dare to fight
for their own lives

during carnival
we could care less
about our bloated empty bellies
where there are voices
we are dancing

where there is vodou
we are horses
where there are drums
we are possessed
with joy & stubborn jamboree

but when the makeshift
trumpet player
runs out of rhythmic breath
the only sound left is guts
grumbling

& we sigh
to remember
that food
& freedom
are not free

is haiti really free
if our babies die starving?
if we cannot write our names
read our rights keep
our leaders in their seats?

can we be free
really? if our mothers are mud? if dead
columbus keeps cursing us
& nothing changes
when we curse back

we are a proud resilient people
though we return to dust daily
salt gray clay with hot black tears
savor snot cakes
over suicide

we are hungry
creative people
sip bits of laughter
when we are thirsty
dance despite

this asthma
called debt
congesting
legendarily liberated
lungs

- Lenelle Moïse

Used by permission.

····

Lenelle Moïse hailed “a masterful performer” by GetUnderground.com, is an award-winning "culturally hyphenated pomosexual" poet, playwright and performance artist. She creates jazz-infused, hip-hop bred, politicized texts about Haitian-American identity and the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, spirituality and resistance. In addition to featured performances in venues as diverse as the Louisiana Superdome, the United Nations General Assembly Hall and a number of theatres, bookstores, cafes and activist conferences, Lenelle regularly performs her acclaimed autobiographical one-woman show WOMB-WORDS, THIRSTING at colleges across the United States.

····
Moïse will be featured at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, March 10-13, 2010, in Washington, DC. The festival will present readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism - four days of creative transformation as we imagine a way forward, hone our community and activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change. For more information: info@splitthisrock.org.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem-of-the-Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

Split This Rock
www.splitthisrock.org
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210