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."

New Writing Group in Winchester and Front Royal

I am starting a new writing group in the Winchester and Front Royal area. Here is an article in the Northern Virginia Daily about the group:

http://www.nvdaily.com/lifestyle/290994643852836.bsp

If you are interested or know someone who wants to join a workshop group (fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's lit), please contact me at heatheredit@cs.com.

This group is for intermediate-level writers only. No genre fiction please (romance, sci-fi, Christian). We will meet once a month and provide feedback to one another.

If interested, please send me a sample of your work. Hope to hear from you!

Two Readings and a Book Signing Coming Up

I've got two readings and a book signing coming up in March. Come on out now, ya hear!

1. Monday, March 3 at 8 PM
Reading for So to Speak and Phoebe Magazines
Busboys and Poets in Shirlington, VA
4251 South Campbell Avenue
Arlington, VA 22206
www.busboysandpoets.com

2. Sunday, March 9 at 6 PM
Iota Poetry Series
"Split This Rock"/Beltway Magazine preview reading
with Heather Davis, Brian Gilmore,
Steven B. Rogers, and Melissa Tuckey
2832 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22201
http://www.iotaclubandcafe.com/

3. Saturday, March 29, 9 am to 4 pm
Book signing at Virginia Festival of the Book
Main Street Rag Publishing Company Table
Omni Charlottesville Hotel Atrium
235 W. Main Street
Charlottesville, 22902
http://www.vabook.org/index.html

What Readers Are Saying

Got this note today from someone in Texas. Nice to hear!

Dear Ms. Davis:

I rarely read a poetry collection all the way through at one sitting, but I couldn't tear myself away from THE LOST TRIBE OF US. Congratulations on a wonderful book. The poems are tender even in their toughness, and always well-crafted.

--A reader in Comfort, TX

A friend of mine, Ed Hamilton, is reading at Olsson's in Dupont Circle (Washington, D.C.) from his hilarious new book about living at the infamous Chelsea Hotel in NYC. Come on out and see him on January 31. Ed and his partner Debbie have lived in one room in the Chelsea for more than 10 years next to poets, weirdos, and artists alike. More details are below. Or check out their excellent blog at http://legends.typepad.com/.

Thursday, January 31, 2008, 7pm, at Olsson's-Dupont Circle, 1307 19th St. NW, 202-785-1133 Ed Hamilton - Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York's Rebel Mecca

There’s a current that courses through the old Chelsea Hotel, a weird electricity that drives people relentlessly to create. It’s an energy that longtime resident and creator of "Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog" Ed Hamilton will tell you often drives inhabitants to madness. Chelsea residents past and present include: Dee Ramone, Ethan Hawke, Sid Vicious, Ryan Adams, club kid/murdered Michael Alig, Sarah Bernhardt, the Warthog Factory’s Richard Bernstein, Victor Backrest, Charles Bukowski, Leonard Cohen, Lesbian activist Stormed DeLarverie, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huneke, Janis Joplin, Jack Kerouac, Madonna, Edgar Lee Masters, Arthur Miller. Edie Sedgwick, Sam Shepard, Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas, and Rufus Wainwright.

Poetry Deadlines for Split This Rock Poetry Festival

Read, Write, Resist! In Washington, D.C. in March 2008, the Split This Rock Poetry Festival will celebrate our great tradition of poetry of witness and resistance. The festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions on poetry and social change, youth programming, films, parties, walking tours, and activism—a unique opportunity to hone our activist skills while we assess and debate the public role of the poet and the poem in this time of crisis. As citizens and artists, our obligation has never been greater. We call on poets of conscience to move to the center of public life as we forge a visionary new arts movement for peace and justice.

There are 3 upcoming deadlines related to the festival: 1) A poetry contest with significant cash prizes 2) A call for panel proposals 3) A call for film and video submissions.

Please go to http://www.splitthisrock.org/ for more information and to REGISTER for the festival. It's going to rock!