Register for Our Reading with Tim Seibles and Cornelius Eady This Wednesday
Plus, Enjoy our Last Reading with Angela Narciso Torres and Nikki Fragala Barnes
A Reading with Angela Narciso Torres, Nikki Fragala Barnes & Friends!
If you couldn’t make it to our reading last month, or if you just want to experience it again, here’s our recording of the fun.
And don’t forget to register for our next reading, this Wednesday!
Register for This Reading for Free
HARDER AND HARDER BLUES VILLANELLE Tim Seibles Man, how long has Jimi Hendrix been dead? I still sing ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky But it’s hard these days to turn down the dread I try to think about fun stuff instead Wrote to Dear Abby; she said free your mind Then I asked her why Jimi Hendrix was dead Where all them good times they always allege? I wanna be hopeful—just gimme a sign I’m like shadow-boxing to fight off the dread There’s only so much you can hold in your head Feel like I’m sayin farewell all the time And how long has Jimi Hendrix been dead? I think I should prolly hide under my bed Just hard to believe anything will be fine Can you ever get out from under the dread? How’d I end up out here on a ledge? They got my call waiting—I can’t hold the line Tried to reach Jimi: his cell phone was dead The dawn makes it darker; the big star is bled Wherever you go, it’s the scene of a crime You pour you some coffee: the cup fills with dread I’m combing my heart for what’s left’a my head Why is it my brain always gets misaligned? Seems harder and harder to push back the dread But it helps to forget Jimi Hendrix is dead Charlie Chaplin Impersonates a Poet By Cornelius Eady The stage is set for imminent disaster. Here is the little tramp, standing On a stack of books in order To reach the microphone, the Poet he’s impersonating somehow Trussed and mumbling in a Tweed bundle at his feet. He opens his mouth: Tra-la! Out comes doves, incandescent bulbs, Plastic roses. Well, that’s that, Squirms the young professor who’s Coordinated this, No more visiting poets! His department head groans For the trap door. As it Swings away
Here’s What Else is Coming Up This Summer at The Poetry Salon
Do you have a book out? Do you need to pre-sell some copies? Do you need help getting out the word?
In this workshop, Tresha Faye Haefner, author of When the Moon Had Antlers (Pine Row Press 2023) (Take This Longing, 2012) will share tips she's used to have two successful book launches. We'll talk about ways to sell tickets to the launch, and ways to sell more copies of the book itself. Above all, we'll talk about ways to make the event fun and inviting!
To register, send $25 to TreshaFayeHaefner@gmail.com
or become a paid subscriber, here.
August Events
I was so happy to see that friend of the Poetry Salon, Kim Rosen, is hosting workshops again.
I’m Attending the dive on August 2nd, and I invite you to join too. It is by donation basis. You can get more details at the link below.
Workshops with Kim Rosen
Incidentally, here is a poem by Tim for Cornelius.
EITHER WAY
for Cornelius Eady
Days when something grazes my shoulder.
Sunlight, sidewalk, the shadows sharp.
The sky holds a cold, unbreakable blue
that says Why look up here?
*
Doesn’t seem like so far back: couldn’t dance,
scared of girls, I heard Smokey sing
goin to a go-go with that soft crystal in his voice.
Pictures, music caught somewhere in my head—
I’m sick of memory:
my younger self, still inside,
wanting a way out of this
who I am now: this bizzy-all-the-time,
this—this itch middle of my back.
*
But who was that kid in the basement?—
all alone with The Miracles
moving his feet. The orange couch
covered in plastic, black marks
on the beige linoleum.
*
Something about solitude—if you can stand it—
makes you feel wise: the voice
in your head talking its way somewhere,
pressing you to believe
what it says
and, though you can’t remember when,
you grow into it
or you don’t: each thought breaks
into the next—keeps on, turns back.
Either way, you don’t ever
really under
*
stand. Just as you get used to the snow
shingling your hair, your idols, one
by one, begin to leave. Their old tunes
fill the coffee shops
and gently bob your head.
What is it
*
that your life
forgot to mention?
Hum a few bars you say.