Poetry.LA is an online video showcase featuring established and emerging poets filmed at various venues throughout Southern California. It’s an up close look at a variety of poetic voices, including interviews with poets and publishers. The venues where poetry readings are held are also spotlighted to share with the poetry audience.

Poet/Artistic Director Hilda Weiss and Videographer/Producer Wayne Lindberg started Poetry.LA in January 2007 as a way to expose poets to a much larger audience beyond the intimate spaces of coffeehouses, cafes, bookstores and cultural art centers, where the readings are often taped. Poets can post the video links (uploaded to YouTube) in their emails and on websites, blogs, or social networking pages. Currently, there are more than 150 poets featured on Poetry.LA and the videos have received more than 70,000 viewings on YouTube.  

Special features of the site include: 2008-2009 U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan’s reading at the Casa Romantica Series, video interviews with Cobalt Poets’ host Rick Lupert, the Ruskin Art Club’s Literary Programs Director Elena Karina Byrne (2008 Pushcart Prize winner), Red Hen Press’ Managing Editor Kate Gale as well as hosts of The World Stage Reading Series and Redondo Poet’s Coffee Cartel readings, among others.

Hilda Weiss’ poetry has been published (or is soon to be published) in G.W. Review, Nerve Cowboy, Poem, Poet Lore, Rattle, Salamander and Westview, among other publications. She has also read her work at local venues and when attending readings found that, “I’ve often heard a good poem at a reading and wanted to listen to it again. So, Wayne and I started out videotaping open mics and it evolved from there. We now update the site typically every month with videos of a half dozen new poets reading their work. Before we tape a poet we like to read their work and look at their publication credits. Since our end product is video, we are very interested in artists who have engaging performance styles. For that reason, we keep our camera handy for strong open mic performances,” states Weiss. Weiss and Lindberg also work on Poetry.LA with their Associate Producer Michael Child, a Los Angeles-based musician and poet. They hope to establish Poetry.LA as a non-profit arts organization.

Wayne Lindberg is a Los Angeles-based writer and videographer. His short fiction collection, Cary Malone and Other Stories was published by Nothing Moments Press in 2007.

His plays have been produced by various Los Angeles theatre companies over the past 25 years, including Pacific Repertory Theatre Ensemble, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Public Works and the Venice Mooney Company.

Hilda Weiss’ business experience also includes technical writing, PR writing and photography. She is an active Kundalini yoga student and holds a 4^th degree black belt in Shotokan Karate.

Poets featured include: Anne Carson, Luis Campos, Larry Colker, Brendan Constantine, Sarah Cruse, Jawanza Dumisani, Ghetto Priest, S.A. Griffin, Juan Felipe Herrera, Gina Loring, Rick Lupert, Sarah Maclay, Mike the Poet, Holly Prado, Luis J. Rodriguez, Amy Uyematsu, and Pam Ward, among others.

Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon has provided a grant to allow Poetry Ireland to organize a poetry reading in every county. Both Irish and English poets will be featured at each event and at least three poets will read in each county. That’s mighty spectacular. The plan is to pair well-known poets with lesser known poets and performance poets too. Some of the events in Ireland on that day will include:

• Deirdre Brennan, David Butler and Derek Coyle reading in the George Bernard Shaw room at the Carlow Central Library
• John F. Deane, Rutger Kopland and Fiona Sampson will read in Dublin at the Unitarian Church; this event is sponsored by Dublin City Arts Office
• Galway City Museum will feature Celeste Auge, Louis de Paor,
  Ted Deppe, John Walsh, Michael O’Loughlin and music, with settings of poetry performed by Judith Mok and John Feeley in addition to the city and the county mayors reading their favorite poems
  In Limerick County, Michael Coady and Jo Slade and newly appointed Poet in Residence Eileen Sheehan will read at the library in Newcastle West
• The Factory Performance Space in Sligo will present Mary Branley and Eva Bourke and musician Steve Wickem

This is one of those events, like former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project, that should be a must for all working poets in Ireland. I wish I lived in Ireland so that I’d have the chance to attend.

To get the full schedule with times and locations and featured poets for every county, visit Poetry Ireland’s website.

The featured reader was a man who goes by Train. I don’t know his real name. But he’s been in Gettysburg for about 10 years and lives just a couple of blocks away from the coffee house. They have an upper room and it’s the perfect place for a poetry reading. You don’t get the competing noise of the other coffee house patrons and it’s large enough that there is ample seating for any kind of turnout. Tonight, there was a meager turnout, but Train was fabulous.

His poetry reminds me a bit of Goethe. His poetry is typically short, epigrammatic, often humorous or witty, sometimes deep and profound, and full of wonderful imagery and emotion. Though, unlike Goethe, there is an undeniable late 20th century-early 21st century flair, both linguistically and culturally, to his poetry. I really like Train’s style.

I did buy his recently self-published book, which appears to be an enigmatic work in itself. I may offer up some kind of review of it after reading it. But for now, it’s been a long day. I’m off to catch a little snooze.

