International Poetry Month 2012 – Bonnie McClellan-Broussard

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!

sexta-feira, 20 de maio de 2011: by Angel Raiter

I am making an exception to the normal practice of IPM in which all of the text versions of the poems are deleted on March 2nd.

The following English translation of the poem was made by the poet, Angel Raiter, just two days before his untimely death on 3 February 2012 at the age of 33.

His voice will be missed.

This is What Democracy Looks Like: An Occupy Everywhere Poem by Maxine Beneba Clarke

The written version of this poem has disappeared from this blog, read this poem at Maxine’s blog HERE.

Find more poetry, essays, and visual poetry by Maxine Beneba Clarke HERE

her work can also be found at, among others, OVERLAND and CORDITE POETRY REVIEW.

Jesus Saves: by Adina Richman

The written version of this poem has disappeared, to listen to a reading of this poem, click on the player below:

To hear more poems by Adina Richman, click HERE.

…per cancellare: by giacomo gusmeroli

La versione scritta di questa poesia è scomparsa. Una versione audio possono essere trovate qui sotto con i link ad altre informazioni sul poeta:

lettura di: Marisa Colognesi

Trovate QUI più informazione sul Giacomo Gusmeroli, incluso il suo nuovo libro Lucore d’acque

The written version of this poem has disappeared. More information about Giacomo Gusmeroli and his work can be found in Italian at the links above. A reading of this poem in English can be found below: