my heart is one fast animal

Jeanann Verlee
Marty McConnell
Oveous Maximus
Rachel McKibbens (Grand Slam Champ!) 
(

lowhumcrush

Please join the louderARTS Project on Monday, May 5, 2008, as we launch a year-long series of events celebrating 10 years of presenting the very best in poetry and performance!

WHAT: 10-YEAR Anniversary launch party + CD recording + Featured poets Patricia Smith and Thomas Sayers Ellis! (Oh, and 2-for-1 drinks, of course!)

WHERE: Bar 13, 35 E. 13^th Street, Union Square

WHEN: Monday, May 5 at 7 p.m.

HOW MUCH: Just $6! $5 for students.

WHY: To kick off a year-long celebration of louderARTS!

PATRICIA SMITH is one of the world's most formidable poet/performers. A four-time national individual slam champion, she starred in SlamNation and appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, and travels the world teaching and performing. Her latest book, Teahouse of the Almighty, (Coffee House Press) was chosen by Edward Sanders as a National Poetry Series winner, voted as the Best Poetry Book of 2006 on About.com, and was awarded the 2007 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. Her new book, Blood Dazzler, will be published by Coffee House in 2008. She is also the author of three previous books of poetry -- Close to Death (Zoland Books), Big Towns, Big Talk (Zoland) and Life According to Motown (Tia Chucha).

THOMAS SAYERS ELLIS co-founded The Dark Room Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1988 and received his MFA from Brown University in 1995. His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry, Grand Street, Tin House, Ploughshares and The Best American Poetry, 1997 and 2001. Mr. Ellis is a contributing editor to Callaloo and Poets and Writers. In 2005 he was awarded a Mrs. Giles Whiting Writers' Award. His first full collection, The Maverick Room, was published by Graywolf Press in 2005 and awarded The 2006 John C. Zacharis First Book Award. He is also the author of The Good Junk (Take Three #1, Graywolf 1996); a chapbook The Genuine Negro Hero (Kent State University Press, 2001) and the chaplet Song On (WinteRed Press 2005).

everyone believes that you

are a monsoon, a force

beyond resisting, that having given

my throat to the storm once, twice,

having perched on the shore

watching the rain come and come,

having gone down to the river

with only the small boat of my heart

in tow, now, now they believe me so

enraptured with water as to disregard

the rapids, the sky cracking open

like a rotten stump with one swing

of the axe – I don’t know why

it’s Ophelia's dress they drag over

my head, what fever for disappearing

they believe winds these veins

but I am gone, gone, gone, dry

as a stone in Arizona, found as a rock

in a shoe, as a quarter glued

to the sidewalk on Saint Mark’s. and you

are not that monsoon. not the bath of acid,

not even the river that hauls itself uphill

and drops off to a falls without warning.

you might be the ocean. or the instant

between lightning and thunder

when all the children are counting

to see how far off’s the storm, their fat

hands around mason jars filled with fireflies

or crawfish, a small tempest of fascination

on the way to growing up.

Enter your poem by May 8th to win the grand prize $500 Amazon.com gift card or be one of five runners up to win a $100 Amazon.com gift card!

Moving poetry is about capturing glimpses of life on paper in an imaginative way. On April 18th, one film will show us how an entire lifetime can be encapsulated by a single, fleeting moment. In conjunction with Magnolia Picture’s The Life Before Her Eyes, SheKnows presents the “Defining Moment” poetry contest.

Please submit a poem that captures a moment in your life in which you had to make difficult choice and how that choice impacted the course of your life. Please email entries to poetry@magpictures.com.

Starring Academy Award®-nominee UMA THURMAN (Kill Bill) and EVAN RACHEL WOOD (Across
 the Universe, Thirteen), The Life Before Her Eyes is the new film from Vadim Perelman, the acclaimed director of House of Sand and Fog. The Life Before Her Eyes is an intense and visually evocative drama about the loss of youth, investigating how a single moment in time can define an entire life. Based on Laura Kasischke’s visionary novel, the story hinges on a pivotal confrontation: two high school girls held captive by a gunman and forced to make the terrifying choice as to who will live and who will die.

The Life Before Her Eyes explores the reverberations stemming from the collision of past and future, reality and dream. Life can end in an instant—yet the echoes of possible futures remain inescapable. Moving backwards and forwards in time, it combines the dramatic intensity of Sophie’s Choice with the eerie mystery of a ghost story like The Others.

The grand prize winner (1) will receive a $500 gift card to Amazon.com. Five (5) runner ups will receive a $100 Amazon.com gift card. Please submit entries to poetry@magpictures.com by May 8^th.

 

Click here to tell a friend about this contest!

PointsandPrizes.com Keyword: POETRY worth 100 points good through 05/08/08.
Not a member? Join Points and Prizes now for more free stuff!

Prize:	$500 and $100 Amazon.com gift cards
Number of prizes:	1 Grand Prize and 5 Runners Up
Contest start date:	April 14, 2008
Contest end date:	May 8, 2008
Open to:	US/Canada residents 18 & over

Procter & Gamble promotes explicit open-mouth homosexual kissing.  

after years of experimentation with various formulations

Procter & Gamble has resumed using explicit

open-mouth homosexual kissing in their soap opera.

after weeks of consideration and rejection,

Procter & Gamble has resumed using explicit

mildness to hands, the standard of excellence.

after weeks of consideration and rejection,

"As the World Turns" decided to include

mildness to hands, the standard of excellence.

a white soap satisfactory in every respect.

