A Splendid Wake 6

A Splendid Wake 5: Last Year’s Program on YouTube

Many thanks to Racheal Langosh for her videotape talents. And while you’re here, check out Barbara Goldberg’s talk about the late poet Moshe Dor. David Fry reads a tribute to Nan Fry; Myra Sklarew, along with the 2017 Youth Poet Laureate of Prince George’s County, Samantha Jackson, and 2017 Youth Poet Ambassador Isaiah Holloway  presents a multi-vocal tribute to Sterling Brown and the Howard University Poets. Patrick Washington shares a multi-media reminiscence of the history of the DC poetry slam. Kimberly Schraf and Jaqueline Jules present a lively discussion of kid’s poetry in DC. And the young poets share poems by Gwendolyn Brooks in order to honor her.

We were fortunate to have DC poet Ginger Ingalls emcee for us. 

SNEAK PEAK --2018 Splendid Wake

SNEAK PEAK at the 2018 Splendid Wake program,

Sunday, March 18, 2018  2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Gelman Library, George Washington University

Master of Ceremonies: Henry Crawford

Henry Crawford is a poet and software engineer living and writing in the DC area. He is a co-director of the Cafe Muse poetry series and the author of American Software, his first collection of poetry. Visit HenryCrawfordPoetry.com to see a sampling of his work.

Kim Roberts: Speaker

Kim Roberts is the author of five books of poems, most recently The Scientific Method (WordTech Editions, 2017). She edited the anthology Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC (Plan B Press, 2010), and co-edits the journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and the web exhibit DC Writers’ Homes. Her book of walking tours, A Literary Guide to Washington, DC from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston, will be released this spring from the University of Virginia Press, covers the history of DC’s writers from the city’s founding to the beginnings of modernism. Ms. Roberts will speak about Jazz Age writers of DC, focusing on Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Toomer, and Zora Neale Hurston.  http://www.kimroberts.org.

A.B. Spellman: Speaker

A.B. Spellman is an author, poet, critic, and lecturer. He has published numerous books and articles on the arts, including Art Tatum: A Critical Biography (a chapbook), The Beautiful Days (poetry), and Four Jazz Lives (University of Michigan Press).  His poetry collection, Things I Must Have Known, was published by Coffee House Press. Mr. Spellman has served on numerous arts panels including the Rockefeller Panel on Arts, Education and Americans; the Awards Panel of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); the Africa Diaspora Advisory Group, the Jazz Advisory Group, and the Advisory Group on the African-American Museum for the Smithsonian Institution.  In recognition of Spellman’s commitment and service to jazz, the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005 named one of its prestigious Jazz Masters awards the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. Mr. Spellman will share a few poems and speak about poetry & jazz in the work of performance poets during the Black Arts Movement.

Truth Thomas: Speaker

Truth Thomas is a singer-songwriter and poet born in Knoxville, Tennessee and raised in Washington, DC. He is the founder of Cherry Castle Publishing and studied creative writing at Howard University under Dr. Tony Medina. Thomas earned his MFA in poetry at New England College. He is the Poetry Editor of Tidal Basin Review and Editor-in-Chief of The Skinny Poetry Journal.  His collections include: Party of Black, A Day of Presence, Bottle of Life, My TV is Not the Boss of Me (a children's book, illustrated by Cory Thomas) and Speak Water, winner of the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. A former writer-in-residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo), his poems have appeared in over 100 publications, including The 100 Best African American Poems (edited by Nikki Giovanni). Thomas has multiple Pushcart Prize nominations to his credit and is the creator of the "Skinny" (a fixed form of poetry that continues to blossom in international appeal). Mr. Thomas will discuss the power of poetic brevity, rules, and rich refrains of imagery that abide in the fixed-form framework of the Skinny. Visit http://truththomas.com/ and http://www.cherrycastlepublishing.com/

