Check out my latest poems in Live Encounters: 13th Anniversary Edition. I’m on pg. 140 or so.
New: Poetic Lines with Elizabeth Lund and Me
September 9, 2022 by
Many of you already are aware that I help the Gaithersburg Book Festival flesh out its poetry programming. I’ve been on board with the committee as a volunteer and member for several years. First, taking over the reins of the high school poetry contest when Lucinda Marshall stepped down to pursue her own creative work. Then, fleshing out the poetry programming to include more diverse voices, local poets, and even prize winners.
Elizabeth Lund was a final judge for the poetry contest when the pandemic hit, and her gracious video work for the winners’ announcement was beautiful. I was so glad to have met her virtually, as we have some connections in the Boston area (e.g. Fred Marchant).
She kindly asked to speak with me on her show, Poetic Lines, where we talk about the Gaithersburg Book Festival, poetry, writing, and so much more.
I hope you’ll take a listen and share with your social networks and poets who have books published this year and in the spring of 2023.
Poetic Lines – Serena Agusto-Cox from NewTV on Vimeo.
Birthday Milestones
August 10, 2022 by
Birthdays are such a big deal when you’re a kid. You’re growing up and changing, entering new grades, making new friends, and learning new things. It seems that the newness of everything makes birthdays special.
I’ve always celebrated my birthday, even as friends and relatives have stopped marking the passage of time. There’s something about a day all to yourself. I never work on my birthday if I can help it. I take that time to read or send out poetry submissions to magazines. This year, I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I’m definitely marking my birthday.
As part of that, I wanted to share some relatively big news for me, because it has never happened before — I was named as a finalist in a writing contest.
Let’s see what the rest of 2022 has in store.
Results & Schedule: Poetry Read-a-Long for August
July 28, 2022 by
The poll results are in! The August Read-a-Long will be for:
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman:
Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.
Reading poetry can be a solitary venture. I’d like us to read and talk about Gorman’s book on a weekly schedule.
For every Friday in August, I will post my initial thoughts about the given section and leave the comments open for you to either share your favorite poems, pose questions about the poems, or add to the discussion.
Here’s the read-a-long schedule for August (I hope you’ll join and encourage others to do so):
- First Discussion Post for sections Requiem and What a Piece of Wreck is Man: Aug. 5
- Second Discussion Post for sections Earth Eyes and Memoria: Aug. 12
- Third Discussion Post for section Atonement: Aug. 19
- Final Discussion Post for sections Fury & Faith and Resolution: Aug. 26
If you’ve joined this year’s Poetry Reading Challenge, this can count as your 1 book of poetry you read this year. Join us and have fun! Remember you don’t have to like all the poems.
Poll: August Read-a-Long for Poetry
July 12, 2022 by
As I noted in the post for the 2022 Poetry Reading Challenge, I wanted to host a read along in August.
Each week, most likely on Thursday or Friday, I will have a post for everyone to comment on about the pages they read. By the end of August, you will have read 1 poetry book.
The poetry book selection I’m leaving to you.
Information about each book:
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman:
Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.
Make Me Rain by Nikki Giovanni:
For more than thirty years, Nikki Giovanni’s poetry has inspired, enlightened, and dazzled readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, this artist long hailed as a healer and a sage returns with this profound book of poetry in which she continues to call attention to injustice and give readers an unfiltered look into the most private parts of herself.
In Make Me Rain, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism. Giovanni reaffirms her place as a uniquely vibrant and relevant American voice with poems such as “I Come from Athletes” and “Rainy Days”—calling out segregation and Donald Trump; as well as “Unloved (for Aunt Cleota)” and “”When I Could No Longer”—her personal elegy for the relatives who saved her from an abusive home life.
Stirring, provocative, and resonant, the poems in Make Me Rain pierce the heart and nourish the soul.
The Tradition by Jericho Brown:
Jericho Brown’s daring new book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown’s poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie? Brown makes mythical pastorals to question the terrors to which we’ve become accustomed, and to celebrate how we survive. Poems of fatherhood, legacy, blackness, queerness, worship, and trauma are propelled into stunning clarity by Brown’s mastery, and his invention of the duplex―a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues―testament to his formal skill. The Tradition is a cutting and necessary collection, relentless in its quest for survival while revelling in a celebration of contradiction.
Please vote for one of the following:
THE POLL IS NOW CLOSED!
July Already?
July 6, 2022 by
I had a nice break at the beach in Ocean City. I hope everyone got in some great reading and is ready to share their books with me. I read one book over my vacation, People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry.
This is my second buddy read of the year on The StoryGraph. So far, I really like the buddy read feature and the fact that you can read at your own pace. One drawback is that if I mark the book as finished/read, the other people in the buddy read receive a short deadline to finish the book. I’ve decided to leave it as currently reading for now.
Since I woke up at 5 a.m. (yes, even on vacation), my friend and I (sometimes my daughter came) walked the beach and took photos of the sunrise and collected shells. I’ll share a couple of my favorite photos below:
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- Ocean City
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- Ocean City
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- Ocean City
Have you had any fun this summer? Read any good books? Please share in the comments.
Vacay from the Blog
June 28, 2022 by
I just wanted to drop in and say that I’ll be holding off on further reviews until after the July 4th holiday.
Enjoy your summer. See you then!
StoryGraph
May 31, 2022 by
As readers we all love to track our books and review them, even rate them. Many of us for years have used GoodReads or Google Sheets to track our books. GoodReads came up with the yearly reading challenge, and many of us were hooked. But as much as I love using GoodReads, I wanted something that felt more like a community. Something that was more about the books and talking about the books and less about the marketing.
