Poetry Marathon

To celebrate International Poetry Month (April -- "april is the cruellest month," said T.S. Eliot -- who could have been living in Ontario, with our weather this month), the Cooked and Eaten Poetry Reading Series in Peterborough held a 12-hour poetry marathon, on Friday April 13. Poets all over the country read consecutively for 15 minutes each -- passing the pen to each other in poetic reality. Many of the readings were recorded for listening later, as a podcast or in some other format.
I read at Chapters Bookstore in Oakville, Ontario (at Oakville Town Centre), along with a group of writers from the Inkwell Poetry group in Oakville. My friend Victoria Fenner recorded my reading. The readings will be broadcast on the blog-site of Radio Free Peterborough: watch this site for an announcement of how, when, and where to find it.

Poetry is meant to be heard aloud: for poets -- and other writers -- who would like to record their work, either for their own use, for podcasts, or for other uses, it helps to know a professional and writer-friendly recording artist. I can recommend Victoria, who has recently returned to the Hamilton area from travels in Nova Scotia and India: fenner@magneticspirits.com



New Poem
here's a post-Passover poem, to keep us going:

Into the Wild(er)ness

The crumbs of leaven are gone
Swept out of every corner.
Hubris, illusion, ideals
stale and out of date
beyond their shelf life.
We eat flat matzah, baked
in a hurry, food of travel
and disruption,
leaving the old -- no excess,
no waste.
In the wilderness, we eat manna,
food grown on trees, dropped
from the sky, a miracle,
and we drink water from the oasis
springing up in the desert.
Desert flowers bloom suddenly,
colourful as desserts,
fields of yellow like small suns.
Birds gather left-over straw to feather
their new nests, bits of wool
gleaned from lost mitts and winter's scarves.
We pack lightly for the wildnerness,
paring memories down to essentials,
not lost but finding new realities,
new selves,
turning toward the light.

Ellen S. Jaffe, 2007