| Author | Message | ||
| rus bowden
Valued Member Username: rusbowden Post Number: 178 Registered: 12-2003 |
Dear Poetry Fans, Poetry & Poets in Rags There was some debate, when IBPC took the name "InterBoard Poetry Community," as to whether "community" could apply to people who are not physically able to shake hands and speak with each other, as if in the same neighborhood. When studying Community Social Psychology, one of the first things students get to, is defining "community." Yes, "community" applies to the IBPC. On the other hand, as how we learn to sell automobiles, it becomes important in the first minute of the "meet and greet" to establish common ground with a customer. Yet we don't first think of that as meaning physical ground, the common neighborhood, the streets we take that circle and intersect, although it may. We think of it like Frank Wilson, our friend from the Philadephia Inquirer says about such on-line connections in Books, Inq.: Some very nice words . . . , being "passionate about the things you are passionate about yourself." Where the rubber hits the road, passion has more to do with bonding a community than physical proximity. Some of my best friends love poetry--and I have met many in person after meeting them on line. One is Pam Varnum of Vermont up Route 89 . . . I mean of Poets.org. As many of you know, she made The Guardian's shortlist this past month in the "Poetry workshop" there. You'll find this article, as well as one by Frank Wilson, in our "Great Regulars" section this week. As many of you also know, Frank Wilson judged for us in the InterBoard Poetry Contest, and selected a Jude Goodwin poem representing The Writers Block, for an HM--Jude, a Canadian, being the same IBPC poet who has made The Guardian's workshop shortlist several times this year. But we should also circle back to Poets.org, where Dennis Greene, the Australian, is from, whose poetry Frank had good things to say about in an e-mail to me, and so whom I e-mailed, with Frank's permission, cc-ing to Frank. One never knows which connections could be important in a community, and people ought to be properly introduced. As our community's circles continue, I e-mailed our friend Sarah Crown of The Guardian, to mention that we were linking to three of her articles this week, but also another one which may be of interest to her, the one from Bexhill Today (with offices in East Sussex, by the way), that someone in "the community"--not that I used those words--has died; Stephen Magee, ring a bell? It should to many of you. I Googled. Stephen Magee, as I wrote to Sarah, "is probably the same poet who wrote both 'Rightly' that appears in John Burnside's workshop [that has Pam Varnum's], and "Temeraire" in David Harsent's." It was his sister Anna Elliot's words in the article, not the later connections made through Google, that convinced me his death should be announced in our new "Poetic Obituary" section, by saying that he "loved to write and had some of his poetry published." It only follows that like many of us who are so passionate, Stephen Magee would submit his poems to The Guardian. This announcement, by the way, is also written in response to Frank Wilson, and will be posted in his blog Books, Inq. at Some very nice words . . . He has a message you may be interested in, as well as one here: And the winner is . . ." Yours, Rus Our links: Poetry & Poets in Rags IBPC Home IBPC Newswire |
