Inside The Hearts' Walls

After far too long being too busy with other things, we finally have a regular weekly poetry prompt again. The prompt itself for next week is "Who am I?" (And why do I have the sudden urge to listen to Les Mis?) Some ideas that were bandied about today as to how someone might want to trim that massive question into something manageable, were to focus on ancestry, or inheritance, or legacy, or perhaps to find a descriptive metaphor with which to approximate oneself.

Also, Wednesday, April 13 is the Words & Pictures reception and readings from 12 to 1 in the South Santiam Hall (SSH) gallery. This is the exhibit of all those photos we were frantically writing poems for last term. Be there or be a total failure to the poetry club and in life (and also your mother probably never loved you)!

The waters came
and they kept coming
covering the landscape
the farms
the houses
the cars
the people.
And the world wept.

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This was by Ruth and was also the poem sent to the Commuter this week.

Have a happy Final's Week everybody! The Poetry Club will be taking two weeks off, meeting next on Tuesday, March 29, in the first week of spring term. The prompt for writing for that meeting is no prompt at all, just write on whatever topic strikes your fancy.

In other news, the Choir Concert was last night (pics here), and four of our poets read their works to the sold out auditorium (500 or so people; the fire-mashal's certificate by the door certified a capacity of 524, but I spotted a couple rows of mostly empty seats over in the crappy corner where the piano would have blocked people's view of half the stage). The so honored poets were John, Teagan, Whitney, and Tav (in that order (chronologically, not in that order in the picture below)).

Next week the poetry club is meeting in the DAC rather than the Hotshot Cafe. Much as how last week we met in the DAC to read poems "in the tradition" of Black History Month, I guess this month is Women's History Month and so we'll be reading poetry in honor of women.

What's more, on Thursday, March 10, four of our poets will be reading their work at the Winter Concert (7:30 at the Russell Tripp Performance Center).  Namely: John Haddenm, Teagan Lochner, Whitney Smith, and Tav Knight.  So good luck to them.

Emotions so great, burning passions withheld. No escape.
Attempting in vain, try, explain. To open our souls, agape.
To write what one feels, senses, loves. Impossible
Words, with no meaning. Myself fully expressed? Dreaming.
Poetry

An outlet, spirits breathing. Easy? Absurd, demeaning.
I sit and I write. Pure gold? Ehh, worthless. No purpose, meaning.
To write what one feels, senses, loves. Improbable
Minds, simple third parties translating. Souls free? Ha! Still waiting.
Poetry

Poets are weird, strange, looney bin. From society, divided, Berlin.
No, I disagree, poets live among the ranks, mothers, warriors, Akin.
To write what one feels, senses, loves. Impossible? No, I refuse to give in.
Us who try, fruitlessly, to send our souls from our depths, apprehend.
Poetry

Beauty, we do not create. Release it from confines, we elate.
Lurking in all of us, a poet. Find him! Too masculine? Oh Ego. Deflate.
To write what one feels, senses, loves. Impossible still? No, Articulate.
Within your heart, sleeps ample love. But your soul’s in chains. Rise above.
Poetry


by John
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The poem I'm sending to the Commuter this week. I hope it's not too long (they say they'd prefer no more than 120-130 words, this one's 172).

Hello all,

The deadline for the "Words and Pictures" photo/poem exhibit poetry submissions is Tuesday, March 1 before noon.

Here are the guidelines for submission:

1) Send me a word doc of your poem(s). Include 1) your name, 2) the title of your poem and 3) the photographer's initials and photo title (e.g. RB Confluence).

2) Attend our poetry club meeting on Tuesday, March 1 in the Hot Shot Cafe and bring a hard copy of your poems for submission so that we can read through our collection together and make final decisions on which poems to forward to Rich Bergeman.

If you're not able to attend, please please let me know asap. Also, it's essential that you send me your poem submissions by Monday afternoon, preferably right now so that I can be certain I can open and work with your documents.

3) Over the last month, several of you have passed poetry my way. Thank you! But please know that I'm starting from scratch here now as we go forward with our final submissions. Disregard anything you've sent me before. Start fresh.

Finally, I'd really appreciate hearing back from each one of you asap. Please let me know 1) if you plan to attend Tuesday's meeting and 2) how many poems you will be submitting.

Thanks so much for acting on this request. And thanks so much for your poetry and your passion!!!

Robin
Robin.Havenick@linnbenton.edu

I haven't been getting very many poetry submissions of late (probably due to all of our highly urgent projects, hopefully this will change in a week or two), so today I'm posting a couple of poems mostly unrelated to any actual "Club" activity.

Immediately below is something I rescued out of my ineptly-long-ignored spam-box, sent to me almost a month ago by a friend of the LBCC Poetry Club as a sort-of response to the waterfall painting poem posted several weeks back.  A bit further down is a cold-weather wish offered up by some random student.


Gravity
by Danny Earl Simmons

It is the exact same gravity
that mercilessly drags
the Niagara into a rumbling
sockdolager of a natural wonder
as puckishly pulls the pacifier
from my baby boy’s drowsy lips
the second we drift into sleep.
I liked gravity better on the honeymoon.