Hooray for Poetry Month 2015

Poetry Month is officially here and I couldn’t be more excited. There are tons of events happening throughout April in the state of Maine. Below I’ve posted a few links to help you plan your poetry pursuits.

I’m a huge fan of POEM IN YOUR POCKET day! April 30th is Brunswick’s Poem in Your Pocket Day (our Facebook page) and the open mic poetry reading that evening from 6:30-8:30 will be at Curtis Memorial Library. Come with a poem in your pocket and a song in your heart. I’ve been asked to read a few of my poems and my sons will be the MC’s! Look for my name tag and say hello!

This article from the Portland Press Herald, “A Rallying Cry for Poetry,” has this wonderful quote from poet Tony Hoagland:

“The joy of creativity should be part of every day. It’s part of what makes us human. It improves everything.”

MAINE EVENTS:

Richard Blanco, known for his presidential inauguration poem One Today, will kick of Poetry Month events with a reception and reading at the Bangor Public Library. Tickets are free but required. Call 947-8336.
Read more here.

This year, Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair celebrates annual Poetry Day in the Hall of Flags at the State House in Augusta. The event has traditionally been an invitation-only affair hosted at the Blaine House. This year’s celebration, sponsored by the Maine Arts Commission with assistance from the Maine Humanities Council, is free and open to the public on April 7 at 2:30 p.m.
Read more here.

Maine’s Largest Poetry Festival is at the University of Maine Augusta. The University of Maine at Augusta will host the 12th Annual Terry Plunkett Poetry Festival on Friday evening, April 11th in Jewett Hall and all day Saturday, April 12th in the Fireplace Lounge of the Richard Randall Student Center.
Read more and see a schedule of events here.

As part of the Words Matter Visiting Poets Series: A Project of Maine Poetry Central and the Portland Poet Laureate Program, Tony Hoagland will be speaking and reading Thursday, April 16, at 7p.m. at University of Southern Maine’s Hannaford Hall Auditorium in Portland, Maine. I was lucky to attend Richard Blanco’s similar presentation and the packed auditorium was a joy in and of itself.
Read more and get tickets here.

If you aren’t in Brunswick on April 30th but you have poetry that needs an audience check out some of these other great library open mic opportunities!

Portland Public Library

Rockland Public Library has events and contests all month.

Topsham Public Library

The University of Maine at Augusta will host the 12th Annual Terry Plunkett Poetry Festival on Friday evening, April 11th in Jewett Hall and all day Saturday, April 12th in the Fireplace Lounge of the Richard Randall Student Center.

There are tons more events that have been lovingly assembled on this PDF by the Maine Writer’s and Publishers Alliance.

***TEACHERS***
The Academy of Poets commissions Chip Kidd for a Poetry Month poster each year. To get yours (either full sized or printable PDF) click here!

Poem In Your Pocket 2012 Wrap-Up

This morning I opened my email to find this lovely note:

Thank you very much for your good spirit and good work in the name of poetry this past week. I missed the poem-in-your-pocket festivities on Thursday, but went to hear Wes McNair last night and enjoyed his readings and observations immensely.

What a joy to feel appreciated but a bigger joy still to have worked with co-organizers, Evie Katz, and Kathy Koerber, to bring something positive, and constructive to my community.

Throughout the week we brought poetry into the hearts and minds of over 100 neighbors.

Our events provided a stage and microphone for over 25 poets young and old, from those newly embracing the poetic form to professionals and professors.

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Events in the schools and libraries served students in grades K-8 and the high school librarians created a beautiful bulletin board for Poem in Your Pocket Day. All these numbers resulted in countless smiles and new friends.

If you are interested in volunteering to help with next year’s festivities, please contact me. annajboll at gmail dot com

Poetry Friday: Wesley McNair in Brunswick, Maine tonight!

Tonight, Friday, April 27th, Wesley McNair, Maine’s Poet Laureate will read at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, Maine.

Recently, Wes sent me an email with the following vision of the event:

I plan to tell the story of my life as a poet, using poems from my recent book, Lovers of the Lost, which is new & selected and so offers me this opportunity.

Wes has been a champion of poetry during his tenure as Poet Laureate. He edits a wonderful new weekly feature in the Portland Press Herald entitled Take Heart: A conversation in poetry. He appears around the state doing workshops and poetry readings, and has helped prepare high school students for the Poetry Out Loud competition. We are fortunate to have him.

I’m looking forward to meeting the kind man with whom I’ve been communicating, and the poet that I admire. I hope you’ll join me tonight at one of the final events of National Poetry Month.

Poem in Your Pocket Day!!!

If you didn’t already know, it’s Poem in Your Pocket Day. Since September, I’ve been working with two other community organizers, planning events, applying for grants, finding sponsors, designing posters and social networking around this fabulous, stupendous day!

Today I walked Maine Street in Brunswick with a bag of poem and stickers and handed them out to anyone who would take them. I visited the Little Dog Café, The Bohemian Coffee House, Frosty’s and Wild Oats. Some folks said they had heard about Poem in Your Pocket Day on the radio. Maybe this story. The smiles that I got in exchange for the poems made my day. My favorite interactions occurred when a few people told me they didn’t need one of my poems because they already had poems of their own! Listening to them read was lightness, and sunshine, and warm smiles.

