Getting people to talk about poems and poetry is just as powerful as reading or writing lines. Some poets do this with a typewriter, but you could set up shop with just a pen and a spiral bound notebook. Let people tip you if they wish, but offer people the opportunity to get a fresh, on-the-spot poem by you. You may already do this; you may not. Either way, there are few better days to randomly share your favorite poets and poems than on Random Acts of Poetry Day.
Plus, your friends and family might read and learn something new that changes their lives forever. Btw, share random acts of poetry on Twitter using the raopoetryday hashtag. Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. For my recent reading at the Decatur Book Festival, I read 10 poems in 10 minutes, printed them up on a double-sided sheet of paper, and distributed 50 copies to folks at the festival for free.
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Getting ready to scatter a little poetry in the grocery aisles. Throw some money into that hat for all them hard working poets. Do it on your own, or get a team together of two to 20 poets to read poems in public parks, at laundromats, outside gas stations, or on city sidewalks—maybe next to your chalk poems.
If you have other ideas or have experienced other random acts of poetry, please share below. The more random the better.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Woolly writing creates new poetry
Follow him on Twitter RobertLeeBrewer. Oh, I have been offline a lot and missed the reminder about Random Poetry Day. So I looked up Mary Margaret Carlisle I am from Kansas and discovered that she is a writer, editor, poet, workshop leader, and a judge of competition writing and performances. She is a lifetime member of the Poetry Society of Texas — Gulf Coast Poets, and is an active member of many writing and poetry groups. Then the abstractions built a tree fort. Did my students pull out their Random guns? Anything unknown , anything unexpected , anything seemingly arbitrary can be easily backhanded.
Maybe not what makes sense: The measure of structured poetry is, first, does it fit the structure? In upper level stuff we talk about poems working or not working , but could there be less precise terms? Hello, every un-fun workshop full of quiet and unsaid stuff. Largely, the way my undergrads apprehend poetry is through liking or not liking it, and they choose those sides based on getting the poem. Say I started talking to you about positive returns on aerial cams. Even once I explain what they are, how long are you hanging in that conversation?
The resistance, first of all, for many, is categorical, to aerial cams, to poetry itself, metered or squishy, new or old. But the extra resistance, the second level resistance to more associative work is, first of all, a matter of taste. Their use of random, then, becomes kind of exciting, since your response to it could open the door into a discussion of the demands we need to place on our use of language. If you believe Chomsky, these structures are rooted in our brains.
This seems measured, logical, legit. Chuck Klosterman interviewed musicians for a long time, for a living.
For me the fascinating parts of random have to do with 1 ease and 2 entitlement. Yes, ease and entitlement.
“Random” Poetry: a conversation with Bob Hicok
Of all the large statements one could make, we expect now to be entertained would be one of the harder to argue with. Universities are a huge part of this, and degrees are becoming more economic than intellectual transactions. For instance, in a recent review of a book of poems, a reviewer praised a poem because each sentence nudged the reader from the direction the last sentence had propelled them. Nothing was written about why this is a good thing, and nothing need be written, because most of the people reading this particular review in this particular lit mag would agree that, by definition, this is what a poem should do.
The fact of this dislodging was proof of its actual value, for the review was not one side of a possible dialogue with the reader or other aesthetics, so much as a presentation of signs.