Conversant, too?: June 2006

About Me

Name: Rose

Location: Columbus, Ohio, United States

Rose M. Smith is a shy, quiet poet who's lived most of her life in Columbus, Ohio--a conversational voice heavily informed by human situations and emotion. Voted "poet most unlike herself at the mic," she has been known to silence an unruly room when her poems begin to speak. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, The Iconoclast, Good Foot, Pavement Saw, Concrete Wolf, Boston Literary Magazine, The Examined Life, Main Street Rag, and The Pedestal Magazine, and other journals and anthologies. Rose reads throughout the midwest--she'll make a jaunt cross country if she's needed (you pay for it). She has been called "a quiet visionary spanning the worlds of performance poetry and literary print! challenging and enriching the norms of both. She is an associate editor at Pudding House Publications and author of Shooting the Strays (Pavement Saw Press, 2003) and A Woman You Know (Pudding House Publications, 2005) and is featured in the Poets' Greatest Hits collection now managed bt Kattywampus Press. Rose is a Cave Canem Fellow.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Speaking of Ekphrastics

Stephanie Matthews commissioned several poets to produce poems for inclusion with works in her upcoming photography exhibit: A Life Cycle in Movements, Tribute to Dance & Expressionism. Her show is scheduled to open Sunday, July 9 at Jung Haus Gallery, 59 West Third Avenue here in Columbus. Amazing, BEAUTIFUL photos.

Two out of three of my assigned works complete. Third maybe. Still listening to the voice in that one.

Poems have been rumbling about inside me for the last three weeks. Am probably losing more than I'm allowing to gestate. I'd better get out a pen.

In the job market still. Anyone know someone who wants to hire a poet to do technical work? (Please chuckle here.)

Rust Belt Regionals

Just finished reading Joanna Shroeder's by-the-minute recaps of the Columbus teams' trip to Rust Belt Regional Poetry Slam and Midwest Poetry Slam League Finals. Great reading. Columbus didn't return with the belt this year, but it sounds like they had a truly great time.

Read the recaps here.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

"East Side Girl" -- Poetry as Visual Art

Jen Bosveld (owner, chief editor of Pudding House) opened her one-woman show of ekphrastic poetry and broadsides last night at Don Parmesan's Italian Restaurant in Reynoldsburg. Her show--some art or photography accompanied by poems, some broadsides--(large, frameable poems) will run for about a month at the restaurant.

Read some poems with Columbus east side roots, and "Pressure Switch" (at Jen's request). Great evening for poetry when the spoken word takes over an entire restaurant space.

Kathleen Burgess and Louise Robertson also featured, both of them masterful. Nice, laid-back night of poems, followed by a brief open mic. Great time. Great time.