Your Poetry Menu and American Life in Poetry 522

[Matt Mason]

We're almost to National Poetry Month! Start celebrating NOW!

• 3/23-24, M-Tu-- 5:30 and 7:30pm, Preliminary Bouts for Louder Than a Bomb: Great Plains in the UNO Milo Bail Student Center Ballroom and Nebraska Room (UNO campus, Omaha). For more information on Louder Than a Bomb, see: LTABGreatPlains.org.

• 3/23, M-- 7pm, Open Mic at the Moon, at Crescent Moon Coffee (140 N 8th St #10 Lower Level, Lincoln). For more information, contact cresce...@inebraska.com and check www.crescentmooncoffee.com/. (every Monday)

• 3/24, Tu-- 7pm, Imaginary Gardens Reading at Mr. Toad (1002 Howard St, Omaha) featuring poets Marilyn Coffey and Chad Christensen. This monthly series by Michael Skau features talented local poets.

• 3/25, W-- 8pm-12am, Acoustic Open Mic for musicians and poets at Meadowlark Coffee & Espresso (1624 South St, Lincoln). Hosted by Spencer. For more information call 402-477-2007. (every Wednesday)

• 3/26, Th-- 7pm, Poetry Slam in Vermillion, SD at Raziel's (13 West Main St, Vermillion SD). $5 at the door. Sponsored by the Vermillion Literary Project. For more information, see sites.usd.edu/projlit/poetry-slams (last Thursday of the month)

• 3/28, Sa-- 7pm, Open Mic Poetry Night at Espresso Shoppe (419 North Dewey St, North Platte). It's a fun, funny, widely varied group. Poems can be short or long, funny or touching, rhymed or free verse. Musicians too. George Lauby of The North Platte Bulletin emcees and makes you feel comfortable. (2nd Friday, 4th Saturday).

• 3/29, Su-- 9pm-1:30am, it's Shoot Your Mouth Off at The Shark Club (2808 S 72nd St, Omaha). Online sign ups on our FB 24/7 for priority stage time: facebook.com/Shootyourmouthoff. Check myspace.com/shootyourmouthoff for interviews with features and more information. Mandy Morgan and Jim Morrison will be your hosts as open mic poetry and comedy, featured readers from Omaha's slam scene and free drinks prizes await you. The best free show in Omaha! (every Sunday)

• 3/30, M-- 7pm, Open Mic at the Moon, at Crescent Moon Coffee (140 N 8th St #10 Lower Level, Lincoln) featuring Greg Kosmicki. For more information, contact cresce...@inebraska.com and check www.crescentmooncoffee.com/. (every Monday)

National Poetry Month (AKA: April)

• 4/1, W-- 7pm, poets Michael Skau and Steve Langan read at UNO's Fine Arts Gallery (UNO campus).

• 4/3, F-- 7:30-10pm, Wingmakers Book Launch Party and Rite of Spring Poetry Reading at House of Loom (1012 S 10th St, Omaha). Come celebrate the release of Brity Cordera (Doane)'s Wingmakers published by Pinyon. In addition, the night features the incredible work of Todd Robinson, Otis XII, Natasha Kessler-Rains, and Britny. See more at The Facebook Eent Page. This event is free and open to the public.

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American Life in Poetry: Column 522

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Poetry is a good way to capture epiphanies, and this poem by Penny Harter does just that. Harter lives and teaches in New Jersey.

In the Dark

At bedtime, my grandson’s breath

rasps in and out of fragile lungs.

Holding the nebulizer mask

over his nose and mouth,

I rock him on my lap and hum

a lullaby to comfort him.

The nebulizer hisses as steroids

stream into his struggling chest,

and suddenly he also starts to hum,

his infant voice rising and falling

on the same few notes—some hymn

he must have learned while in the womb

or carried here from where he was before—

a kind of plainsong, holy and hypnotic

in the dark.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Penny Harter, “In the Dark,” from The Resonance Around Us (Mountains and Rivers Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Penny Harter and Mountains and Rivers Press. Introduction copyright © 2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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          Executive Director, Nebraska Writers Collective: newriters.org
                            My homepage: Matt.MidVerse.com
                    Find Nebraska poetry info at: PoetryMenu.com