City of Legends

The results are in at the WV Finals of Poetry Out Loud…and I know them (having been one of the three judges, I got to shape them!)…

First off, let me say that all the contestants were worthy. It takes guts to get up and recite long, complex word puzzles while your friends, family and competitors stare at you with blank, unblinking eyes, silently praying for you to humiliate yourself.

The winner was:

Carolyn Rose Garcia of Notre Dame High School in Harrison County, who edged the competition in the finals owing to her incredible performance of "Shirt" by Robert Pinsky.

The runner-up was Jasmine Lewis of Spring Valley High School in Wayne County who gave a powerful recitation of "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou.

I have to give two special unofficial awards out of my own.

The first is to Elizabeth Falstreau of George Washington High School in Kanawha County who wow-ed the judges with her poise and presence, particularly in her finals delivery of "Walking Down Park" by Nikki Giovanni.

The second is to Emma Dalen, whose charming delivery of Shel Silverstein’s "Sick" got her into the finals.

Congratulations to one and all, although I should point out that most of you failed to approach me to sign your gift copies of my book at the reception!

I love the book, "The Morgantown Suite Poems", so don’t get me wrong. It’s a good book, nice cover (better be, I chased Ron Rittenhouse for months to get permission to use the photo I wanted on the cover).

But there is a certain sadness as to how the book became the official sample of my work that will be given to competitors for the West Virginia state finals for Poetry Out Loud next week.

"The Compleat Panther Cycles" is too expensive and massive.
The unholy trinity that I have with iUniverse, "from an unexpected quarter", "love gods of a forgotten religion" and "101 Great Love Poems" I rarely recommend, not because they have nothing to contribute (particularly "love gods…" which I adore) but because I have a thing about my former publisher.
"Invocato" is not easily accessible.
"PanthEon" and "from out of the city" are out of print.
"Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite" might be over the heads of many high school students…
and "Psalms of the Monster River Cult"? Well, the poem "if your husband comes home" found some furrowed brows, as high school students might be corrupted by hearing of people having sexual relations outside of marriage.

So the winner, by default, is "The Morgantown Suite Poems"…makes me wish "As Such…" was already out…

Next time.

Inattentive, am I?

Yes. Three days since my last post here (don’t you just love self-referencing?) and I feel like I have been neglectful.

Some of you have undoubtedly noticed the instability with my main site at cityoflegends.com

Do not panic, nothing is lost. We are in a technology transition that is proving a bit stickier than anticipated and should have it all wrapped this weekend (I hope).

If you missed the official press release about the West Virginia finals for Poetry Out loud, which I will be one of the judges for, here it is…

West Virginia State Finals for “Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest” to be held at Cultural Center March 15

The West Virginia Division of Culture and History and the West Virginia Commission on the Arts will host the West Virginia State Finals of the Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest at 2 p.m., on Saturday, March 15, in the Norman L. Fagan West Virginia State Theater of the Cultural Center, State Capitol Complex in Charleston. The state final competition round is free and the public is encouraged to come support the student contestants.

Students from Brooke High School, Brooke County; Cabell County Public Library; Capital High School, Kanawha County; Doddridge County High School; George Washington High School, Kanawha County; Hannan High School, Mason County; Liberty High School, Raleigh County; Notre Dame High School, Harrison County; Pendleton County High School; Richwood High School, Nicholas County; Roane County High School; Sissonville High School, Kanawha County; Spring Valley High School, Wayne County; Summers County High School; Valley High School, Fayette County; and Wahama High School, Mason County; will compete for the first-place prize of $200 plus an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the national finals on April 27-29.

Additional monetary awards include a $500 stipend to the winner’s school for the purchase of poetry books, $100 to the second-place winner, and $200 to that student’s school library. All of the students competing in the finals will receive a Poetry Out Loud t-shirt, tote bag, a book of poetry and tickets to the Charleston Ballet’s March 24 evening performance.

Judges for the West Virginia finals are William F. DeVault, poet, Jamie Dunbar, performance professional and Dr. John McKernan, poet, author and teacher. Christened the “Romantic Poet of the Internet” in 1996 by Yahoo, DeVault has been at the forefront of the digital renaissance: publishing, blogging and podcasting his work to the entire world by way of his “City of Legends” website. A graduate of Morgantown High School, the award-winning poet and author was featured in the Appalachian Education Initiative’s “Art and Soul” as one of 50 notable creative artists from West Virginia. Dunbar of Charleston is a founding member of West Virginia’s premiere improvisational comedy troupe, No Pants Players. She is an actor who has performed with Kanawha Players, Charleston Stage Company and the Charleston Light Opera Guild and has taught theater across the state. McKernan of Huntington is an English professor of 40 years at Marshall University. He has written five poetry collections including Resurrection of the Dust, and his work has been recognized by grants from the Benedum Foundation, the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

West Virginia’s Poet Laureate, Irene McKinney of Belington, will be the guest speaker and Beckley native Chris Sarandon will serve as emcee for the event. McKinney received her bachelor’s degree from West Virginia Wesleyan College where she continues to teach and her master’s degree from West Virginia University (WVU). She is the author of five books of poetry and also offers her expertise as an editor. Sarandon, star of screen, theater and television graduated magna cum laude from WVU and received his master’s degree in theater from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He has performed in such films as Dog Day Afternoon, for which he received an Oscar nomination, The Princess Bride, Child’s Play, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Loggerheads.