Gary read from his recently self-published chapbook Meditations from the Mid-Atlantic. As he states in his introduction, Gary is from Pennsylvania – born and raised – and has spent most of his life here so he’s a bit of a regional voice. But he’s also a philosophy professor at several of the colleges and universities in this area, including Gettysburg College. And one of his biggest influences is Jack Kerouac, and you can see the strain of Kerouackian wry humor that runs through his verse.

I read from a new poem, unpublished, titled “Coup D’Etat”, which utilizes a pseudo-form that I invented, though I haven’t officially given it a name. I think I’ll call it a Crescendant. I like that as a name because the poem plays off of a building crescendo where each succeeding line is longer than the previous one until I get to the climax then the poem decrescendos to a rapid close. The poem can be any length as long as it follows this basic pattern. To illustrate, I’ll share this off-the-cuff piece, which I will title “Ode To Frederick”:

Ode To Frederick

Yes.
We read.
Poems at that.
In the most unlikely
place. Frederick, Maryland,
a place some call the land of
Frednecks. And when they ask
us where we are from, we will nod
and say, “From nowhere, which is some-
where, and where some might say is every-
where. But where? In Frederick, everyone is some
one and no one is alone.
That is. Until
Now.

This is a rather raw hack piece, but it illustrates the Crescendant very well. The form can utilize any combination of poetic devices as long as it sticks to the basic rubric of lengthier lines up until you decide to close it out, at which time you will shorten the lines but at a much more rapid pace than which you built them up. What do you think? Does it work as a form?

Rich Hemmings is a friend of mine who runs one of the best poetry readings here in South Central Pennsylvania. The poetry reading is in York, Pa. and his name for the venue is Poetry Brew. They meet twice a month at an art gallery in York. But once a month the gallery changes out its exhibit and when they do they have their reception party for the artist and what they call a “Poetry Bomb.”

The Poetry Bomb is simply a short reading period that features one poet with a strict three minute reading period. The main event is the showcasing of the art that will be on exhibit for the next month. But the poetry is simply a way to mix the art with literature in a way that doesn’t intrude upon either the artists or the poets and that allows extra exposure to each before a group of people that might not otherwise pay attention to either. It’s a great concept.

I like these types of mixed arts events because there should be some cross communication between the arts. One lady approached me after the reading and mentioned that she was a painter. She complimented me on my poetry because she said that she could visualize what I was actually reading. As a painter that is very important for her. She gave me a postcard with one of her paintings on the face of it and her calling card information on the back. It’s a good way to network with other artists with different skills.

If you live in a community where you can find an art gallery, this might be something you could try. Ask the gallery director if you could sponsor an open reading at the gallery on nights where they are not using the gallery or if you could introduce a short reading featuring a single poet at one of their exhibit receptions. It’s a win-win for poets and artists too.

There are times when I’m on and I know I’m on and there are times when I am too self-conscious to make it work. Tonight was a night that I was on and I knew it.

I was the featured reader at Ragged Edge, a coffee house in Gettysburg. Dana Larkin Sauers, former Hanover, Pa. poet laureate, is the host and she is really good at making her featured readers and guests feel welcome. One of the things that I like about Dana’s ability to host an open mic reading is she does the open mic reading first and brings the featured reader on last, just the reverse of most open mic readings that I’ve attended. That’s a good way to do it.

What that does for a featured reader is it allows the featured poet to get a feel for who’s in the audience. You can judge by what types of poems other people read just where they are coming from and what their preferences might be. And you can “customize” your reading for the audience.

I started my reading with a reading of a poem from The Best American Poetry 2004. I think it’s important to do that. To read other people’s poems.

After opening with “King of Repetition” by Marc Jaffee. I then read some of my early poems from the late 1980s up through the late 1990s. Then I finished with poems I wrote while in Iraq in 2005 and during my trip to Germany in September 2005 while on R&R leave. I finished the evening with $20 in chapbook sales, which makes for a good return on the expense of fuel to get there plus money for an after-event snack and a drink for me and my wife afterwards. So the night pays for itself. I like those nights.

I said last night that I never know how readings at Ragged Edge are going to go. It can be a packed house or there can be a mediocre turnout. The turnout was mediocre, but it was enough. No telling how many chapbooks I could have sold to a packed house. But it’s summer time so those nights are to be expected in a college/tourist town.

Another thing that Dana does that I like is pass a hat to take up an “offering.” I’ve never seen this done consistently anywhere else. Dana asks for donations to give the featured reader as a sort “payment” for the night. That’s never expected as a featured reader, of course, but it’s a nice thing to do and I appreciate Dana doing that. I won’t say exactly how much was collected there, but it was well more than I collected on chapbook sales, which was a nice bonus.

