IPM 2015: Where do we go from here?

Before the Simplon pass at the Italian-Swiss border, is a Roman bridge over the Diveria River. It's called the "new" bridge, because it was built in 1300 c.e. to replace the previous bridge built in the reign of Emperor Augustus that was destroyed by a flood.
Before the Simplon pass at the Italian-Swiss border, is a Roman bridge over the Diveria River. It’s called the “new” bridge, because it was built in 1300 c.e. to replace the previous bridge built in the reign of Emperor Augustus that was destroyed by a flood.

 

“Poetry gives us the opportunity to offer our observations to present and future readers, be they from the perspective of one standing on the bridge watching events or of one standing below and taking on the current. I’m looking forward to a month of editing and I know that my IPM readers are standing on the bridge waiting for the flow of poems to begin…”

So began International Poetry Month 2015 and the flow of poems was fascinating for me to edit and I hope that both Readers and Poets enjoyed getting their feet wet. I offer my most sincere thanks to the participating poets and to the more than 1000 readers who came from the United States, England, Australia, Brazil, Italy, Pakistan, Canada, Denmark, France, India, Luxembourg, Singapore, the UAE, New Zealand, Trinidad & Tobago, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Switzerland, Israel, Ghana, the Philippines, Belgium, Peru, Romania, Serbia and Portugal to read their work.

Today is the fourth of March and Spring seems only a few days away here in Northern Italy while I know those in other places are still slogging through the snow. Regardless of the temperature, here the snows have begun to melt and these poems will begin to erode away, disappearing a few at a time and leaving only the voices behind. Some you will still be able to find on the web, or in a book. Some will be gone for good. Where do we go from here? Why across the bridge and in search of new images, new experiences and new poetry. Following is an alphabetical list of the participating poets; each name is also a link to the poet’s work posted at IPM where you will find additional links to individual blogs or published works:

lifestyles of the impoverished and obscure: by chris fillebrown

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he pulled the bridge over his shoulder
like a blanket
and curled up against the wind

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copyright 2015
all rights reserved

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Find this poem along with fiction by Chris Fillebrown at his website, Frame of Reference 

Listen to readings of Chris Fillebrown’s poetry on this website HERE.

What’s New? A literary “Gathering”

Author Chris Fillebrown, a long-time IPM contributor, has been working on the third book in his short fiction series about the character Phillip Young. Published in weekly installments, he has now arrived at the halfway point of his newest work exploring the touchy terrain of marriage, grief, loss and the mesmerizing mazes the central character’s internal monologue can construct and deconstruct. Below is an excerpt from Part 6 – Gathering: Early Arrival

 

He turned the radio off, rolled his window down. The early morning air. Smells of oil and gasoline. The sickly sweet nectar of antifreeze rising up from green puddles on the vast expanse of concrete, dripped from hissing engines. Sharp metal sounds. Highway construction. The beep of garbage truck backing up behind a shuttered restaurant. The clank of its tusks, the whine of its motor lifting, toss rotted dumpster smells onto its back. 

It is this density of description that brings the reader not only fully into the realm of Phillip Young but also into an awareness of his or her own environment, re-observing a mundane activity – such as waiting for an oil-change – through the tone poems of Young’s internal monologues.

If you’d like to read more, you can begin at the beginning – in the midst of a dream – by clicking at the link below:

Gathering – Part 1 – The dream of ascending

Red Rain: by Chris Fillebrown

This poem has disappeared from this website!

Find this poem along with fiction by Chris Fillebrown at his website, Frame of Reference Listen to readings of Chris Fillebrown’s poetry on this website HERE.

wilderness: by Chris Fillebrown

This poem in its written form has disappeared. If you want to know why, click HERE.

The written version of this poem can be rediscovered HERE.

©2011, Chris Fillebrown, All Rights Reserved

to hear a reading of this poem, click on the player below:

Read more poetry and fiction by Chris Fillebrown at his website, Frame of Reference

What’s new….

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 poems

as if all that matters is print destination… (excerpt from ” An Open Poem to Australian Poetry, from Australian Slam Poetry”)

 Chis Fillebrown has been writing a serial novella about the cracking open of the suburban life of Phillip Young. Anyone who has tried to comfort a crying baby, made a to-do list, waited in a Starbucks or in a hospital, will find his images resonant:

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!

Where are they now?

