4th Annual International Festival at Round Top Conference

Poetry at Roundtop: Connect, Create, Rejuvenate

Austin poet, editor, and friend to Texfiles, Farid Matuk (Hi, Farid!), sent along this announcement and information about the 4th annual Round Top Conference, which he's helping to organize. Along with Marie Howe, Naomi Shahib Nye, Cyrus Cassells, Nick Flynn, and a few others, Farid will be offering some writing workshops at this conference.

If you are dedicated to poetry writing, you should plan to attend--it will be intense, lots of poetry fun. Farid is the Austin media contact for Round Top, and he can be reached at:
email: fnmatukATyahooDOTcom
cell: 512.736.7761
Round Top phone: 979.249.3129

Here's a brief announcement, which I will also be posting at my poetry-teaching blog, E-Po:


*Poetry at Round Top 2005*


The fourth annual International Festival-Institute at Round Top conference will be held the weekend of April 30 to May 1, 2005, on the campus of the International Festival-Institute at Round Top, Texas. This year's program includes featured readings, workshops on writing and publishing, conversations and interviews with poets, a book fair, sessions for teachers, and guided or independent writing time on a magnificent campus of rolling woods, gardens, ponds, and landmark architecture.

Speakers will include Marie Howe, Cyrus Cassells, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Nick Flynn, and Farid Matuk, with additional presenters and instructors to be named. Tuition is $95, with housing and meals available on campus or at nearby B&Bs and inns. Campus housing is limited and early registration is recommended.

Call 979 249 3129 for information and reservations.

Happy-Happy Holidays, Y'all

This is just to wish all you fine poets a very merry time over break, and to say, hey: keep writing! (& keep yr eyes peeled for Oldsmobiles!)

Best,
Chris




--Dottir Holly's Oldmobile (JesusWheels)...

: )

"A Noiseless Patient Spider," by Walt Whitman: homolinguistic translation poem source

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling

Assignment for next week homolinguistic translation chain poem, the source poem

Wallace Stevens, a poem from Poets dot org :



The High Toned Old Christian Woman *


Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.


* From Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens. Copyright © 1954 by Wallace Stevens.

Tim Morris responds to Martin Stannard's mode of reviewing poetry

Tim Morris sent this to share with you:



Upset

Upset is what nearly all these poems are about but it comes so neatly packaged my interest is no more than if the guy had told me Sainsbury's were out of his favourite coffee. (Martin Stannard in a review, 2004)

This afternoon Sainsbury's were out of my favourite coffee, in fact they
often are, the manager is hopeless and on more than one occasion when
I've cornered him to ask him about the coffee he gets a look on his face
and claims something needs his attention in Ready-Made Meals, which
if you ask me is a misdirection if not an outright lie, not that I eat ready-
mades often, too much aggro, pop open a packet of crisps and a can of lager
is more like it but Tuesday when I got the shopping home the crisps were
open and had gone soft and I keep meaning to bring them back to Sainsbury's,
back to the manager's attention, but it means a forty minutes' drive on and
off the motorway and the cones up by the heath and the new roundabout
and drivers who cannot grasp the concept that they are to keep moving once
they're in but yield to me if I'm in and they're not. Upset is not exactly the
term I'd use, more like a heightened awareness of insolence really, a revelation
that the young guy with his eyes set jaws clenched hands on the wheel is not
trying to get from A to B like me, doesn't have a favourite coffee, doesn't
need a ready-made meal, he just wants to circle the roundabout and cut
people off all afternoon, every afternoon, the shopping undone and the
takeaway uncollected and a smile gathering on his face as he watches me wait.

Hey, do check out E-Po for some new reading/writing assignments. One for Wednesday, and one for next week.

A fine response to the Williams/Stein reading: Tanya Williamson

"Before I read Williams' "The Work of Gertrude Stein," I felt totally lost, confused, perplexed, frustrated, and alienated as I read Stein's text. I wish I had read Williams first. Then, perhaps, I would have had a better understanding of what I was reading; not only what, but why I was reading it, and why it was important for me to experience Stein's craft. Even though I still do not understand the meaning of what Stein was trying to say, I feel like I can at least appreciate the beauty of the words strug together on the page, like pearls strung together to make a beautiful necklace. Each word Stein uses causes the brain to engage in a different way than it had before in just reading that one simple word, and by allowing my ear to hear the words, and not just my eyes to see them, I felt like I was experiencing Stein in the way in which she may have intended for her readers."--Tanya Williamson


Tanya: Excellent work!--cm

More Posts on E-Po

Added more to E-Po: a tribute to French philosopher of language and writing, Jacques Derrida, who died Friday. Look it over before Monday, please.

