Monthly Archives: July 2016

Lunch With a Poet

Guest piece from Writers Forum Newsletter Editor George T. Parker.

20160721_120323Yesterday’s lunchtime visit with California’s Poet Laureate was time well spent. Several Writers Forum members were in attendance, along with an audience of about fifty or sixty, to hear Dana Gioia (pronounced JOY-ya) recite pieces from his latest book 99 Poems: New & Selected, and to explain his views on writing poetry for everybody.

Gioia’s ambition as Poet Laureate,as well as during his tenure as the Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003-2009, is to take poetry out of academia and make it available for everybody. He insists that poetry is in the interests of ordinary people, not just English majors at universities, and as evidence, he points out the enormous popularity of such poetic forms as hip hop, rap, and cowboy poetry.

Gioia was interviewed by Nathan Solis at the Redding Record Searchlight. You can find the interview here.

Gioia reminded us of the charm of recited poetry. Words on a page take on a new life when spoken. For example, the first stanza of his poem ‘Finding a Box of Family Letters’ reads:

The dead say little in their letters

they haven’t said before.

We find no secrets, and yet

how different every sentence sounds

heard across the years.

Now listen to the same piece recited:

 

Hearing the words brings the piece to life, and helps to teach us how to read and hear other poetry. Learning poetry can only help to enhance our other writing, as well, teaching us meter and cadence of the language. Poetry can also teach us how to refine the language of our other writing.

Find a poet you like, and learn!

 

Reminder: Literary Event Today

Here’s a reminder:

The Redding Public Library will host a reading and Q&A with the current Poet Laureate of California, Dana Gioia (pronounced JOY-a) today from 12:00-1:30.

Dana will read from his latest book, 99 Poems: New & Selected. Dana will also discuss literacy, and there will be a time for questions from the audience.

Dana spent the first fifteen years of his writing career writing at night around his day job as an executive at General Foods. In 2002, George W. Bush appointed Dana as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. As Chairman of the NEA, Dana developed several new modernizing initiatives, including Shakespeare in American Communities, Poetry Out Loud, and Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience. Operation Homecoming collected writings from US troops and their families and published them in an anthology, which became the basis for an Academy award-nominated documentary by the same name.

Dana was appointed Poet Laureate of California by Governor Edmund G. Brown in December, 2015.

Come spend a memorable lunch hour celebrating words at the Redding Public Library.

Did anybody ever check out Dana’s book? I never made it back to the library.

IMG_20160712_183927_625[1]

 

 

Member Monday: Poetry by Larry Solberg

Today’s Member Monday features a pair of poems written by Larry Solberg. Larry read them at the last Read Around.

If you read at the Read Around and would like to see your piece on the website and in the newsletter but did not give us a copy yet, please send them to writersforumeditor@gmail.com .

Thank you.

IMG_4327

Larry Solberg

The Voice of a Parent

(Who has Lost a Child)

Upon the Sea of Life

I carried a soul in its tiny boat

To the shores of the Sea of Life.

The spirit sailed its growing bark

On The Waters both light and dark.

 

With energy it would float

O’er that Lake with meaning rife

Until it could make its mark

Upon the Waters of Strife.

 

And ever as I watched The Lake

To see the way the soul would take

I heard a note with meaning rife

(A message that cut like a knife.)

The wind above The Waters wrote.

 

I’ll review the life that soul bore

Whose raft to the dock draws near.

T’will sail The Sea of Life no  more.

I hold its essence most dear.

 

In my mind is now forever locked

The voyage of that ship now docked.

I’ll review the journey that boat took,

And see the soul’s shining look.

 

My soul will hold that soul most dear.

 

I Would a Sailor Poet Be

A sea of sound engulfed me

Just the Other day

It most carried me away

For I would a sailor poet be,

An endless sound to my sea.

 

And for freight a thought or two.

Misty thoughts for which I’d expound

Words would shower off my tongue,

A deluge for expectant ears.

All the while those memes would

Swim in that endless pond

While waiting proud masses to respond.

 

Poet Laureate of California at the Redding Public Library

The Redding Public Library will host a reading and Q&A with the current Poet Laureate of California, Dana Gioia (pronounced JOY-a) on Thursday, July 21 from 12:00-1:30.

Dana will read from his latest book, 99 Poems: New & Selected. Dana will also discuss literacy, and there will be a time for questions from the audience.

Dana spent the first fifteen years of his writing career writing at night around his day job as an executive at General Foods. In 2002, George W. Bush appointed Dana as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. As Chairman of the NEA, Dana developed several new modernizing initiatives, including Shakespeare in American Communities, Poetry Out Loud, and Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience. Operation Homecoming collected writings from US troops and their families and published them in an anthology, which became the basis for an Academy award-nominated documentary by the same name.

Dana was appointed Poet Laureate of California by Governor Edmund G. Brown in December, 2015.

Come spend a memorable lunch hour celebrating words at the Redding Public Library.

EDIT: I realized this afternoon that I never included a link to Dana Gioia’s new book! You can find it here.

They also have at least one copy at the Redding Public Library.

IMG_20160712_183927_625[1]

You can find it on the New Book shelf. (I was going to check it out myself, but I thought that would be kind of rotten, telling you that the library has it, but you can’t check it out because I have it! If it’s still there this weekend, though, I just might grab it. George.)