For anyone who’s been feeling that spring-time urge to read poetry or creative prose; over the next few days I’ll be giving you an update of what some of the writers from IPM 2MXII have been up to:
Gilles-Marie Chenot is as prolific as ever and, for anyone who reads even a smattering of French or has the time to poke around and find the works he writes in English, his website is like getting lost on the streets of Venice: a transcendent pleasure that makes you forget about time in its immediate, pressing sense and instead, re-imagine history as a fluid while peering through the water at the roots and flow of things:
On fleurit ce qu’on veut
En l’éternel printemps
La rivière coule au pied d’un roc
Pas une molécule qui ne sourit
Devant les stèles qui rendent hommage… (excerpt from “A LA SEVE”)
Maxine Beneba Clarke is the incoming poetry editor of Social Alternatives journal and continues to write and speak boldly about social, artistic and personal issues:
packing bars / & radio waves
doesn’t seem to mean a thing
they just want to see the paper
where r you publishing your poemsas if all that matters is print destination… (excerpt from ” An Open Poem to Australian Poetry, from Australian Slam Poetry”)
Coffee shop crowd, taking coffee orders took less time than making the cups of coffee ordered, resulting in a crowd relieved of its money but heavy with a collective expectation of coffee, fresh hot coffee, shoulder to shoulder, not really mingling with not really friends, jitter of anticipation, Brownian motion, all ears listening to orders called out, all eyes watching cups placed on the counter quickly removed, waiting… (excerpt from part 12 of “The Father of Caves and Clear Water”)
There are now 20 installments available and a new one available each week. You can check his website every Monday or subscribe to his FB, Twitter or RSS feed updates to keep updated.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more up-to-date poetry news; meanwhile, happy reading and enjoy your Monday!
Bonnie McClellan-Broussard 