Tuesday, May 10, 2011
No Greater Love
On Sunday, May 15, I will be reading a poem at "No Greater Love," a memorial for 9/11. The event will honor those who served and who were affected by 9/11, but also those first responders and everyday heroes who serve us every day. The event is at SWHS, and there are two times: 2 and 4 p.m. Also featured in the event are the Hanover Symphony, Hanover Community Singers, Mayor Adams, and the state police. Tickets must be reserved ahead of time through the Hanover Community Singers, but are free.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Contest Winners
For National Poetry Month, I held my second annual Poet Laureate poetry contest. It was a pleasure reading all the poems I received, and we definitely have talented young writers in our community. I am pleased to announce the following winners in the high school category:
1st place: Christine Guaragno (Delone Catholic High School)
God Wrote a Poem
Once God wrote a poem and called it "person"
(he liked the alliteration)
On Sundays him and Death like to get together and laugh about atheism and immortality.
really
Serious things.
Once God wrote a sonnet and called it "small town"
Sometimes him and Mary like to get together and count all the steeples that rise from cookie-cutter houses like a single yeast loaf on Seder.
Afterward they go out for coffee and God always holds the door for his mother,
Because
God wrote a Chivalrous Tale only we called it "crucifixion"
And on Thursdays his extended metaphors are literal.
And on Wednesdays when not much happens God writes Wikipedia articles
Because everyone needs a reliable source.
Once God tried irony
He wrote a Book and called it—"Bible" (which means book)
and he tried ambiguity as an epilogue, to make up for it, but this revelation revealed nothing.
So God tried his hand at writing a couplet and called it "Creation" and the critics didn’t like it so
God wrote a Best-seller and called it "Big Bang."
Once God wrote a play and cast us as the lead,
The front cover read impromptu
And we kept searching through the script circling God’s mistakes, in fire-truck red, bruised-fruit blue, jaundiced yellow and sometimes violent violet because it’s a calming color.
Yesterday God got our rejection slip and threw his pen at the wall.
It exploded and blotted out the sun,
But that’s okay because God ran out of pens way before, and now he only writes in
Red rust off your first car, lightning bugs in mason jars,
A 164 pack of crayola crayons, a dyeing flower’s last demands,
The fluorescent glow of incandescent bulbs down asbestos halls,
The shallow thunder of sea-foam green walls,
And the sun—and the sun he writes in soul-punch ginger
A color that is several shades between the space of grace and gray.
God never gets writer’s block because he never has to block out the things he needs to write about.
Once God wrote the trinity so it spelled haiku, three lines of perfection
Like three nails of perception
Like three celestial canticles of mercy denying rejection.
On that note,
Once God wrote a lyric and he called it "love"
He liked the way "cliché" sounded so fresh on his lips
And in sign language, and in speech bubbles, and written across the black construction paper sky in invincible ink,
And God’s pupils are black lights and every time he blinks our hearts beat
To the flashing neon, the eternal strobe light, the constant comets.
Once God wrote an acrostic and called it "abba"
It read, "answer by blinking always"…
Once God took the SATs and failed the writing portion because the atheist that graded his paper thought he left it blank, but really she just forgot to blink.
Once God wrote an obituary for every dead pagan baby,
For every fallen soldier with a rainbow heart,
For every five year old with magic marker bruises from drawing the hair back on,
For every vibrant first day of first grade child with a sixth day of sophomore year shattered spirit,
For every bench-warmer,
For every track star with a broken ankle,
For every poet who abandons poetry,
For every student that is one point from passing,
For every photographer with a broken lens,
And for their mothers who though everyone forgot—but really they just forgot to blink.
And that’s why God and Death never have staring contests on Sunday nights, sometimes they just get together to laugh about really serious things.
Seriously,
Did you know that God wrote poetry?
(he likes the alliteration)
2nd place: Christian Torres (Hanover High School)
Angels in the Night
Once in pitched darkness
Our roar was genesis.
Batting our feathered wings.
As heaven’s fireworks,
We shine, even through twilight.
3rd place: Nicole Wolf (New Oxford High School)
I’m an Organ Donor
These lungs go out
To the child in the flames
The arson victims
Countless and unnamed
This heart goes out
To the troubled and meek
Those too young
Too unsettled to speak
I'm an organ donor, Mama
This blood is not my own
Your baby boy’s a twisted wretch
With no soul to call home
These eyes go out
To the women in the pews
Praying to a God they don’t believe in
Blinded and confused.
This brain goes out
To the lonesome and deprived
To those left for dead
From only things they can devise.
I'm an organ donor, Mama
This blood is not my own
Your baby boy’s a twisted wretch
With not a soul to call home.
These veins go out
To the addicts in the streets
With their sunken faces
Track marked arms and blistered feet
This soul of mine
Twisted and cold
Goes out to a friend of mine
Far too bold
I'm an organ donor, Mama
This blood is not my own
Your baby boy’s a twisted wretch
With no soul to call home.
4th place: Brianna Bryson (Hanover High School)
Insomniac's Lullaby
2 AM
Tossing
Turning
Like a lost ship at sea
Open eyes
Darkness, stillness
Almost as if
The world is dead
One more try
Close my eyes again
Wait…
Nothing
Deep breaths in
To no avail
Morning light is still
Too far away.
5th place: Alex Daubert (Hanover High School)
Level Up
The great beginning
Surrounded by all the excited people in the camp.
The tall trees useless against the sweltering heat.
It falls silent.
One person speaking.
The formation of lines look less like lines than mobs.
Follow the leader
Up the trail, mulch crunching under my feet.
Past the rickety cabin with crisp clean porches.
Past the pale blue hut they call a shower house.
No more mulch, only stones now poking at my feet.
Winding up the side of the mountain
Hiding the burning in the legs and shortness of breath.
Legs take me out of the woods and into the orchard.
Directly up the mountain now
Total silence now
No hiding the pain now
Left…Right…Left…Right….
A fire has erupted in my legs.
Staggering with each step
Until finally I reach the top.
Collapse.
Then run back down.
1st place: Christine Guaragno (Delone Catholic High School)
God Wrote a Poem
Once God wrote a poem and called it "person"
(he liked the alliteration)
On Sundays him and Death like to get together and laugh about atheism and immortality.
really
Serious things.
Once God wrote a sonnet and called it "small town"
Sometimes him and Mary like to get together and count all the steeples that rise from cookie-cutter houses like a single yeast loaf on Seder.
Afterward they go out for coffee and God always holds the door for his mother,
Because
God wrote a Chivalrous Tale only we called it "crucifixion"
And on Thursdays his extended metaphors are literal.
And on Wednesdays when not much happens God writes Wikipedia articles
Because everyone needs a reliable source.
Once God tried irony
He wrote a Book and called it—"Bible" (which means book)
and he tried ambiguity as an epilogue, to make up for it, but this revelation revealed nothing.
So God tried his hand at writing a couplet and called it "Creation" and the critics didn’t like it so
God wrote a Best-seller and called it "Big Bang."
Once God wrote a play and cast us as the lead,
The front cover read impromptu
And we kept searching through the script circling God’s mistakes, in fire-truck red, bruised-fruit blue, jaundiced yellow and sometimes violent violet because it’s a calming color.
Yesterday God got our rejection slip and threw his pen at the wall.
It exploded and blotted out the sun,
But that’s okay because God ran out of pens way before, and now he only writes in
Red rust off your first car, lightning bugs in mason jars,
A 164 pack of crayola crayons, a dyeing flower’s last demands,
The fluorescent glow of incandescent bulbs down asbestos halls,
The shallow thunder of sea-foam green walls,
And the sun—and the sun he writes in soul-punch ginger
A color that is several shades between the space of grace and gray.
God never gets writer’s block because he never has to block out the things he needs to write about.
Once God wrote the trinity so it spelled haiku, three lines of perfection
Like three nails of perception
Like three celestial canticles of mercy denying rejection.
On that note,
Once God wrote a lyric and he called it "love"
He liked the way "cliché" sounded so fresh on his lips
And in sign language, and in speech bubbles, and written across the black construction paper sky in invincible ink,
And God’s pupils are black lights and every time he blinks our hearts beat
To the flashing neon, the eternal strobe light, the constant comets.
Once God wrote an acrostic and called it "abba"
It read, "answer by blinking always"…
Once God took the SATs and failed the writing portion because the atheist that graded his paper thought he left it blank, but really she just forgot to blink.
Once God wrote an obituary for every dead pagan baby,
For every fallen soldier with a rainbow heart,
For every five year old with magic marker bruises from drawing the hair back on,
For every vibrant first day of first grade child with a sixth day of sophomore year shattered spirit,
For every bench-warmer,
For every track star with a broken ankle,
For every poet who abandons poetry,
For every student that is one point from passing,
For every photographer with a broken lens,
And for their mothers who though everyone forgot—but really they just forgot to blink.
And that’s why God and Death never have staring contests on Sunday nights, sometimes they just get together to laugh about really serious things.
Seriously,
Did you know that God wrote poetry?
(he likes the alliteration)
2nd place: Christian Torres (Hanover High School)
Angels in the Night
Once in pitched darkness
Our roar was genesis.
Batting our feathered wings.
As heaven’s fireworks,
We shine, even through twilight.
3rd place: Nicole Wolf (New Oxford High School)
I’m an Organ Donor
These lungs go out
To the child in the flames
The arson victims
Countless and unnamed
This heart goes out
To the troubled and meek
Those too young
Too unsettled to speak
I'm an organ donor, Mama
This blood is not my own
Your baby boy’s a twisted wretch
With no soul to call home
These eyes go out
To the women in the pews
Praying to a God they don’t believe in
Blinded and confused.
This brain goes out
To the lonesome and deprived
To those left for dead
From only things they can devise.
I'm an organ donor, Mama
This blood is not my own
Your baby boy’s a twisted wretch
With not a soul to call home.
These veins go out
To the addicts in the streets
With their sunken faces
Track marked arms and blistered feet
This soul of mine
Twisted and cold
Goes out to a friend of mine
Far too bold
I'm an organ donor, Mama
This blood is not my own
Your baby boy’s a twisted wretch
With no soul to call home.
4th place: Brianna Bryson (Hanover High School)
Insomniac's Lullaby
2 AM
Tossing
Turning
Like a lost ship at sea
Open eyes
Darkness, stillness
Almost as if
The world is dead
One more try
Close my eyes again
Wait…
Nothing
Deep breaths in
To no avail
Morning light is still
Too far away.
5th place: Alex Daubert (Hanover High School)
Level Up
The great beginning
Surrounded by all the excited people in the camp.
The tall trees useless against the sweltering heat.
It falls silent.
One person speaking.
The formation of lines look less like lines than mobs.
Follow the leader
Up the trail, mulch crunching under my feet.
Past the rickety cabin with crisp clean porches.
Past the pale blue hut they call a shower house.
No more mulch, only stones now poking at my feet.
Winding up the side of the mountain
Hiding the burning in the legs and shortness of breath.
Legs take me out of the woods and into the orchard.
Directly up the mountain now
Total silence now
No hiding the pain now
Left…Right…Left…Right….
A fire has erupted in my legs.
Staggering with each step
Until finally I reach the top.
Collapse.
Then run back down.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
April Column
First published in The Evening Sun
Sometimes the best ideas come to us when we are driving. This happens to me all the time. I wait until I get to the red light and fumble in the glove compartment and cup holders for a scrap of paper and a pen. Sometimes I am even tempted to write the poem on my steering wheel.
It makes sense that poems come to us when we travel. We often travel alone and have time to think. Also, we focus on all the new things we see. So, imagine you are driving and a poetic idea emerges. If you have no paper or pen, what happens to the idea? You end up driving with the poem as your companion.
This idea helped to spark the theme for this year's poetry reading at The Eichelberger Performing Arts Center, presented by the Hanover Poets Laureate: "Traveling Companions." As poets living in a mostly rural area, we also do a lot of traveling to read, hear, and write poetry. As a group, the local poets have traveled to places such as Lancaster, York, Camp Hill, DC, Frederick, and Annapolis in the past year to network with other poets and share work.
This year's reading features three poets who live in Gettysburg, but who have lived and traveled all over the country and the world. Gary Ciocco, Todd Brandt and Katy Giebenhain will team up with musicians Nathaniel Sauers and Jeb Mahone for a night of poetry and music.
Katy Giebenhain has a Masters of Philosophy from University of Glamorgan, Wales, and a Masters from University of Baltimore. Her poems have appeared in many reputable journals and anthologies, and she has a chapbook, titled Pretending to be Italian. Giebenhain's poetry often connects body and experience in profound ways, as in the following excerpt from her poem “The Gatekeepers,” which first appeared in the chapbook Absent Photographer and was inspired by a photograph of the abandoned York Prison.
"If metal calloused, if wood scabbed
we’d be more convinced.
Each surface stretches in rich quiet
around grates, mirrors,
planks and wires in their shawls of dust.
Some are bottomless,
some daddy-long-legs-thin.
What happened here?
The photographer knows something.
Surfaces are her currency.
Passing through, her witness
clicks and breathes.
Surfaces imply, imply, imply –
they’re gatekeepers
as much as our own faces..."
Gary Ciocco, a native of southwestern Pennsylvania, will also read on Saturday. He has been teaching philosophy at various colleges for fifteen years. Ciocco was runner-up for the Bordighera Poetry Prize in 2007, and his work has been published in journals, newspapers and a chapbook. Ciocco's poetry always delights his readers with wit and uncanny metaphor; however, he also has a knack for unveiling the deep meaning hidden in quiet, dark moments.
Insomniac's Delight
The slow roll and thrum
of cars in town
morphs into
the rattle of chains and
bark of dogs
in the country,
the clang of metal cans,
beep of horns
heat of voices
in the city.
But you always listen.
As trees rustle effortlessly
and rain raps its rhythm
you peel away the wild mask
of a tired musician,
and let silence
take over again.
The third poet to read will be Todd R. Brandt, aka "Train." Brandt is a self-taught American poet. After studying Mechanical Engineering, he has raced jeeps, restored antique autos, piloted airplanes, and driven steam locomotives. Brandt's poetry often expresses the thing or idea we all know but never say, a trait I admire greatly in writers. For instance, in his poem "Cupcakes," he meditates on the nature of cupcakes and our love for them, mentioning things we know, but perhaps never discuss.
"...there's nothing wrong with cupcakes
there is the nice fluffy cake part
usually in that paper wrapper
like you're not supposed to actually touch it,
while you're eating it
Let alone think about...
where it came from
the ingredients in its batter
or how it felt about
that whole oven thing..."
I hope you can make it to a great evening of poetry and music! The event begins at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 30, 2011 in the Conservatory at The Eichelberger Performing Arts Center. Admission is $15.
Sometimes the best ideas come to us when we are driving. This happens to me all the time. I wait until I get to the red light and fumble in the glove compartment and cup holders for a scrap of paper and a pen. Sometimes I am even tempted to write the poem on my steering wheel.
It makes sense that poems come to us when we travel. We often travel alone and have time to think. Also, we focus on all the new things we see. So, imagine you are driving and a poetic idea emerges. If you have no paper or pen, what happens to the idea? You end up driving with the poem as your companion.
This idea helped to spark the theme for this year's poetry reading at The Eichelberger Performing Arts Center, presented by the Hanover Poets Laureate: "Traveling Companions." As poets living in a mostly rural area, we also do a lot of traveling to read, hear, and write poetry. As a group, the local poets have traveled to places such as Lancaster, York, Camp Hill, DC, Frederick, and Annapolis in the past year to network with other poets and share work.
This year's reading features three poets who live in Gettysburg, but who have lived and traveled all over the country and the world. Gary Ciocco, Todd Brandt and Katy Giebenhain will team up with musicians Nathaniel Sauers and Jeb Mahone for a night of poetry and music.
Katy Giebenhain has a Masters of Philosophy from University of Glamorgan, Wales, and a Masters from University of Baltimore. Her poems have appeared in many reputable journals and anthologies, and she has a chapbook, titled Pretending to be Italian. Giebenhain's poetry often connects body and experience in profound ways, as in the following excerpt from her poem “The Gatekeepers,” which first appeared in the chapbook Absent Photographer and was inspired by a photograph of the abandoned York Prison.
"If metal calloused, if wood scabbed
we’d be more convinced.
Each surface stretches in rich quiet
around grates, mirrors,
planks and wires in their shawls of dust.
Some are bottomless,
some daddy-long-legs-thin.
What happened here?
The photographer knows something.
Surfaces are her currency.
Passing through, her witness
clicks and breathes.
Surfaces imply, imply, imply –
they’re gatekeepers
as much as our own faces..."
Gary Ciocco, a native of southwestern Pennsylvania, will also read on Saturday. He has been teaching philosophy at various colleges for fifteen years. Ciocco was runner-up for the Bordighera Poetry Prize in 2007, and his work has been published in journals, newspapers and a chapbook. Ciocco's poetry always delights his readers with wit and uncanny metaphor; however, he also has a knack for unveiling the deep meaning hidden in quiet, dark moments.
Insomniac's Delight
The slow roll and thrum
of cars in town
morphs into
the rattle of chains and
bark of dogs
in the country,
the clang of metal cans,
beep of horns
heat of voices
in the city.
But you always listen.
As trees rustle effortlessly
and rain raps its rhythm
you peel away the wild mask
of a tired musician,
and let silence
take over again.
The third poet to read will be Todd R. Brandt, aka "Train." Brandt is a self-taught American poet. After studying Mechanical Engineering, he has raced jeeps, restored antique autos, piloted airplanes, and driven steam locomotives. Brandt's poetry often expresses the thing or idea we all know but never say, a trait I admire greatly in writers. For instance, in his poem "Cupcakes," he meditates on the nature of cupcakes and our love for them, mentioning things we know, but perhaps never discuss.
"...there's nothing wrong with cupcakes
there is the nice fluffy cake part
usually in that paper wrapper
like you're not supposed to actually touch it,
while you're eating it
Let alone think about...
where it came from
the ingredients in its batter
or how it felt about
that whole oven thing..."
I hope you can make it to a great evening of poetry and music! The event begins at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 30, 2011 in the Conservatory at The Eichelberger Performing Arts Center. Admission is $15.
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