Irene McKinney Comes to MSU

Irene McKinney, the amazing Appalachian poet, is coming to MSU next week. McKinney is the author of multiple books of poetry, including The Girl with a Stone in Her Lap and has been featured on radio shows, including Daily Verse. She was the Poet Laureate for West Virginia in 1994.
The Center for Poetry and the MSU Museum are going to be hosting some events featuring her. They're both free and open to the public, so you should go. She will be giving a free poetry reading on the 14th at 7 pm in the basement of Phillip Snyder (for those of you who go to Poetry Center readings, this is where they almost always are.) She'll also be hosting a writing workshop on masks at the MSU Museum on the 16th at 7 pm. Workshops are free but have limited space, so if you want to go, please register by emailing the them (cpoetry@msu.edu) ASAP.
Hope you make it out and have a lovely time.

Quidditch World Cup Day Two

MSU, sadly, lost against to one of the other Quidditch teams early on the second day. It was a hard match to watch, just because MSU was working so hard. Mike, the Seeker, was getting criticized by the commentators for not ending the game by simply catching the snitch. And they kept calling us the University of Michigan, which is really rude and disrespectful. They didn't do that to other schools, and Michigan would not appreciate it either.

I am proud of how MSU played. They play hard no matter what, and I find that admirable. At the end of the game, they even sang "MSU Shadows," and it was just like being at school.
I decided to stick around and catch some of the other games. The day before, I had hung out with the Transylvania University team, so I decided to go find them. They had cheered for us during our game, so I was going to cheer for them too.
For teams that did not make it into the finals bracket, they scheduled skirmishes. Basically, this is a great opportunity for teams to play a lot of different schools they might not otherwise play. They can practice their strategy and see other teams' strategies too. So, basically Quidditch boot camp.
Transylvania played against John Hopkins. It was a close game, but Transylvania (who are the Animagi) were up. At one point, one of the John Hopkins players ended up on the ground. Hopkins chose to forfeit the game, in part because they were already down one player from another game. I hope that young woman who fell down is okay. She seemed to have the wind knocked out of her.

After that, I chilled with the team, taking some pictures and talking to them about this relatively new sport. Here's some of the Transylvania players posing for me.

One of the things they talked about to me was the history of their school. According to Thane, who usually plays Seeker for the team, Transylvania is about the sixteenth oldest school in the nation. Because of its geographic location, it was named Transylvania because that word means "through the woods."

Then something really surprising happened: MTV approached the team and asked if they would like to be filmed playing Quidditch. Transylvania agreed, and they had an MTV personality take over the role of a Beater to play the game. They got lots of shots of them talking about the game, what they were doing strategy wise, and even warming up. Here are some pictures of the team and Kevin from MTV warming up. Kevin is wearing a black headband to signify his position of beater.
Here's the team right before they start shooting some of the program.


Tractor had a rip in his jeans and they basically ripped off earlier that morning, which is why he's wearing half jeans half shorts in this picture.

I have a couple of extra photos posted up on flikr too.

Quidditch World Cup

I was lucky enough to make it to the Quidditch World Cup this weekend, and let me tell you, it was sweet. I was so impressed with not only the turnout of people but also the great sportsmanship of certain teams. Here's some photos from the event.


I asked this player to give me his game face, and this is what he showed me. Okay, so maybe it doesn't strike fear into the hearts of many, but it does probably make the enemy pause and wonder what's going on. So maybe it's a surprise tactic.
I'd also like to say here that I loved a lot of the jerseys that players were wearing. I would totally love to buy an MSU Quidditch jersey. Schools like McGill, Emerson, Middlebury and Wringley also had great jerseys that I would love to wear. So, if anyone knows anyone and has a reasonable price, drop me a message.


There are some very impressive players on the MSU team. Bailey, for example, is a good keeper. She's just a wall of scary. This here is Mike, who is the seeker. (You can tell he's a seeker because of the yellow-colored headband.) Mike and I have been acquaintances for a while (hazard of living in nerd-infested places) and even though he's kind of a creeper, he's a great seeker. He runs like Hermes and he's a spry little fellow. Professional teams should be all over this guy. (If you're wondering, that is what he gave me when I asked for his team face. Maybe it's a charm tactic? You make the enemy think you're harmless and kind and then BAM! you're winning the game?)


And that's Wilkins giving me his game face. Okay, does anyone on this team have a fierce game face? Or even a slightly serious one?


You'll be unsurprised to hear that MSU won against Syracuse. Right after the game, we decided to take a team photo. But then we realized that the coach was missing. He's that blur at the bottom, throwing himself into the picture. Notice no one even tries to catch him, they just let him dive bomb to the ground.


