FESTIVAL 2009 — Poetry & Memory
WHEN: June 18-20, 2009June 18 6:30PM - 9:30 PM: Workshop
June 19 7:30PM - 10:30 PM: Open Readings
June 20 All Day: Outdoor Festival
WHERE: Garden School, Jackson Heights, New York and
Terraza Cafe, 40-19 Gleane St. Elmhurst, New York
(click here for directions)
PROGRAM DETAILS:
Thursday, June 18, 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM: Workshops
The workshops will be held at the Garden School. Reflecting the theme, Poetry & Memory, the Panel discussion will focus on the following ideas:
Memory is personal and collective. It plays a role in how we, personally and collectively, construct and understand our experiences and is often at the root of how we feel about our collective and individual selves. Because it makes the past tangible, poetry is one of the ways we make memory. It is why Wordsworth called poetry "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility," and why the poet David Barber has said that "the future of memory is more and more bound up with the future of poetry." These workshops will explore the role of memory in the making of poems and of poems in the making of memory.
The workshops are free, appropriate for all ages and levels of experience:
Nicole Cooley — How To Fasten to the Page the Voice
In this workshop –which takes its title from poet Frank Bidart’s description of his poetic practice-- we will explore poetic voice and how it works in our poems. We will discuss a range of issues, including writing about the self using deeply personal material, writing persona poems based on experiences outside of our own, and reading our own poems aloud. We’ll look briefly at poems by Ishle Park, Li-Young Lee and Sharon Olds.
Roger Sedarat — Memorable Rhyme: Recollecting the Past through Sound
This workshop examines the use of rhyme to recreate personal memory in the present moment of the poem, offering examples of formal verse as well as a practical exercise from the personal experiences of the participants.
Richard Jeffrey Newman — Sense Memory: Using the five senses to give presence to the past
Poems connect us to the experiences they embody by appealing to our senses, and it is often through our senses that our minds most powerfully connect the present in which we live to the past that we can only remember. Participants in this workshop will explore how using the five senses can make our memories come alive on the page.
Julio Marzan — Memory
Memory is the language that records how we interpret our lived experience. But memory is not a reliable narrator. We may not be honest with ourselves or want to confront, in that experience, something painful. If we mine memory to write a poem, we may use many poetic devices but that poem may not be honest, or in fact, a poem. As Marianne Moore wrote, ultimately we go to the poem to find "the genuine." Uncovering that genuineness begins by listening to the find that poem in the prosaic or even wildly imaginative layers of language of our first efforts. Ultimately, the language must deliver the poem to the reader, not the performance. The poem must ring inexplicably "true" and be portable, separate from the poet.
The panel discussion is open to the public and does not require pre-registration.
Friday, June 19, 7:30 PM - 10:30 PM: Open Reading
The JHPF open reading will be held at Terraza Cafe from 7:30pm to 10:30pm. Sign-up for the open mic will open at 7:30pm and readings will start at 8pm. The reading will feature the Queens College Poetry MFA program and any members from the community who want to share their work.
Saturday, June 20, All Day: Outdoor Festival
The full-day poetry festival will be held outdoors at the Garden School.
Highlights include:
- Readings by an amazing line-up of featured poets
- Readings by winners of the student poetry contest (winners announced on Friday 6/12)
- An Independent Publishers book fair!
- Several bands, local artists, food and drinks!
10am-10:30 – band, opening
10:30-11:40
Sommer Browning (Flying Guillotine)
3rd Place Middle School Winner - Mihalis Alisandratos
Roger Sedarat
Ivy Johnson (Portable Press at YoYo Labs)
11:40 - 12:50
Tony Mancus (Flying Guillotine Press).
2nd Place Middle School Winner - Neftali Castillo Rosario
Laren MccCLung
Alex Cuff (No, Dear)
12:50-2:00
Jackie Clark (LIT Magazine)
1st Place Middle School Winner - Shahara Ahmed
Richard Newman
Esther Smith (Purgatory Pie Press)
2:00-2:30 band, Jon Sandler
2:30-3:40
Katie Fowley (Lightful Press)
3rd Place High School Winner - Kiaya Mohamed
Ocean Vaung
Emily Brandt (No, Dear)
3:40-4:50
Georgia Luna (Purgatory Pie Press)
2nd Place High School Winner - Jonathan Cortez
Julio Marzan
Matvei Yankelevich (Ugly Duckling Presse)
4:50-6:00
Steve Dalachinsky (Ugly Duckling Presse)
1st Place High School Winner - Marie Douyon
Nicole Cooley
Regan Good (Ugly Duckling Presse)
6:00-6:30 Closing band, Jon Sandler
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