In addition, Maryrose Flanigan, national initiative programs manager for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), will be on hand to make remarks to the students and audience. She manages literary initiatives for the NEA, currently focused on the Poetry Out Loud program. Flanigan’s poems have appeared in Potomac Review and Kennesaw Review.

A reception with live music by the Charleston-based band, Voo Doo Katz, will follow the program.

Poetry Out Loud is a program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry Magazine, the oldest English-language monthly publication dedicated to verse. The program is designed to encourage high school-age students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance and competition. John Barr, president of the Poetry Foundation, says “The public recitation of great poetry is a way to honor the speaker, the poem, and the audience all at once.”

For more information about the Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest and the state finals competition, contact Stacy Kepple, program coordinator for the Division, at (304) 558-0240, ext. 145.

The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Its administrative offices are located at the Cultural Center in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, which also houses the state archives and state museum. The Cultural Center is West Virginia’s official showcase for the arts. The agency also operates a network of museums and historic sites across the state. For more information about the Division’s programs, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

My only gripe? I should have insisted they mention how many books I have published, and their titles. Nothing like overkill. I think it is uber-cool (to steal from Candy) that I will be sharing a stage with Chris Sarandon. Been a big fan of his ever since "Dog Day Afternoon".

It is the first Saturday in February, and the long road of the year still stretches out before me. Miles to go before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep.

The year has already taken me by surprise. A year ago I was living two hundred miles from where I am writing this and unattached (a pledge by me to remain faithful to my vows from my second marriage, out of respect for her and to prove to myself that, despite the legends, I can keep it zipped, just became a habit and I found myself promising to make sure I would "take no pretender, again, to my bed").

Now I am where I am, wishing I was 8,132 miles ESE of where I am, blissfully involved with a woman for whom, for years, I felt unworthy to get the attention of. We are making plans. That is a very gentle way to put it. There’s an old saying that love is just your neuroses finding somone else’s neuroses attractive. We both have our frayed edges, dings and cracks, but it seems to have made us both stronger, and more suited for a life with each other than we would have been five, ten years ago.

I have a lot of work ahead of me, having allowed some things to slip over the last few years, but I am making the adjustments…not to be a different person, there’s a world of difference between shining one’s shoes and throwing them out to buy another pair, but to put the edge back on the knife, the shine back on the mirror and recalibrate some things I let slip in the face of my own doubts and penance.

Next month I am the a judge or judge and MC (they are still debating on whether or not to turn me loose on a crowd of high school students, no wonder West Virginia has a bad rap in educational statistics, nationally, they are so afraid of their own shadow they stunt the students by pretending the world is Disneyland) for the West Virginia state finals of the Poetry Out Loud contest. I have a few miracles left…not many (I laughed aloud at the anonymous commentor who accused me of having a Messiah complex or Narcissism, obviously they have been spending too much time with their head up their ass to move beyond such simplistic and misapplied generalities…Salieri lives!) but enough.

Not miracles of divine intervention. But if you take a reasonably well filled brain pan (is it narcisstic to know one’s own IQ score?) and give it a vector and a shove, you can take down mountains and reroute rivers. Then all the people who never got off their fat asses will accuse you of thinking you are better than them, and it gets ugly because, while they are farming the new fields and irrigating with the rerouted river, they are busy trying to hang you as a witch.

I actually find it terribly amusing. C.S. Lewis was very right when he pointed out that Democracies have an issue with excellence (take a look at our President, the triumph of mediocrity. We elected a man I wouldn’t hire to fix my car because of questions of competence and integrity and gave him the power of life and death to send my nephew and thousands of other people’s fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and nephews and nieces into harm’s way).

We need to stop this whole entitlement mindset that hampers and pampers us such that we become a nation of couch potatoes grunting at faux celebrities on television. You know why I might would not vote for Barack Obama for President? Because Oprah Winfrey has so little social conscience that, to make a quick buck, she’d shill her jury consultant, a Dr. Phil McGraw, to the American viewing public as a competent and representative mental health professional, causing untold harm to people and relationships (but she gets her licensing fees from syndication). So I wonder if she’ll put her prestige behind a train wreck of a snake oil salesman like Dr. Phil, do I want to trust her with telling me whom I should have deciding who lives and dies and what Federal programs get funded?

Maybe we should just skip the step and run Dr. Phil. The terrifying thing is, he’d get a lot of votes. Just not from Britney Spears.