My favorite part of the evening is always meeting other people and finding out what they are up to. I managed to get some feedback on the reading from those who were there and you know who is sincere in their feedback by the way they give it. It was good to fellowship with members of the audience over a drink and pizza while discussing how they like the rhythms I use in my poetry and the diversity and range of styles and subject matter that I put into the craft. I like hearing those comments because they validate my own efforts to work on those things. Hearing it said by people who experience my readings means that I have accomplished what I’ve set out to accomplish, that what I’m doing is working. I like to wish those moments upon others who find themselves to be featured readers in their towns.

As a final note, I’d like to add that one of the poems I read tonight, “Carcass”, was recently published. You can find it at Voices In Wartime.

I’m always a little anxious about dealing with technology. I’m not the most technical-minded person in the world. I can figure it out if given the time, but I have to really sit and think on it. We played around with getting the S-Video to play from my PC to The Emporium’s TV screen, which the owner had set up for our presentation. That didn’t work so we went with the projector and screen as a backup. In both cases, we had trouble getting it to work. Even with a local TV station’s camera crew present, we couldn’t get the hardware to participate. I’m not sure if we were supposed to change certain settings on the display of my laptop before trying to run the video or if we were supposed to have additional hardware that we didn’t have. Had all the cables, VGA to VGA, power cords, and S-Video cord, but no dice.

I was going to play a couple of videos off of YouTube. One, below, is a video someone put together based on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem titled “Ulalume” and the other, also below, is a video presentation based on “The Fall Of The House Of Usher” using Alan Parson Project’s composition as the score. Instead of using the video, because of the time crunch, I just talked about Edgar Allan Poe’s life, the death of his parents and his first wife, his estrangement from his father, his debts, and of course his mysterious death. Then I gave a dramatic reading of a few of his poems, “The Conqueror Worm”, “Dreamland”, and “The Raven.”

It went well, I’d have to say. My dramatic readings are getting better. I used to be so shy speaking in front of a group. Now I just get up and let it go. One audience member, a 13-year-old girl, was really into it, as was my five-year-old grandson, Dylan. They were both spellbound as I got into the mood of “The Raven”. Eyes fixed, sitting on the edge of their seats, those two. At least I know I can hold the interest of young people. At any rate, I had fun and I’m looking forward to August when I give a similar presentation on Edgar Allan Poe for the bookstore’s science fiction day.

And now, the videos:

Poetry Brew is hosted by Rich Hemmings, by far one of the best promoters of poetry and poets that I’ve ever seen. He’s like the Ed Sullivan of poetry. Real classy guy.

Tonight’s venue was billed as a themed event, “Increase The Peace: A Stand Against Teenage Gang Violence”. Rich had asked me to be one of several featured readers, but I couldn’t commit, unfortunately, and was not a featured reader. But the slate of those who were was a fabulous band of poetic talent from the South Central area of Pennsylvania and Baltimore, Md. Among the talent included:

• Rebecca Gonzalez (I wrote about her last night)
• Karen Atlas
• Snow
• Le Hinton
• Bedlam
• Carol Clark Williams
• Native Son (1/2 of Native Son and the Drifish)
• Rich Burrill
• Debberae Streett
• the Drifish (the other half of Native Son and the Drifish)
• and Rich Hemmings

While I was not among those featured, I did get to read during the open mic portion of the event. I read my poem “20 Acres”. My grandson, spending the weekend with us, was in attendance and after the reading (because the poem is about him), came up to me and gave me a big hug (while I was on stage, of course, and preparing to read a second poem). He’s 5 now; was 3 at the time of the poem being written and I had been home from Iraq for about two months. That was amazing; the little guy never ceases to amaze me.

But the evening was topped off with an unexpected treat when Native Son and the Drifish took the stage as a duo. I’d seen them before and they are awesome. They are true performance poets, not the type of performance poet you’ll see at the slam event. They’re better. They perform with perfect harmony and clarity and it’s absolutely indescribable. They’ll be back in York on June 28 to promote a new album and I can hardly wait to see them again. That is an event worth putting on the calendar.

On a side note, the featured reader was a friend of mine and a local poet I admire, Rebecca Gonzalez. Rebecca is promoting a new book, Sonata for Rain, which I will be reviewing, but for now I’d just like to sing a word of praise. Sonata for Rain is published by Iris G. Press, who introduced me to the work of Jeff Rath.

Becca is a Pushcart nominee, which is impressive on its own, but if you’ve heard her read a poem out loud, her sensitivity to language and rhythm are incredible. She is fluent in two languages and the beauty of her lyrics in both is astounding. I am looking forward to getting lost in Sonata for Rain and bringing it to my readers.

Get published @ Teenypoet.

Ah, plagiarism.

Reginald Shepherd on New American Poets.

Slamming the Bluz in Charlotte.

Openness, inclusiveness. Is that possible in poetry?

“Outside the Flood Walls” by Edward Byrne.

Slam event: audience participation.

Veterans against the Iraq War.

Making sense of Mamet, the poet and the man.

Simic on time.

Read Ted Kooser’s penultimate column.