Inside The Hearts' Walls

My sixteenth

Dear Poets,

Here's a bit of holiday cheer -- our poetry news and plans for the new year:

To begin, as always our groups (both at the Albany campus and at the Benton Center) will continue to meet in the new year: Albany campus every Tuesday @ 3:00 - 4:00 in the Hot Shot Cafe; Benton Center every Wednesday @ 5:30 in the BC conference room. 

And to add to these ways we celebrate poetry weekly, we have two major projects for Winter and Spring.  Please read on, consider yourself a participant, and put these dates on your calendar:

BLACK HISTORY MONTH
As always, our poetry club will be a major part of the festivities.  The planning team (Gary Westford, Dana Emerson, Javier Cervantes, and Robin) have sketched out the main events which include a Unity Celebration on Wednesday, February 27th @ 5:00.  Several of us poets have talked about performing a "spoken word in harmony" reading with Elisabeth Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day" for this Unity Celebration on Feb 27th.  Several people have also volunteered to "perform" poems in the tradition at an open mic for that event.  Of course, anything is possible (music, dance, art, etc).  If you would like to be a part of the planning for this event, or if you would like to suggest other events throughout the month of February in honor of the Black Tradition, please join us for our first Albany campus meeting of the new term: Tuesday, January 8, 3:00 - 4:00 in the Hot Shot.

APRIL POETRY MONTH EXHIBIT: POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY
We continue our five year tradition of celebrating April Poetry Month in collaboration with the Art Department.  This year, we'll join with the Photography Guild and, in the Ekphrasis tradition, write poetry in response to photos of our choosing.  You may remember the April 2011 exhibit entitled "Words and Pictures" which was an extraordinary experience for poets and photographers and resulted in a book of the same name.  Look at the book on the Blurb site: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2175721
Want to join us this year?  Then come to our first poetry club meeting on January 8 at the Hot Shot.  We'll be meeting that Tuesday and the following Tuesday to choose our photograph from the Photography Guild selection.  (If you are not able to make that first meeting, but you'd like to be participate in this exhibit, then write me of your intentions please.)  Here's our timeline: 
1) We'll choose our photos at our first two Poetry Club meetings in January (Jan 8 & 16).
2) The deadline for identifying our choices to the Photography Guild is January 29th.
3) The deadline for submitting our poems for the exhibit is February 15th (this gives us one month to write a poem in response to the photo).

Yea! 
Happy Holidays,
Robin

Hello fellow poets!

I hope everyone's finals went well as our term is officially over! Poetry club will start back up on January 8th at 3:00 pm in the Hot Shot Cafe on the Albany campus. On January 9th the Benton Center's poetry club starts back up at 5:30 pm in the conference room. Until then, we're having a little poetry get-together today at 3:00 pm at the 2nd street Beanery in downtown Corvallis. I' sure I'll see some of you there!

In light of the wintery season, I thought some Robert Frost would be appropriate:

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
   And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
   And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
   And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
   Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
   And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
   When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
   No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
   The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
   But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
   Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
   To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
   Of a love or a season?

This short film, produced by Duality Filmworks and Write Bloody Publishing, was a collaboration project that took Derrick C. Brown's poem A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me to an entirely new level. It has won countless film festivals since the beginning of 2011 when it was filmed.

A truly inspirational speech made by the great Charlie Chaplin, in his movie The Great Dictator.

Welcome, fellow poets, to another year of artful language! This week's prompt is simply based off the feelings and images that you may get reading this poem. I can't wait to see what we all come up with. Happy handwriting!

Little
rose,
roselet
at times,
tiny and naked,
it seems
as though you would fit
in one of my hands,
as though I’ll clasp you like this
and carry you to my mouth,
but
suddenly
my feet touch your feet and my mouth your lips:
you have grown,
your shoulders rise like two hills,
your breasts wander over my breast,
my arm scarcely manages to encircle the thin
new-moon line of your waist:
in love you loosened yourself like sea water:
I can scarcely measure the sky’s most spacious eyes
and I lean down to your mouth to kiss the earth.

This week we are not holding the poetry club that meets on Tuesdays in Albany from 3-4. Instead, there's a wonderful event going on at 3:30 in South Santiam Hall's art gallery, and it's a collaboration show of words and visual arts. Here is the link for the page for more info! http://linnbentoncommunitycollege.blogspot.com/2012/05/ssh-gallery-exhibit-nine-by-nine.html

If you can, try to make it to the poetry club being held on Thursday's from 5:30-6:30 at the Benton center in Corvallis! Its held in the conference room downstairs, and it is definitely happening this week.
I hope to see you at the event Tomarrow in ssh, or at poetry club on Thursday!

