Inside The Hearts' Walls

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.

Hey everyone, for those of you submitting a poem that you wish to read at the upcoming concert, those are due NOW.  Or potentially tomorrow would be acceptable as well.  In any case, send them ASAP to James Reddan, reddanj@linnbenton.edu

Slightly less, but still pretty urgent: Picture poems are due in less than a week. The deadline is Tuesday, March 1st, but at this point Robin would like you to send them to her as soon as possible as well. Send them to robin.havenick@linnbenton.edu as an attached Word document, formatted the way you want them to appear, presumably.

I entered this world questioning, and wanting to know,
and met a bright auric fog, with a warm golden glow.
Each radiant dot a new thought, a new place to begin?
So much to absorb, I leapt, and dove in.

Now I wonder, 'who am I, to think myself so good,
if that's all I've been taught, and ever understood?'
When there's light all around, from the sky and the sea,
how can I tell, if any light, comes from me?

It floors me that Newton, so great among all those who search,
wrote that what wonders HE saw, was only thanks to the perch,
he found on the shoulders, of those giants before.
If that's so then, could any of us claim even a little bit more?

Could I write half as well, without all the great authors I've read?
Could I sing any songs, without others' songs in my head?
The light all around me, that dazzles and warms,
I see now, I think, its source and its forms.

A billion dim dots, make an awestriking whole,
each person not yet forgotten, beams rays on my soul.
Even those deep in the past, and lost to antiquity,
their lights still refract, in an anonymous ubiquity.

It seems a culture is built, a speck at a time,
added to through the ages, by lights of minds much like mine.
Philosophy and science, technology and art,
everything advances, by piece and by part.

And so it must be, that in our every endeavor,
the great things that we make, we make working together.
Thus all ambitions I plan, and any craft I might try,
like everyone else, I'll be aided, by the billion lights in the sky.

By Turtle Shell

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This is one of the poems written for submission to perhaps be read during the choir concert. Whether or not it will be one of the ones chosen has not yet been decided.

     *    Choir concert
               o    Feb 22: Deadline for poetry submissions
               o    March 10: Choir concert


     *    Unity Celebration / Black History Month
                o    February 22 @ 3:00: DAC please bring favorite poems in the
                      tradition, ones that celebrate our united "diversity", or any voice
                      that needs to be heard.
     *    Poetry/Photo Exhibition
                o    http://www.flickr.com/photos/59025797@N05/sets/72157625832662421/
                o    Now till Feb 22: select three photos from the above and write your
                      poems in response (no longer than 25 lines please).
                o    Now till Mar 1: because we won't have meeting opportunities to
                      gather and read the poems we're writing, please share them with
                      Robin by sending them as attached word docs:
                      robin.havenick@linnbenton.edu
                o    March 1: submission deadline and final group selection of the 15
                      poems for the exhibit

For club members who wish to read a poem at the upcoming (Thursday, March 10, 2011 @ 7:30PM) choir concert, the due date for submission of your work is Tuesday, February 22.  Remember, we want one to one-and-a-half minutes long, and language suitable for general audiences.


I feel a little weird that the singers get have to sing songs written by others, but we poets are expected get to use our own original work at this event. It is of course a great honor and privilege, but I'm worrying about whether or not I'll be capable of writing anything worthy of reciting to a potentially sold-out auditorium. If I were allowed to just memorize and perform Annabel Lee (for example) I would at least know that I had material to share that's worthy of such attention. But will anything I've written or will write be worthy to take up the time of such a crowd? Oh well. It might be. I've still got time to work on it.