Saturday, Oct. 23: Poetry Workshop -- The Song of Syntax

Poetry Workshop: The Song of Syntax
Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Susan Meyers, instructor
Waccamaw Higher Education Center
160 Willbrook Blvd.
Pawleys Island, SC 29585
Registration, $30
OLLI at Coastal Carolina University
Register at 843-234-3422 or www.coastal.edu/olli


A poem’s syntax, its word order, is crucial to its music, as well as its meaning. Syntax affects pacing, tension, tone—almost every aspect of the poem. The class (open to all levels of experience) will discuss numerous syntactical approaches, read sample published poems, and generate new work. Bring a poem draft you’re working on. A class packet is included. Lunch can be brought or bought nearby.

Review of The Sound of Poets Cooking

Scott Owens, editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review, has reviewed the new anthology The Sound of Poets Cooking, recently published by Jacar Press and edited by Richard Krawiec.

To read the review and learn more about the anthology, go to Wild Goose Poetry Review.

Release of anthology: The Sound of Poets Cooking, Jacar Press

Jacar Press, of Durham, NC, has recently released its anthology The Sound of Poets Cooking. It's a diverse and eclectic collection of poems by nationally celebrated writers, alongside recipes created by poets and their friends. Proceeds from the sales of this book will go to fund writing workshops in underserved communities.

The anthology features work by five dozen poets, including NC Poet Laureates Fred Chappell and Kathryn Stripling Byer, and dozens of other nationally celebrated writers. The poems alternate with recipes written by the poets, their family members, lovers and friends. The writing is at turns sensuous, hilarious, elegant, and playful. The recipes range from Asian, through European, to Middle Eastern dishes, as well as regional favorites from across the U.S.--tiramisu, homemade curry, vegetarian meals, exotic seafood, some simple, some complex. There is something here for every palate, literary and culinary.

To order, go to Jacar Press

Malaika King Albrecht * Leila Allen * Anne Clinard Barnhill * Coyla Barry * Joseph Bathanti * Michael Beadle * Roberta Beary * Amy Knox Brown * Grey Brown * Sally Buckner * Kathryn Stripling Byer * Fred Chappell * Kelly Cherry * Jim Clark * Sara Claytor * Patty Cole * Ellen Compton * Debra A. Daniel * Susan Delphine Delaney * M. Scott Douglass * Sally Ann Drucker * Allison Elrod * Terri Kirby Erickson * Cathryn Essinger * Deborah Finkelstein * Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda * Peggy Gambill * Jaki Shelton Green * Cordelia Hanemann * John Hoppenthaler * Alice Owens Johnson * Paul Jones * Steven B. Katz * Debra Kaufman * Deborah P. Kolodji * Bruce Lader * Sarah Lindsay * Susan Ludvigson * Al Maginnes * Susan Meyers * Lenard D. Moore * Florence Nash * Valerie Nieman * Scott Owens * Randy W. Pait * Gail Peck * Carol Peters * Diana Pinckney * Barbara Presnell * Tony Reevy * Chad Lee Robinson * Lynn Veach Sadler * Joanna Catherine Scott * Pat Riviere-Seel * Andrea Selch * Maureen Sherbondy * Rie Shontel * Marty Silverthorne * Mark Smith-Soto * Shelby Stephenson * Myrna Stone * Julie Suk * Jo Barbara Taylor

Monday, Jul. 19, 2010: Launch party for new issue of Undefined Magazine

undefined magazine's 1st annual Summer Reader Release Party:

Readings by the winners of undefined magazine's 1st annual Creative Writing Competition and contributors to Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio, food, music, happy hour prices, and your very own issue of undefined magazine's 1st annual Summer Reader, while the ink is still wet -- all for 5 bucks.

Today · 7:00pm - 10:00pm

The White Mule Pub and Eatery
1530 Main Street
Columbia, SC

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I'm looking forward to attending and reading my poem "No more than the bird with piercing note," which won first place in poetry.