"As the World Turns" decided to include

a more distinctive name, one people would remember,

a white soap satisfactory in every respect:

WARNING – content is repulsive!

a more distinctive name, one people would remember,

would desensitize viewers to the homosexual lifestyle.

WARNING – content is repulsive!

did not fall into the category of pure,

would desensitize viewers to the homosexual lifestyle.

college chemistry professors and independent laboratories

did not fall into the category of pure,

radical homosexual agenda. velvety smooth and easy to lather

college chemistry professors’ and independent laboratories’

unhealthy and immoral lifestyle includes homosexual marriage.

radical homosexual agenda, velvety smooth and easy to lather,

has the ability to float — perhaps its most famous feature. promotes

unhealthy and immoral lifestyle, includes homosexual marriage.

a sudden flash of inspiration while attending Sunday church service

has the ability to float perhaps its most famous feature. promotes

the decision to support the homosexual agenda. Psalms 45:8,

a sudden flash of inspiration while attending Sunday church service:

All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia,

the decision to support the homosexual agenda, Psalms 45:8.

out of the ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad.

All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia.

Ask your pastor to put this information in the church bulletin.

Out of the ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad,

puffed-up and frothy, the result of an accident!

Ask your pastor to put this information in the church bulletin:

Tough on grease and easy on hands.

puffed-up and frothy, the result of an accident,

gay activists are hopeful that the famous slogan

Tough on grease and easy on hands

will make the lifestyle more acceptable to society.

gay activists are hopeful that the famous slogan

will you consider making a tax-deductible donation?

will make the lifestyle more acceptable to society.

Thank you for caring enough to get involved.

will you consider making a tax-deductible donation

as a commitment to "diversity?” Dear Marty,

thank you for caring enough to get involved.

P&G stopped showing such scenes some months ago,

as a commitment to "diversity." Dear Marty,

since the ingredients had not been changed in any way,

P&G stopped showing such scenes some months ago.

I would suggest P&G continue making the best products possible.

since the ingredients had not been changed in any way,

(open-mouth homosexual kissing in their soap opera)

I would suggest P&G continue making the best products possible,

after years of experimentation with various formulations.

(Note: all text excerpted from the American Family Association Action Alert of April 24, 2008, authored by Donald E. Wildmon, and from Procter & Gamble Company, “Who We Are: History of Ivory”)

pantoum for a boy in Kuala Lumpur, including sock monkey instructions.

no friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community, no commune.

one pair of Rockford Red Heel Socks, cut up old nylon stockings,

our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness, cotton batting, kapok,

divine expectations of which we are only partially aware.

one pair of Rockford Red Heel Socks, cut up old nylon stockings,

shredded foam rubber or polyester fiber. red knitting yarn.

divine expectations, of which we are only partially aware,

inhibit the expression of free friendship and love.

shredded foam rubber or polyester fiber, red knitting yarn,

evoke instead feelings of inadequacy and weakness,

inhibit the expression of free friendship and love,

turn the socks inside out. starting three inches from the heel

evoke instead feelings of inadequacy and weakness.

cut the sock between the seams. this leaves an opening in the crotch.

turn the socks inside out. starting three inches from the heel,

love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other.

cut the sock between the seams. this leaves an opening in the crotch,

a gentle fearless space in which we can move. use the crotch opening.

love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other.

stuff the head, body and legs. turn the sock so the seams are on the inside,

a gentle fearless space in which we can move. use the crotch opening

as long as our loneliness brings us together. round the ends. stuff the arms.

stuff the head, body and legs. turn the sock so the seams are on the inside.

we castigate each other with our unfulfilled and unrealistic desires

as long as our loneliness brings us together. round the ends, stuff the arms.

oneness, inner tranquility, the uninterrupted experience of communion,

a running stitch of either black or white across the middle of the lips.

the mouth can be improved. sometimes a fez is used for a cap.

oneness, inner tranquility, the uninterrupted experience of communion,

our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. cotton batting. kapok.

the mouth can be improved. sometimes a fez is used for a cap.

no friend, or lover, no husband, or wife, no community, no commune.

(note: lines excerpted from Henri Nouwen’s “Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life” and from Lenny Taylor’s “Instructions For Making The Red-Heel Sock Monkey Toy”)

spring, sprang, to have sprung

a janitor’s jangling keys

            Demeter’s mouth

spring

the equation

                                    freed to think like this

                                    what might erupt?

the boys squabble over whom

they would fight

their pomegranate mouths

their pomegranate words

            fevering

    a gold watch

    a gold teeth

    fronts

                        I ain’t gonna front

                        I would not fight you, man

                        scared of you, man

                        you crazy

seven bells, a chime, the clanging

and clanging

oh damn, Persephone, damn

the peach blossoms are

erupting, the lace shows through

the shirt, green on green on green

            you crazy, man

Lazarus-like

don’t call it a comeback

I been here for years