Sekou Sundiata and Ed Hirsch ‘The Writing Life’ Episodes Now Available On YouTube

Posted on May 30, 2012 by

We’ve recently added two episodes of The Writing Life, one featuring Sekou Sundiata and the other Edward Hirsch, to the growing HoCoPoLitSo YouTube channel.

Sekou Sundiata

In this edition of HoCoPoLitSo’s “The Writing Life”, poet and cultural historian E. Ethelbert Miller talks with poet and jazz musician Sekou Sundiata. Both men grew up in East Harlem housing projects, and Sundiata says the many cultures and voices of that neighborhood are heard in his poetry. The “citizen poet,” as Sundiata calls himself, arose in the 1960s and 1970s, when he started writing activist poetry, poetry that appeals democratically to many. Sundiata explains that he and his band arrange the music and the poetry he authors in a synergistic way. “Poetry is part of the music itself,” Sundiata says. The music and rhythms of the black church experience, as well as blues, affect his work, he says. “For me, the blues is a philosophical stance.” His poetic influences include Gil Scott Heron, Amiri Baraka and Linton Kwesi Johnson, whose “Naked History” album is poetry and music people can live with, a goal Sundiata looks to attain with his own work.

Ed Hirsch

On this edition of HoCoPoLitSo’s “The Writing Life,” poet Michael Collier and mid-westerner Ed Hirsch huddle in shirt sleeves to talk poetry. Not only American, but international poets he read in translation, says Hirsch, enable him to discover his vocation. From his fifth book of poems On Love, they consider “The Poet at Seven,” “Colette,” and the moving “Ocean of Grass.” Recorded in 2000, the show features the pair discussing Hirsch’s seminal nonfiction book, How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry.

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HoCoPoLitSo Recognizes High School Students for Literary Achievement

Posted on May 28, 2012 by

Press Release:

For thirty-one (31) years the HOward COunty POetry and LITerature SOciety (HoCoPoLitSo) has awarded book prizes to the winners of its All County Writing Competition, and honored students nominated by their teachers for Promise and Achievement in Language Arts. To foster lifelong reading habits and a love of literature, HoCoPoLitSo presents book awards with personalized bookplates.  The tradition continued this year as HoCoPoLitSo board members made presentations at all Howard County public high school honors assemblies for seniors.

The ten creative writing winners were AMY FARB (Centennial), WEI YUE LU (Centennial), and MARY SIMPSON (Centennial) in the personal essay category; CAROLINE CROWDER (Mt. Hebron), JACLYN ANDREWS (Howard), PATRICIA CARMONA (Mt. Hebron) and BRIDGET MACKRELL (Mt. Hebron) in the poetry category; and in the short story category, REBECCA CURRAN (Mt. Hebron), JULIA DUNN (Howard), and SYDNEY CHANMUGAN (Mt. Hebron).  This year’s judges were Patricia VanAmburg, writer and professor of literature, Joyce Braga, young adult author, and Mark Braga, technical writer and engineer.

In addition, twenty-six students were chosen by their English Departments to receive HoCoPoLitSo’s Promise and Achievement Award in Language Arts.  The honorees were: LAUREN BERMAN, JACOB SMITH (Atholton) SARAH CALVERT, WEI YUE LU (Centennial), EMILY SCHWEICH, ANNELIESE FAUSTINO (Glenelg), SIERRA SIMPSON, JASON SCHOENFELD (Hammond),  SIERRA PETERS,  RACHEL McMURRER (Homewood Center), LINDSEY SABLOWSKI,  MADELINE STUDT (Howard), JESSICA GUERRERO, JUSTIN BIEGEL  (Long Reach), COURTNET O’HARO,  JONATHAN MATHEWS (Marriotts Ridge), NICHOLAS CORTINA, HANNAH VAUGHAN (Mt. Hebron), LYNN COURNOYER, ROSS RHEINGANS-YOO (Oakland Mills), HALEY SWEETON, ALEXANDER SHAW (Reservoir),  IFEOLUWA OLUJOBI, CHRISTINA ROMANO (River Hill), EMMA BOONE, JOE WAN (Wilde Lake).

Thirty-five students in all received books by such outstanding poets and writers as: Margaret Atwood, Sandra Beasley, Hugo Hamilton, Donald Hall, Shelia Kohler, Laura Lippman, Frank McCourt, Grace Paley, Francine Prose, Reynolds Price, and Colm Tóibín.  HoCoPoLitSo has been dedicated to enlarging the audience for contemporary poetry and literature through public readings, special events, writer-in-residence visits, and The Writing Life, a cable television series produced at Howard Community College, since 1974.

HoCoPoLitSo is supported by the Howard County Arts Council through a grant from Howard County government, the Maryland State Arts Council through the State of Maryland and the Department of Business and Economic Development, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Columbia Film Society,  the Columbia Foundation,  the Jim & Patty Rouse Charitable Foundation, the Rouse Company Foundation, and Friends of HoCoPoLitSo.

