One Poem A Day Won't Kill You in April National Poetry Month

One Poem A Day Won't Kill You project started showing on McMinnville Community Media Monday April 1st.  I have begun to post the readings on our Youtube channel today.  We started asking folks about their favorite poems and filming in May 2012.  Most of the readings were completed by mid-September.  By the end of February, 2013 the editing was done.  Seeing it in motion after all these months of putting it together gives me a feeling of lightness, of youth, of anything is possible.  Those pleasant delusions we give ourselves when we complete a "job of work" as my dad used to say.

  

One Poem A Day Won't Kill You is the idea of poet Phoebe Newman.  She explained to Arts Alive host Lynda Phillippi during a recent appearance on the show that the origins of the phrase came as a personal exhortation.  She had recently received her Master of Fine Arts degree in writing (primarily poetry) and she and her husband had moved to Ketchican Alaska.  She began to struggle to maintain her motivation to continue writing regularly.  She began to say to herself, "One Poem A Day Won't Kill You" as a way to tell herself to write a poem a day. 

In the mid-1990s as a way to encourage poetry in KetchiKan she went to the local public access radio station (cite, call and web) and put out several public service requests for local folks to sign up to read their favorite poem on the radio during the month of April, which is National Poetry Month.  The response was over whelming.  She called her radio show "One Poem A Day Won't Kill You".  She produced the show for ten years.  The show is still going on in Ketchican.  This will be its 18th year.

We have been filming poetry readings and last year we filmed Phoebe reading selections from her books of poetry.    She asked us if we would like to do video of Yamhill County folks reading their favorite poems.  I had to think about it.  The studio approach of bringing people in to the studio Phoebe used for her radio program.  Bringing people into the MCM studio (cite) to read was very doable.  Using the studio has some advantages.  It is efficient.  People are scheduled in, maybe several in a day, they are taped reading, little editing and it is done.  The TV studio also has some disadvantages.  The studio can be pretty intimidating with the lights and cameras.  There needs to be a crew for cameras and control room.  And most importantly it can be visually boring and for a visual medium that is not a good thing. 

We decided to film people reading poems where ever they felt comfortable.  We filmed in gardens, back yards, kitchens, living rooms, city streets.  Each location was a challenge for lighting and for audio.  I learned a lot about camera settings. Then it sometimes got complicated in editing.  Overall, the filming the readings in field locations added to the uniqueness of each reading.

The other lesson this project has helped me learn about is copyright permissions.  Just finding out whom to ask to get permission is a lot of work and can be very frustrating.   Since I volunteer and consider our video endeavors as completely non-commercial and educational, I am not always generous in my thoughts about those who want money to allow us to use the poem or music in what amounts to free advertising for them.   They say things get easier as you do them.  I hope so.

I will be posting the readings the day after they have been aired on MCM and thinking about a follow up show reflecting on the making of One Poem A Day Won't Kill You.

Poetry Post, A random act of poetry

Poetry Post, NW Yamhill, McMinnville, Oregon

Walking four or five mile each day around McMinnville allows you to learn the little idiosyncrasies of each neighborhood, each street and sometimes individual yards.  A couple of days ago toward the end of our walk  we found ourselves walking down NW Yamhill. There was a Poetry Post.   Two or three years ago I had read about Poetry Posts in Portland neighborhoods in the The Oregonian.  Ever since I thought it would be great to put one up in our McMinnville yard, when we finally move in. We stopped to read the poem.

Portland, being Portland, the Poetry Post idea has expanded across neighborhoods.  Laura Foster in her blog  Portland Walks and Urban Hikes talks about touring the many Poetry Posts around Portland.  Yes there is an 'App' and map for finding Posts in Portland.

The poem was by Emma Wheeler Wilcox.  The poem was her most famous  'Solitude' .  As we stood there the poem seemed to lift us from ourselves. The first four lines,
 "Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone; 
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own."  stopped us.

We stood on the sidewalk and read the entire poem aloud alternating every four lines.

We walked away from reading feeling we had been given a gift, a gift of kindness, a gift of unexpected poetry.  Our world and McMinnville was a better place.  

Phoebe Newman, Three Poems from Ruby

Phoebe Newman

The poet Phoebe Newman reads three pomes from her book "Ruby".   These three poems were written when Phoebe lived in New Mexico.  In these pomes she gives voice to three rural women. There is abuse, there is endurance, there is a justice in first poem "Solidade".  There is the selective loss of memory from aging, the loss if independence of the old and there is dignity in the poem "Terraphellia".  The last poem she read is "Ruby" who calls her alter ego or her evil twin, there is the cattiness of a gossip with a begrudging admiration.

Phoebe Newman mixes humor, pathos, observation so clear it can be touched, into voices who speak a truth to themselves and to the rest of us.

