Saturday Sharing (My Finds Are Yours)

Happy New Year!

Today's edition of Saturday Sharing introduces you to Voices on the Gulf, a resource for students and teachers everywhere; the Poetry Foundation's "Poem Guides"; the literary magazine InDigest; Montana Artists Refuge; the "poetry trading post" PotLatch Poetry; and a huge and important Eugene O'Neill resource.

✭ The BP oil spill that devastated the Gulf Coast in April 2010 is not likely to be forgotten any time soon; although the emergency has passed, the profound psychological, economic, and ecological repercussions continue to be felt. One place promoting discussion of the disaster's effects and relief and recovery is Voices on the Gulf, created as a resource for students and teachers everywhere and anyone interested in disasters and their aftermath. When you explore the site, you'll find news, project ideas (see, for example, the "Speak with Your Heart" song collaboration and the information about the art auction scheduled for March 2011), and "channels" to tune into conversations about art, music, photography, and poetry; careers and money; culture and community; health and wellness; nature and the environment; and social issues and human rights. There's even a virtual space for K-6 students who are studying the oil spill and its short- and long-term consequences. 

✭ Among the Poetry Foundation's wealth of resources are "Poem Guides". Each is an essay devoted to deconstructing and explaining a particular poem; in addition to the text (available separately), every guide offers writing ideas, discussion questions, and tips for teaching the poem. Anyone interested in learning how to "read" a poem, discern its form, and understand its meaning will benefit from these guides, which cover poets as diverse as John Keats, Gertrude Stein, James Tate, Gary Snyder, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Lucille Clifton, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, Cesar Vallejo, and Agha Shahid Ali.

You'll also find on the site a glossary of terms, Poetry magazine discussion guides, historical essays about influential poetry, and podcasts.

✭ The online literary magazine InDigest draws artists, musicians, editors, and writers of all genres with an interest in storytelling. In addition to poetry and essays, InDigest offers reviews, podcasts, interviews and discussions, music, and audio of work that has appeared in the magazine. Recently, InDigest initiated a project called WikiLeaks Centos for which writers create centos based on diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks. (A cento, meaning "patchwork", is a poem pieced together from lines taken from poems, articles, headlines, or other sources.) Go here and here to read some examples of poems and fiction created for the project. The InDigest blog is here.

✭ Created in 1993, the rural Montana Artists Refuge in Basin, Montana (between Helena, the state capital, and Butte), offers visual artists, dancers, writers, and musicians opportunities to work alone or collaboratively on artistic projects. Artists of all disciplines may apply for short- or long-term (two weeks to 12 months) residencies and while onsite may take advantage of art exhibitions, concerts, readings, workshops, and performance events. Five fully funded, month-long special residencies are available to Native Americans.

✭ Who wouldn't appreciate a "poetry trading post"? PotLatch Poetry, maintained by volunteer staff, is just the thing for you, if you don't have much money and want a poetry book, chapbook, journal, or ephemera and can barter or give something poetry-related in exchange. Instructions for "trade" posts and "gift" posts are here. PotLatch features authors and their collections in its newsletter. If you're a small press and want to include a press release or feature a new release, e-mail james.belflower@gmail.com.

✭ Students, teachers, authors conducting research, and fans of Eugene O'Neill do not want to miss out on this one-stop electronic archive: eOneill. The site offers access to a library that "holds" the complete plays, audio of rare theatrical and radio productions of plays, an online "card catalogue" of resources, a compendium of film, television, radio, and theatrical productions with photographs, reviews, programs, cast listings, and other artifacts, study guides, a list of current productions of O'Neill plays worldwide, and numerous collections and "finding aids", from the Eugene O'Neill Foundation's Tao House Library to the Eugene O'Neill Letters Project. This is an extraordinary resource to which new material is added continually. Go here to see what's new. There's even a Findit tool for those who prefer not to browse.

eOneill Forum on FaceBook

eOneill TV