Calendar Alert: June 4 -- April Ossmann's Tour Comes Home to NH...

Since April Ossmann stepped down from the helm of Alice James Books at the turn of the year, she's toured cross-country, reading from her collection ANXIOUS MUSIC (Four Way Books). Now she's bringing her poetry home to New Hampshire, with a reading at the Dartmouth College campus in June:

Thursday, June 4, 2009
7:00pm – 8:30pm

Mayer Room, Howe Library
Author Reading, Discussion & Book Signing
Hanover, NH
For directions: http://www.thehowe.org/index.php
Sample Ossmann's poetry at her web site, where the full text of "Epergne" is given -- the final lines, which continue to intrigue me, are:

What the poets have done is to give death
a soul, which I have not done not out of humility, but fear:
once death has soul, if death is the mother of beauty
what mercies or cruelties are not possible?

IMPORTANT ADDITIONAL NEWS FROM APRIL:

The Ossmann Method Poetry Workshop: Building Your Tool Kit
(“Crash Course”)
Instructor: April Ossmann

The Writer's Center
58 North Main Street
White River Jct., VT

Saturday, May 9th from1 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. OR
Tuesday, May 12th from 9:30am – 12:00pm
$45 (each date)

Learn how to think like a poetry editor! In this workshop we’ll turn the usual workshop model on its head and not only allow the poet being critiqued to speak, but to speak first and critique their own poem, discussing correlations between the criticisms s/he has for other participants’ poems and her/his own before group discussion begins. This will offer a taste of what it means to be both poet and poetry editor, a position in which it becomes easier to objectively assess your own work; to spot dull vs. energetic syntax, generic vs. original imagery and other strengths and weaknesses you may have overlooked. It also empowers the poet in the process, and engenders an unusually positive and congenial workshop atmosphere. This workshop will be both critical and generative, so the instructor will assign reading a generative exercise in advance meant to teach or improve writing skills. Participants will receive written editorial suggestions for their poem from the instructor. Pre-registration required; enrollment limited to 8. Info: (802)333-9597 or aprilossmann@hotmail.com and http://www.aprilossmann.com/
http://www.thewriterscenterwrj.com/