A poem of mine has won first place in poetry in undefined Magazine's inaugural Creative Writing Competition

Undefined Magazine , an arts magazine out of Columbia, South Carolina, congratulates the winners of its first annual Creative Writing Competition. The winning poems and fiction will be published in the Summer Reading issue, which will be released on July 14, 2010.

Here are the winners:

For poetry:
1st place - Susan Laughter Meyers
2nd place - Gilbert Allen
3rd place - Julia Koets

For flash fiction:
1st place - Paul Bowers
2nd place - Phebe Davidson
3rd place - John Purvis

For short story:
1st place - Leslie Haynsworth
2nd place - Gilbert Allen
3rd place - Leslie Dennis

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I'm excited about this news. My poem that won is called "No more than the bird with piercing note," which borrows its title from a line by Sappho. The judge for poetry was Ed Madden, undefined's new poetry editor.

Jun.20-24: Poetry instructor for SWA workshop, St. Simons Island, GA

JUNE 20-24, 2010
St. Simons Island, GA
Southeastern Writers Association
2010 Writers Workshop -- 35th annual workshop

The time is fast approaching for this gathering of writers, the opportunity to immerse ourselves in writing and talk/classes about writing. The daily schedule includes workshops pertaining to numerous subjects/genres, as well as nightly readings and activities. I'll be teaching a daily one-hour poetry workshop entitled "Which Words, What Order: Diction and Syntax." The first two days we'll work with diction, the last two with syntax.

Here is this year's faculty:

David Robbins, Advanced Fiction
Katharine Sands, Agent in Residence
Susan Meyers, Poetry
Gail Karwoski, Writing for Young Readers
Berta Platas, Beginning Novel Writing
J. M. Lacey, Writing for Business
Ricki Schultz, Writing Journalism
Darrell Huckabee, Humor
Louis H. (Bud) Hern, III, Inspirational Writing
Sheila Hudson & Amy Munnell, Bright Ideas
Charlotte Babb, Science Fiction

St. Simons Island, here we come!

For further info: 2010 SWA Writers Workshop

May 17-24: Artist residency at Oconee State Park

I leave for Oconee State Park this coming Monday, after being awarded a week's residency in the South Carolina State Park 2010 Artist-in-Residence Program. I'll have the opportunity to hike and explore the park, take field notes, and write some poems about the natural surroundings there. After the residency my main responsibility is to send the park a framed poem that resulted from the experience. Am I ever looking forward to the week--my chance to retreat from the busy world for a few days!

Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry Column 267

American Life in Poetry: Column 267

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Here’s a poem by Susan Meyers, of South Carolina, about the most ordinary of activities, washing the dishes, but in this instance remembering this ordinary routine provides an opportunity for speculation about the private pleasures of a lost parent.



Mother, Washing Dishes

She rarely made us do it—
we’d clear the table instead—so my sister and I teased
that some day we’d train our children right
and not end up like her, after every meal stuck
with red knuckles, a bleached rag to wipe and wring.
The one chore she spared us: gummy plates
in water greasy and swirling with sloughed peas,
globs of egg and gravy.

Or did she guard her place
at the window? Not wanting to give up the gloss
of the magnolia, the school traffic humming.
Sunset, finches at the feeder. First sightings
of the mail truck at the curb, just after noon,
delivering a note, a card, the least bit of news.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by the Univ. of So. Carolina Press. Susan Meyers’ most recent book of poems is Keep and Give Away, Univ. of So. Carolina Press, 2006. Poem reprinted from Tar River Poetry, Vol. 48, no. 1, Fall 2008, by permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here [at the Web site] and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.

The poem in each column is brief and will be enjoyable and enlightening to readers of newspapers and online publications. Each week, a new column will be posted. Registered publications will receive new columns by email. Our archive of previous columns is also available for publication.

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Susan's note: After the week of May 3, 2010, Column 267 can be located in the archives of American Life in Poetry. Many thanks to Ted Kooser and his staff for recognizing this poem!