I’d been told about StoryGraph by a number of people, but Melanie Figg finally convinced me. The app was created by minority owners and its machine learning seems more geared toward your book interests and tastes than marketing you something you are not going to love. Also, you can import your GoodReads shelves, as long as your books are clearly labeled, especially if you have what I call “specialty shelves.”
It also offers graphs to show you what your reading has been like, just in case you want to mix it up. The book recommendations are a little more accurate than GoodReads and Amazon, which I find delightful.
Anna and I have been using the StoryGraph buddy read this month where we can leave comments for one another on a book we’re reading together. What’s wonderful about this feature is that the comments are locked until you reach that part in the book. You can reply to comments and have a great conversation about the book as you read at your own pace!
There’s a paid option for those who want more personalization, but for now, I’m good using the free app. One downside for me is the poetry books need an update. I can add poetry books to GoodReads, but I’m not sure how to do that on StoryGraph. If someone is using it and you know how to add poetry books to the system, please let me know.
Overall, I’m really enjoying this app that tracks my reading and allows me to talk about books without spoilers while having fun.
Have you tried StoryGraph? Tell me what you think in the comments. I’d love to hear about what others have discovered in this app.
Giveaway: Gaithersburg Book Festival 2022 Is a Wrap!
May 24, 2022 by
The 2022 Gaithersburg Book Festival was a resounding success at its new location, Bohrer Park. It had far more shade and the tents seemed to be full from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
We had a lovely reception at Asbury Methodist Village for the authors and presenters, and I’ll share those photos here (Thanks to Photographer Bruce Guthrie!):
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- Julia Kuo, Jenn Koiter, Courtney LeBlanc, Kristin Ferragut, Emily Perez
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- Me, Cris, Shellie and her husband
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- High School Poetry Final Judge Gregory Luce
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- Poet and Moderator Fran Abrams
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- Kristin Ferragut and friend
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- Courtney LeBlanc, Me, and Cris
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- Jenn Koiter
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- Jay Hall Carpenter
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- Jay Hall Carpenter and Kristin Ferragut
Here are some of the photos I took from the Edgar Allan Poe tent where the poetry programming was located.
We had 2 mixed genre panels as well — one with short stories (brilliant Tara Cambell’s Cabinet of Wrath) and poetry and another with nonfiction/memoir (brilliant Leslie Wheeler’s Poetry’s Possible Worlds) and poetry. (these are my own photos, except for the one with Jay Hall Carpenter, Lisa Stice, and Lucinda Marshall)
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- Lesley Wheeler
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- Jay Carpenter, Lisa Stice, Lucinda Marshall
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- Courtney LeBlanc
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- Kristin Ferragut
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- Lesley Reading Useful Junk by Erika Meitner
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- Emily Perez & Meg Eden
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- Jenn Koiter, Tara Campbell, Laura Costas
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- Alan King, Luther Jett, Gregory Luce
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- Indran Amirthanayagam
We also announced the winners of the High School Poetry Contest. While the first and second place winners were not available for the ceremony, we did have a good crowd with the third place winner and the other honorable finalists.
Gaithersburg Book Festival High School Poetry Contest Winners and Finalists 2022 (taken by city staff)
GIVEAWAY:
Win a package of poetry books from the book festival. The books are:
- Inheritance of Aging Self by Lucinda Marshall (my review)
- Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart by Courtney LeBlanc (my review)
- Little Wars by W. Luther Jett (my review)
- Poetry’s Possible Worlds by Lesley Wheeler (she was a phenomenal speaker and I plan to read my copy later this year)
- Riffs & Improvisations by Gregory Luce (my review)
Deadline to enter is June 3, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. EST. You must be 18 years old and up to enter.
Leave a comment below with your email to be entered
May 21: Gaithersburg Book Festival
May 19, 2022 by
Search the Adult Schedule for your favorites, including a great lineup of poets in the Edgar Allan Poe tent.
Search the Children’s schedule for your child’s favorites.
Sunday, May 1, 11-3 p.m. in Washington D.C.: Literary Hill BookFest
May 1, 2022 by
Even when National Poetry Month in April ends, there’s still more poetry to be had!
Literary Hill BookFest is on May 1 from 11 to 3 p.m. in Washington, D.C.’s Eastern Market. Address: 225 7th St. SE, Washington, D.C.
The Literary Hill BookFest is an annual celebration of books and authors held each spring on Capitol Hill.
I’ve only attended this festival online. You can see my video from 2021 on my Publication Credits page.
I hope to see some of you at Tunnicliff’s Tavern at 3 p.m. for the poetry open mic. It will be good to be around other poets at an in-person event! I’ll be reading with some fantastic poets:
Bring some cash or a venmo and you may be able to pick up some of their books at the reading.
In case you missed my recent online Zoom Reading: There’s a Poem in this Place, you can check it out here:
There's a Poem in This Place from Elizabeth Gauffreau on Vimeo.
Poetry Activity: Blackout Poems
April 29, 2022 by
Today, we’re going to try one of my favorite poetry activities: Blackout poetry.
This is one of the easiest forms to create because it really just requires you remove the text of an existing piece by blacking it out. The text can be from a book, newspaper, magazine, or poem. You’re going to redact it, much like the FBI or CIA would do when allowing the public to view government reports.
I’m going to use this poem from Robert Frost: Nothing Gold Can Stay.
Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
Here’s my version:
Nothing GoldCan Stay Nature’sfirstgreen isgold,Herhardest hueto hold.Herearly leaf’s aflower; But only soan hour.Then leafsubsidesto leaf. So Eden sankto grief,Sodawngoes downto day. Nothing goldcan stay.
I’d love to hear about your experience with black out poetry. Feel free to take a photo and send it to me via email.
