One of my longer poems “Cocks” was accepted this spring for
an anthology called Heron Clan VII. The Heron Clan is a group headed by Doug
Stuber of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Each anthology (this is the seventh) is
about 300 pages. The expectation is that the printed book will appear in the
fall of 2020 and will contain poems by 127 poets, including Valerie Nieman, Shelby
Stephenson, Andrena Zawinski, etc. What
is impressive about the list of poets is that it is very diverse, including
poets in Dublin, Ireland.
In May, Stuber set up a series of Zoom sessions to introduce
with short readings those who will be in Heron Clan VII. On May 17, I presented
three poems including the first section of “Cocks” which presents the story of
a Jamaican youth and what happened to him when his father ran into
trouble with the local police. I wanted to encourage curiosity and give the
sale of the anthology a boost. Several of my friends attended the program.
Since the covid19 pandemic hit more readings of poetry have
been popping up. One of the challenges of online readings, particularly on the
Zoom platform, is making sure that the audience learn how to mute themselves or
that the moderator does this for them. The listener is usually unaware of how
low level noise is magnified on these platforms. I requested that everyone mute
themselves before I started reading and when that didn’t happen I asked the
moderator to do it and had to walk him through where to find the controls. As a
consequence, I had a very successful reading.
The
last session begins at 7pm EDT.
May 28th. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82610750045
Zoom Meeting Identification: 826
1075 0045
More information about Heron Clan VII at https://dougstuber.wordpress.com/.
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