Category Archives: Meetings

Share your favorite poet

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Bring along some poems by your favorite poet to share with the group at our meeting Saturday, Oct. 19, 11 a.m., at the Beverly Public Library. Add a few words about the poet and the reasons you think he/she is so terrific. We had intended this agenda for last month, but then changed it to a Seamus Heaney retrospective given his recent demise. It was a great meeting, and I expect the next one will be, too.

I will bring Mary Oliver (I think) and Roberta said she was going to bring Elizabeth Bishop. Of course, I mean their poems, not their bodies, although that would be a kick. One (quiz time: which one?) is not with us anymore, but given the onset of the Halloween season (it is a season in Salem), it might work. (Just kidding.)

At our September meeting we also outlined an agenda for the rest of the formal Forum year.

November 16: Write a poem about thankfulness. If you can’t write one, bring one by another poet to share.

December 7: Joint meeting with Mass State Poetry Society. This year we will have a special Tribute to Althea Adelheim, one of our founding members who died this year. As usual, we will have lots of good food. We will also have a Yankee Swap, gifts in the $5 range, with the Most Apt Poem contest sponsored by the North Shore Poets’ Forum. To participate, you simply write a poem to describe the swap gift you are bringing. You do not sign the poem or swap gift package. A judge will determine which poem was the best description of the swap gift, and the winner gets $10. It’s always fun!

January 18: We are stretching our poetic muscles and writing poems in forms. In addition, bring another form poem by an established poet to share.

February 15: Mary Miceli will lead a program on rhythm, using the rhythm of music as an easy route to understanding. You might consider bringing in the sheet music, or simply the words, to one of your own favorite songs.

March 15: Even though St. Patrick’s day is right around the corner, Melissa and I (Cathryn) are ignoring that great day and presenting a program on the Imagist poets.

April 26:  Annual National Poetry Month celebration with readings by the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky contest followed by an Open Mic.

May17: Poems of Place. Bring, write, explain.

Anyone who was at the September meeting who has a different recollection of the decisions made regarding the agenda, please let me know.

Thanks!

Shall we reconsider the topic?

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Of course by now you know that Seamus Heaney died yesterday. He was a wonderful poet. and since I left it that we should all bring poems by a favorite poet to our Sept. 21 meeting, how about if instead we do a tribute to Seamus Heaney? I will get copies of some of my favorite of his poems, and I would love it if others of you brought copies of his poems that you particularly like. I think we should all take turns reading the poems and discussing.

Let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Cathryn, aka Cathy

Next meeting is Sept. 21

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The next meeting of the North Shore Poets’ Forum is Saturday, Sept. 21, 11 a.m., at the Beverly Public Library. We have to set up our agenda, so please come prepared to volunteer to prepare a program.

For the first meeting, too, I hope you will bring a poem or two by a different poet (not yourself) to read. Then we’d like to hear what you admire about this poet/poem.
New this year: If you bring a poem of your own that you want to share, please bring six or seven copies so that we can gently critique it. This is in the longstanding tradition of the poets’ forum that we all need feedback, that there is always more to learn, and that we humbly realize we need help to become better poets.

I look forward to seeing you next month.

Naomi Cherkofsky Contest deadline coming up

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The deadline for the annual Naomi Cherkofsky contest has been changed to March 15, to give this premier procrastinator (i.e., Cathryn Keefe O’Hare, AKA Cathy, AKA director of the North Shore Poets’ Forum) a little more time to get the news out about the contest.

Help, please!

(Please notice my use of line breaks here to add emphasis, something I learned from Melissa’s presentation on line breaks to the forum. See her earlier post.)

Tell your poet friends and neighbors and enemies. It’s cheap to enter, and it’s a lot of fun to attend our annual celebration of National Poetry Month with readings of the winning poems before an Open Mic and other great poems from those in the audience.

This year the celebration is on Saturday, April 20, 11 a.m. to 1 or so, in the Program Room of the Beverly Public Library.

