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Friday, March 1, 2024

Don't Go into the Steinian Woods Alone


 

Because the Stockbridge Library poetry series airs on Zoom at midday Eastern time, it's a great opportunity to include poets in Europe and on the US west coast. So Steiny (a.k.a. Karren Alenier) is taking her own advice about don't go into the Steinian woods alone.

 

 

 

Mark your calendars now!

 

March 20, 2024 12:30 pm Eastern

 

On Zoom

 

 

Who: Karren Alenier with Andrea Carter Brown & Margo Berdeshevsky

 

What: Stockbridge Library presents The French Connection—Karren Alenier reads with Andrea Carter Brown & Margo Berdeshevsky their poems in From the Belly: Volume I "Objects" and much more.

 

How: Visit stockbridgelibrary.org (close to the date, go to events calendar to register or email Karren@Alenier.com and she will make sure you get the link.)

 

Free 

 

 

 

Thursday, February 1, 2024

About the Words Being Spoken: upcoming reading

 



 

 

Part of publishing poetry is getting the words spoken, getting the poems read out loud to an audience. The Steiny Road Poet is pleased to say she has lined up another reading of From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons.

 

This time Steiny goes solo. This means she will focus on poems she wrote in response to Tender Buttons Objects. There are over 20 poems of Alenier's to choose from. She will also be reading the Tender Buttons that inspired Alenier's poems and shining light on those buttons. It is a one-hour program. Here’s an example:

 

 

 

 

NOTHING ELEGANT.

     from Tender Buttons Objects by Gertrude Stein

 

A charm a single charm is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest.

 

about the word

     by Karren L. Alenier

 

the pen is the

pen is an organ

flaccid or sound

 

muscular music

flowing milk or ink

Horace said pen

 

is tongue of

mind who needs

articles point is

 

pen is maker

of kind teacher

teaching us

 

right

 

Mark your calendars now.

 

March 20, 2024 12:30 pm Eastern Standard Time

On Zoom

Who: Karren Alenier

What: Stockbridge Library presents Karren Alenier reading her poems in From the Belly Volume I Objects—reading & discussion

Free

 

Contact Karren at  Alenier.com and she will make sure you get the zoom link.

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Poetic Honoraria: One Breath at a Time

 

The issue of getting paid for presenting poetry is ever present among poets. Most of us present without any promise of honorarium because we need to reach audience.

 

Recently, the Steiny Road Poet organized a reading featuring four other poets and herself based on her anthology From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons through the Brooklyn, NY organization One Breath Rising. The reading was spectacular with lots of great questions posed by our host. Although there was some mention that we might get an honorarium, we had no expectation. Some weeks later we each received a check for $100 thanks to funding from the Brooklyn Arts Council and Poets & Writers (NY).

 

Stepping back to see the bigger picture, one should note that was $500 for one program. Some speakers easily get that kind of money, insist on that level of funding.  Just saying that poetry is an art form that brings spiritual benefits if not entertainment and that we poets are much like monks sitting with our begging bowls. Kudos to One Breath Rising for their generosity in sharing their resources.

Monday, January 1, 2024

Poetry Mutual: A New Washington DC Poetry Promoter

 


Washington, DC, has a new poetry promoter in town called Poetry Mutual.

 

Years ago, DC had the Poetry Committee of Greater Washington, DC Area which was hosted by the Folger Shakespeare Library. That poetry promotion group had a literary calendar and an award system (the Columbia Prize). It’s a brave thing to do because it takes staying power.

 

Behind Poetry Mutual are Kim Roberts (founder of Beltway Journal now hosted by Indran Amirthanayagam), Michael Gushue, and Dan Vera. These three poets have been involved in promoting other people’s poetry through small presses they have formed and supported. They are an awesome literary force.

 

The Steiny Road Poet is pleased to have had From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons selected by Poetry Mutual as one of the three best anthologies of 2023. The other two selected were Dora Malech and Laura T. Smith’s The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays and Luisa A. Igloria, Aileen Cassinetto, and Jeremy S. Hoffman’s Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States.  There were many wonderful anthologies they could have singled out for recognition. Check out Poetry Mutual and sign up for all their news, including their selection of the ten best single author poetry collections.

Saturday, December 2, 2023

The low down on the low profile Heron Clan


 


 

 

 

 

 

 

The Steiny Road Poet (a.k.a. Karren Alenier) usually doesn’t submit work to publications where she has been published before. However, she finds herself drawn to Doug Stuber’s Heron Clan anthologies and has been published annually there since 2020 in volumes VII, VIII, IX and recently X. The books, numbering over 200 pages of poetry by mostly poets she has never read before, are handsomely produced. They are promoted by Stuber on his weekly Sunday afternoon Zoom readings.

 

In a way, these volumes, in English, which often include poets who are not United States citizens, seem oasis often for unexpected poetic gems. Poets of all levels are represented. Stuber, Ed Lyons and librarian Richard Smyth developed the project in Rochester, NY in 1998 and has included such luminaries as Ilya Kaminsky.

 

Here’s one poem published in Heron Clan X

 

a mother in selma

   by Karren L. Alenier

 

there’s a mother

in Selma Alabama

I reached her

during a phone bank

an eleventh hour

action to flip

a Republican seat

in Congress she said

no one cares

about my vote

in one ear I spoke

I do they do in the other

ear her baby fussed

later I thought your

child will thank you

for joining the

community to elect

a better human being

but then I said

god bless you

and I could feel

her hanging on

with her life

 

 

The collection is published by Katherine James Books, but does not appear regularly in Amazon listings. For more information contact KatherineJamesBooks@gmail.com.