Posts Tagged ‘ sideshow barker ’

A column by Ren Powell, Big Tent Poetry Sideshow Barker

There are art objects that serve an of-this-world utilitarian purpose, be it drinking tea or shaping ideology. They provide us with an aesthetic and often intellectual experience. And there are art experiences, where the art object itself becomes or conjures a metaphor: the vehicle for Aristotle and Plato’s mimesis, the experience that allows us to sense the metaphysical truth. It parallels religious experience in that it is both sensory and transcendent of the senses and logic.

While the political poem or religious poem may incite our passions and rouse us to act, the art-for-art’s sake poem doesn’t elicit a response: it simply is and, through its being, allows us to experience metaphysical truth …

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!

A column by C. Delia Scarpitti, Big Tent Poetry Sideshow Barker

My poetry books are, in so many ways, the keys to my own personal narrative. … I touch the James Wright book I dropped in a bathtub in Taos and once loaned out to a man I liked. When he and I parted ways, it wasn’t just his stories or our endless conversations I suddenly panicked at losing…he had my book!

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!

A column by Mallery Koons, Big Tent Poetry Sideshow Barker

Someone recently asked me why I like writing from prompts when I could be writing from my own ideas. It made me think hard about the purpose of prompts and how they fit into my writing practice.

Most poets and writers I know mix prompt-writing into their regular writing routines without letting it become the only writing they do. This works best for me, because it lets me explore and expand on ideas that I wouldn’t have had on my own

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!