OurGoods

Making a Reading Series THEN Polenta

Back to back classes tonight: Mary Speaker with pragmatic tips on getting great poets to read THEN Athena Kokoronis reading about slowness while stirring Polenta and mushrooms.

From Mary Speaker:

Reading series:

1. Incentive for readers to come – reading with people they like, some kind of publication (a journal can host when they launch), some kind of service (example- Uncalled For Reading Series in Ft. Greene offers readers a letterpress broadside of one of their poems). Inviting people who are connected to a network of people— Ugly Duckling Presse, Cave Canem, etc.

2. Incentive for space to host your group. if you get the people to come, the space you’re hosting your series in, if it’s a bar, will want you to keep hosting there.

3. Incentive for audience to attend: Visibility of series – publicity, big names, themes, food/drink, beer (example- Poetry Time at Space Space in Bushwick offers a garbage can of free Coors, Uncalled For holds readings in their backyard in the summer and sells $2 hotdogs and$2 beers).

4. connectivity: how will people find out about the readings? publicity- time out, village voice, mailing list, using a server to send out emails, caveats about sending out emails to more than 300 people. sharing the responsibility for the website (design, coding, mailings, flyer creation). Facebook pages. Event invites.

Writing workshop:

1. focus: specific genre, generation of new work on site or at home, exercises? generation of exercises or pickup from existing exercises? does the group have a leader or is it totally determined by the group?

2. flexibility: will members be able to experiment with different genres? different genres require different time commitments. one person asking everyone to read their novel is different from everyone trading poems.

3. connectivity: will members communicate outside of class? Can this be something done only online and physical get togethers are more casual?

4. Space: At homes or in a public place? incentive for members to get themselves out to wherever the workshop is being held.

Ode to ______________ (Neruda imitation)

You, ___________ (ode object)

are the object

of my ___________ (abstract noun)

I want to ____________ (verb)

my ____________ (noun—possibly body part)

with ____________ (abstract noun)

I want to ____________(verb) your every ____________ (noun—aspect of ode object)!

You are rarely

____________

like ____________

and ____________.

You have always

just ____________

of your ____________:

____________ (abstract noun)

____________ (concrete noun)

____________ (description of that concrete noun)

____________(more description)

Compared

to you

the ____________ (category into which thing fits)

are

so ordinary:

____________( adjective / noun)

____________ (adjective/noun)

____________ (adjective/noun)

You are (adjective / number)

____________ (number/collective noun)

the _________(noun)

of all that _________(verb).

When we _____________(appropriate verb)

your __________(aproppriate adjective) ____________ (abstract noun)

we too revert

for several minutes

to the state

of the _________(noun—a life stage associated with the ode object):

there’s still some __________(ode object) in us all.

I want

___________(adjective) ___________(abstract noun)

your ___________ (collective name for group of humans)

____________(verb) ing.

I want

a ___________ (type of landscape distinction)

an ___________(type of government),

a(n) ___________ (name of a land mass)

of ___________ (plural form of ode object)

and I want to see

_____________ (description of large numbers of people interacting with object simultaneously)

the world’s

entire

population

______________(adjective) and ________________(adjective)

in the loveliest act we know:

I want us to ______________ (way of engaging with object ode).