Brilliant and raw Thomas Fucaloro. 

Harold and the Purple Crayon was one of my favorite books as a child. This concept for his latest poetry video is outstanding.

I still have to finish his book. I read the first 65 pages within a day, but took it out my book bag and my mother keeps moving it! 

In the meantime - go to his site and contact him about this great video.

Hello everyone!

Events, events, and more events! There's so much happening during the month of April. There's poetry everywhere you turn! I thought it would be swell to have a calendar of poetry-related events to collaborate and share with the community and beyond.

I have created a calendar that anyone can add events to. You can even add an event right now while reading this post! Just click on the day of your event and a pop-up to add event details will come up. You can view events for the day, week, month, as a list, and more. 

As of right now, adding pictures is a little wonky. You have to have the image url in order to add a picture. Your best bet is to take a few minutes and type up the details. If you want to promote a flyer, contact me via the contact tab or on one of my social networks and I'll be happy to share the flyer for your event in this post - I am sure this post will be modified many times.

If you choose to send me event details via social networks, please give me a little time to update the calendar. Priority will go for events coming up within the next couple of days. 

Please share this post so poets, event curators/hosts, and the community can share and go to events that promise to make your hearts sing. Supporting each other is the only way we can keep the arts thriving.

Sharing and contributing this information is free. A little free promo never hurt anyone. 

However, if you would like to work with me for online promotion, photography services, etc. for your event or other reasons on a professional level, please contact me via eatmedia.org.

Till next time loves, 

Christina

If you haven't heard of this amazing poet named Thomas Fucaloro, then you have been missing out on a lot. 

Just his voice is enough to rattle your bones, but his words...phew! I've seen him perform a few times in the past couple of months and each time, I've learned a little more about this man who roars raw energy into any room he performs in.

He's a busy bee, coming out with his second book from Three Rooms Press, It Starts from the Belly and Blooms: Poems earlier this year and doing awesome projects such as the video below. 

Directed by Advocate of Wordz, Thomas tells us about his love for used books and why one day you should give away his collection of used poetry books for the sake continuing a book's journey from the hands of one lover to another.

Now that you've seen the video...wasn't that amazing? 

It's wonderful to see a poem come to life not only through performance, but through film. 

Now I have to check out Thomas' book. Will we be back with a Write Recommendation?

I think so ;)

Bravo Thomas and Advocate of Wordz!

If you don't know who Aja Monet is, here is a great introduction to who this Brooklyn poet is.

An amazing poet and musician, she is universal, yet always personal in every project she touches. Glitch, with Sleepin Giant, is visually appealing, in addition to being thoughtful, real, and smooth.

I also wanted to add this additional gem from her SoundCloud that I am obsessed with. Completely blew me away and made me want to throw my pens and notebooks out the window. Absolutely amazing and tells a story that anyone in this kind of love can relate to word to word. Plus her word play twists your mind into knots and then makes you explode.

Make sure to connect with her on Facebook and Twitter to see updates on her latest projects.

Hello My Wonderful Write Queeners,

I hope that the month of September has been treating you well so far. It's back to school for most and back to a regular routine at work for others (don't you miss your Summer allowances already working people?).

Today I have a very grand recommendation to make. I can't even say I recommend just her classes because Caits Meissner herself is a wonderful writer and person. This summer in July, I took a 30-Day intensive writing course called Digging Deep, Facing Self. You may have read many references to this course on my blog over the summer. If you haven't, you can catch up here.

Not only did I have the opportunity to push myself and write pieces I wouldn't have dreamed of writing at this point of my life, I've had the opportunity to work with Caits and a beautiful group of women. Caits is always supportive, creative, and inspiring. She gently pushes and always the mama bear with her wonderful daily messages throughout the course. One of the things I love about her is that she is not afraid to be herself, to make mistakes, and to hear us out despite being the head hancho of the course. Everyone needs the opportunity to work with this wonderful woman!

...Especially when she sets assignments up that lead to pushing you to be brave and speak to your literary heroes. If you are an active reader of this blog, then you know that for the particular assignment that I am talking about, that I ended up speaking with the poet Sonia Sanchez. It was an incredible experience that I carry with me during the rougher days of writing.

I thank Caits so much for being wise and giving us that assignment. If you want to read up on the experience, take a look at these two posts: Open Letter to Sonia Sanchez and The Write Journey: When The Light Shines Back.

The absolute conclusion of that experience came in the mail about two weeks ago. I've been so busy that I haven't had the chance to share, but take a look:

These are the kind of things Caits inspires you to do and the results that come about. I absolutely recommend that you take her courses or work with her in general. The next round of Digging Deep, Facing Self is now open for registration. If you register before September 15, you'll get an early bird special. She is also offering a FREE teleclass called Writing in Technicolor: Editing your poems to full vibrancy on October 1, 2013 at 8PM EST.

If you want to see what incredible writing comes out of this course, please check out the anthology from the July course (and yes I am in it - so a little bias, I'll admit it!). It's called A Thing Of Beauty Painted By Words and it's absolutely FREE and available online for your reading (and sharing) pleasure.

She also sends you awesomely wonderful gifts at the end of the course. I won't tell you what it is, but it's certainly a treasure!

So....what are you waiting for guys? Go sign up for one of Caits' classes today!

