Inside The Hearts' Walls

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