Hey y’all,
My Member Spotlight* is up at Read Write Poem.
So go read it already! 
*Member Spotlight: Per Read Write Poem’s website, the “directors will ask members to step forward and answer a few questions about themselves and their relationship to poetry.” Basically, it’s an interview.
The January 2010 Edition of Poetry Super Highway Worldwide Open Reading is online now! I read my poem “Ashes” on the show. Poets from places such as New Jersey, Flordia, and Oregon also read their pieces on the show as well.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/psh/2010/01/10/worldwide-open-reading.
The next show is scheduled for Sunday, February 7, 2010 @ 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern. For more information, see the PSH Live website.
Note: If you don’t want to read the introduction, you can skip down to the poem.
This week’s Read Write Word Prompt was courtesy of guest celebrity poet Matthew Zapruder. He suggested to us that we use a mechanical process, generate some words, and then try to use those words together in a natural, authentic way. The process for this prompt was to start at a place in the dictionary and chose words moving backwards until we reached another specified point in the dictionary. This was a process used by poet Matthea Harvey to generate two poems, “Terror of the Future” and “The Future of Terror”, which appear in her book Modern Life.
I did it this way: I went to dictionary.com and, starting with the letter z, went backwards, picking one word per letter, and then skipping two letters to w to pick the next, then skipped to q…you get the point. The words I found in this process were: Zelos, warlordism, queerbait, new-collar, hand-to-mouth, ebow, and bald.
When I looked up information on Zelos (or Zelus, depending on the spelling), I found out that he is the ancient Greek personification of “dedication, emulation, eager rivalry, envy, jealousy, and zeal” and that the “English word “zeal” is derived from his name” (source: Wikipedia). He was the son of the Titan Pallas and Styx. He, along with his siblings Nike (victory), Cratos (strength), and Bia (force), were winged enforcers that stood in attendance at Zeus’ throne.
When I read this, two things came to my mind: 1) the similarity between them and the concept of cherabim and seraphim, which also stand around God’s throne in Christian cosmology, and 2) since Zelos personifies zeal, what would happen if he got loose and ran away to Earth? I went there, and now Nike’s looking for him. I hope you enjoy this fun romp through the dictionary, urban life, and Greek mythology.
-Nicole
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I’ve spotted Zelos roving the streets lately. He’s
folded his wings, tucked them underneath the
soft black of his leather jacket. He thinks that he can
raise the banner of incognito over his head and let his
Olympian fire hide – but I can never mistake
the smoke signals escaping from the missives of footsteps
that he leaves on every sidewalk, those tiny snakelings of white vapor
bursting like ghosts out of broken, freshly dead chests and
curling themselves upward until they fade,
dying of disbelief in the cold. Wherever he goes, I see
Continue reading
Writer’s Block Poetry has announced two special shows in January:
January 6 (that’s tonight, folks!): Paulie Lipman from Denver, who is on tour, features at WB. Check out two videos of him performing, “Potential” and “Field of Flames”.
January 13: IWPS and WOWPS Finalist Nicole Homer and National Poetry Slam Finalist Homer “Ion” Holman visit the WB.
For continuing WB schedule updates, visit http://writersblockpoetry.rewritingovid.net/Schedule.php or http://community.livejournal.com/wbpoetry/.
The Poetry Forum has announced a partial show schedule for Winter 2010:
January 11 ~ Laura Rossi
January 18 ~ John M. Bennett
January 25 ~ Beverly Zeimer
February 1 ~ Michael Wright
February 8 ~ Fred Kirchner
February 15 ~ Louise Robertson
All shows are on Mondays at 7 p.m. at the Rumba Café, 2507 Summit Street @ Hudson Street, Columbus.
For more info, check out Poetry Calendar Columbus.
January’s First Draft is the annual New Year, Nuku show!
Featuring at this year’s Nuku show on Friday, January 15 will be Writer’s Block’s own Scott Woods with all new, never performed haiku.
According to host Joanna Schroeder, Scott Woods “is only the second poet to take up the challenge of an all new haiku feature, but if you’ve been to any of his 24 hour poetry events, you know that he is talented enough and also crazy enough, to rock it like no other. I could tell you about all the amazing poetry he has written in the thirteen years he’s been running poetry nights in this town, but what you need to do is come out and see what he does when he stares seventeen syllables in the face for an entire new poem feature.”
His feature will be followed by a haiku death match with several local poets. First, there will be a sacrificial round which “is going to be hot enough to melt the snow off the streets – as it is Mother vs Son with Teri Collins and Alex Stinnett going head to head.” The death match that follows is a three-round battle and only one will walk out a winner. As of press time, the death match poets are:
JJ Bowes
Nick Brown
Barbara from the Ohio Poetry Association
Nicole Nicholson (yes, yours truly)
Maranda Noble
Link Schreiber
Tyronne Russell
Rachel Wiley
And following the battle will be the First Draft Open Mic. If you want to get your new, never-performed work to the stage, this is the place to do it.
Cover is $3 for the night. Show begins at 8:00 P.M. Do NOT miss this sure to be hot night of poetry!
For more info about Writer’s Block’s First Draft Night, check out: http://writersblockpoetry.rewritingovid.net/FirstDraftOpenMic.php
Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam announces their show schedule for January 2010:
5th: Open Mic (The first show of the new year)
12th: IWPS and WOWPS finalist Nicole Homer and National Poetry Slam Finalist Omar ‘Ion’ Holman FEATURE! Also the first Slam for Team contention. Team rules and schedule go to the website
19th: Open Mic
26th: Battle of Ohio Slam II! Cleveland, two Columbus Teams and Dayton will face off against each other. This is THE Slam to see and its going down at Writing Wrongs.
For more info about Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam:
From Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam:
“It’s the 2nd Annual Battle of Ohio Poetry Slam and its coming back to Columbus! This time the Urban Spirit Coffee Shop will play host when teams from:
All meet up to duke it out on stage. You DON’T want to miss this show!
There will be a very limited Open Mic, so get there early to reserve your spot on the list!”
When: January 26, 2010
Time: 8:00 P.M. – 11:00 PM.
Where: Urban Spirit Coffee Shop, 893 E. Long Street, Columbus, OH View Map