Buffalo Bill's

defunct

who used to

ride a watersmooth-silver

stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

Jesus


he was a handsome man

and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

This weeks prompt is and here is...
I can't wait to see all the lovely poems that spring from this.
Come in and join us at our usual time and place, Tuesday, 3-4 hotshot cafe!

self-congratulatory nonsense as the
famous gather to applaud their seeming
greatness
you
wonder where
the real ones are
what
giant cave
hides them
as
the deathly talentless
bow to
accolades
as
the fools are
fooled
again
you
wonder where
the real ones are
if there are
real ones.
this self-congratulatory nonsense
has lasted
decades
and
with some exceptions
centuries.
this
is so dreary
is so absolutely pitiless
it
churns the gut to
powder
shackles hope
it
makes little things
like
pulling up a shade
or
putting on your shoes
or
walking out on the street
more difficult
near
damnable
as
the famous gather to
applaud their
seeming
greatness
as
the fools are
fooled
again
humanity
you sick
motherfucker.

In case you are unaware, there is now a poetry club at the Benton center!
They meet every Thursday from 5:30-6:30 in the conference room, which is located downstairs next to the entrance at the Benton center!
Now, if you can't make it on Tuesday at the Albany campus, maybe you can make it Thursday at the Corvallis campus!
Hope to see you enjoying some poetry in one, or both poetry clubs soon!

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting  

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked  

thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy  

beauty, how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and  

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true  

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover  

thou answerest  

them only with  

spring)

- e.e.cummings

This week in poetry club our prompt is one clear night while the other slept.
And, just so you all know, you don't need to write to the prompts, because the prompt is there as a sort of stepping stone to writing, and if you end up writing something related, then great! If not that's totally fine because it still gave you the inspiration to write.
Hope to see you tomorrow in poetry club!

Untitled, by Mira Mason-Reader

To touch
And smell-
Hard, finger fumes
Extending up ankle,
Past calf
On soft hills
With small beaten paths.
Air- or breath
Eroding away
Landscape
And hair meant to be kept
Keeping
To tender thoughts
On the balls of my feet.
No road can be too traveled
So, press harder
With your tires in my earth...
And there is no wildlife left
On these tired, tired hills
None to shoo away
The too tender caress
Of gods
Wrath-
But life lives in lips
On lips
That belong to you
And sweet as they are (like sap from sad trees)
They bring both day and night,
Dark and light,
To illuminate
The very phases
Of my grass gone missing, my tire treads
That your hands smooth back
To deep earth....
You look with your mouth, and see
Only things I thought were gone
Like green grass, blue skies,
And I do not question your lies,
I speak to you in smiles and sighs
And drape my landscapes in your skin
For safe keeping,
And possibly,
Restoration.

These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.

O I cannot explain what happened to them!
They are proper in shape and number and every part.
They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid!
They smile and smile and smile at me.
And still the lungs won't fill and the heart won't start.

They are not pigs, they are not even fish,
Though they have a piggy and a fishy air --
It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction,
And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.

This week our prompt isn't so much an idea or concept, instead it's more of a challenge.
The prompt is to write a found poem.
Write one from anything, a book, another poem, a magazine article, a cereal box, whatever! Just write one and bring it to the poetry club to share!
See you at our usual time!

This week our prompt is The Hammer.

Write about this to your hearts content! and then, share it with us at the poetry club, of course!
And remember! April is national poetry month, so write for the occasion.



Hope to see you in our usual place, tuesdays at the Hot Shot cafe from 3-4!

Always, by Pablo Neruda

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!

This week in poetry club, our prompt is and did you feel in your heart how it pertains to everything?
I'm excited to see then poems sprouted off from this!
Same time, same place! See you there!

Today is poetry club day. At least, thats how it's marked in my calendar.
And hopefully like you, I am very excited to discover new pieces of art!
If you have yet to expierence the joys of poetry club, come today from 3-4 in the hotshot cafe, and discover it.:)

Come one come all, to spring term 2011 at LBCC! For some of us it is our last term (meeee! I'm so excited!) and for others it's not! But what better way to celebrated new term than to write some poetry, or come to poetry club?
Our poetry club is starting up again this week, same time, same place. (Tuesday, 3-4, Hot Shot Cafe)
Drop by and give us a listen, or a tune, or whatever you like, because we are always there for every emotion, sound, phase, image, feeling, etc.
I hope to see you there!

We have two prompts!
I grow wild without you and almost a friend
These prompts are courtesy of an amazing poet who joins us each week named Rick, and they were both so good that we couldn't decide which one! So please, write to one of them, either of them, or neither of them, but bring your work to the poetry club on Tuesday, from 3-4 in the hot shot cafe!
Oh, and P.S, are you guys as happy about the term almost being over as I am? Because I could not be rejoicing more.

Almost A Friend by Rick Casillas

You in bloom, in soft red turn.

 Green I think, greener than I would have thought.

I like the clock behind me, you look in it's direction often.

And I think, in moments past, that maybe it was me you wanted and not the time.



 And I hear you, once or twice a day.

 In clatter and song, your voice rises in my seeking.

 Worthy, proud, flutters of motion adrift in flight.

 There are Others, they have longer necks, and louder voices that do not rise.

 Crude manicured hands that shape mirrors to waste in.



