Sarah Browning

Poets Against War founder/director and Split This Rock featured poet Sam Hamill on the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq and poets' activism:

Comrade, friend, wild man, brilliant poet, partner in crime Regie Cabico makes the City Paper this week.

Jet lag, train lag, and bus lag. Cabico says that he logs up to 18 travel hours a week, including serious Chinatown bus time. “Now, if I smell pee, it smells like home,” Cabico says.

Read the "What's Your Problem?" feature here: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=34635

We’re pleased to announce that Split This Rock will be featured on “Poet's Corner with Joe Gouveia” on WOMR/Provincetown and you can listen online! Just go to http://www.womr.org/ at the appointed hour and click on “Listen now” in the left margin. Here’s the schedule, beginning tomorrow:

Thursday, February 28, 12:45 pm – Interview with Festival Director Sarah Browning
Thursday, March 6, 12:45 pm – Interview with Assistant Director Melissa Tuckey

(April 3 and April 10 Joe will feature us reading our own poems, so come back after the festival, too.)

Joe’s a wonderful interviewer, so we know after you listen, you’ll be inspired to register! Remember, rates go up March 10, so register today: http://splitthisrock.org/registration.html

See you next month in DC!

Looking for something on my desk (really, it's an excavation, requiring a major grant for archeological research from the federal government...) I came upon a quote I had saved from, of all places, Publisher's Weekly.

Herbert Kohl, a teacher and education writer, was interviewed about his new book, Painting Chinese, which describes his experience taking a Chinese landscape painting class as a 60-year-old surrounded by kindergarteners:

It's wonderful accepting that your goals will never be completed if they're big enough, and that it's worth making them so big that you leave some unfinished so that other people can pick them up after you.

Right on.

As I continue to read in the Split This Rock Beltway issue, I am knocked over by the beauty and power of the poetry of so many of my colleagues in this work. Here's an excerpt from "Diplomat" by Tanya Snyder:

With the yellow beasts in your own dreams,
the firm mattress beneath you
and your head
all night spinning
on your softest pillow,
you may continue
with the enchanting horror
of this beautiful country
buried so many miles
beneath you...

Read the full poem here: http://washingtonart.com/beltway/snyder2.html

And check out the full Split This Rock issue, edited by Regie Cabico and Kim Roberts, at http://www.beltwaypoetry.com/.

Two upcoming readings by poets featured in the issue:

Sunday, March 9, 2008, 6:00 pm

Split This Rock Poetry Festival Reading, sponsored by Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Featured readers: Brian Gilmore, Melissa Tuckey, Heather Davis, and Steve Rogers. Followed by open mic.
Iota Bar and Restaurant, 2832 Wilson Blvd., Clarendon neighborhood, Arlington, VA. (703) 522-8340.
Series hosted by Miles David Moore - Free Admission.
http://www.wordworksdc.com/

**

Sunday, March 16, 2008, 4:00 pm

Sunday Kind of Love Reading Series: Split This Rock Festival Reading sponsored by Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Featured readers: Winona Addison, Teri Ellen Cross, Yael Flusberg, Tanya Snyder, Dan Vera, Rosemary Winslow, and Kathi Wolfe. Followed by open mic. Read poems of provocation and witness!

Busboys and Poets, 14th & V Streets, NW, DC. (202) 387-POET. U Street/Cardozo on the Green Line. Free Admission, although contributions are gratefully accepted. Guest hosts: Kim Roberts and Regie Cabico.

If you missed this article, here's a link to the piece in the City Paper profiling three terrific local presses, including Vrzhu, whose editors, Michael Gushue and Dan Vera, are in the photo here:

In another loss to the independent bookstore world of DC, this weekend we're losing the marvelous international/travel bookstore, Candida's. Here's a message from the owner:


As you know, Candida's World of Books is closing.

THANK YOU for all of your messages, visits and the outpouring of feelings you shared. You have been (and are) a wonderful community.

THIS weekend, Feb. 15-17 is our last weekend open to the public.

We still have plenty of books on sale (storewide 20% off & special sale items) and encourage you to make one last foray into our shop, to help us clear out as much stock as possible. Think of these as early holiday gifts, come buy yourself something that could be your keepsake from Candida's!

Thank you for your support over the past 4 years. I will remember all of you fondly.

Farewell,

- Candida -

Candida's World of Books
1541 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
tel.(202) 667-4811
fax. (202) 667-4813
http://www.candidasworldofbooks.com/
Tues-Sat 10-9, Sun 12-6, closed Mon

Bethesda Magazine Short Story Writing Contests, sponsored by The Writer’s Center. The contest is open to all residents of Montgomery County.

The winning author will receive $1,000 in addition to his/her story being published in Bethesda Magazine’s July/August issue. The second and third place authors will receive $500 and $250 respectively and their stories will be published on the Bethesda Magazine website.

Stories must be submitted by March 15. For more information and rules of the contest, and a writing contest for high school students, please visit: www.bethesdamagazine.com/shortstory.


Reading:

The Writer’s Center will present a reading by photojournalist Jim LoScalzo author of Evidence of My Existence (Ohio University Press) and Scott Hightower, author of Part of the Bargain (Copper Canyon Press), on Sunday, February 24, at 2 p.m. at The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, Maryland 20815. The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing. Free admission.

Jim Lo Scalzo has been a staff photographer with U.S. News & World Report since 1994. His assignments have taken him to more than 60 countries, and he has won several awards in the Pictures of the Year International and White House News Photographers’ Association photo competitions.

“Set against a backdrop of the most stunning settings the world has to offer—from India to Antarctica—Evidence of My Existence is an intimate and intricate exploration of ambition and the difficult decisions artists are forced to make in search of a balance between work, the love of work, and love itself. Jim Lo Scalzo serves as a brilliant guide—by turns hilarious and heart-torn— and has created a masterful memoir, an exquisite debut!” —Julianna Baggott, author of Which Brings Me to You and Compulsions of Silkworms and Bees

Scott Hightower’s third book of poems, A Part of the Bargain (Copper Canyon) is winner of the Hayden Carruth Award for New and Emerging Poets. His writings have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Salmagundi, The Yale Review, and The Paris Review. He teaches at Fordham University and New York University and is a contributing editor to The Journal.

The Writer’s Center, a 501c3 nonprofit literary support organization now in its 31st year, offers workshops and readings year-round. Our website, www.writer.org, more fully describes our programs.

Part of the Metro's Art in Transit program, Ethelbert's poetry is now at my neighborhood station, Petworth, above, and at Dupont, where it memorializes those who care for victims of the AIDS pandemic. See a brief story in the Post's Express online version here.