Nonsense, Shenanigans and Damn Fine Poetry: West Chester, 2009

June 19, 2009

Nonsense, Shenanigans and Damn Fine Poetry: West Chester, 2009

(Just kidding with that first post... let me try again.)

Greetings, Lieblings. Just over a week ago I attended (for the third year in a row) the West Chester University Poetry Conference. For those who are less familiar with this conference, it is an gathering of poets in America who write in (or with attention paid to) traditional forms, regular meters, and rhyme. There are readings and workshops and one-day seminars and all sorts of productions offered to participants. The directors have also built into the program ample time for socializing, for hobnobbing, for getting to know a little better people you perhaps have only ever known from afar. Some of the names of the faculty or presenters might ring familiar to BAP readers, as they have been featured here as guest or permanent bloggers-- Moira Egan, H.L. Hix, Ernest Hilbert, David Yezzi, Amy Lemmon, Lisa Williams, etcetera and beyond.

Here is a two-part video I made the last night of the conference. Below the videos, you will find links to either the poet's books or their websites. I encourage everyone to visit them and seek out some of this old-fangled poetry we've been hearing so little about about...

*A note on the video-- it was very loud in that Holiday Inn conference room. I had to get way up in people's faces. Sometimes tops of heads get cut off. C'est ma faute, yo.

I'm the Joan Rivers of the American Formalist Red Carpet.

Also, I CLEARLY have an annoying laugh.

Part The First: