Poetry Events

Poetry Events

May 20, 2019  (Monday) 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm - Celebrating the recent publication of "Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice" edited by Ron Riekki and Andrea Scarpino at Content Bookstore, Northfield, MN with 5 Poet Laureate recipients: James Armstrong, Emilio DeGrazia, Rob Hardy, Ken McCullough, and Sheila Packa.  For information about the book, see http://msupress.org/books/book/?id=50-1D0-4581#.XMiJYpNKgdV

May 31, 2019 (Fri) 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Organized by Duluth Poet Laureate Gary Boelhower, the event “Walt Whitman at 200: A Birthday Party with Poetry Readings, Presentations, and Cake” will feature readings by Duluth Poets Laureate Bart Sutter, Deborah Cooper, Sheila Packa, Ellie Schoenfeld, and Gary Boelhower; presentations by Mara Hart, Professors John D. Schwetman, and Chris Johnson; and book sales of recently published anthologies. The event is free and open to the public and refreshments will be served. For additional information, please contact Gary Boelhower, gboelhower@msn.com. Hartley Nature Center, 3001 Woodland Avenue, Duluth, MN 55803.


Poetry Book Club @ Zenith Books

May 8 (Wed) 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – In May, we are discussing “The Beauty” by Jane Hirshfield. Zenith Bookstore, 318 North Central Avenue, Duluth, MN 55807.

June 12 (Wed) 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm –  In June, we are discussing Danez Smith's "Don't Call Us Dead," a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award. 

A Free-flowing River: Thoughts About Poetry

To see the slides, click on this link:  http://www.sheilapacka.com/ely2019.pdf

April 27, 2019 Keynote Address for the League of Minnesota Poets Spring Conference in Ely, Minnesota.

This keynote presents my experience of a northern watershed and an intertextual exploration of poetry. This examines ideas of flow, rhapsody, turns, landscape, headwater, time, erosions, opposing forces, tributaries, the body, permeability, mosaics, and it includes Works Cited.

The Muse

"When I Met My Muse"
by William Stafford

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off–they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. “I am your own
way of looking at things,” she said. “When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.

I'm especially fond of Stafford's poem because it emphasizes the muse is connected to one's own set of perceptions. "Writer's voice" is the unique set of perceptions, attentions, obsessions, and experience of the writer. It reflects his or her culture, words, habits, and landscape. A writer needs a muse. Each writer has a unique experience and image of his or her source of inspiration.

Wilderness and Mineral Landscapes

Lately, musician Sara Pajunen has been composing Mine Songs: Sounding an Altered Landscape. https://minesongsmusic.com/  She has been recording sound and video in areas near mining operations and at harbors, and she uses this collected sound in her violin compositions. It's beautiful work. 

I have a poem published at Cortland Review, "Boundary Waters."  In this excerpt, I allude to the extraction of minerals in the northern Minnesota landscape.

a tail flick of a fin 
among the sunken 
shoulders
in a vein of ore. 
To take from another body
is a question
answered by loon...

There is a tension here between the environmental quality and economic development in the form of taconite and iron mines. In order to sustain our lives, there is a balance we need to achieve between economics and environment.Read the entire poem at http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/60/packa.php

Horses: A Lyric Essay

Entropy Magazine published my lyric essay, "Horses."  This was written for Sibelius' Symphony #2.

The series "Variations on a Theme" seeks to examine the intersection between music and literary works.

"Music can hold enormous power in memories and experiences, transporting us instantly to an age, location, or person. What sonic joys, mysteries, disbelief, and clarity have you experienced?"

Read the essay at Entropy's website:

https://entropymag.org/variations-on-a-theme-horses/

Donald Hall: Goatfoot, Milktongue, and Twinbird

In the essay, "Goatfoot, Milktongue, and Twinbird: Interviews, Essays and Notes" Donald Hall considers the psychic origins of poetry.

This essay captures what feels true.  Donald Hall believed poetry had root in vatic expression, coming from God or the divine. In addition, he considers the experience that is preverbal as a major source of poetry, saying: "The mouth pleasure, the muscle pleasure, the pleasure of match-unmatch.”  Milktongue refers to the five senses, the infant nursing at the breast with milk in his or her mouth.  Goatfoot refers to muscle pleasure, like the rhythms of nursery rhymes, games and happy dances. Twinbird is the infant's discovery of his or her hands. Like birds, they are in the air. Initially, they seem independent but gradually a baby understands the hands are dependent and respond to his or her will. Also a delight grows when a child sees the mirror image, the match-unmatch of the hands. The words goatfoot, milktongue and twinbird contain both image and rhythm (dactyl).

In the following poem by Hall, one can trace these three: mouth pleasure, muscle pleasure and match/unmatch.


Gold

Pale gold of the walls, gold
of the centers of daisies, yellow roses
pressing from a clear bowl. All day
we lay on the bed, my hand
stroking the deep
gold of your thighs and your back.
We slept and woke
entering the golden room together,
lay down in it breathing
quickly, then
slowly again,
caressing and dozing, your hand sleepily
touching my hair now.

We made in those days
tiny identical rooms inside our bodies
which the men who uncover our graves
will find in a thousand years,
shining and whole.

Hall also once said, "Poetry begins in elegy."  See his essay about elegy here: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-poetry-of-death

To see his entire book of essays, Goatfoot, Milktongue, and Twinbird: Interviews, Essays and Notes (digitally archived): https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015002132382

See the text of "Gold" by Donald Hall: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/gold