If you haven’t written something in a while and would like to get the writing going again, you might look at a blog by Puget Sound alum (and published writer) Terry Bain:
http://writeoneleaf.tumblr.com
The blog provides short, simple prompts that ask you to write a “leaf”–a word, phrase, sentence, line, or passage–about accessible topics Terry selects.
Good luck to students, professors, and staff members as we all officially begin the Fall 2009 semester.
Below is a link to the Favorite Poem Project, a collection of videos that capture people reading their favorite poems. Some of the readers are famous (Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example), some are academicians (professors of law and anthropology), and some are more or less just plain folks (students, government workers, and so on). Many of the videos have been featured on Bill Moyers‘ PBS programs.
Writer Patrick Gavin at Politico.com reports that Bluewater Productions is publishing a graphic-novel about the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The working-title of the novel is “Political Power: Ted Kennedy,” and the novel will now need to be revised because of Kennedy’s death, Gavin notes. Bluewater Productions has already published graphic-novels about Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Here is a link to Gavin’s article:
Poetry Northwest, long a fixture at the University of Washington and edited by (among others) David Wagoner, re-emerged in Portland, Oregon, a few years ago. It is now edited by David Biespiel and is going strong. Here is a link to the magazine’s site:
Alum Stephen Ross informs us that the improv-group in which he participates (and which has its roots at Puget Sound), Ubiquitous They, will perform at Seattle’s annual cultural festival, Bumbershoot. (Alum Nelson Moody, among other former Puget Sound students, also performs with the group.)
Here are the details:
Event: Bumbershoot: “Because great music only goes so far.” What: Performance: Ubiquitous They
Start Time: Monday, September 7 at 3:00pm End Time: Monday, September 7 at 4:00pm Where: Vera Project–Bumbershoot, Seattle Center
. . . And please let the English Department’s faculty be among those to welcome first-year students and transfer-students to the University of Puget Sound.
If you’re a first-year student and are reading this sometime before 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, then you might wander over to Wheelock Student Center for the Academic Fair and check out all the information about different department and programs, majors and minors, requirements, and all the academic information that’s fit to discuss. The Fair begins at 3:30 p.m.
The Poetry Foundation has assembled an informative online overview of the life and work of Leigh Hunt, a lesser but nonetheless fascinating British poet, essayist, editor, and novelist from the Romantic (earlier 19th century) period. Although Hunt may now be best known for a few lyric poems, including “Jenny Kissed Me” and “Abou Ben Adhem,” he was actually a pioneering editor and reviewer. The most notable journal he edited was the Examiner. As the image at left demonstrates, Hunt was also a stylish dresser.
Here is a link to the overview:
Forbes magazine has released its list of those women whom it considers to be the most powerful in the world. “Powerful” in what sense? Well, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel comes in first, so political power seems to matter to Forbes, and Sheila Blair, the chief of the Federal Insurance Deposit Administration (FDIC) in the U.S. comes in second, so, not surprisingly, banking and economics in the U.S. seem to interest the editors of the magazine. Here is a link to more information about the list:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2085653/forbes_most_powerful_women_list_released.html
Indexing Nature's Bounty
Author and farmer David Mas Matsumoto will be reading at Tacoma’s venerable King’s Books on Monday, August 24, at 7 p.m. His latest book, Wisdom of the Last Farmer, is both a look at the role of farming in helping his father recover from a stroke and the continuing tale of a generation of Japanese-Americans whose land and rights were stripped from them during the WWII internments. Matsumoto’s father was one of the few who returned, purchased new land, and resumed farming.
The event is co-sponsored by the Tahoma Food Policy Coalition, and will be followed on September 5 by a reading with blogger Jill Richardson of Daily Kos and La Vida Locavore. Richardson will be reading from her exposé of corporate food systems, Recipe for America, at 3 p.m. that day.
The Tacoma News Tribune got there first.
Puget Sound English Department 