Tag: Joanne Corey

Poetry feature on Samantha Terrell’s SHINE

I am honored that poet Samantha Terrell has chosen to feature my work as part of her SHINE – Featured Poets series this month.

I first met Samantha virtually through the Binghamton Poetry Project last year. Her poetry lives in a socially conscious context and she is very generous in sharing her talents with the community.

She recently led a workshop at the Broome County Arts Council entitled “Using Your Voice: A Poetry Workshop for Authenticity.” This inspired the creation of a new poetry club, Binghamton Beatniks, which will meet for the first time on May 14, 2024 at 11 AM in the Fenton Free Library, 1062 Chenango St., Binghamton NY. Local poetry lovers are invited to attend and bring along a poem to share.


Many thanks to Samantha Terrell for featuring me on her website this month and for all she is doing to celebrate poetry in our community!

Grapevine Poets at BCAC ’24

On Saturday, April 27, seven of the Grapevine Poets happily returned to the Broome County Arts Council’s Artisan Gallery to offer a reading in honor of National Poetry Month.


We decided to use the format of our first group reading at BCAC in April ’23, with each poet reading their own work together with that of another poet. After a welcome from Connie Barnes, BCAC’s Gallery and Education Manager, and introduction from Merrill Douglas, Richard Braco gave a moving tribute to Myron Ernst, the local poet who was the origin of what grew into the Grapevine Poets and who passed away over the winter. Myron’s work appeared in many journals over the decades. His 2013 collection, God Time Creosote, follows his life from childhood through old age.

My own selections this year centered on the interplay of the arts, history, and our current social circumstances. I read two of my yet-to-be-published ekphrastic poems, “Revelation in Shadow” and “Memphis, Tennessee,” along with Robert Frost’s “Choose Something Like a Star,” which was set to music by Randall Thompson and performed by the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton at our concert earlier this month.

One of the things I especially liked about our reading this year was the frequent expressions of how important community is for us as poets. While the stereotype of writers in general and poets in particular is that they are off alone in a secluded spot scribbling away, the reality is that our work is often strengthened by coming together to share our works-in-progress with our fellow writers. I often acknowledge the Grapevine Poets, the Boiler House Poets Collective, and the Binghamton Poetry Project in my bios because I know I would never have been able to publish without their example, advice, and support. During National Poetry Month, it was good to acknowledge what we are to each other as poets.

This year’s participants were (left to right) with quilt exhibit in the background: Sharon Ball, Wendy Stewart, Susan Thornton, Richard Braco, Joanne Corey, Jessica Dubey, and Merrill Douglas.


After the reading and Q&A, there was time for us to greet our guests, browse the Artisan Gallery, and visit the POETREE, which is pictured above. Several of the Grapevine Poets had poems that were part of the POETREE display, which showcased short, spring- or renewal-themed poems from local writers.

Many thanks to Connie Barnes and the Broome County Arts Council for inviting us to read with them in honor of National Poetry Month. We Grapevine Poets look forward to more collaborations in the future.

Write Out Loud 2024 video now available!

I’m pleased to share the video of the Write Out Loud 2024 performance, which was just released last night.

If you expand the description of the video, you can read the program, which is helpfully indexed to bring you to the beginning of each segment, first the writer’s biography and then their poem, essay, short story, or play. If a piece is performed by someone other than the writer, that information is included, as well.

With 22 writers represented, the full video is two hours, so it is nice to have it organized in this way so a viewer can easily choose segments to watch when they have time.

You can read my blog post about my participation in Write Out Loud 2024 here .

My thanks once again to Mike Tamburrino, Christine Juliano, the Fenimore Art Museum, and the Glimmer Globe Theatre for including me in Write Out Loud 2024 and making it such a memorable experience.

I hope that I will be able to submit work for future Write Out Loud performances and, perhaps, be fortunate enough to be included again. Writers within a 100-mile radius of Cooperstown, New York, can be on the lookout for the submission call coming out this fall for Write Out Loud 2025. Playwrights from that same geography should look for the NEXT! series, which offers staged readings of new work. You can read my post about Eva Schegulla’s Fall Forever, which was part of NEXT! 2024, here.

