Strange & Wonderful Literary Events

July in St. Louis, and I wouldn't leave the house except for the strangest and most wonderful literary events:

Writers win cash, Saturday, July 10. Why wait for a contest when you can get instant grat at the annual Throwdown--this year open to those reading original poetry, short-short fiction, and short-short memoir, two pages max. Or come just for the drama. $5 gets you in the door unless you're a member of the St. Louis WRITERS GUILD (NOT Poetry Center, sorry for the error) then it's free to get in; $10 fee to enter one of your works, $5 for additional works. The cash prizes (separate for poetry and prose) depend upon the number of entries. Judge (yours truly) is just as tough and buff as Simon Cowell. Saturday July 10th, 1-4 p.m. at The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood, MO 63143.

See an antique press in action, Saturday, July 17: Join us for an exciting hybrid of poetry and printing. At two p.m. we’ll host readings of two St. Louis poets, Joe Sulier (of now-dead Get Born), and Richard Newman (of River Styx). While they read, steampunks will be setting up and printing a broadside of their finest works on antique presses. What’s more, you get one of these hand-printed works of art for the price of admission! $5 per person. Space is limited, so call & reserve your seat today. Saturday July 17th at 2 PM at The Firecracker Press, 2838 Cherokee Street, Saint Louis, MO 63118; Phone: (314) 776-7271.

On Winning

Having entered 9 poetry contests this past spring I've placed in two of them and won the top prize from the Midwest Writing Center's regional competition -- for my "Apple Orchard" poem. They phoned me from Davenport, IA, yesterday, Saturday, and knock me over with a feather. I get $200 plus a special thing (a surprise) they send the regional winner. There's also a national winner. I chose, out of cowardice, not to enter the Center's national-level competition.

The other two honors:

• Third place, St. Louis Poetry Center members' contest

• Poetry in Motion, mine one of 15 poems selected to be printed on beautiful posters and placed on the are MetroLink trains. I had a poem selected in 2006 as well.
  

How do I feel? I'm happy; more so, I am honored. But it's odd -- the poems I sent that I thought were my best and most riotous are not among the winners. Ergo, I wonder: Is or is not the poet the best judge of his or her poetry?

More Good Quotations

"Each line in a poem should be better than the last."

"Somebody smarter than I once said, 'A bad title is like a dunce-cap on a poem'."

"As poets we can't be stewards of everyone's issues, but we have to be aware of them."

"About ampersands: I asked Yusef Komunyakaa why he uses them. He says it's because he doesn't like what the word 'and' looks like."

-Gems from Adrian Matejka, critic at Sunday's St. Louis Poetry Center workshop.

The Kindness of Writers

The same day I asked them, two writers gave me permission to use their photos and literary excerpts: poet Eric Pankey and journalist/novelist Harper Barnes. Jeannette Cooperman, of St. Louis Magazine, another great writer, helped me find an E-mail address. How wonderful, and knock me over with a feather: All this within a few hours, on a federal holiday.

Yesterday at the St. Louis Poetry Center monthly workshop Pamela Garvey was the guest critic. Friday I attended the monthly Loosely Identified workshop. At both I got help with my work, and hope I helped other writers in the process. I am so grateful that writers gather in workshops to support each other, and build individual and collective confidence.

Writers are generous, quick, and wide-awake, and knowing them is a pleasure!

After Walter Bargen's Critique

Walter Bargen’s critique of a poem I brought to the St. Louis Poetry Center Workshop shifted my philosophy of revision. He said, You use too many words. Get it going with the first line. Make sure that in every line something happens. Shorten your sentences. Cut every word and phrase not absolutely needed. With these in mind I revised and think I improved the poem. Its first two stanzas will illustrate. See what you think:

Before:

Seekers and pilgrims leave rosaries and coins
at each of the seven grottoes engineered
like sand castles, frenzied
in conception and scale,

each begetting another, life-sized, more sensual:
a stone tent for the slumbering plaster disciples;
for the satiny skins of the plaster Pietá
a stone canopy inlaid with bottle glass and scallop shells;

After:

Seekers and pilgrims leave rosaries, coins.
The seven grottoes engineered
like sand castles, frenzied
in conception and scale,

shelter strangely sensual scenes.
Plaster disciples slumber
beneath a canopy of masonry
chased with beach glass and scallop shells,