Here we are...

...a group of Baby Boomers of sundry religious,
political and cultural orientations, who have been
meeting at the Voorheesville Public Library since 1991
to read and discuss each other's poems.

We include old fathers and young grandmothers,
artists and musicians, and run-of-the-mill eccentrics.
Writers are welcome to stop in and stay if they like us.

Some of Us

Some of Us
Dennis Sullivan, Beverly Osborne, Tom Corrado, Edie Abrams, Art Willis, Alan Casline (all seated); Paul Amidon, Mike Burke, Tim Verhaegen, Mark O'Brien, Barbara Vink, Philomena Moriarty

Monday, May 12, 2008

Guerilla Poetics Project

There was a feature in the Altamont Enterprise this week about poetry. Dan Wilcox is one of the local "operatives" of a clandestine movement to hide poetry broadsides in local public spaces. A favorite spot of his is between the pages of books (not poetry books!) in Borders to be found and hopefully appreciated by the unsuspecting consumer.

For 25 bucks the organization regularly sends a supply of broadsides to pass out, along with an operative's copy to keep. Directions on the back of each poem request the finder to go to a website and register the discovery. I think this sounds neat and if we passed the hat and joined up, we could divvy up the cards and hide them. Whaddaya think?
Visit http://www.guerillapoetics.org/
I can think of 100 other places to leave one.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous5/12/2008

    Sounds good...I'm in.
    Mike B.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5/13/2008

    Is the idea is to get people to like poetry?

    Broadsides by whom? Published renowned poets? Who decides what poets?

    The idea could backfire, turn people off to poetry if the broadsides are picked based on other factors than proven, acknowledged skill.

    tim V.

    ReplyDelete
  3. christopher cunningham5/22/2008

    read some for yourself. the GPP Operatives submit and vote on which poems represent them. and "acknowledged skill" is subjective, isn't it? some of the GPP Poets are widely published, some not. all represent the breadth of poetry available today writ in simple, clean and musical language, bereft of obscurity and academic pretense.

    we hope you click the link, browse around and find out what we're all about.

    thanks for the mention...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous5/22/2008

    All operatives (all 200+ of them) are free to submit poems for each round of voting (which is done twice a year). All operatives are allowed to vote and, in fact, encouraged to vote.

    The idea is that this is a group project and we publish poems that the collective group likes.

    Poets of renown are welcome, but they must be living and must be a member. Also, all voting is done blind. All of the names are hidden from the voters and voters cannot even see their own poems, so they cannot vote for their own work.

    I'm not sure if the members have proven, acknowledged skill or how that would be qualified. Checking the list of some of the members on the website would certainly suggest that these are not people that are new to poetry. We have teachers, publishers, poets, etc.

    If you check out the website, all the questions will be answered.

    Thanks,
    Bill

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