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Never Underestimate a Poet
This past Saturday was the 30th annual Poetry Rodeo (or Podeo, as some call it) in Denver. This event traditionally goes for 12 hours and includes a wide variety of readings and workshops. It’s a candy store for poets. The Mercury Cafe, its home, is a tasty venue and I felt comfortable there, and well…
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Get Out!
Getting out of my own way is a constant challenge. When I succeed, the world is larger, more exciting and more rewarding. Last week I wrote about my plan for devoting more time to my first love, poetry and rejoin the community of like minds. That intention, though, won’t matter unless I connect with the…
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To Review or Not to Review?
“A book report is an essay discussing the contents of a book, written as part of a class assignment issued to students in schools, particularly in the United States at the elementary school level.” So says Google. I dreaded that forced march through long prose to prove that I had read the whole book. I coughed up the…
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Have You Heard?
Editor Susan Greene of The Colorado Independent has recently called for a fresh approach to Colorado news. She has created a section called News Poetry. On Saturday seven Colorado poets met with Susan and Poetry Editor Jacqueline St. Joan to explore at the possibility of adding poems to the discussion about current issues. The contributors…
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Not Your Grandmother’s Poetry Reading
How to build an audience for poetry: combine words with song, with percussion, with a delivery that goes beyond the traditional solitary poet at the mic reading original work. Stir in familiar and fresh music. Read interpretively, dare to be political, personal, confrontational and/or confessional. Last night a performance group called The Readers’ Lab did just…
Karen Douglass, Author 