Maritza Rivera: Speaker

Maritza Rivera is a Puerto Rican poet and Army veteran who has lived in Rockville, MD since 1994. She founded the weekly Mariposa Poetry Series, which ran from September 1999 to October 2002 in College Park, MD and hosts the annual Mariposa Poetry Retreat at the Capital Retreat Center in Waynesboro, PA . Maritza is the author of About You, a collection of poetry “for women and the men they love”; A Mother’s War, written during her son’s two tours in Iraq; Baker’s Dozen, a limited edition in the Brazilian Cordel tradition created for the 2013 Seeing Food art exhibit in Silver Spring, MD and Twenty-One: Blackjack Poems. Maritza is also a supporter of the Memorial Day Writers Project (MDWP); participated in the Warrior Poetry Project at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD; and served on the Board of Directors of Split This Rock. She was the recipient of a 2012 BID International Writing Fellowship in Bahia, Brazil, and FY 2016 grant recipient of the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County. Maritza Rivera is also the publisher of Casa Mariposa Press. Ms. Rivera will speak about the invention of Blackjack Poetry

SAVE THE DATE—MARCH 18, 2017  2 p.m.

Splendid Wake Internship Opportunity

Proposal for A Splendid Wake Internship by Joanna Howard, 

Coordinator July, 2017 

A Splendid Wake is a volunteer-run organization committed to preserving and celebrating the history of poetry in the DC Metro area. Our wiki contains information about poets, publishers, groups and reading series from the past 120+ years. Our blog, A Splendid Wake Up, features literary-historical essays about the above topics. Additionally, ASW holds a yearly event where we celebrate our history with speakers who present (and perform) some aspect of this rich literary history.  And, of course, we are active on Facebook and Twitter.

In order to carry out these many tasks, ASW would like to sponsor an intern from a graduate program to assist us.  The intern must be from an area graduate school and enrolled in an MFA of Creative Writing, MA in Literature, or MA in Communications Technology.

The following tasks are included in a 3-credit load:

1.     Research and write entries for the wiki.

2.     Edit the wiki with revisions from poets.

3.      Coordinate with the blog editor to upload blog posts to the wiki.

4.     Work with the coordinator to coordinate ASW records

5.     Work with the coordinator and committee to develop publicity for the yearly program

6.     Attend the yearly program (in March) and support the event via taking photos and uploading them to the social media sites

7.     Attend the committee meetings

Given the three kinds of MA programs, we don’t expect an intern to fulfill all of the tasks above: we will balance out the work according to the student’s discipline.  Moreover, we would be happy to supervise students who are interested in one-hour internships, perhaps by writing a few articles for our wiki/blog, designing features for the blog, or developing publicity for the program, for example.

In both cases, we are open to to developing a workable, rigorous experience. 

The intern would be supervised by the coordinator, but would consult with committee members as needed. The coordinator would consult with the student’s professor of record at the end of the semester regarding the amount of and quality of work.

In return for their work, the intern will learn about the local poetry community as well as the practical skills of working in a literary organization, work that can be added to their resume. ASW will also run a featured interview with the intern on our blog. 

We would like to begin working with interns during the Spring 2018 semester.

If you have any questions, please contact  Joanna Howard, ASW coordinator, at Asplendidwake@gmail.com or Myra Sklarew at msklarew@american.edu

Summer Poetry Pop-Up: Katherine E. Young

Bar at the Folies-Bergère

It starts with the scent of lavender as she

buttons clean pantaloons, laces up stays,

smooths her bodice and shakes out the frills,

ties the black ribbon about her neck.

Her costume smells, as they all do: mingled

sweat and makeup, the fabric itself,

splashed, perhaps, with the licorice twist of absinthe.

Then come powder and rouge, the small earrings,

a pink and white corsage already starting

to droop. Her props are placed on view: beer bottles,

champagne, a vase containing two pale roses,

cut glass bowl of oranges that may

or may not indicate a certain kind

of availability. Leaning on

the marble bar, she doesn’t look at you

(Why should she look at you? Can you give her

what she needs, or even cab fare home?):

posing, perhaps, or perhaps beyond posing,

her face bleak, artificially rosy amid

the moon-pale globes and crystals shimmering

in the ersatz heaven of the cabaret.

Perhaps a man inspects her in the glass,

perhaps he’s looking past; neither of them

seems to see the woman on the trapeze,

feet squeezed into ankle boots of lizard green.

Later, she observes his red-gold lashes,

watches his still-young face slacken in sleep,

breathes in his scent of cigars, cheap brandy,

scent that clings to her fingers like orange

oil as she works her nails beneath the skin,

methodically stripping the pith to find

whatever’s left of the fruit’s sweet flesh.

