Conversant, too?: September 2007

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.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Enormous Room

Wow! What a great time we had reading last night at Kent State Stark campus. The Enormous Room turned out to be a library conference room. Nice turnout. GREAT audience.

We think of enormous as a spacial reference... the size of a room, or a vase, or a lake-front home. The enormity of this reading space lies in the receptivity, interest, and openness of the hearts and minds of young people who love poetry. They pulled life from someplace deep inside of each of us, and even when we were done they hungered for more.

The opportunity to answer questions about process and purpose--THAT I hadn't expected!

Bob Miltner was a tremendously gracious host. Steve Abbott, Jen Bosveld and I agreed: This is a place any person within several miles of this Kent State location should hurry to each month. It will be contagious. It will leave you covered in sparks. It will teach you what your words can do and leave you speechless and full of words at the same time.

Labels: poetry, poetry readings, writing