 But your bird has willow thick petals for eyes,

 and the curve of its neck, trembles and thrums in sweet soulful ache. 

 Your melody is lullaby and seed, drifting, absent of effort towards me in falter blue plume.

 And it's cheek, soft as you, pink as you, but less shy.

I tell it you're beautiful, and I like your tattoos.



 But for all the kindess I would rather not know you, this glad mildness will suffice,

Because I know you want the time, and have not seen me instead.

This week for poetry club, please bring anything you have written and would like to read! Everything is welcome!
So, come join us tomorrow from 3-4 in the hot shot cafe!

Here's a little writing inspiration:

Oh my lord, I am sorry I haven't posted in a while! I'm terrible, I know.
But, I have wonderful, exciting news.
February is Bkack History Month, and to celebrate the poetry club is reading and sharing poetry and literary works from black authors! This event goes from 3:30-5:30 on the Albany campus in the Diversity Achievement Center.
There are lots of snacks and lovely people, so please come and join us!

Valentines day is a day of true love. So come join us the day after as we celebrate love by raising awareness abut a tragedy close to home.
This is an event to raise awareness about human trafficking.
Surviver testimony by Jessica Richardson
Presentation by Jim Westfall, cofounder of Door to Grace Organization
Where: the DAC room (f-220), located above Student Life and Leadership.
When: February 15th, 12 pm to 2pm
Want more info? Contact Gabriel at gabrieltrovati@gmail.com, or check out the Facebook page, facebook.com/events/342981622396472

Hello all!
Most of us have done all our midterms by now, and i hope they all went great!

As many of you know, febuary is Black History Month, and on febuary 28th some of the members in the poetry club will read their favorite poems written by some amazing African American poets.
But, more info on that later.

This weeks poetry club prompt is those moments still come back and like in the past couple of weeks, it is accompanied by a poem. Enjoy!
The Old Age of Nostalgia by Mark Strand
Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined future, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love or a passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convinced that the smallest particle of the surrounding world was charged with a purpose of impossible grandeur; ah yes, and one would look up into the trees and be thrilled by the wind-loosened river of pale gold foliage cascading down and by the high melodious singing of countless birds; those moments, so many and so long ago, still come back, but briefly, like fireflies in the perfumed heat of a summer night.

Come join us at our usual time and place this week for poetry club! (3-4 at the Hot Shot cafe!)

I
algid daggers of night
slice me from dreams
into dark reality

numb fingers fumble,
feeling for time
among shed comforts

brumal floor touches toes,
feet flee, phantasmal
memories muffling breathe

II
woken by the absence
of the human flame
that flickered away

joints crackle, breaking
dawn's fickle grasp
upon robins' racket

flocculent fleece flows
from my chilled bones
to your slumbering chest

III
eyes flutter to fantasy
of warmth and safety,
leaving sleep behind

hands still entwined
among soft sheets
pulsing with sanctuary

silent exhales' lullaby
leaves a silken trance;
hearts rest in time

-Eliot Kurfman

This week our prompt is such small moments keep people alive
And this prompt comes from this lovely poem;

the click of miracle, by Charles Bukowski
at the quarterhorse meet
at Hollywood Park

around 5 p.m.

if you are sitting at
ground level

in the
Pavilion

the track appears
to
be

above you

and

in the strange
shadow-
sunlight

the silks
are
so
bright

the color
is
like

fresh paint
on
canvas

and

the faces of
the
jocks
look

heroic.

it's a
grand
time

then

a perfect
and
peaceful

photograph

dream-
like.

such small
moments

keep

people
alive.

such small
moments

so
large

when

it

all

comes
together

and

holds.


Meet us tomorrow in the Hot Shot cafe at 3!

Hello everyone!
This week our prompt is you have forgotten why.
And, with this amazing prompt, we bring you a poem. Enjoy!

From Out of The Cave by Joyce Sutphen
When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed
papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.

Come and join us in poetry club this week, you won't regret it!

Hello everyone!
This week our prompt is you have forgotten why.
And, with this amazing prompt, we bring you a poem. Enjoy!

From Out of The Cave by Joyce Sutphen
When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed
papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.

Come and join us in poetry club this week, you won't regret it!

Tonight(1-17-12) at 7:30 there is a slam poetry exhibition at the Linuse Pauling science building on the OSU campus!
It should be really fun if we can get our butts scurried along to it!! Come if you can!

My heart will never seek another heart,
Or smell another flower, knowing you.
Your love has made heart’s field a desert waste;
No love other than yours grows in that place.

-Rumi

Due to unfortionate events last week, we did not hold our poetry club. I am very sorry to whomever this put out. But, this week we shall be having our club and it will be at the normal time and place. (3-4 Hot shot cafe) So come and enjoy!

The poetry club is meeting today at 3 o clock, in the Hot Shot cafe! Bring your post holiday cheer and new class spirit! Can't wait to see you all there!
And heres a great little haiku:

Deer licking
First frost
From each other's coats.