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Check It Out: The Baltimore Sun Previews This Year’s Blackbird Poetry Festival

Posted on April 25, 2012 by

The Baltimore Sun‘s Explore Howard website has previewed this year’s Blackbird Poetry Festival. The article reports:

HoCoPoLitSo executive director Carla Du Pree says her group “promises a night of poetry, slam and song from contemporary poets who aren’t afraid to push the boundaries of our comfort zones. Addonizio’s red dress poem, ‘What Women Want,’ has people writing about what they want in that same saucy manner of hers. Cirelli directs one of the leading youth literary organizations in the country, and Mother Ruckus … sings for women and the men who can handle them.’”

This year’s Festival features Kim Addonizio, Michael Cirelli, Naomi Ayala and Mother Ruckus. Click here to read the article in full, including insight into the poet performers, then, we’ll see you at the Festival’s Nightbird reading, 7:30 pm in the Kittleman Room – Duncan Hall 100, for a wonderful evening of poetry adventure through slam and song.

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This Thursday: The 4th Annual Blackbird Poetry Festival

Posted on April 23, 2012 by

Festival Poets: Kim Addonizio, Mother Ruckus, Naomi Ayala, Michael Cirelli

Featuring the Nightbird Reading, Poetry in Harmony, and a day of workshops, talks, and readings, even the “Poetry Police,” the 4th Annual Blackbird Poetry Festival returns Thursday, April 26th, to the campus of Howard Community College, this year presenting Kim Addonizio, Michael Cirelli, Naomi Ayala and Mother Ruckus.

Nightbird Reading

The Nightbird reading, the day’s main event, is a coffee house style reading with music from Mother Ruckus (spoken word poet Gayle Danley and songstress Sahffi) and readings from Michael Cirelli, the nationally renowned slam poet, and Kim Addonizio, “one of our nation’s most provocative and edgy poets.”

Last year’s Festival presented Martín Espada in the evening reading for which local blogger Tom Coale proclaimed it was, “the most engaging and thoughtful live entertainment that I’ve seen since leaving the storm-swept streets of New Orleans,” where culture bubbles up from living rather than ordaining down from academy. High, high praise. Read that blog post here.

Tickets for the Nightbird reading, which includes refreshments, are $10 for students, $15 general admission, available at the door or online at brownpapertickets. The Nightbird Reading starts at 7:30 in Duncan Hall room 150, aka The Kittleman Room. The event is sponsored in part by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Division of English/World Languages and  Office of Student Services, Howard Community College and the Sheraton Columbia.

Workshops, Talks, Readings

Throughout the day on the campus of HCC,  a number of workshops, readings and talks will occur.  Kim Addonizio will speak to a creative writing class in a private session; Michael Cirelli will meet with students and the community in an open session presenting a talk on “Hip-Hop Poetics, Education, 50 Cent & The Olive Garden.” An early afternoon reading will feature the Festival poets as well as readings by students, faculty and local writers. See the schedule below.

Festival events actually begin off campus when Naomi Ayala will present to teachers during the Howard County School System’s Professional Development Day.

The Poetry Police

Warning: April 26th is National Poem in your Pocket Day. Get caught on the community college campus by the Poetry Police without a poem and you’ll find yourself with a citation. Simple math: No Recitation Material = A Citation.

While it’s a bad thing, it is not that bad a thing. The jovial officer will likely provide you with a poem so you don’t get caught again. Actually, if you are caught and you produce a poem to share, you’ll find yourself rewarded for good civic behavior.

Need a poem, click here to find a variety to choose from, print one out to carry around.

Festival schedule:

  •  9:30 – 10:30 Naomi Ayala speaks at Howard County School System (HCPSS) Professional Development Day Session I
  • 10:40 – 11:40 Naomi Ayala speaks at HCPSS Prof. Dev. Day Session II
  • 10:00  Poetry Police start to patrol HCC at campus looking for National Poem in Your Pocket Day violations
  • 11:00 – 12:20 Kim Addonizio meets with HCC’s Creative Writing Class (closed)
  • 11:00 – 12:20 Michael Cirelli meets with students and community (open and free)
  • 2:30 – 4:30    Readings by: Naomi Ayala, Michael Cirelli, Kim Addonizio and regional poets, HCC students and faculty (open and free)
  • 7:00 Doors open for “Poetry in Harmony,” a coffee house style reading
  • 7:30 – 9:30 Readings by Michael Cirelli and Kim Addonizio, and a performance by musical group Mother Ruckus, which includes performance poet Gayle Danley and songstress Sahffi. ($15, $10 for seniors and for students with an id)

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Now Online: The Writing Life with Colum McCann on HoCoPoLitSo’s YouTube Channel.

Posted on April 19, 2012 by

In this edition of HoCoPoLitSo’s “The Writing Life,” poet and musician Terence Winch talks with Irish novelist Colum McCann (winner of the 2009 National Book Award for Let the Great World Spin) after his second novel debuted to great acclaim. McCann, who grew up middle class in Dublin, talks about his two-year bicycle trek around America, gathering stories as a journalist, that helped turn him into a novelist. And while he counts Irish writers as influences, he mostly read Kerouac and Burroughs as a teen.