Phoebe Newman read from four of her books in April in McMinnville.  Meadowlake Studios filmed her reading and put together a 45 minute show that aired on  McMinnville Community Media in the spring.

Phoebe Newman Four Poems

Phoebe Newman has published four books of Poetry, Ruby, Sugar, Here To Stay and her most recent This Is For You.  She read selected poems in McMinnville, Oregon on April 30, 2012.  The entire show is playing this week on McMinnville Comunity Media Comcast 11 or Frontier 29

Phoebe began a nationally recognized annual radio program called One Poem a Day Won't Kill You, on KRDB that invites people to read a favorite poem or one they have written on the radio during the month of April which is national Poetry Month.   Phoebe produced the program for 10 years until moving from Ketchikan, Alaska to McMinnville, Oregon.  The poetry program continues and during the month of April, 2012, KRDB aired a poem a day for all 30 days.  


Here are four poems Phoebe reading in McMinnville April 30th, "Beautiful Sara Lee", "The Fall", "Sciatica" and "When Bitten By The Crocodile"

Paper Gardens 2012 Free Verse Poetry

Paper Gardens Literary Contest for sponsored by Arts Alliance of Yamhill County publishes a Chapbook of the winning entries in the Adult, Youth and Children groups.  Free Verse Poetry one of the long standing poetry categories.  This year's winners who read their work at the April 13th Awards event at the McMinnville Community Media were  “Undone” by Julie Stubblefield, “My Surgeon” by Jen Jo,  “Lullaby” by Susan Easterly, “Sideways” by Bethan Bonebrake and “Quiet” by Hannah Siepmann.

We filmed the full Paper Gardens Event and the 45 minute TV show "Meadowlake Studios Encounter: Paper Gardens 2012" will begin to air on Comcast Channel 11 and Frontier 29 beginning Saturday 5/12.  Check McMinnville Community Media for the schedule.  The show should run multiple times during the week.

We put the segment on the Free Verse Poetry readings on YouTube.  

For a copy of the Paper Gardens 2012 Chapbook go to Arts Alliance of Yamhill County website.  I do not think you can buy them directly from the site.  They do have Chapbooks available.  Contact them and they will be happy to get you a Chapbook.

Paper Gardens Judge Charles Goodrich reads

Paper Gardens 2012 Literary Contest for Adult, Youth and Children writers is sponsored by Arts Alliance of Yamhill County.  The 19th Paper Gardens celebration was held on April 13th at the McMinnville Community Center.  Contest Chair-person was Kelli Grinich and Judge was Charles Goodrich.

We filmed the event and finally edited it into a 45 minute for TV show.  We delivered Meadowlake Studios Encounter: Paper Gardens 2012 to McMinnville Community Media yesterday.  MCM starts a new weekly schedule on Saturdays.  Our Meadowlake Encounter with Paper Gardens will likely begin on Comcast Channel 11 and Frontier 29 on Saturday the 12th.  It is all there.  Kelli Grinich's introduction, Charles Goodrich's encouragement, his reading of some of his poems and the Adult, Youth and Children categories in Free Verse, Traditional Poetry, Haiku, Poetry of Place and Prose who chose to read their work.

As the evening was wrapping up Charles handed me a copy of his newest book of poems Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden.  The poems follow the seasons from Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring and to Summer again.  His voice has an elegant calm, his eye able to see the finest detail of ordinary and not so ordinary things and his humor and humanity are reflected without trying.

Once the TV show is edited it is not much more to edit segments to fit YouTube's limit of 15 minutes or less. 

I liked the "Bubble Bee" poem.  The day before yesterday I watch a bubble bee struggling to work on a tiny blue rosemary flower.  Charles poem is perfect.

William Stafford Birthday Celebration

Bill Stafford

    Every year for the past several years in January all across Oregon Friends of William Stafford hold poetry readings.  We filmed our third Stafford poetry event at Nicholson Library on the Linfield College Campus.  A one hour TV show we will take to McMinnville Community Media tomorrow.  I like the Stafford Celebration readings because I get to hear different folks read Stafford's poems and their own work. 

    Here in Yamhill County the Arts Alliance of Yamhill County has sponsored the Paper Gardens Writing Contest for children and adults.  This is its 19th year.  William Stafford was the first judge of Paper Gardens.

    Next I'll edit the individual poet readings.  A one hour show is okay for Community Media TV, they are desperate for local content, and we are happy to be able to provide it.  But shorter individual poet readings is much better for the internet.

William Stafford annual celebration

Reading "The Darkness Around Us Is Deep" by William Stafford getting ready for a Stafford celebration at the Library on Wednesday.  We will be filming the poetry reading and putting into a show for the local TV McMinnville Community Media.  I'll put it on our YouTube channel.