October, October, October

• A sudden shift. Rain and cooler weather. Leaves beginning to turn orangeredyellow. Autumn's here. in full swing. Have been getting up early every day to process the latest batch of tomatoes. Our garden's abundance-- still plumping up. This has been an exceptional growing year. Have hung beans to dry.Will shuck them soon and put them up in mason jars. I love looking at those glossy beans. Maybe, when the October moon appears in my backyard to sing Peggy Lee's "Is That All there Is," I should throw a handful over my shoulder and wish for that vine to grow straight up through the dome of sky. I need a ladder. an escape hatch. I need two more days in the week.
  
• Last week we picked a lot of apples, and Peter and Meghan have been making applesauce and apple chips. Big pots bubbling on the stove. Glass jars in bathes. Buzzers sounding. Glorious smells. We picked squash, acorn, turban, hubbard. The pumpkins are fat and nearly ready. Looking forward to having my grandchildren come over. I can see my littlest grandson hoisting one up. When he was just a couple months old, we took a photo of him in the pumpkin patch.
  
• This afternoon, I will be giving a lecture on The Elegy at the Just Poets' monthly meeting.Have to finish preparing this morning.
  
• This evening going to the Academy of the Sacred Heart Reunion. Last night went to my sister Karen's class of 63 dinner. I didn't graduate from ASH. Sadly, the school closed a year before. I went to Our Lady of Mercy in my junior year, which I loved and wouldn't trade for the world. But, I spent 9 years at ASH and the community had a profound effect on me. Sunday we will be having a mass in our chapel. I know it's going to be quite moving, processing into the chapel with 77 women, singing Tatum Ergo.
• In all of this I have to grade papers, prepare for next week's classes, do some editing and finish the details on several big Arts events. October is going to be exciting.
  

Upcoming Poetry Reading at St. John Fisher College, October 13, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.

St. John Fisher College
Visual & Performing Arts Minor
proudly presents

Michael Meyerhofer
reading from his newest
chapbook of poems,
Pure Elysium winner of the
2010 Palettes and Quills
Second Biennial Chapbook Contest
selected by Dorianne Laux
****
Thursday, October 13, 2011, at 7:30 p.m.
Golisano Gateway Midlevel.
Free and Open to the Public.

*****

Michael Meyerhofer's third book, Damnatio Memoriae, won the Brick Road Poetry Book Contest. His previous books are Leaving Iowa (winner of the Liam Rector First Book Award) and Blue Collar Eulogies (Steel Toe Books, finalist for the Grub Street Book Prize).

He has also published five chapbooks: Pure Elysium (winner of the Palettes and Quills Chapbook Contest), The Clay-Shaper's Husband (winner of the Codhill Press Chapbook Award), Real Courage (winner of the Terminus Magazine and Jeanne Duval Editions Poetry Chapbook Prize), The Right Madness of Beggars (winner of the Uccelli Press 3rd Annual Chapbook Competition), and Cardboard Urn (winner of the Copperdome Chapbook Contest).

Michael Meyerhofer has won the Marjorie J. Wilson Best Poem Contest, the Laureate Prize for Poetry, the James Wright Poetry Award, and the Annie Finch Prize for Poetry. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, North American Review, Arts & Letters, River Styx, Quick Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and other journals.

He received his BA from the University of Iowa and his MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He currently teaches poetry, creative writing, and composition at Ball State University in Muncie, IN.

This reading is funded in part from Poets & Writers, Inc. with public funds from the
New York Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Poets For Change Reading at Flying Squirrel 9/24/2011

Poets, Paulette Swartzfager, John Roche, Karen VanMeenen, Colleen Powderly, Ed Scutt, and Eddie Swayze are organizing readings for the 100,000 Poets for Change day in Rochester this Saturday September 24, 2011. This is part of a worldwide effort originated by Michael Rothenberg of Big Bridge magazine and now listing 600 events in 95 countries:

http://www.bigbridge.org/100thousandpoetsforchange/

The event at Flying Squirrel will focus on hunger, poverty, and homelessness. While poetry and music are served upstairs, a meal will be served to neighborhood folks in need downstairs.

This is an invitation to come and listen and support this event.

Here are the Highlights:

11 am - 5 pm: "Open Mic” ; Hosts: Paulette Swartzfager & Colleen Powderly

2-3 pm: ASL poetry hour hosted by Eddie Swayze

4-5 will be poets hosted by Colleen Powderly,

5-6 pm: LEGGS - A Reading of a Play About a Future Dystopian America by Ed Scutt
6-7pm: Pure Kona Features, with Hosts Norm Davis & Mike Rae
7-10 pm: Featured Poets with Hosts – John Roche & Ren VanMeenen
8pm –"Flying Words” – Kenny Lerner and Peter Cook

Hope to see you there!

Flying Squirrel Community Space is located at 285 Clarissa St. Rochester NY, 14608 585-678-6870

Upcoming Events in Rochester, September 24, 2011

30th Anniversary Writers Block Party At Writers & Books:

featuring

POETRY

MUSIC

HUGE BOOK SALE

LITERARY TRIVIA

RAFFLES

GAMES

EXCITEMENT

FUN

Schedule of Performances

12:00: John Roche

12:15: Sam Abrams

12:30 Sarah Freligh

12:50 Charles Cote

1:10 : Silver Threads

1: 45: M. J. Iuppa

2:05: Tom Holmes

2:30: Flying Words

3:15: Corey Winrock

3:35: Jill Kress Karn

4:00: Sally Bittner Bonn

4:20 Jan Wenk Cedras

CAST: Cambridge American Stage Tour

Cambridge American Stage Tour (CAST) returned to St. John Fisher College to perform Shakespeare's Macbeth on 9/12/2011.

The 17 member company, a lively and personable group of Cambridge University students, held the audience (180) in rapt attention. I have never been in such a quiet audience. Not a shuffle or snuffle. Everyone was hanging on every actor's word.

I was intrigued by the set and the way they portrayed their characters. The conversations about the play continued today, two days later. Students are still thinking and reacting to the performance.

News!

St. John Fisher College Writer-in-Residence, M.J.Iuppa, has had a poem selected for inclusion in Poets Walk, an interactive sidewalk installation that runs along University Avenue between North Goodman and Prince Streets.
Iuppa's poem, "Simply," is one of the selected poems that will be represented by words or lines engraved in stone.
Poets Walk is part of the Art Walk Extension Enhancements Project, a public art and urban design project in the Neighborhood of the Arts lead by the City of Rochester. The project involves a wide range of local cultural and educational partners, including the Memorial Art Gallery and Writers & Books.
There will be a celebratory Poets Walk Reading at the Memorial Art Gallery on Sunday, November 13, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for the fall of 2012.

Blog This Rock: Poem of the Week: M.J. Iuppa

Blog This Rock: Poem of the Week: M.J. Iuppa: Groundwork
The fence that wasn't a barrier, that didn't hold anything back or up, but was the grid over the scene of
...