Thursday, August 27, 2009
Poem by Committee Member Nancy Carey
Friday, August 21, 2009
Poem by Festival Poet Lauren Murray
A chair sticks around the house awhile,
takes its space,
runs the household if you let it.
I have burned a few chairs on a cold day,
chairs I especially hated.
Just to get them off my mind.
I like to set ugly ones at the end of the driveway
for people to take away for free—
oh they do.
I have a few good candidates piling up.
That horrible green one on wheels from Bela
(he’s off in Montreal).
The one whose bottom sags
that Jim’s grandfather sat in—
cats threw up on that cushion too many times.
The busted cane rocker...that will burn nicely.
It’s a vendetta of some kind.
I’m just waiting for Grandma’s brocade
to act up and out it goes.
I’m not fond of chairs.
Poem by Committee Member and Former Belfast Poet Laureate Elizabeth Garber
The Man Who Looks Like Elvis
No one remembers when the man with the pomade-combed
crescendo of jet black hair first appeared, but we all quietly
pay attention to him. Two summers ago a guitar was strapped
over his back when we eyed him wandering miles along Route 1.
Last year, when his hair was bleached reddish blond, we privately
wondered if he’d given up on Elvis. This spring, his hair was black
again. All over town, we nodded the same quiet nod: Elvis is back.
Passing him on High Street we notice his carefully-shaved long
sideburns, before our gaze skirts off to study the bike shop window.
He’s leaving the supermarket as we arrive. A strange discomfort
twists our faces away. Opening night of Hairspray, in the art deco
neon glow of the movie theater, the crowd is thick with bleached
blond beehives, sculpted hair rising like curvaceous mounds of soft
ice cream. Elvis appears with his blunt heavy brows, the rough
carved mouth, the deep plowed wrinkles under his eternal pompadour.
In the contest for the biggest, tallest hair, we cheer on contestants
in rhinestone glasses, peddle pushers, bobby socks. Later, when we chat
and smile, trying to hide the searching hunger of our loneliness, he slips
through the forest of lacquered ratted hair, a silent king passing us, searching
for his subjects, his promised land, a place where he, too, will be recognized.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
A poem from Festival poet Joel Lipman
Ernie Kovacs, radar, austere criticism, no one in my lifetime
disappears into wilderness behind oxen. What madness and loss
in the nerve gas, mow-em-down-n-cover-em-up world, tabletop
poetry shrunk to hideous memorization – that’s nothing.
My heart’s ice melts before Bugs Bunny and an afternoon of animation,
dancers midst the obituary columns.
I turn the computer off in the rain –
no true artist falls in love with a machine.
Houses fill with doowah music and fluorescent canisters.
I’m in love with youthful Picasso and mystic wings,
in love with Lenin, anarchism, everything
against bland catechisms, misery and profit.
So I throw my hands up and down, up and down, crazy flapping
in a way unknown before the d.j. Ooooooh,
my hot arms wrapped around your neck, hips charging
like Spike Jones doing Swan Lake I change the world
from bumbling curiosity to a humming, jerky, Fred Astaire boater,
the Houdini of feet. Name something better than instinct.
I put hot slithery jazz on, slide into the next room
to find someone better dressed than discipline and fear.
Critics spasm as I dance before the mirror naked
singing “I am too voodoo for you – voo, vooo, voooo, too voodoo for you.”
Thank god there is no poetry of religion. Ugh,
imagine a long unadventurous life, never desperate
blues eating your heart out. Long live risk
and joy, aggression, sexual prancing, fabulous feathered robes.
I’ll spin the seven dances of revolt against repression
and symbols of cold. The dancing cop
is a stupid, impossible dream. When, phfffft…
we enter realm without dogma – vast
intuition, unconscious, grand revelatory rhythm of
boom charms, rituals, spells, the acrobatic
be-bop elaborated protest against miserabilism.
Here is Mona Lisa’s electrical system hung from a star,
here storm, here Harpo Marx, here Karl, here the rising phoenix.
Some people hit the streets for a lifetime.
This is my dance.
Arielle Greenberg is the author of My Kafka Century and Given, as well as several chapbooks, and the co–editor of several poetry anthologies, including, with Rachel Zucker, the forthcoming Starting Today: Poems for Obama's First 100 Days. and Women Poets on Mentorship: Effort and Affections. She is an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago and also teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program through the University of Southern Maine.
