THE STORY SPOT

We’re sure, being the literary wunderkinds that you are, you already knew that April is National Poetry Month, the month when “publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and poets around the country band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture.” That’s from the official website of National Poetry Month, www.poets.org, presented by the Academy of American Poets.

While poetry’s “vital place” may sometimes be questionable in these times but you wordsmiths and lovers of lyrical artistry know the value poetry has for your own work…don’t you? (Hint: if not, it’s time you found out.)

National Poetry Month(2009 poster)

• Re-discover your favourite national, international, living, and historically significant poets.

• Find new poems to enjoy.

• Marvel at your state’s poetic history & current happenings.
(Californians, click here!)

• And, if that’s not enough, here’s your free Poem Flow iPhone app.

Now go write some haiku or something.

P&W’s Grants and Awards Calendar.
Always worth a gander.

http://pw.org/mag/0711/submissioncalendar.htm

Today’s LA Times featured a great cover piece by staff writer, Pauline O’Connor, about Antioch’s very own Wendy Ortiz and David Ulin. It’s true, dammit. People do read in LA…books, I mean…novels, I mean.

They do. Just not in their cars where we can see them.

And, in case you missed my thousand-and-one plugs attempting to draw you out, people also read aloud in LA. Our little 826LA inauguration got a mention too. Yep, it’s a small literary town but a good one.

Nice one ladies (and David, of course). Happy anniversary.