Review: Rusty Moe and Tim Hoover

Nuvo arts blogger Chi Sherman (when is Nuvo going to hire this hard-working girl full time?) went to church this week for a moonlight-in-the-morning experience. Poet Rusty Moe read from his memoir, Bright Wild Stone: A Contemplative Journal of Roots That Shape a Life, and his partner, musician Tim Hoover, sang Moonlight Serenade at The Church Within, 1125 Spruce St., Indianapolis, in the historic Fountain Square neighborhood. Chi's review appears here.

Review: Christopher Newgent and Brett Elizabeth Jenkins

Nuvo arts blogger Chi Sherman checked out Calvin Fletcher's Coffee Company (862 Virginia Ave., Indianapolis)  last Friday for a poetry reading by Christopher Newgent and Brett Elizabeth Jenkins. Chi's review is here. While Chi was generous in her praise for both poets, I disagreed with her assessment of Jenkins. I believe Jenkins' performance is more suited for comedy. Her poems were often one or two throwaway lines that read more like notebook jottings that required little editing or thought. In two longer pieces: the tirade against math was unoriginal; her monologue on "butt hair" clearly pandered to the mostly young audience. More lime than sublime, I thought.

Rescheduled: Indianapolis Writer's Group

This was originally scheduled for Saturday, July 24, but is rescheduled for July 31. Please call ahead of time to verify the time and location:

10 a.m. Indianapolis Writer’s Group (open to all writers) meets at New Century Publishing offices, 1040 E. 86th St., Suite 42A, Indianapolis. Free. Every fourth Saturday of the month. (317) 663-8741. http://www.newcenturypublishing.org/.

Vonnegut Book Club

The following message is from Julia Whitehead, executive director of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. My reaction follows.

Greetings,


The Vonnegut Library's Book Club meeting to discuss July's book, Breakfast of Champions, will be held at 11:30 on the 29th at a conference room in the building where the Vonnegut Library is located: The Emelie Bldg., 340 N. Senate Ave., Indy 46201. Just walk into the Emelie Bldg. and tell the receptionist that you are there for the book club. This lovely woman will escort you to a conference room. We're trying a different time and location this month so that those of us who cannot attend at the usual time will have a chance to discuss and learn from our neighbors. Even if it's been a while since you've read the book, there's still a place for you. This month's meeting will be led by Phil Watts.

Thanks,
Julia
------

Julia A. Whitehead
Executive Director
Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library

The Emelie Building
340 N. Senate Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46204

(317) 652-1954

julia@vonnegutlibrary.org
http://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/

---------------------------------------------------

My reaction: I attended a few of the Vonnegut book discussions, and I noted a few problems.
 
1.) Location: Other than the first discussion, the book club met in the Vonnegut Room of the Rathskeller Restaurant at the Atheneaum. Moving the location after the first meeting probably confused a lot of folks. And, when you meet at a restaurant, the restaurant expects some business to come its way. While I have no problem with patronizing a business that sponsors events, I don't want to spend big bucks just to talk about Kilgore Trout with sauerbraten in my mouth. And on nights when there's an event at the Murat Centre across the street, parking is a big hassle.
 
2.) Attendance: It was pathetic. One time, only the moderator and I attended.
 
3.) Publicity: While there was an occasional mention on Facebook, I didn't notice much of an outreach program. No e-mail notifiations. No fliers. No exploitation of free advertising, such as the Writers' Center of Indiana e-blasts. I also would have appreciated a schedule of titles, so that I could plan their reading ahead of time.
 
Personally, I found that the event frequently conflicted with other literary events that I committed to attend, so that my attendance at the book discussion would be spotty. But that was my problem.
 
Moving the book club meeting to the Vonnegut Library itself solves many problems. But ... and here's a big but ... by having the discussion on a midday Thursday, I and other working stiffs won't be able to attend. So it goes.

Heads-up: Lylanne Musselman, July 20

TUESDAY, JULY 20
7 p.m. Lylanne Musselman kicks off the inaugural Irvington Poetry Series at the Irvington Branch Library, 5625 E. Washington St., Indianapolis.

Best Books of Indiana 2010

Has anyone heard about the 2010 Best Books of Indiana Awards? The Indiana Center for the Book usually has a news release about this time of year, and (unless I missed it) there's no mention on the organization's website about the event. At least there should be word about the awards ceremony. I'll see what I can find out.

Note: This is separate from the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards.

Indiana Authors Award

I missed this announcement earlier this month, but Scott Russell Sanders (pictured left) has been named the national winner of this year's Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award. The prize is $10,000 and $2,500 to the library of his choice. Ray Boomhower is a regional finalist, and poet Micah Ling is an emerging artist finalist. The final awards ceremony is Oct. 9. I tried to get the names of the other finalists, but the Indiana Authos Award website is down. You can read about Sanders in an Indiana University article here.

UPDATE (7-13-10):
The regionl finalists are Ray Boomhower (nonfiction), Colleen Coble (fiction), and Andrew Levy (nonfiction).
The finalists for the emerging writer category are Douglass Light (fiction), Micah Ling (poetry), and Greg Schwipps (creative nonfiction). For details, click here.

The regional winner is awarded $7,500' the emerging winner $5,000. The hometown library of each winner will win $2,500.

Poets as outsiders

While reading Hoosier Folk Legends, edited by Ronald L. Baker (Indiana University Press, 1982), I came upon this passage describing outcasts from privileged backgrounds, who seem to inspire a lot of folktales:

"... (T)hey give up their social position and good jobs and become hermits, living in a shack, under a bridge, at a dump or in the woods. Frequently, they have some talent, although usually it isn't anything that society considers useful. For example, the outsider's talent might be imitating bird calls, writing poetry (italics added), painting pictures, tutoring Latin, or repairing toys."

What I'd like to know, Mr. Baker, is what do you have against people who imitate bird calls?

Review: Richard Pflum at An Evening With the Muse

Nuvo arts blogger Chi Sherman covers the July 11 reading by Richard Pflum. For details (and a dorky picture of me with non-dorky poets Pflum and Jeff Pearson), click here.

Review: Undergound 9 open mic

Nuvo arts blogger Chi Sherman descends into the Undergound 9 beneath Bookmamas and reports on the doings there. Click here.

Gordon Lightfoot

No, he's hasn't scheduled a concert stop in Indy, but just because I'm in a Gordon Lightfoot mood, here's my top 5 list of Lightfoot songs:

1.) Sundown
2.) Don Quixote
3.) If You Could Read My Mind
4.) Pony Man
5.) Canadian Railroad Trilogy

Poetry in Linton

This is a little beyond the target audience of this blog, but some of you on the southern fringe of central Indiana might be interested in knowing that the Linton Public Library is inviting poets to sign up to be a part of a poetry cafe. Contact the library by calling 812-847-7802 or visiting http://www.lintonpl.lib.in.us/.

Heads-up tonight: Richard Pflum

Richard Pflum, who recently turned 78, is the featured reader today at 7 p.m. for An Evening With the Muse and open mic at the Writers' Center of Indiana, 812 E. 67th St., Indianapolis (in the Cultural Complex Center just west of the Indianapolis Arts Center). Free. Host: Rohana McCormack, (317) 259-7900. Every second Sunday of the month. Richard Pflum was born on July 2, 1932.He has published two collections (A Dream of Salt and A Strange Juxtaposition of Parts) and has recorded a CD (Strange Requests). People ask him where he gets his material for a poem and he is always a little puzzled by the question and has the desire to say that he has no material at all and that he certainly doesn’t hoard the dreck of his life to use it in poems. He first thought poetry was most closely allied to music. Later he began to think that painting and visual images might be the closer interface. Now he says it is the tension and relaxation of emotion, the skillful placement of the nodes and antinodes of language in a dramatic context. For him the imagination at play with the senses in the physical world is the key to making a truly new thing. His poems have appeared in Conceit Magazine, Sparrow, Event, Kayak, The Reaper, Flying Island, The Hopewell Review, Ploplop, The Indiana Experience (anthology), A New Geography of Poets (anthology), Bear Crossings (anthology), Glassworks (anthology), Art & Poems (Arts Kaleidoscope, Muncie 2008), Chopin With Cherries (anthology 2010) and the Tipton Poetry Journel. His most recent collections are the chapbooks: The Haunted Refrigerator and Other Poems, (Pudding House Publications, 2007) and Listening With Others (The Muse Rules Press, 2007). He was a MacDowell Fellow at the MacDowell Colony in the mid 1970’s, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in the spring of 2008. He was a co-winner of the Moving Forward – Cultural Trail Prize where poems have been chosen to be placed in bus stop shelters along a path of esthetic interest through central Indianapolis, 2010.

'To the Refrigerator Gods,' by Terry Kirts

A new chapbbook, by Terry Kirts, is available for sale from Seven Kitchens Press. Click here.

Review: Indy Underground

Nuvo arts blogger Chi Sherman reviews Indy Underground, which was resurrected at the Irving Theater on June 30. Her take on Andrew Scott, Donald Ray Pollack, and musician Ryan Harkrider, can be read here.