Rules are spelled out under the “Contest” tab. In brief, any subject, any form, 40 line-length limit, poets 18 or older, no more than 5 entries per poet, $3 per entry. Send two copies, one signed with contact information, the other not (for judge), to Jeanette Maes, 64 Harrison Ave., Lynn, mA 02105, by March 15.

OK?

Now, as the Nike people say, Just Do It!

Disscussing line break up in the mezz-

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anine.

Joan George reads her poem “November at the John George Park” during the North Shore Poets’ Forum November meeting.

See what I did there? It was line break in a title. Cool right? Well, hardly. But we did enjoy ourselves during the November 17, NSPF meeting. It was held all the way at the top of the Beverly Public Library in the Mezzanine due to the library’s annual book sale. While the book sale (and all the different church holiday fairs going on) made it difficult to find parking, the sale did provide some of us bibliophiles with a little side shopping excursion. I, however, was too nervous about my presentation to the group to do any shopping. I was so nervous I got off the elevator on the wrong floor and had to ask the reference desk librarian how to find the NSPF-ers!

Luckily, the rest of you were not as discombobulated as I was and more than a dozen poets filled the conference room. I certainly wasn’t prepared for such a terrific turnout! I only made 10 copies of my presentation and the poems which went with them. So, as promised here are the links to the materials. You can download the presentation and the supporting materials. I have also included some links to the poems we reviewed today during the session.

For those of you who were unable to make it, you can also review the materials posted here. In my opinion, the important thing to remember is that rhythm, meter, rhyme, dropped lines, enjambment, caesuras, etc. represent tools poets can use to help elevate, to help enhance, the meaning or theme that the poet wants to convey. Every poem has its inspirational point, the genesis of what drew the poet to the blank page. Conveying that inspiration point, often requires quiet contemplation and employment of the tools of our artistic craft. Determining where to break the line is just one of those tools.

I also planned a couple of activities for us to do during the session today but we ran out of time so if you are feeling energized by the meeting and want play around here are those exercises.

  1. Take out the poem you brought to share with us today. On a blank piece of paper write out your poem in paragraph form. Now read it slowly to yourself. Does the change in structure highlight any internal rhythm? Look at the sentence structure and its syntax. Do all your sentences follow the same style and structure or did you alternate the sentence lengths or tones? Now read the poem one more time quietly to yourself and mark with a pencil the places where you naturally pause to breath or natural syntactical segments. Re-write the poem with these new line breaks and awareness. How can you employ line breaks to enhance the point of your poem?
  2. Take a random book down off your shelf. (We were in the library so I was going to have us go and borrow one from their shelves.) It can be a cookbook or a do-it-yourself manual or a collection of essays, anything as long as it isn’t a book of poems! Pull out a paragraph at random and lineate it. How does your lineation affect your understanding? Could you even make a poem from a science book?
  3. After preparing all night for the presentation (okay not “all” night but I was up until 1 a.m.) I took out my Martha Stuart “Living” magazine and flipped through the pages. I came across a Geico advertisement and actually thought about how they had applied line breaks to their message! Pull out your magazines and see if you can find any instances where the point or product of the ad is enhanced by how the words are placed on the page. Ask yourself how it was done and why it worked (or didn’t) on you.

Well that’s all I’ve got folks. I’m sure you’ve all got a ton of information and thoughts about you use line breaks in your own poems. I hope you’ll share them in the comments section below.

See you in December at the joint NSPF/Massachusetts State Poetry Society meeting.

Poetry plans made for upcoming year

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A small group met at the Beverly Public Library on Saturday, Sept. 15, and we’ve come up with a schedule and some of the programs for the year, which follow. However, we didn’t want to exclude anyone who wasn’t at the meeting from a chance to volunteer for a program. Therefore, we have a coupd of unplanned meetings for you!

There was some talk about presenting a program for the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, which is scheduled this year for Ma 3-5. It won’t conflict, as it did last year, with our Poetry Month Reading in April, which is good news. And, therefore, Mary Miceli suggested that we might want to find a few members of the Massachusetts State Poetry Society, of which our group is a chapter, to do a program for the festival. She suggested the topic be on Aging, although she had more of a transitions theme in mind, and aging in all its age groups.

