Salt Modern Voices - U.K. Tour

As one of the current crop of Salt Modern Voices pamphleteers I am engaged in helping to organise a series of UK wide readings this autumn and on into next year.



So far there are definite dates in London ( Compass Islington ) Warwick, Manchester and hopefully more to follow in Nottingham , Brighton and Southampton.



The series includes poets and so far one short story writer.



Here a blog set up to promote the tour



http://saltmodernvoices.wordpress.com/



also all information on SMV publications and purchase are on Salt main website here:



http://www.saltpublishing.com/pamphlets/smv/



If anybody has a spare reading venue and or suggestions please contact us we more than willing to try and accomodate. Maybe this time next year we could do Edinburgh book festival :-)



shaun belcher (SMV6)

3D chant

Imagine painting poetry? And no, I don't mean a line from a poem on your back or shoulder in the form of a tattoo. Or the name of your mother.

But a picture that records history and self that works in the context of a poem; the pictorial equivalent of the troubadour's lyre. Or a mediaeval map.

Not that unthinkable. In oral culture, cave painting to sand patterns kicked up with the feet in dance serve as a metre for the words sung or chanted.

Aboriginal people did not record their lives through writing, instead they sung their land in ceremonial events comprising singing, storytelling, and dance. Telling of ancestors, topography of the country, its landmarks, laws and customs.

Don't forget as you walk down the street and turn the corner on your way to work. 

What words come into your head each time you shimmy round the postbox and over the lip of the zebra crossing, examine the changing tree, chimney, window lights and people?

Is that memory chant brought to life?

Poetandgeek.com Issue 2 Autumn 2011 coming soon

Thank you to all the contributors who have sent poems, images and essays to poetandgeek.com: the magazine of poetry, place and informatics. We will be letting you know shortly if your work has been accepted.

Keep the contributions coming for the next issue (and for the blog too).

Enjoying books that have been sent for review to


poetandgeek.com
c/o Mary Morrison
Tower Mill
Hawick TD9 0AE
Scotland

Reviews will be appearing in Issue 2 but books for review are always welcome.

Issue 1 can be found here http://www.poetandgeek.com/

Qinghai Lake Poetry Festival China August 2011

The Third International festival is celebrated from August 8th to 11th. Qinghai Lake, in the city of Xining, capital of Qinghai Province,  is the original source of Yangtze and has a symbolic connection to poetry. It is the biggest inland salt lake in china.

Poets and poetry lovers from 55 countries and regions were there to attend the biennial festival sponsored by Qinghai's provincial government, the Poetry Institute of China, and the Chinese Minority Writers' Society.

The festival, which will last four days, will hold poetry readings and concerts, and also award the winner of the Golden Tibetan Antelope Award, Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova.

More information here http://www.shanghaidaily.org/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=8202 and here http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/xinhua/2011-08-08/content_3437538.html and here http://www.qhly.gov.cn/En/Festivals/2010/12/101230910177405.html (if you want to know about this part of China).

Prudencia Hart is back!

The Strange undoing of Prudencia Hart is back. This time as part of the Edinburgh festival in Scotland during August.

Devised by David Greig and Wils Wilson, this is a modern play about the ballad form. Some characters claim that Prudencia Hart's study of the ballad makes her old-fashioned but they themselves speak in rhyme.

And that is before she meets the devil in a B and B in Kelso in the Scottish Borders.

More information, here http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content/default.asp?page=home_PrudenciaHart. The play is also in a pub. And you get to make snow amongst other things... Get a ticket to Edinburgh and go and see for yourself: you won't regret it.

Review http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/edinburgh-festival/8688588/Edinburgh-Festival-2011-The-Strange-Undoing-Of-Prudencia-Hart-The-Monster-in-the-Hall-Traverse-Theatre-review.html

Lord Byron tweet poetry

George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824) wrote this poem on or shortly before his 36th birthday. He died that same year in Greece.

poetandgeek poetandgeek.com 

My days are in the yellow leaf The flowers and fruits of love are gone The worm the canker and the grief Are mine alone

16 seconds ago Favorite Reply Delete

On this day I completed my thirty-sixth year

T'is time the heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!

The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze--
A funeral pile.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share,
But wear the chain.

But 'tis not thus--and 'tis not here--
Such thoughts should shake my soul nor now,
Where glory decks the hero's bier,
Or binds his brow.

The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.

Awake! (not Greece--she is awake!)
Awake, my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood!--unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.

If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here:--up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.

Formatting as form

You are writing a poem.
And then you find
you split up all the words
like this.

I think if I wrote a macro that divided lines like this, it would account for a large tranche of recently written English language poetry. I don't know how much play word processors have on poetic form but some of the things that bug me about them include:

• the insistence on capitalization at the beginning of a line
• dislike of fragments
• disturbing questions about that and which in clause structure
• American spelling as a default
• insistence on spelling
• space between lines

I am not sure how much writing by word processor affects what I write but I do find it encourages me to veer towards a standard line length. And that ain't good.

It's twisting my melon, man (manchester slide beat follows...without capitalization)