“It is this gesture towards real communication, offered in the midst of the flash-flood of information that our culture deluges us with every morning as soon as we open our eyes, that is being offered by the poets who will be presented over the next 29 days. An arbitrary flower in the midst of chaos for you, the reader.”

I hope that you’ve all enjoyed the 29 flowers that were offered from Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Italy, the United States, and Wales by way of Budapest.

International Poetry Month 2012 is over. The marauding hordes have left the library ablaze, the flood has washed away the ashes, the caravan carrying the last copy of the precious poetry collection has vanished in the desert; at least that’s what it feels like to me as I hit the delete key and erase the written versions of the poems.

Now what?

What remains is the oral tradition; I have made audio files of each poem available where the poem used to be posted when permitted by the poet.  When the poems can be found elsewhere on the web I’ve left a link. Anyone who is on my mailing list has a ‘fragment’ of each work. Perhaps, like the poems of Sappho, this is all that will remain.

I would like to extend my profound thanks to the following guest poets for their contributions:

Anonymous 2oth Cent. Poet

Matthew Broussard

Gilles-Marie Chenot

Maxine Beneba Clarke

Lee Elsesser

Chris Fillebrown

Brad Frederiksen

Giacomo Gusmeroli

Michelle Lee Houghton

Christian Stokbro Karlsen

Helen Martin

Tom McClellan

Benjamin Norris

Angel Raiter

Adina Richman

Liliane Richman

Tim Seibles

Octavio Solis


Some of these poets have blogs or websites where intriguing writing, images, or biographical information may be encountered. I encourage anyone suffering from poetry withdrawal to visit these sites by clicking on any of the names that appear in color. Others are tantalizingly unavailable, if you want to see more of their work you’ll have to hope that they come back next year. Of course my work that is or has been posted throughout the rest of the year is still here.

Thanks as well to everyone who has stopped by to read and comment on the poems either here or on Facebook. It has been a real joy to present so much fine poetry again this year. Now I have to start thinking about next year and get back to writing.

A presto!

blackberries: by chris fillebrown

The written version of this poem has disappeared from this blog. It can now be read at Frame of Reference.

To hear a reading of this poem, click on the player below:

copyright 2011 chris fillebrown
all rights reserved

To read more work by Chris Fillebrown, click HERE.

To find more work by Chris at this blog, click HERE.

Tea: by Chris Fillebrown

The written poem has disappeared. It can now be found at Frame of Reference.

An audio version can be found below along with a link to Chris’ website.

copyright 2011 chris fillebrown
all rights reserved

To read more work by Chris Fillebrown, click HERE.

IPM 2MXI…Where have all the poems gone?

“We’re all trying: poets to give you, the reader, the gift of an image that cannot be offered in any better way, that cracks you a bit and frees something; you, readers, are giving us the gift of your searching, your curiosity, your attention…”

That’s what I wrote on the 31st. of January when I inaugurated International Poetry Month 2011 and now, on the 2nd of March I say, with joy, it happened…the exchange of gifts between poets and readers.

Now what?

International Poetry Month 2011 is closed. The marauding hordes have left the library ablaze, the flood has washed away the ashes, the caravan carrying the last copy of the precious poetry collection has vanished in the desert; at least that’s what it feels like to me as I hit the delete key and erase the written versions of the poems.

What remains is the oral tradition; I have made audio files of each poem available where the poem used to be posted.  Anyone who is on my e-mail list has a ‘fragment’ of each work. Perhaps, like the poems of Sappho, this is all that will remain.

I would like to extend my profound thanks to the following guest poets for their contributions:

Anonymous 2oth Cent. Poet

Cesare Bedognè

Gilles-Marie Chenot

Chris Fillebrown

Brad Frederiksen

Giacomo Gusmeroli

Michelle Lee Houghton

Christian Stokbro Karlsen

Tom McClellan

Angel Raiter

Adina Richman

Liliane Richman

Jere Schaefer

Octavio Solis

Edin Suljic

Some of these poets have blogs or websites where intriguing writing and images may be encountered. I encourage anyone suffering from poetry withdrawal to visit these sites by clicking on any of the names that appear in bold. Others are tantalizingly unavailable, if you want to see more of their work you’ll have to hope that they come back next year. Of course my work that is or has been posted throughout the rest of the year is still here.

Thanks as well to everyone who has stopped by to read and comment on the poems either here or at podbean*. It has been a real joy to present so much fine poetry again this year. Now I have to start thinking about next year and get back to writing.

A presto!

*podbean ate my audio! All mp3’s can now be found posted with the poem.

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