McCann reads from his first novel, Songdogs, and from This Side of Brightness, about the New York subway tunnels and the homeless who make their homes there, as well as the sand hogs who built the tunnels. McCann spent a year in the tunnels, and counts listening as the best way to research. “I don’t want to write about my family, about me. I think it’s much more liberating to be in the imagination. People always tell to write what you know about, but I say no, write about what you don’t know about.”

Visit www.youtube.com/user/hocopolitso to view all the episodes currently available online. Enjoy and give us feedback, please, so we can improve this award-winning series.

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HoCoPoLitSo’s “The Writing Life” Now on YouTube

Posted on April 2, 2012 by

Just in time for National Poetry Month, the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society’s award-winning cable television program, “The Writing Life,” a writer-to-writer talk show, can now be seen at YouTube. Take the opportunity to hear poetry read and discussed by the poet themselves and to listen to the stories behind novels their authors recount as selections are read. In a series produced by HoCoPoLitSo, distinguished writers interview featured guests, asking questions about craft and process.

Follow the link at http://www.youtube.com/user/hocopolitso or type in “Hocopolitso” on YouTube’s search box to be introduced to writers from around the world. Check back often as episodes are being digitized and uploaded for viewing.

From seven Maryland Poets Laureate to five Nobel Laureates and twenty-two Pulitzer Prize winners, more than 100 poets and writers have appeared on HoCoPoLitSo’s cable television series since 1986. Guests range from edgy emerging writers to the most distinguished names in contemporary letters, such as Amiri Baraka, Mark Doty, Rita Dove, Martín Espada, Donald Hall, Joy Harjo, Edward P. Jones, Paula Meehan, W.S. Merwin and National Poet Laureate Phil Levine.

Several of these half-hour shows have been honored by the National Hometown Video Festival and the BRAVO network’s “Arts for Change” Award. “The Writing Life” is produced at HCC-TV on the campus of Howard Community College.  “The format is ingenious …. (One) comes away with the privileged feeling of having eavesdropped on a private conversation between two artists talking shop,” says critic Geoffrey Himes.

Select editions of “The Writing Life” are available at Howard County Public Library, HCC Library or at www.howardcc.edu/twl or for purchase from HoCoPoLitSo.

Enjoy a sample, Nayomi Ayala talks with Martin Espada in a 2011 episode of The Writing Life:
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30 Things You Might Do To Celebrate National Poetry Month

Posted on April 1, 2012 by
  1. Read a poem. Out loud. Feel it the sound of it move through you and into the air.
  2. Watch and listen to Billy Collins’ Ted Talk.
  3. Practice the math of counting syllables by writing a 5-7-5 haiku.
  4. Follow HoCoPoLitSo on Facebook. And Twitter.
  5. Read a Poetry Blog.
  6. Stop by the library on the way home and borrow a volume of poetry.
  7. Read the latest issue of Little Patuxent Review.
  8. Tweet some poetically purple prose. Retweet someone else’s.
  9. Email a friend a favorite poem.
  10. Print out a poem and put it on a bulletin board for others to see.
  11. Watch a poet on YouTube.
  12. Bilingual? Have a go at translating a poem. Not? Try the exercise with a friend that has a second language.
  13. Write a love poem, just for fun. Share it with the intended.
  14. Subscribe to Poets.org’s Poem a Day email.
  15. Make a comment on a Poetry Blog.
  16. Find a soon to be significant other and read Neruda’s 20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair to each other.
  17. Donate to HoCoPoLitSo.
  18. Read a poem out loud to someone else.
  19. Go to a poetry reading at a coffee house. If it is an open mic, share your own work.
  20. Jot down an ode to something ordinary in your life.
  21. Buy tickets for yourself and a friend to the Nightbird Reading, featuring Kim Addonizio, Michael Cirelli, Nayma Ayala, and Mother Ruckus. After the evening reading, post on the HoCoPoLitSo page about your experience.
  22. Support a poet, buy their book. Now really support them: read it.
  23. Celebrate National Poem in You Pocket Day, April 26th, by carrying a poem in your pocket and sharing it with others.
  24. Take on Poets.org’s list of 30 things to do for National Poetry Month.
  25. Tweet about poetry. If it’s Friday, tell your followers to #ff @hocopolitso.
  26. Memorize a poem and carry it around inside you. Let it out again and again when the occasion warrants.
  27. Add a quote from a poem to your email signature for a month. Switch it with a new one next month. (No reason to stop the practice just because it isn’t National Poetry Month in May.)
  28. Watch an episode (or two) of HoCoPoLitSo’s The Writing Life on YouTube.
  29. Tell a poet what their work means to you. They’d love to hear. Face to face, in email, in a good old fashioned card.
  30. Encourage someone else to join you in taking on this list. After all, poetry is a thing best shared with others.

 

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