Carl Little is the author of 3,000 Dreams Explained and Ocean Drinker: New and Selected Poems. His poems have appeared in many publications, including The Hudson Review, Paris Review, Off the Coast, Puckerbrush Review and Narramissic Notebook, and in The Maine Poets, edited by Wesley McNair. His poem “Ten Tourists Visit Baker’s Island, ca. 1900” won the 2002 Friends of Acadia poetry competition. Author of several art books, including Paintings of Maine, he lives and writes on Mount Desert Island.
David Sloan helped found, and is the lead teacher at Maine's only Waldorf high school – Merriconeag Waldorf High School in New Gloucester. He graduated from the Stonecoast MFA program in poetry, and is the author of two books on Waldorf education—Stages of Imagination: Working Dramatically with Adolescents, and Life Lessons: Reaching Teenagers through Literature. He has also had numerous articles published in Renewal, and poetry in Western Poetry Quarterly and Infinity Limited.
Helen Tirone has lived in Maine since the age of two, when her parents moved their family from Philadelphia to Mt. Desert Island. She always told her father it was the greatest decision he ever made. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a dual B.A. in Creative Writing and Geography. Upon returning to Maine she pursued a career in Garden Design/Landscaping. She and her family live on a farm in Freedom.
More bios coming soon for Stephen Petroff and Mark Melnicove.
Joel Lipman is Professor of Art & English at the University of Toledo, and Poet Laureate of Lucas County (Ohio). His poetry, which has been published since the 1960’s with independent press books, include Machete Chemistry/Panades Physics (Cubola New Arts, with Yasser Musa), and the Luna Bisante Prods chapbook The Real Ideal and Ransom Notes. Among his bookworks, mail art and visual poems are the lengthy sequences, Jesse Helms’ Body, and Origins of Poetry, a selection of which was published in Poetry and republished in Harper’s.
Dave Morrison is like a carpenter missing fingers — do you worry about his ability or applaud his devotion? A high school graduate and above-average guitar player, Dave has published two novels and three books of poetry, and his poems have been published in literary magazines and anthologies.
Lauren Murray was advised by her grandmother to make sure she had an interesting life if she wanted to be a poet. She moved to Maine in 1983 and works as an occupational therapist. She is a collaborator with Ova Dreams.
Jonathan Skinner’s poetry collections include With Naked Foot and Political Cactus Poems. Skinner edits the journal Ecopoetics and teaches in the Environmental Studies Program at Bates College in Central Maine.
Karin Spitfire’s full fledge debut as a poet came in 2005 with the publishing of her first book, Standing with Trees. Her poetry includes rants, prayers, polemics and free verse influenced by her years as a dancer, healer and activist. She has enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with visual artist Susan White, Kenny Cole and performing artist David Dobson in previous Festivals and the Women’s Work Dance Collective Summer 2009 “Landscapes Show.”
2009 Collaborative Artists
Richard Mann made his way back home to Maine after studying intaglio,lithography and papermaking at the University of Hawaii. He lives in Belfast and is a partner at Aarhus Gallery.
Paul Oberst earned a BA in Studio Arts from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky. He worked for 4 years at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art (now Cleveland MOCA) and was a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. The subject of his work is the architectural "temple" (imagined sacred space) in sculptural form or in graphic studies, dance costume/set designs and museum site-specific installations. His pieces are in private, foundation, corporate and museum collections and have been shown in gallery, university and museum exhibitions.
Willy Reddick grew up in an encouraging family of professional artists. She studied at the Massachusetts College of Art and has been working professionally as a painter and white-line woodblock printmaker for over 20 years. Currently she has been combining miniature paintings with semi-precious metals as brooches and other two-dimensional or sculptural pieces. She also designs and manufactures her own line of Willy Wires jewelry, is a freelance designer and a founding partner of Åarhus Gallery in Belfast.
Abbie Shahn thinks of herself as the last of the "artists with a summer place in Maine" and the first of the “back to the landers;” or maybe she’s neither. She paints. She gardens. She agitates. She reads. She thinks. Shahn was a co–host on a radio show of world music for over 20 years. That music had a great influence on her art.