As just one chapter, we didn’t feel we could make any definitive decisions and voted to bring the topic up at the Mass. State meeting coming up this Saturday, Oct. 6.

So, back to the NSPF schedule. We always meet at the Beverly Public Library, at 11 a.m. to about 1 p.m. Everyone is asked to bring a food item or beverage to share. The date is usually the third Saturday, but it can change. See below:

Oct 20: Melissa Varnavas will present a program on line breaks.
Nov. 17: Volunteer needed.

Dec. 1: Holiday Party, with the whole Mass State Poetry Society. NSPF sponsors the Most Apt Poem contest, which goes to the person who has a poem that best describes the present he/she brought for the Yankee Swap. Poems/presents are unsigned. The winner must fess up! And, it’s all in good fun!

Jan. 19: Need a volunteer.

Feb. 15: Mary Micelli will do a program, TBA.

March 16: Diane Giardi will do a program, TBA.

April 20: Celebration of National Poetry Month, with readings by the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky Contest, followed by Open Mic.

May 18: Volunteer needed.

June 15: Annual Outing.

Poetry galore this weekend

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I do hope you will join us on Saturday, April 21, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Beverly Public Library for the annual National Poetry Day reading.

I can’t remember how many years the NSPF has been holding this event, during which we invite the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky contest to read, followed by an Open Mic. In any case, it is always a great time! We serve a few goodies to complement the very good poetry and friends who attend. So, I hope you’ll make sure to stop by.

But, it is a big weekend for poetry! The Massachusetts Poetry Festival begins Friday and goes through Sunday afternoon, in Salem, at a number of venues. Check out the link on this page to see what you might like to attend — so long as you are sure to come to Beverly, too!

Next year we might coordinate with the Poetry Festival folk and become part of that event (what do our members think?), or we might make sure to hold our reading on another weekend so that we can help animate National Poetry Month with lots of verse all month long.

If you can’t wait to the weekend this year, however, the Tin Box Poets are having their celebration on Thursday night, April 19, 6:30 to 8 p.m., at the Swampscott Public Library, 61 Burrill St.  Doors open at 6 p.m. for open mic sign ups. You can even do music, if you prefer, but bring your own instrument.

In the meantime, you can see all kinds of poetry online. For instance, there’s the Borzoi Reader Poem-A-Day, distributed by Knopf Poetry right to your e-mail during this very special month (http://us.mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?reason=ignore&rs=1.

And, I will share a little poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay for your reading pleasure.

 

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death
But what does that signify?
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. 

 

And, the winners are…..

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We are excited to announce the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Contest and invite them and you to our annual reading in celebration of National Poetry Month, on Saturday, April 21, 11 a.m., at the Beverly Public Library.

They are:

1st. “Poem for Hilda,” by Catherine Stavrakas

2nd. “A Night-Time Long Ago,” by Yamilee Craven

3rd. “Let My Soul Blossom Like the Night Blooming Jasmine,” by Richard Samuel Davis

Honorable Mentions, in no particular order, are:

“Jack’s Pumpkin,” as well as “Revelations,” both by Diane Giardi

“Walking in the Arboretum,” as well as “The Commuter,” by Mickey Coburn

“Azure,” by Lee Lewis

“On a Budget,” by Johanna Maria Donovan

“Aftertaste,” by Megan Ouellet

“Going,” as well as “Storm,” by Catherine Stavrakas

We will first hear our winning poets read and then open it up to others in attendance. This annual event is always a lot of fun. We have light refreshments, and we encourage socializing as well as good poetry!

Please join us at the library, and tell your friends and family, 11 a.m. to about 1 p.m. Let’s celebrate National Poetry Month!

Beware the Ides of March

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Today’s the day we should look for betrayal, as in poor old Julius Caesar’s story, since this is the anniversary of the day Brutus took a dagger from his cloak and joined his fellow Senators to stab his emperor – his friend – in the back.

