How to Make a Sound Byte of Promotion

 So you need a sound byte of a minute or so to promote your new book of poetry. 

Here's what to do:

—Choose a poem and think of a snappy intro.

—Write a script.

—Go to your personal Zoom account and record.

When you exit your Zoom account your video file with be ready.

Upload that file to your YouTube Account.

Here's What the Steiny Road Poet did recently with her reading of Gertrude Stein's Tender Button "A Blue Coat" and her own response poem.

W-E Poets Reading: The Bones

 

 

 

 

 

On September 17, 2023 through W-E Poets of the Pandemic and Beyond—a tri-coastal Zoom reading, the Steiny Road Poet (a.k.a. Karren Alenier) presented several selections from From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons that included Nils Michals (CA), Susana Case (NY), Carolyne Wright (WA), Brad Richard (LA), and Karren Alenier (MD).

 

 

 

 

Each presenting poet followed this format:

—A sound byte of bio

—A signature poem

—Stein’s text (read by Karren Alenier)

—Response poem

—Remarks on process of writing response poem

—Introduction of next responding poet

 

An unedited video now sits on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncEa1I89ZSQ.

 

Here is how to navigate this one hour plus footage:

 

 1:49     Introduction by Sandy Yannone

 6:00     Karren Alenier

11:30    Nils Michals

23:00    Susana Case

27:54    Carolyne Wright

39:40    Brad Richard

48:21    Closing remarks and Q&A, Karren Alenier, Carolyne Wright, Susana Case, Lynn McGee, Brad Richard, Sandy Yannone, Nils Michals

 

Highlights

—Sandy Yannone’s introduction: She calls Alenier a Gertrude Stein whisperer and hopes to present all three volumes in this forum

 

—Karren Alenier: responds to Stein’s “Nothing Elegant.”

—Nils Michals: responds to Stein’s “A Chair.”

—Susana Case: responds to Stein’s “A Table.”

—Carolyne Wright: responds to Stein’s “Suppose an Eyes.”

—Brad Richard: responds to Stein’s “It Was a Black, Black Took.”

 

—Comments and Q&A:

 ­——Respondents appreciated getting assigned Stein text and felt that they wrote a poem that took them to a new place in their writing.

——Did respondent learn anything new about Stein?

——Responding to Stein’s work is an exercise in ekphrasis because her work is an object of art.

——The responses brought our world to Stein’s work and showed relevance.

——What did you learn about yourself as a poet in responding to Stein?

——Responding to Stein became a tale of gaining more life experience.

——Stein morphed in one poet’s prejudice from being the Jackson Pollack of poetry to a poet that brings out realities not seen before.

Feedback from a Reader

 Feedback from a reader is often more rewarding than what comes from a formal published review.

 

 

 

Karren:

  As you know, I’m not a Steinian addict, but your book [From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons] serves as an excellent introduction or textbook on to how to read, wonder and appreciate what she does.  Your emphasis on the invitation to play—to having fun with writing—is a lesson I need to absorb in order to write more pleasurably, perhaps more creatively.  As I slowly wade through the poems, thus far a few of my favorites include your “the wars of Leo Stein”,  “birth of the long dress made in America”, “two more purses” by Duhamel, “hat before snow” by Cavalieri, and “after “A Leave” by Armantrout.  Your challenging project certainly attracted some big name poets.  Kudos!      --Gary

Picked by the Critics

 

 

 

Karren Alenier (a.k.a. the Steiny Road Poet) was just published in the premiere issue of the online magazine Porlock…along with Paul Muldoon and many others with impressive literary credentials.

 

How a poem is picked for this publication is unusual. A panel of people of various occupations does the choosing. Here’s what the Porlock website says about these guest editors: A philosopher, three science writers, a political candidate, a fiction writer, two critics and a filmmaker selected 39 poems for this first issue of Porlock.

 

While each poem presumably ends with the names of the guest editors who chose the poem, the biographies of these editors are not published. For that matter, the biographies of the contributing poets also are not published. A reader must search on these mostly unfamiliar names to discover who these editors might be. Sven Birkerts and Matt Hanson are listed with “Paul Bowles Laments theDeath of His Wife Jane” by Karren L. Alenier. As best as she can determine, both of these people are critics.

 

There might be more to this story. Stay tuned.

Catch Poets as Rock Stars

 

Admit it. Haven’t you always wanted to be a rock star standing at a mic with the audience leaning in to catch your every word?

Actually, the Steiny Road Poet didn’t know she still had that desire in her until she started rehearsing with DC Musica Viva’s Carl Banner and his colleague saxophonist Rhonda Buckley-Bishop. Here’s a cut of the rehearsal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOS7Cby7lJI

 

Poet Anne Becker worked with Carl Banner to create the Leider Project in which poets were able to choose Brahms songs based on the poetry of 19^th century poems to update the linguistic message in English.

 

Steiny has done improvisational readings with saxophonists before but this time the musicians weren’t training their ears to the ebb and flow of the poet’s words. This time the music wasn’t improvisational. This music is Brahms and by the laws of artistic ethics and esthetics, the poet was tasked to fit the words along the score of what this master composed!

 

In this performance, you will hear the original German lyrics along with the original re-interpretations of poets Karren Alenier, Anne Becker, Laura Costas, Craig Flaherty, and Dine Watson performing new poems created in response to the original German lyrics.

 

While the in-person performances are sold out, you can catch the livestreaming at www.youtube.com/washingtonmusicaviva on April 22 & 23 at 3 pm Eastern.