An Invitation to Participate in the Virtual Poetorium for May 25th, 2021…

Dear Readers,

I am pleased to announce that this month’s Virtual Poetorium will be marking the second year anniversary of the Poetorium (some of you might be a bit puzzled right now, thinking “Wait a minute, Paul, didn’t you guys just have a first anniversary edition this March?” Well, yes, we did, but that was celebrating the anniversary of the Virtual Poetorium, while this month will be two years since we  launched the very first live Poetorium show at the Starlite Bar & Gallery in Southbridge, Massachusetts on May 28th, 2019).  I am happy to say our featured poet for this month’s edition will be fittingly the person who started it all – our very own Poetorium co-founder and co-host, Ron Whittle! 

Like I did in previous months, we’d like to once again open up this May’s Virtual Poetorium for anyone who would like to participate and invite all my fellow bloggers and faithful readers (or just anyone just happening to read this) to be a part of our unique online poetry gathering in print. However, I have come to a decision not to repost the entire Virtual Poetorium here on this blog like I have done in the past, but instead just post a link to the Poetorium website so you can read it there if you like. I feel the Virtual Poetorium in its entirety is probably too long a read and thus too overwhelming for most readers. As a result, some really excellent poetry will probably be skipped, and that would be a real shame. So as a solution, I hope to break this edition of the Poetorium (as well as others) up into more easily digestible segments, and perhaps post them here sometime in the near future. 

To be part of our virtual open mic this month, please send us one of your own original poems or stories (under 2000 words please) either in a Word document file or pasted in the body of an email along with your name, any opening remarks you care to make, and where your poem has appeared if it was previously published to poetorium@mail.com  by Friday, May 22nd. Also if you like, you can send us a photo of yourself to be posted above your poem, but that is totally optional.

Once again, we also need contributions to the Poetorium Group poem which this month will be tentatively titled “A Multitude of Blessings” To participate, please send us a blessing (or a wish) consisting of one to six lines with the first line starting with the word “May” such as “May you always have peace in your heart.” or “May your smile be your umbrella.”.  All contributions (which will remain anonymous unless otherwise requested) will be compiled to create our group poem which be included in this month’s Virtual Poetorium. Once again, the deadline for submissions is the night of Friday, May 22nd.

For this month’s Poetorium writing form challenge, you are all invited to write an American Sentence, a poetry form invented by the American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in the mid-1980’s as a twist on traditional haiku. Like haiku, American Sentences consist of 17 syllables, but instead of being arranged into three lines, they are written as a single line or sentence. They also may or may not have a title.  As far as the other rules of the form, there seems to be varying opinions. Many seem to feel the poem should be just one complete grammatical sentence, while others have written them as two, three, or four or even just as series of phrases. Paul E. Nelson (the poet most associated with the American Sentence, besides Ginsberg) emphasizes the use of concrete images though ones written by others often deal with abstractions. Ginsberg, himself, stated that the poem, if possible should mention either a time or place (or both) and the use of articles such as “a” and “the” should be avoided. But even he didn’t always follow the last suggestion as seen in these four of the original American Sentences composed by Ginsberg:

Nov 1991 N.Y.

Put my tie on in a taxi, short of breath, rushing to meditate

—Allen Ginsberg

Tompkins Square Lower East Side N.Y.

Four skinheads stand in the streetlight rain chatting under an umbrella

—Allen Ginsberg

On Hearing the Muezzin Cry Allah Akbar While Visiting the Pythian Oracle at Didyma Toward the End of the Second Millennium

At sunset Apollo’s columns echo with the bawl of the One God

—Allen Ginsberg

Approaching Seoul by Bus in Heavy Rain

Get used to your body, forget you were born, suddenly you got to get out!

—Allen Ginsberg

In comparison, here are four American Sentences I wrote that originally appeared on this blog:

Boulevard Diner

The ham slices squeal on the smoking grill like the ghosts of dying pigs

The Sad Truth About Aging

To grow old is to witness your world being dismantled around you

The Gambler’s Mantra

Luck is a middle finger waved in the face of probability

An Urban Stroll a Week After a Winter Storm

Propelled by my feet, chunks of frozen snow skitter down gritty sidewalks

Using the above poems as models, please try writing some for yourself and send us your best efforts by Friday, May 22nd to be included in this month’s Virtual Poetorium.

If you have any questions about submitting to the virtual open mic, the group Poetorium poem, the writing challenge, or anything else about the Virtual Poetorium itself, please leave them in the comments of this post, and I will try to answer them right away.

Thank you so very much for reading, my friends! I treasure everyone’s continued support of this blog, and hope to hear from you soon with your contributions to this month’s edition of the Virtual Poetorium!