One little girl with her Grandmother took my poem and sticker but the little girl was extremely shy. I left, walked the entire town then came back to my car. “Wait,” I heard. It was the Grandmother. “My granddaughter and I have been looking all over Brunswick for you. She wanted to give you this.” She handed me a poem that they had written out after I’d left. I think they made it up together. It made my day. Here it is:

Tulip
Tulip in the ground unplanted
We circle ’round and ’round
We wonder where it came from
Growing dizzy, falling down

TONIGHT, April 26th: Open Mic Night, 6:30-8:30, Curtis Memorial Library. Come read one poem. Yours or someone else’s. Must be family friendly. Sign-up when you arrive.

TOMORROW, April 27th: Reading by Wesley McNair, Maine’s Poet Laureate, 6:30-8:30, Curtis Memorial Library. Wes will have some books available for sale.

Poem in your pocket day will soon be gone. Quick, stuff your pocket with poems and share, share, share!

Five on Friday: Festivals, Events and Blogs, Oh my!

1. Maine Festival of the Book

The Maine Festival of the Book is a literary extravaganza taking place tomorrow, March 31st. Workshops, presentations and readings are scheduled throughout the day and take place at various USM locations including the Abromoson Center and Glickman Library. Children’s and Young Adult authors and illustrators including Jeannie Brett, Anne Sibley O’Brien, Brenda Reeves Sturgis, Lynne Plourde, Reza Jalali, Maria Testa and others will be present.Click here for a complete schedule and specifics!

If you liked my review of CITIZEN SCIENTIST by Loree Griffin Burns, you’ll probably love Anastasia Suen’s blog hosting creation Nonfiction Monday. Different bloggers agree to host a round of Nonfiction Reviews from blogs all over the kidlitosphere. Take a look!

3. We are on the cusp of April National Poetry Month! I hope you have events in your area. Here in Brunswick, I’m one of the organizers of Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 26th. Please take a look at our Poem In Your Pocket-Brunswick Facebook page for events throughout the last week of April. It’s also a great place to find links to just the right poem to fit your mood. We’ll be putting up posters next week and distributing stickers to local businesses and libraries over school vacation. Look for them!

4. Speaking of poetry…and blogs

At Jama’s Alphabet Soup, she has a wonderful round up of Poetry events all over the kidlitosphere here (click on image):

and a list of all the Poetry Friday Hosts here (click on image):

If you haven’t seen allaboutlemon, it’s a blog where the creativity just flows. Every 3rd Saturday, the author invites people to write haikus inspired by her collaged photo. For the Love of Haiku

Here’s mine:

Middle class captive
Blind to horrors far away
Our valley is lush

And here’s the picture:

Wild, right?

5. What’s coming up on Book Review Wednesdays? I’ve got a bunch of nonfiction and poetry that I’ll be sharing round-up style throughout April. Some new, some not as shiny but just as precious. Hope to see you here all month long.

Five on Friday and a Poem

1. The SCBWI Conference was a great break from the studio. I’m back, and working with the ideas from the Revision Workshop with Cheryl Klein. I’d like to report that I’m moving forward at great speeds but that would be a lie. I spent the week writing a letter to myself, processing the good, the bad, and the ugly about the manuscript. I also wrote the flap copy and tried the “summarize your novel in one sentence exercise.” Perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I urge my own students to spend time on prewriting to make the writing easier– this is all necessary pre-revision work that will save me time later on.

2. I’d be less hard on myself if I wasn’t aware of all the time I “wasted” this week. As you can see, I’ve moved my blog to WordPress.com in part because of the page building aspect of the site. My website was terribly outdated and I appreciate the ease with which I can change things in WordPress. However, like everything, there is a learning curve (with all of its fumbling, backtracking, exploring, searching) takes time away from writing. Also, most of it goes on when my children are asleep which means I am up too late and tired through the day. This too, slows production and puts me on shaky emotional ground. Yesterday, just before I had to pick up a kiddo I thought I had lost all my work. I rolled up to the school 15 minutes late, exhausted, and weepy. “What am I doing?” I asked my very wise yet young son. “This stupid website is supposed to advertise my writing. If I’m not a writer, what’s the point?!” He patted my shoulder, “Shhh. You are a great writer. You just need a nap.”

3. My efforts with two other members of the Brunswick community to make April 26th Poem in Your Pocket Day is moving along nicely. We have a variety of events that are being planned including a community poetry open mic night, and a presentation by Wesley McNair our Maine Poet Laureate. We are applying for grants to cover the cost of flyers, school visits/programs, and stickers. On April 26th people are encouraged to wear the sticker and carry a Poem in their Pocket to read to others. Please visit our newly minted Facebook page and “like” us.

4. The deployment is officially one month down. I’m humbly accepting Sunday dinner invitations for my family.

5. The triathlon season is just around the corner. First tri, April 15th. Writing down publicly makes it much more real and imminent. Happily, I signed up for a spinning class that fits my schedule perfectly. The teacher said she’d also be teaching a tri prep class on Mondays and Fridays. While I could train on my own, I know that I’ll be much more consistant if I join the class.

A Prayer
by Anna Boll

Oh, Dear Tech Gods,
let technology help me today.
Allow me to be more productive,
not less.
Watch over my computer
do not let it crash.
Keep my documents safe.
May my website, web
my downloads, load
my plugins, plug
my widgets, widge.
As I tweet
and blog
and update
and friend,
grow my platform.
Protect me from hackers
so I may keep my identity
to procrastinate another day.