Split This Rock Festival a Smashing Success—Inspires Hundreds of Poet-Activists

I'm back to the day job after 4 amazing days at the Split This Rock Festival. Yes, I want to live every day in The Republic of Poetry. Read about the festival here--it was incredible:

The four-day festival brought hundreds of poets of conscience and activists to Washington, D.C. from all over the United States for readings, panels, workshops, a film program, walking tours, open Mics, and inspiration. The turn-out and the quality of the events were spectacular, exceeding all expectations. The Washington Post covered the festival in a lengthy and poetic article by reporter David Montgomery entitled, "Averse to War: Split This Rock's Army of Poets Marches Into Town and Raises the Anti."

Here is an excerpt:

"The poets are in town. Dozens -- no, hundreds. Hundreds of poets. Can you imagine? They are everywhere.

In long, disheveled columns, they are prowling Langston Hughes's old neighborhood around U Street NW. They are eating catfish at Busboys and Poets (where else?) and quoting Hughes, Shelley and Whitman back and forth -- "Through me many long dumb voices" -- over the hummus and merlot.

They are signing fans' battered paperbacks and shiny new ones bought on credit (autographs!). They are squinting from the stage into the cathedral depths of a filled high school auditorium, amazed at the turnout. They are sharing with preschoolers the miracle of closely observed turtles and infinity in a drop of water.

Also, to mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, they are getting ready to march on the White House."

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Poet Karren LaLonde Alenier has also posted several write ups on the festival at her blog, The Dressing. Click here to read her commentary and see photos.

I'll write more about the festival soon! It was absolutely fantastic!

A Reader's Reaction to The Lost Tribe of Us

I just received this from a reader:

"Just wanted to tell you how totally goddamned impressed I am with The Lost Tribe of Us. It¹s really quite an accomplishment. Just finished reading it front to back for the second time -- this time stone cold sober (mostly) -- and marveled at how it¹s positively fractal the way there¹s a entire life contained within the book and then sometimes within a single poem and then even a single line. Seriously. I found it thrilling.

You want proof? You know how you turn down the corner of a page if what you're reading is something you want to save or come back later to remember? Fully half the pages have already been clipped. I hope you're appropriately honored to know that it will be going on our bathroom shelf somewhere between Beckett, Bukowski and Jane Kenyon.

By the way, Christmas Poem for You is about the most beautiful love poem I've ever read."