But, we don’t have to as troubled by ancient fates as all that! It’s a not too shabby March day here in Massachusetts, with promises of better ones in the days ahead. So, we should celebrate the anticipation of Spring rather than cower with the fear of Spring’s betrayal….something that happens all too often in these parts. A late snow storm is not uncommon. Rain, chill, and gray days often accompany the forsythia and daffodils. Forget that! This year will be perfect!

So, to get you in the mood, I offer a lovely poem by Peter Davison (1928-2004), from his 2000 collection, “Breathing Room,” which won the Massachusetts Book Award. But first, I will clarify something in my last post. Our Poetry Reading celebrating the Naomi Cherkofsky contest winners and National Poetry Month will be Saturday, April 21, 11 a.m. to about 1 p.m., at the Beverly Public Library. (The April 14 date was just a mistake, and the library is already booked for some other event that day, so there’s no choice.)

On with the poem, The Level Path, by Peter Davison

The Level Path

Descend here along a shower of
             shallow steps past the potting shed with
                           its half-rotted ironbound door

to reach the level path. It winds
             northward, high hat, girdling
                           the waist of a limestone cliff

beyond earshot of the clamorous village below. The
             squeezed access bears us vaguely along
                           shifting digressions of the compass, past

eye-level seductions of violet, periwinkle, primrose, and petals
             like lisping yellow butterflies. Naked limbs
                           of beech, haggard liftings of pine,

a hairy upthrust of cedar beside a
             curving stone bench, all hint at eruptions
                           into Eros. Yet another seat displays

a cushion of undisturbed luxuriant moss around its clefts and
             edges. Thick harsh leaves
                           of holly, ivy, even of palmetto

thrust up, pathside, between tender new petals,
             while other friendly shrubs reach down
                           from overhead to fondle our faces.

There is no escape from the dreadful beauty of
             this narrow path. It leads nowhere
                           except to itself and
                           the black water below.

Snow Day!

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Well, I had thought I could trudge through the snow and show up for the scheduled meeting last Saturday, but the flakes looked so cold and sharp, and my house was so cozy …. I called the whole thing off, giving you all a Snow Day. Unfortunately, Melissa Varnvas didn’t read her e-mail, nor did new member Tom (last name could be Bennett?). They did some poetry anyway, which is very good!

The next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 18, and Mary Miceli is on the hook for a program about allegory. Remember, too, that the Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Poetry Contest deadline is coming right up …. March 1. Did you send the info to friends and to friends of friends? Please help publicize it (see info under Contests on this blog).

I am sharing a Billy Collins poem called, not very surprisingly given the topic of this post, Snow Day.

Snow Day

          Billy Collins

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows
….
the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.
…
In a while I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch,
sending a cold shower down on us both.
…
But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news
…
that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed,
the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with — some will be delighted to hear —
…
the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School,
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and — clap your hands — the Peanuts Play School.
…
So this is where the children hide all day.
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.
…
And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

………………………………………………………….

I’m also sharing a Shel Silverstein poem, since much of my rambling e-mail giving you all a Snow Day had to do with the exultant joy of children when they were given a snow day, and even though this poem, Sick, isn’t about snow, it is about the joy of play! By the way, I am also going to link to Melissa Varnavas’s wonderful blog Reflections on Mackerel Cove, which is in Beverly. I leave the rest to you.

Sick
by Shel Silverstein
“I cannot go to school today,”Said little Peggy Ann McKay.

“I have the measles and the mumps,

A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

I’m going blind in my right eye.

My tonsils are as big as rocks,

I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox

And there’s one more–that’s seventeen,

And don’t you think my face looks green?

My leg is cut–my eyes are blue–

It might be instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,

I’m sure that my left leg is broke–

My hip hurts when I move my chin,

My belly button’s caving in,

My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,

My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.

My nose is cold, my toes are numb.

I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,

I hardly whisper when I speak.

My tongue is filling up my mouth,

I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,

My temperature is one-o-eight.

My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,

There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is–what?

What’s that? What’s that you say?

You say today is. . .Saturday?

G’bye, I’m going out to play!”