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 Some of you are old hands at Poetry Lab and some of you may have just heard about it in our e-mail on Sunday. If you are a regular, feel free to skip ahead. For those new to the magic that is the Lab, here is a brief rundown:
The Poetry Lab is an experimental series hosted by Plan B Press at The Soundry in Vienna Virginia on the first Friday of each month. Although it generally follows the traditional layout of a couple of features followed by an open mic, the work presented there is anything but traditional.
In the past we have had everything from a fully immersive performance piece (Mike Maggio's Cloudism) to projected pieces (Lauren Bender and Paul Fauteux) to radio plays (Barbara Descare) to call and response with a VCR (our very own stevenallenmay) to readings involving two poems or two poets (Tony Mancus and the Resevoir Dogwoods). We have had many other wonderful poets of every stripe and too many exciting performances to name. The operative word here is "lab" meaning experimentation.
Coming up this month
Anyway, we didn't just write to tell you how great past Labs have been. It happens we have another one coming up this Friday starting at 8pm. This month we have Virginia Crawford, Dan McGuire and a repeat performance of "Cloudism".
Virginia Crawford is the author of Touch (2011, Finishing Line Press) and co-editor of the anthology Poetry Baltimore. Ms. Crawford is a graduate of Emerson College, Boston, and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. She is also a teacher with the Maryland State Arts Council’s Poets in the Schools program. Her poems have been published in numerous journals, including Gargoyle, Baltimore Review, Maryland Poetry Review and Potomac: Journal of Poetry and Politics. She is currently co-editing an anthology of student poetry with Laura Shovan.
Dan Maguire has twice received first prize for poetry at the Philadelphia Writer's Conference and been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes. His work has been favorably reviewed by poets Robert Bly and Gerald Stern. He has read at the Library of Congress and led poetry workshops through the Gloucester City (NJ) Adult Education Program. He also led one of the sessions at the first joint-workshop for disabled and non-disabled poets, held at Inglis House in Philadelphia, and presided over one of the workshops at the National Convention of State Poetry Societies.
Cloudism first debuted at the Poetry Lab in June 2010. It can best be described as a happening. It is an interactive experience that engages every sense of the participants. If you want to know more about it you are going to have to come and see.
The Soundry is located in downtown Vienna at 316 Dominion Rd.
Watch the Poetry Lab online
If, for some reason, you cannot make it out to The Soundry this Friday evening, never fear! We will be streaming the whole event over UStream.
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