-- Katherine E. Young

“Bar at the Folies-Bergère” was commissioned by the Washington Shakespeare Theatre as part of its Poets are Present residency.

Katherine E. Young is the author of Day of the Border Guards, 2014 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize finalist, and two chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, Subtropics, and many others. Young is also the translator of Two Poems by Inna Kabysh; her translations of Russian and Russophone authors have won prizes in international competitions and been published widely in the U.S. and abroad; several have been made into short films. Young is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts translation fellow and currently serves as the inaugural Poet Laureate for Arlington, Virginia. http://katherine-young-poet.com/

Summer Poetry Pop-Up: JoAnne Growney

 Which Girl Am I?   

   

            by JoAnne Growney

          The girl who’s not forced to divide

          into the good girl and the real one

          is a lucky one.  I was eleven

          when I felt a crack begin.

          In time I fully split — two minds

          took on two heads, two faces,

          two cuts of hair.  Mock feelings

          serve as well as true ones,

          I told myself — but buried parts

          still surface like cicadas in their year.

          Long division is difficult

          and plagued with remainders.

          A girl with two heads

          is like a bird with one wing.

Note: This poem came out of a cooperative ekphrastic venture with Silver Spring sculptor, Mark Behme – he bravely lent me his sculpture "Split Tales” and, living with it, I discovered its connection to mathematics – and the poem.  The poem was first published in “Intersections:  Poetry with Mathematics” in 2014 

Since childhood JoAnne Growney has loved poetry and found some time for enjoying it during lots of years of studying and teaching mathematics.  Both her childhood and her teaching took place in Pennsylvania but in 2005 she relocated to Silver Spring, MD to be near family, especially her grandchildren.  A lot of her poems, relate to mathematics. She also has a blog, “Intersections:  Poetry with Mathematics” at https://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.com.

Summer Poetry Pop-Up: Rod Jellema

Civilization

Archaeologists in China have found the world’s

oldest playable musical instrument – a 9,000 year

old flute carved from the wing bone of a crane.

Los Angeles Times

Long before the Greeks measured to set

the frets on their lutes, dividing tight strings

by exactness of tones, long before that,

someone in China, probably a girl with time

and some need to walk alone near the sea,

lifted to lips the hollow wing bone of a crane

and blew through it, no thought of why,

mixing sky-air that lifts wings and sleeves

with the unseen source of life they call breath.

Imagine the whistles and arcing bird-cries

these people learned to make as they breathed

through bones with scaled apertures and lengths

and drilled little holes where fingers could find

the tunes beyond birdsong they began composing.

How plaintive and lonely the wordless sounds

must have been – calling out thin, rising, then

drifting into and through the Bo leaves,

over rocks, like smoke in curtains and rafters,

vanished as softly as morning mist off the Yangtze,

like thoughts half-remembered. But the tunes lacked

grounding, sounds that tied light melodies down

to stone floor and soil and the warm flesh

of hands. Years later, long miles to the west,

high up and getting out of the wind,

chapped hands of shepherds and goatherds tugged

animal guts and dried them and learned to snap

their lengths of string to vibrate them

against flat wood, later hollowed out ,

to make the kind of sounds for love or despair

that Athenian throats would utter if only they could.

The sweaty pluck and thrum of finger and hand

hefted earth tones struggling upward, rising to meet

the vibrato of long breaths ringing out of

that hollow wing-bone, and the melding created

dialogue, Greek harmony, music, sympathy,

a transcending of selves, a republic.

--Rod Jellema

Born and raised in Michigan (1927) and a longtime resident of the Washington, DC area, Rod Jellema is Professor Emeritus of English and former Director of Creative Writing at the University of Maryland. Since he began work as a poet in mid-career at age 40, five books have been published:  Something Tugging the Line (1973), The Lost Faces (1978), The Eighth Day: New and Selected Poems (1985), A Slender Grace (2005), and his most recent book (which includes a CD), Incarnality: The Collected Poems (2010). He has also published two award-winning books of selections and translations from Frisian poetry: Country Fair (1985) and The Sound that Remains (1989). The father of three sons, married to the writer Michele Orwin, he is presently writing essays on the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry. Eleven of these essays have been recently published in three journals, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Poet Lore, and International Poetry Journal. He is at work on a book of such essays, Riding the Undercurrent.