That's better. And much more respectable than some of the game faces I got.


This is a very social team. Everyone is friendly and analyzes the matches afterward so they can be better players. Here's Bailey and Erin having a conversation with someone off camera. And in the background, one of the other players is practicing what is probably his game face.


One of the treats was that, at the end of the night (after a great game featuring the Transylvania University team) was that Harry and the Potters showed up to play their awesome wizard rock. Here's the band during one of the early songs.


Loving the hair motion here. This guy can totally headband with the best of them.


And here I'm just loving the scream.

Don't discount wizard rock as anything less than punk. It's totally punk.
As always, more pictures on flikr for the fascinated.

More Upcoming Events

As promised, I have another set of upcoming events that are happening in and around MSU.

April 14 The Poem as Vehicle 3 pm Snyder Hall Common Area
Christine Rhein, who is reading next week, will be giving a talk about the poem as a vehicle. Ms. Rhein will be talking about the elements that work together to make an effective poem and show the audience the kind of trial and error that goes on it creating poems, making it easier for the audience to engineer poems.

April 14 Nineteenth-Century Women Crusaders and Poets 7 pm C204 Snyder Hall
This is the presentation that I keep mentioning here on the blog. I'm going to be talking about some activist women poets who wrote about politics. I'll be focusing on Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Ann Plato, Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, Sarah Louisa Forten and Francis E.W. Harper. I'll be discussing their poetry and the racism and sexism that they both fight and accidentally defend.

April 22 Red Cedar Review Issue Release Party 7:30 pm Scene Metrospace
The Red Cedar Review, the nationally-known literary magazine here at MSU, will be celebrating the release of it's next issue. Everyone is welcome to come by to hear some of the author's of the new issue read.

April 29 Poetry Chalking in front of Phillips
The Center for Poetry often has poetry chalkings in the Spring. Basically, you can just bring yourself and the Center will give you a poem and chalk to decorate the sidewalk with. (You're allowed to bring your own poems, if you'd like, but you're not required.) I've always had a great time at these kinds of events, especially if it's a beautiful day.

Like before, all these events are free and open to the public, so make sure you stop by for some of them.

Ten Mississippi

Tonight, Steve Healey read as part of the Center for Poetry's Spring Reading Series. I really loved it. Dr. Healey has a great sense of language and beat. It was easy to see the influence of a lot of poets, particularly the New York School Poets. (Which was unsurprising, given that he once talked to be about Frank O'Hara.) I was also surprised to discover that his poetry is funny. There's a wonderful imagination there, one that sees things so differently. I was really impressed with the reading and the work.
He read mostly from his forthcoming book, Ten Mississippi. I liked that he had science poems, like "Terminal Moraine." My recent poetry seems to be filled with science metaphors (like "On Why Bureaucracies Work the Way They Do.") He gave a great reading. It's too bad that he'll be leaving MSU soon. He's been a great professor and I think he's been a wonderful addition to the school.

“Your war drums ain’t louder than this breath.”

One of the many things I do in my spare time is work for MSU’s Center for Poetry. I love it. It’s been a good opportunity to meet a lot of talented people, and I think it may have rubbed off on me.
Tonight, we had Suheir Hammad perform for us. We don’t do a lot of slam poetry at the Center, but it’s always a nice change of pace.
Hammad was amazing. I’m always impressed by a good slam poet (I’m looking at you, Shane Koyczan and Mos Def). I love that she was not afraid to by funny or silly. And I loved that she wrote poetry about women. Slam poetry, at least in my mind, is a male dominated art, and sometimes I see slam pieces that hate on women (And for that, I’m looking at you, Kanye.) Her last poem in particular, she asked us, as an audience, to imagine “the feminine.” I imagined my Feminism class, how we’re reading French Feminism that talks about that. And I thought about women. The poem was about women who are broken, and I couldn’t help but think about every woman I’ve seen make her body up like she’s her own doll, and how every time she comes home she doesn’t feel any better.
If you ever get a chance to see her, do it. You’ll be glad. You’ll walk out feeling stronger.
Attached are a few videos are her. This one is incredible. Political poetry is so hard, but she totally pulls it off.



This next one is the poem she opened up on. I loved it. Again, such great alliteration. It’s a perfect combination.


“Your war drums ain’t louder than this breath.”
The only thing I would say about these videos is that she is much more intense live. I was sitting less than three feet away from her, and when she looked into my eyes, I know she saw everything.