Jan Owen is a Belfast calligrapher and book artist who often collaborates with Maine poets. She shows her work nationally and is a Finalist for the Minnesota Center for International Book Arts Award.
Abbie Read moved to Maine in 1998, after (what felt like) a lifetime trying to find a way to live here. She received her B.A. from Oberlin College and her M.F.A. from the University of Michigan School of Art, majoring in Mixed Media. While making art has been a lifetime pursuit and passion so has gardening, and in 1995 she received a degree from Michigan State in Landscape Design; as a result she has owned and operated ARTgarden, a landscape design and maintenance business.
Brian Reeves Certified Master of Fine Arts, is cofounder of the thriving multinational retail giant Slop Art Dot Com and inventor of the Painting Simulator and other compact innovations in Premium Expression distribution, including engineering quality Slopware for the iPhone. Through elevating contemporary "Fine Art" to the level of consumer culture, Slop Brand has provided shelter from the advancing norm since 1995, promoting the production of less forgettable work.
Also, in the mix, a diverse group of performers. Come and enjoy the sights and sounds of poetry, art, music and dance. The Grand Opening at 11 a.m. on Saturday will be a jazz and poetry writing and reading jam with Agharta Quartet at Waterfall Arts. The event is open to anyone who would like to write in response to live jazz, maybe read their new work with the band, or just listen.
Leslie Stein (keyboardist) has been a musician since her early days, playing piano and guitar in a wide range of bands and singing in vocal groups of all sorts. She has also enjoyed acting with local theater groups over the past ten years and is a collaborator with Ova Dreams.
Jeffrey Densmore (percussionist). More info coming soon.
2009 Festival Locations
Downtown Belfast Maine (google maps)
Åarhus Gallery
50 Main Street, Belfast, Maine
207.338.0001
website
Baywrap (aka The “Hub”)
20 Beaver Street, Belfast, ME
207.338.9757
website
Belfast Dance Studio
109 High Street,, Belfast, Maine
207.338.5380
website
Belfast Free Library
106 High Street, Belfast, Maine
207.338.3884
website
Darby's Restaurant
155 High Street, Belfast, Maine
207.338.2339
website
Roots & Tendrils
2 Cross Street, Belfast, Maine
207.338.5225
website
Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast
37 Miller Street, Belfast, Maine
207.338.4482
website
256 High Street, Belfast, Maine
207.338.2222
website
2009 Festival Schedule
(check back for updates!)
Friday, October 2, 5 – 8pm
Exhibits open in galleries for First Friday Art Walk Downtown.
Friday, October 16, 7pm; Reader's Signup 6:30pm
"Old Home Night" for Waldo County Poets; Belfast Free Library. Waldo County poets of all stripes and persuasions are invited to read their work. Sign up to read that evening or just listen.
Saturday, October 17, 11am
Grand Opening Poetry and Jazz improv with Agharta Quartet; Waterfall Arts. Come to write, read or just listen.
12 noon
Light Lunch; Waterfall Arts
12:30 – 5:30pm
Poetry & Art Walk; Downtown Belfast
Complete schedule later this summer
6pm
Poets & Friends Dinner
Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast
Poetry Contest Winner
Reading and Open Mic Round Robin
Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast
The 2009 5th Annual Belfast Poetry Festival
Fourteen poets, ten visual artists, four performing artists, and more will participate in the 5th Annual Belfast Poetry Festival October 16 and 17, 2009 in downtown Belfast, Maine.
One of the only community-based, non-academic poetry festivals in the country, the event features established, professionally recognized poets and artists from throughout Maine along with emerging poets to create a lively mix.
A unique feature of the Festival all five years has been the Gallery Walk, in which the audience moves among seven downtown galleries to view the collaborative exhibits by artist/poet teams and hear the accompanying poetry.
New this year is the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest.
Over 160 poets from around Maine submitted entries by the July 4 deadline. The winner will be announced in August and will read at the Festival. Calligrapher and book artist Jan Owen will create a calligraphy version of the poem for the winner.
Also new is “Old Home Night” for Waldo County poets of all stripes and persuasions to come out of the woods and off their boats to read from their work.
Join us in October in Belfast for an inspired and inspiring weekend.