If you are visiting the Cooperstown area, be sure to check out the Fenimore Art Museum and their partner-across-the-road, the Farmers’ Museum. Both museums have winter closures; the links should take you to the page with their hours and dates for the current year.

To hear more about what it’s like to live in Cooperstown, which most people know as home to the Baseball Hall of Fame, check out the final piece of Write Out Loud 2024, Robert Harlow’s “Cooperstown, an insider’s guide.”

You might pick up some tips…

Poetry Out Loud ’24

To celebrate National Poetry Month, the Tioga (NY) Arts Council sponsors a series of recordings of local poets reading a poem of their choice.

I’m pleased to say that my poem “The Bridge” is part of this initiative this year. You can listen to my recording here.

You can find the 2024 Tioga Arts Council recordings here, including offerings from fellow Grapevine Poets Merrill Douglas and Jessica Dubey.

Enjoy!

Write Out Loud 2024

I am honored to have been selected for the fourth annual Glimmer Globe Theatre/Fenimore Art Museum Write Out Loud performance on Saturday, April 20th. There were 22 writers represented with a mix of poems, short story, essays, and even a short play, all written by people living within a 100-mile radius of Cooperstown, New York.

My daughter T and I decided to make a weekend of it. We visited the Museum in the afternoon. Our favorite new exhibition was “As They Saw It: Women Artists Then and Now.” It will be showing through September 2, 2024. We loved how it demonstrated the power of women’s artistic expression over time, both as individuals and in relation to other women across the generations. We also appreciated viewing the thoughtfully curated Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, which has had a home at the Fenimore since 1995.

After a delicious early dinner at the Council Rock Brewery in a room filled with vintage clocks, T and I headed back to the Fenimore for the performance. We arrived early so that I could attend a walk-through. I had the opportunity to meet Christine Juliano, the actor who would read my poem, “Some Time Else” from my chapbook, Hearts. I admit that the whole evening was much more relaxing because I didn’t have to perform myself. It made the walk-through more interesting as I could observe the microphone adjustment and lighting cues without having to worry about dealing with them myself. It was also a good reminder that having a mike is not an excuse to dial back on vocal projection.

We had a good house for the performance, filling the auditorium, which was exciting for me who is more used to wondering if the readers will outnumber the audience! A brief bio from each writer was read as they or the actor reading their piece took the stage. There were also accompanying visuals projected behind the stage that complemented each reading.

The range of topics was wide and it was fun to have a mix of genres represented. While the age of the writers skewed older, we did have some younger folks participating. Quite a number of the writers had been professors or editors or directors of writing series, so I, totally lacking in academic English credentials myself, felt honored to have been chosen alongside them. Submissions for Write Out Loud are read anonymously so the individual piece is selected, not the author. I was also surprised that a large majority of writers had chosen to present themselves; one of the things that had attracted me to submit was the opportunity to hear an actor read my work. I must admit, though, that some of the writers were so evocative in their performance that I couldn’t imagine an actor would have done better.

I learned that Write Out Loud began as a virtual performance during the pandemic, which then continued as a live event when restrictions were lifted. This year saw the largest number of participants thus far.

I’m not going into too much detail about the program itself because, on Saturday, April 27 at 7 PM, the recording will be released on the Fenimore Art Museum’s YouTube channel. Update: The video of Write Out Loud 2024 is now available here. If you expand the description, you will find the program, helpfully indexed to bring you to whichever piece you select.

Thanks to the Fenimore Art Museum and the Glimmer Globe Theatre, especially Mike Tamburrino, Manager of Performing Arts Programs at the Fenimore Art Museum and the affiliated Farmers’ Museum, for including me in this special event!

One-Liner Wednesday: Write Out Loud 2024

My poem “Some Time Else” from my chapbook Hearts has been selected for performance at the Fenimore Art Musuem through the Glimmer Globe Theatre in Cooperstown NY on Saturday, April 20 at 7 PM as part of Write Out Loud 2024; the recording will be released the following week and I will be sure to post it here at Top of JC’s Mind.
*****
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/04/17/one-liner-wednesday-a-what-kind-of-ritual/

1,900

Another (small) milestone!