Until next time, my loves, be well and write!

This is a day that I partially believe in.

This may seem silly to say, but as a poet, I always carry a poem in my pocket. Not literally of course, but you know, in that whole in my soul thing blah blah blah. Plus with the power of technology, I can carry a book of poems in my pocket. There's no excuse to not have poetry with you at all times.

But in the spirit of NaPoWriMo, I still do it on the actual day. This year's poem is one that every New Yorker should recognize if they ride on a NYC subway. It is Voyager by Mary Ruefle, a poem that is a part of the MTA and the Poetry Society of America's Poetry in Motion.

This poem reflects on how I feel about my life at the moment. Every time I see it on the train, I pause and repeat it to myself softly like a prayer. I feel immense comfort and wonder, while I vow to still find my miracles.

But enough about that! Without further ado, the poem:

Voyager (Mary Ruefle)

I have become an orchid
washed in on the salt white beach
Memory,
What can I make of it now
that might please you -
this life, already wasted
and still strewn with
miracles?

As a bonus, I'll add pictures of my second favorite poem in the current series, Ragtime by Kevin Young. I know I certainly have felt this way about someone:

Hello Write Queeners, 

How many times have you misheard the lyrics to a song? 

I know that this happens to me at least once a day. I think that this brilliant line that I play over and over again is real until I want to post part of the lyrics on Facebook. Being lazy and hating dictation at times, I search for them online so I can copy and paste. When I find the song on some lyric site, that's when I find out the horrible truth: That one line, that one word, sometimes that one syllable that made the song amazing is NOT a part of the song! 

After learning what's really there, I do hear it. But my mind always wants to go back to my original assumption. It's never the same though and you will always be fighting a battle between what you hear and what you want to hear (as with many aspects of our lives!).

We don't have to let those great lines go to waste though. Back in my undergrad years in one of my creative writing courses, I was told that when this happens to us, that we can use that line in our writing. Since it isn't a part of the song we were listening to, we have originally created that line. Now it is ours to use in our poems, prose, for titles, for anything!

I have two examples of this concept for us to marvel in:

Example #1:

Jon Secada - If I Never Knew You from Disney's Pocahontas

A timeless classic from my childhood, I thought this song was all types of amazing (still do!) The line that made me feel like my world was falling apart into sweet ecstasy was this (in bold):

Beautiful, isn't it? Such sadness, such beauty...and it was absolutely the wrong lyric. The correct lyrics are:

Still nice, but for me, it wasn't the same. There was no devastating beauty in it. No power! I was crushed when I realized what it really was. I have never been able to listen to the song the same way again. My brain is always struggling to bring back that line. SIGH!!!

Example #2:

Here is something a little more contemporary for my pop music lovers. 

Justin Timberlake - Strawberry Bubblegum

I am in love with Justin's new album The 20/20 Experience! One of my tracks is Strawberry Bubblegum. Ironically, I experienced another misheard mishap while I was formulating this post. Here's what I heard:

Hot line, isn't it? Don't ever change your faith cause I love the taste. That is a mind explosion! But of course, I knew that couldn't be right. So off to find the correct lyrics and look, I was wrong: 

Makes more sense huh?

These mishaps actually have a name. It is called Mondegreen, as define by its definition on Wikipedia:

Giving a name to this makes me feel less crazy. It also gives me an opportunity to come up with a challenge for my readers. 

Write Queeners, I want you to find your mondegreen and write a mondegreen poem! It can be any length. Here's a draft of one I wrote using (surprise, surprise) one of the examples of a mondegreen that I showed you earlier:

Knees bruised from 
worshiping you 
from thigh to waist.
Don't ever change 
your faith 
cause I love the taste.
Tilt back on 
your palms while I pray
that my thirst will be 
quenched
without delay.

Eh, I haven't written a poem in a while so excuse that draft! But you guys get the idea. Share your mondegreen poems with me in the comments section (or leave a link to where I can find it!).

There are many writers and artists that I admire. Each one inspires me to be bigger and better One of my all-time favorite writers who I would love to be when I grow up (in a writer's sense of course) is Miss Erica "RivaFlowz" Buddington. Her writing knocks the wind out of your heart. It's that powerful. Every time she posts a link from rivaflowz.com on my Facebook wall, I know I'm in for a good read. 

Through her blog posts, Riva has helped me see what it really means to be a writer in their 20's, typing away at a keyboard to get to their dreams. Now she needs some help. Riva has the opportunity to go to Callaloo Writing Workshop AND get her book edited by a great editor. She is currently fundraising at Indiegogo. Whether it's by spreading the word or contributing to her fund, I am asking my readers (I know you guys are out there somewhere!) to help out. I'm already doing both because I believe in her dream as much as I believe in my own. If I can't take my opportunities yet, I want to help someone else take theirs. So without further ado, here are the links that will help her get closer to her dream:

Share on it Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, whatever you may have. If you have a blog, do a write up about it. Share this blog post if you want. Just SPREAD THE WORD pretty please, my Write Queeners. If you can contribute, even better. 

As she always does, Riva has opened up my eyes to something else: Indiegogo. I think I will be looking into starting my own fundraiser for my projects ;)

Have a great Sunday Write Queeners!


And Riva - I hope this helps!