Archive for June, 2010

An interview with Dave Bonta, Big Tent Poetry Sideshow Barker

Another one of our sideshow barkers, Dave Bonta, is currently featured in 10 questions: poetry & technology (an interview series by Nic Sebastian at Very Like a Whale).

“… most of all, I like seeing the generosity with which online poets and other writers link to each other, comment on each other’s work, workshop each other’s poems (the internet is great for that), and form new and I think more resilient networks than we’ve seen in a very long time, especially here in the U.S. where the poetry world is so factionalized.”

One of the neat things about this series at Very Like a Whale is that a number of our Sideshow Barkers are included, as well as other folks we read regularly. Both Ren Powell and January O’Neil have been featured. Be sure to read the entire series.

Click on the excerpt to read the entire article. Check our About page for a list of other Sideshow Barkers, friends of Big Tent Poetry who are generous enough to share with us their columns, interviews and reviews. There is no set schedule for these appearances; willy-nilly is a symptom of creative genius!

Dave Bonta, Big Tent Poetry Sideshow Barker

Dave Bonta has a series at his blog, Via Negativa, that focuses on Poetics and Technology. The latest installation is about how to format poetry on the Web (your blog — or your journal for that matter!) if you want to do special things with long lines, indentations, extra spaces or what not. The subtitle to the post is “An Incomplete Guide” and while it may not be exhaustive, the work to compile it was exhausting, and it is a heck of a start to help poets make the art they want to make. Or to play with new tools!

As Dave says, “HTML is not particularly poetry-friendly, and special measures are required to preserve a lot of the formatting which an earlier technology, the typewriter, made all too easy.”

Click on the excerpt to read the entire article. Check our About page for a list of other Sideshow Barkers, friends of Big Tent Poetry who are generous enough to share with us their columns, interviews and reviews. There is no set schedule for these appearances; willy-nilly is a symptom of creative genius!

This week’s prompt

Recently, at the wonderful, amazing, inspiring IRL feedback group that Carolee and I belong to, one of the poets shared with us her desire to turn a current poem into a “conversation poem.”

She sent us some samples, including Mark Strand’s “Answer” and the haunting “Conversation” by the late poet Ai, in which the speaker both asks the question and supplies the answer (though the departed does indeed respond, as you will see).

Is there a question you are burning to ask someone? Is there a person (living or dead) you would love to have a conversation with? Maybe, as our IRL poet friend shared, you have had a conversation with someone that bears repeating (and examining through poetry’s sharp lens). Perhaps someone has posed a question to you that you simply, at the time, could not answer. Take some time this week and compose your answer in the form of a poem.

Whether or not you write your poem in Strand’s question and answer format, or ask and imagine the answers as Ai did, this week, be sure to ask the really hard questions! Work hard to find the answers! Then, come back and share the whole conversation!

How prompts work under the Big Tent

We post prompts on Mondays, and you have all week to write your poems, based on our fabulous prompt or any other inspiration. Come back on Friday when you will find a “Come One, Come All” post where you can use the comments section to 1) leave a link to your poem or 2) leave the poem in its entirety.

You’ll have all day Friday (and all weekend!) to post your work and read each others’ work. Take your time. Enjoy all the poems that are new to the world.

Some hints

Hint: We’ve set Big Tent Poetry to Central Time.

Hint: An easy way to check on new post comments is with RSS reader, if you use one. Here’s the address: https://bigtentpoetry.org/comments/feed.

Hint: Since we’re a new site, and you’re new to it, your comment(s) will be held for moderation for your first few posts. We’re checking the filters often, so don’t despair! That said, if it takes more than a half a day to see it come live on the site, do email us at info (at) bigtentpoetry.org. (But be patient, okay?)

Circus etiquette

We figure you know how to play in the poetry community, but here are the basics:

Be nice. Have fun. Remember we aren’t a critique forum. We want to support each other as we bring more poetry into our lives. Only provide critique if someone specifically asks for it.

Although we love seeing our badge in the sidebar of your blog, we would appreciate it if you would also link back to the site in each of your poem posts. Linking within your post helps people travel back and forth from your site to the Big Tent Poetry site, and it helps perpetuate Big Tent Poetry “findability” in Google searches — and that helps us all.