One of the definitions for “parade” comes from the Italian “parate,” meaning a” garish setting forth.” When I decided we would have a poetry parade at our first ROMP Poetry Festival, I had no idea what that would look like. I just knew that a parade would be a great way to honor April being National Poetry Month. With the help of all the willing and able poetic participants, we made a great and garish setting forth across the meadow that was the highlight of the Festival. Continue reading “A Garish Setting Forth”
Tag: poets
No Expectations
A visitor to the museum on Nov. 16 wrote this response to it and gave it to me:
Down Perkins Road, nestled in the trees is a quaint little red barn, welcoming the quiet reader as well as the playful poet. A museum of poetry, this is going to be a new experience. Not knowing what to expect demands an open minded approach; who will be there, what will first be encountered, will on the spot reciting be expected? As it turns out, there are no expectations of unprepared performances; only a relaxing atmosphere that begs the curious reader to look deeper for the next interesting piece left behind by a former guest. Blocks of wood with witty phrases litter the shelves; telling the unskilled poet that it is okay to experiment a little. The ROMP casually opens a new door to creativity that was closed prior to visiting the museum.
–Alvin
Thanks, Alvin. Come back any time.
Langston Hughes’s Birthday
Today, Feb. 1, is Langston Hughes’ birthday. I think he is one of America’s greatest poets, and I have always enjoyed his poetry. Even though he lived most of his life in New York, he was born not far from the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry, in Joplin Missouri, a town just across the border about 90 minutes away. Continue reading “Langston Hughes’s Birthday”
I Beat Manuela
![PerilsOfPaulineTiedToRailwayTracks[4]](https://rompoetry.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/perilsofpaulinetiedtorailwaytracks4.jpg)
He kicked me in his sleep,
But when he woke up,
He said he was kicking a bad guy
Who was trying to get me.
I am always being chased
By bad guys in his dreams,
And he is always saving me. Continue reading “I Beat Manuela”
Winter Conversation
Dandelion in winter
Has lost its head
It did not roll down a hill
Nor drown in an ocean
Though the ocean may have
Longed for it
Sumac seeds and wildflower,
Pine cone and pine needle,
All watched
And said nothing.
–Shaun Perkins
My junior class collected things on the ground outside the other day and made poems out of them.
The Shock-Receiving Capacity
Virginia Woolf wrote that it was her “shock-receiving capacity” that made her a writer. I think writers, particularly poets, have a perpetual déjà vu, remembering bits and pieces of experiences, usually nondescript, that harbor images that repeatedly cry out to be cast upon paper. Continue reading “The Shock-Receiving Capacity”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 