Collin sends in this press release…

The 9th annual Voices Carry reading will be held Saturday, October 26, at 3 p.m. at the Decatur Library Auditorium, 215 Sycamore St. The featured poets are Cecilia Woloch, Jessie Carty, Helen Losse and Erica Wright. Poet and novelist Collin Kelley will host. The reading is presented by Poetry Atlanta and Georgia Center for the Book. The event is free and open to the public and books will be available for sale. For directions and more information, visit www.georgiacenterforthebook.org.

Featured Poets

Cecilia Woloch is the author of the poetry collections Sacrifice, Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem, Late and Carpathia. A recipient of an NEA Fellowship, Woloch teaches at the University of Southern California as well as hosting workshops around the world, including the annual Paris Poetry Workshop.

Jessie Carty is the author of the poetry collections An Amateur Marriage, Paper House, Fat Girl and the newly-published Morph from Sibling Rivalry Press. She is the founding editor of Referential Magazine.

Helen Losse is poetry editor emeritus of Dead Mule School of Southern Literature and the author of the poetry collections Mansion of Memory, Seriously Dangerous, Better With Friends and Gathering the Broken Pieces.

Erica Wright is the author of Instructions for Killing the Jackal and the chapbook Silt. Her debut crime novel, The Red Chameleon, will be published next year by Pegasus Books. She is the poetry editor at Guernica Magazine.

“Like the McRib, the sonnet is back.”

— Kevin Young, Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing, Emory University, speaking during the session, “Best American Poetry 2011 Showcase,” Sunday, September 4, Decatur Presbyterian Sanctuary Stage

A Nation’s Strength – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What makes a nation’s pillars high

And it’s foundations strong?

What makes it mighty to defy

The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand

Go down in battle shock;

Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,

Not on abiding rock.

Read the rest of this entry »

From Linda Harris at The Decatur Minute…

The Dead Poets Society of America and Georgia plan to have a poetry reading in the Decatur Cemetery on Wednesday, May 12 at 2 p.m. The reading is part of a nationwide 2010 tour and will be the 1st historic Georgia Dead Poets event.

The event will take place at the gravesite of Thomas Holley Chivers in the old historic section off Commerce Avenue. Thomas Holley Chivers, October 18, 1809 – December 18, 1858, was an American doctor-turned-poet from Georgia. He is best known for his friendship with Edgar Allan Poe and his controversial defense of the poet after his death.

For more on Chivers, check out his Georgia Encyclopedia entry.  For more on the event, CLICK HERE.

To check out the Dead Poets Grand Tour route, to see where they’ve been and where they’re going, CLICK HERE.

UPDATE: Lynne sends in another must-read dog poem:  “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” by Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States (and Decatur Book Festival keynote speaker a couple years back).

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From the “It’s funny cause it’s true” file.

Here’s the beginning of the poem “Cleaning Up After Your Dog”, from today’s Writer’s Almanac…

Pull plastic bag from pocket

and wave it like a flag

or diploma. Make sure many people

congratulate your care

for the community.

Check bag for holes.

Double check.

Read the rest of the poem HERE.  (The part about the cop is something I always find myself doing when a cruiser passes mid-cleanup)