I just noticed that I have 1,900 followers for Top of JC’s Mind. Yay!

I suppose that is a small number for a blog of ten years but I am notoriously averse to checking stats, doing publicity, blogging on a schedule, etc. so I’m taking it as a win.

Of course, I realize that some of my followers have read exactly one post, hit the follow button, and never returned – which is fine because there are thousands upon thousands of blogs and very limited time for browsing and reading – but I especially cherish those of you who visit on a regular basis, like posts, write comments, or just send good vibes in my direction.

Life is complicated and I appreciate being (a tiny) part of the blogging community. I also like that I am able to write about whatever is on my mind. Well, at least, some fraction of what is on my mind because my mind is a busy place without an off switch. It helps to get thoughts organized and onto the screen.

And, if you are reading this post and would like to be follower 1,901 or 1,902 or whatever, welcome and thank you!

belated poetry

2023 Binghamton Poetry Project anthology

This spring is the tenth anniversary of my involvement with the Binghamton Poetry Project, which offers workshops to the area community, let by graduate students at Binghamton University.

Today, I’m sharing the link to the 2023 online anthology which became available at some point over these last weeks. Usually, an anthology release coincided with our final readings at the end of the spring and fall sessions, but, last year, for various reasons, no anthologies were published at those times. The link above has three poems from the spring 2023 workshops; I had submitted three from the fall, but they appear to have evaporated into cyberspace.

My poems, “With Nana” “After Cataract Surgery” and “The Way Home”, were written from prompts from our workshop leaders. “After Cataract Surgery” is closest to “real life”; the other two are more imagined. They were written and revised quickly because I needed to make the original anthology deadline, so no judgement on the level of editing!

A transition is underway with Binghamton Poetry Project which is now being re-named the Binghamton Writers Project. The plan is to offer community workshops in other literary genres in addition to poetry. Right now, we are still waiting to see what that will look like.

I owe a lot to the Binghamton Poetry Project. I’ve learned a lot about craft from their workshops. BPP connections helped me find the Grapevine Poets, with whom I workshop on a regular basis year-round and participate in readings. I was invited to write and deliver a poem at the Broome County Heart of the Arts dinner in 2016. A number of poems in my chapbook Hearts and in my still unpublished full-length collection began as Binghamton Poetry Project prompts.

I’m hoping (selfishly) that the Binghamton Writers Project will always keep a poetry offering available.

I wonder how long it will take me to stop calling it the Binghamton Poetry Project or BPP?

Vestal Barnes & Noble event

Gearing up for a Saturday, March 16, 2024 event from noon to 4 PM at our local Vestal, NY Barnes & Noble Bookstore, featuring five Grapevine Poets, including me. The Grapevine Poets take their name from The Grapevine Cafe in Johnson City where we meet regularly to workshop poems, talk, and eat, of course!

Merrill Douglas, Jessica Dubey, Carol Mikoda, Burt Myers, and I, Joanne Corey, will be at individual tables scattered about the store for book signing and conversation from noon to three. We will each have a stamp to mark your entry to a drawing for a Barnes and Noble gift card if you visit all five of us.

At 3:00 or so, we will have a reading in the music department. We are hoping that some of our Grapevine colleagues will appear, as well.

Please join us at whatever point you are able. You can say that you “heard it through the grapevine!”

Many thanks to Burt Myers for the flyer. Burt is a talented graphic artist besides being a talented poet.

One-Liner Wednesday: I haven’t quite fallen off the face of the earth

Just a reassurance that I will get back to substantive posting soon (I hope), after a period of travel, catching up after travel, family health issues, not nearly enough sleep, manuscript work, jet lag/time change, trying to solve problems that never should have happened in the first place, rallying and lobbying against CO2 fracking/carbon sequestration and working on tax returns…

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/03/06/one-liner-wednesday-detriment/