: ) actually there are 2 new posts up at E-Po

so have fun exploring Hal's new blog and website and e-book, too.

Reminder to check E-Po

Hi all, check in over at E-Po for a new and interesting reading, please. It's about writing poetry and then having a trusted other poet read it.

chris murray's googlie-self

2X possessive case one jesus chris
the other chris jesus before Deputy
Dawg there was Chirs Murray (see below
for all the other Chris Murrays) a Cassandra
geologist quiz girl with directions
on how to make gum Tex flowers
after the ghost caught on camera in Bangalore
in the academic speak translator of texture

files and pebbles but and is a common word
so was left out of this search of essay's
earthquake Xmen sentinel sound exclamation
points on mla files what not again my goodness
life expectancy poor gila monster in Tex
quote mark ash leaf
end quote mark love quote mark line drawing
end quote mark love begin list of first 3 pages,
France Google multivoicedness Bakhtin Oh so funky
really how many there are
Chris Murrays:

north country now art: chris murray lily your pad or mine?
MSN counterpart, recording Special Effects Song: Nice Guys Sleep Alone
Martial Arts trainer 18 years of
Rootsy Ska Singer Songwriter Bay Area
All Caps CHRIS MURRAY ONLINE DOT COM
[um... okay]
legislative counsel, Spam Testimony
Associate Prof Economics Univ Houston
Baseball pitcher GMUS
Football Wide Receiver
Dream after Dramatic Monologue
Hockey pLayer, BC Canada

Communications Instructor, Florida State Coll
Iowa, Health Instructor
Consumer dot Org
dot is not
a search term
thank you very much for your interesting
searches for Chris Murray.

sestina links

sestina, "Knowing," by chris murray.

Poetry_Heat Reading Series: students, please plan to attend

Announcement: Poetry_Heat Reading Series,
at University of Texas, Arlington


I'm happy to bring Dallas Area Poets

Joe Ahearn, Corey Marks, & Tia Black

to read in UTA's Carlisle Suite,
of the University Center

Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004
7:00 p. m.


Hope to see you there!

Chris Murray and The UTA Writing Center **



** Very Special Thanks to Cyndi Dumas,
UTA Creative Writing student
for all her excellent help organizing
and preparing for this special event.

Reminder

Porfolios are due this week for grading.
Please be sure you have all the formal assignments through 9/15 revised and printed out along with any drafts, notes or feedback (from shared or collaborative exercises) all together in an ordinary pocket folder with your name on it, to hand in. You will each meet with me in conference this week for individual feedback.

Thanks!

cm

A Game of Tag?!

'A game of tag!', said he to me.
Blinking with incredulity,
Pressed closed my book, put up the pen
And fixed a blue-flecked eye on him:
'My lusty friend you should well know
This pensive one will rarely show
Such vigor in his worldly frame;
Yet, if this still remains your aim
Seek but the shortest breadth from thee
Ask Tanya for vivacity.

New Reading Assignment and a Featured Student Response are up at E-PO

Hey, check out the new reading assignment--of William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, and Laurence Sterne, up at E-Po, and the feature of James Ola's response to kari edwards. Congratulations, James!

Arlington Creative Writing Group

A few of you were asking about this so here's what I can confirm: I just got an email from the ACWG saying the time they will meet is confirmed as 5 pm today, at the Coffee Haus on Mesquite St.

I hope you'll be there--it's lots of very nice people who are great writers and who give wonderful feedback in a non-threatening kind of social environement.

cm

Hi Y'all: here are some Reminders on the Assignments

Now Due:
--Reader Response letter to kari edwards--
--tag poem posted on yr blog and on e-po2

Due Monday:
--Reader Response letter to Jordan Davis

Due Wednesday:
--collaborative image poem posted to yr blog
--new reading, TBA in the next day or so



**Additionally, there is the usual:

--monitor E-Po for new posts, especially those related to assignments (I will be posting a new reading assignment tomorrow, and it will be due by Wednesday next week.

--regular readings through the links list on E-Po

--getting used to commenting on classmates' work in their blog comments box

--posting any of your other poems to E-Po2

--try to attend the Arlington Creative Writing Group, Thursday evening, 5:00 pm (I think, but will double check and confirm it for you), at the Mesquite St. Coffee Haus--Hoping to see you there!

--you work too hard: try to have some fun this weekend!

:)