London Open Mic Poetry Archive
  • Home
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • Stan Burfield Blog
    • Fred Burfield's Homestead Memoirs
  • Our Events
  • News
  • PHOTOS & SUMMARIES
    • Season 5: 2016-2017 >
      • June 7th, 2017: Summary & Photos featuring Stan Burfield
      • May 3rd, 2017, Summary & Photos featuring Jason Dickson
      • April 5th, 2017 Summary & Photos, feeaturing James Deahl & Norma West Linder
      • Mar. 1st, 2017: Photos & Summary featuring Andy Verboom
      • Feb. 1st, 2017: Photos & Summary featuring Ron Stewart
      • Dec. 7th, 2016: Photos & Summary featuring David Stones
      • Nov. 2th, 2016: Photos and Summary featuring Don Gutteridge
      • Oct. 5th, 2016: Photos and Summary featuring David Huebert
    • Season 4: 2015-2016 >
      • June 1st, 2016: Photos and summaries: featuring Lynn Tait
      • May 4th, 2016 Photos and Summary: featuring indigenous poetry
      • April 6, 2016 Photos & Summary, featuring Steven McCabe
      • Mar. 2nd, 2016 photos, summary: featuring Andreas Gripp
      • Feb. 3rd, 2016 photos: 3 Western students.
      • Dec. 2, 2015 photos: featured reader Peggy Roffey
      • Nov. 7, 2015 photos: Our Words Fest open mic
      • Nov. 4, 2015 photos: featured reader Charles Mountford
      • Oct. 7th, 2015 photos: Madeline Bassnett featured
    • Season 3, 2014-15 >
      • Aug. 16, 2015 photos: The Ontario Poetry Society's "Sultry Summer Gathering"
      • June 3rd, 2015 photos: John B. Lee featured
      • May 6th, 2015 photos: Laurie D Graham featured
      • Apr. 1st, 2015 photos: John Nyman & Penn Kemp featured
      • Mar. 4th, 2015 photos: Patricia Black featured.
      • Feb. 4th, 2015 photos: feature Gary Barwin
      • Dec. 3rd, 2014 photos: Feature Debbie Okun Hill
      • Nov. 5th, 2014 photos: feature Julie Berry
      • Oct. 1st, 2014 photos: feature Roy MacDonald
    • Season 2, Sept. 2013 to June 2014. >
      • June 4th, 20114, featuring Monika Lee
      • May 7th 2014, featuring Susan McCaslin and Lee Johnson
      • Sept. 4th, 2013 featuring Frank Beltrano
      • April 16th, 2014, featuring Penn Kemp and Laurence Hutchman
      • March 5th, 2014, featuring Jacob Scheier
      • Feb. 5th, 2014: featuring four UWO students of poetry; music by Tim Woodcock
      • Jan. 2nd, 2014: featuring Carrie Lee Connel
      • Dec. 4th, 2013, featuring M. NourbeSe Philip
      • Nov. 6, 2013 , featuring Susan Downe
      • Oct. 2nd, 2013, featuring Jan Figurski
    • Season 1: Oct. 2012 to June 2013 >
      • June 4th, 2013 featuring David J. paul and the best-ever open mic
      • May 1st, 2013, featuring Sonia Halpern
      • Apr. 24, 2013 featuring Frank Davey & Tom Cull
      • Mar. 6th, 2013, featuring Christine Thorpe
      • Feb. 6th, 2013, featuring D'vorah Elias
      • Jan. 3rd. 2013: John Tyndall featured.
      • Dec. 5, 2012: RL Raymond featured
    • Dig These Hip Cats ... The Beats
  • Poet VIDEOS (open mic & featured readers)
    • 5th Season Videos (2016-2017)
    • 4th Season Videos (2015-16)
    • 3rd Season Videos (2014-2015)
    • 2nd Season (2013-2014) videos
  • BIOGRAPHIES - Featured poets & musicians
  • INTERVIEWS & POEMS (featured poets)
    • SEASON 6 - Interviews & Poems >
      • Kevin Shaw: Poem & Interview
      • David Janzen - Interview
    • SEASON 5 INTERVIEWS & POEMS
    • SEASON 4 INTERVIEWS AND POEMS
    • SEASON 3 INTERVIEWS AND POEMS
    • SEASON 2 INTERVIEWS & POEMS (only from Dec. 4th, 2013)
    • Season 1 INTERVIEWS & POEMS (& 1st half of Season 2) >
      • INTERVIEWS of Featured Poets
      • POEMS by Featured Poets (1st Season & to Nov. 2013)
  • Couplets: Poets in Dialogue
  • Future Events
  • Past Events
    • 5th Season: 2016-2017
    • Season 4: 2015-2016
    • Season 3: 2014-2015
    • Season Two: 2013-2014
    • Season One: 2012-2013
  • Who we Are
  • Testimonial
  • Our Mission
  • Links
  • Contact us

April poetry events (National Poetry Month) in London ON area.

4/1/2017

0 Comments

 
(We're posting them as they come in, but only if they're written in the compact style of the entries below.)

  • Wed. 5th: London Open Mic Poetry: Mykonos Rest., featuring James Deahl & Norma West Linder. Has open mic. 7 pm. Pay What You Can Event.  http://www.londonpoetryopenmic.com/news/do-you-have-an-april-poetry-event
  • Sat. 8th: Basic Poetics Study Group, 1st edition on "line breaks", open to everyone, hosted by London Open Mic, each month one participant teaches the others about an aspect of poetics. 2 pm, Landon Branch Library, Community Room. Cost about $2 each to pay for room rental. http://www.londonpoetryopenmic.com/news/basic-poetics-study-group-meeting-1-sat-april-8th-youre-invited
  • Sun. 9th: Lois Marie Harrod Poetry Writing Workshop, ALL DAY, in 3 parts, from 10 am into the evening, at Forest City Gallery and Mykonos Restaurant. Included in workshop: writing small poems, creating origami poetry books, Ekphrasis poetry, followed by reading and open mic.  Fee for the day is $50. (meals not included). Contact Frank Beltrano frankbeltrano@hotmail.com or Sharon Lindenburger slinden@rogers.com Learn more about Lois Mary Harrod.
  • ​Wed 12th: Open Workshop, hosted by London Open Mic, participants critique each other's poems, 6:30, Landon Branch Library Wortley Room, If interested, email Stan at burfield@live.com                                 http://www.londonpoetryopenmic.com/news/join-our-new-poetry-workshop
  • Tues. 18th: Sarnia-Lambton’s 2017 National Poetry Month Celebration, readings by Kara Ghobhainn Smith, Sharon Berg, James Deahl, Norma West Linder, Carmen Ziolkowski, and Debbie Okun Hill, 7 to 9 p.m. at John’s Restaurant’s Famous Room, 1643 London Line in Sarnia. Admission is free. More information athttps://okunhill.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/sarnia-lambton-poets-prepare-for-npm17-celebrations/
  • Wed. 19th: Poetry London featuring ULRIKKA GERNES & JOHN NYMAN: Landon Branch Library, readings at 7:30pm, pre-reading workshop at 6:30pm
  • Fri.  21st: London Poetry Slam Finals: Aeolian Hall, 7:30, $10.00


0 Comments

Affirmed

11/23/2016

0 Comments

 
AFFIRMED
by Donald Gutteridge


After a reading at Mykonos
Restaurant in London, Ontario
​

There is a murmuring in the crowd
at Mykonos, all eyes
upon the ageing poet
as he grasps the lectern
and steadies himself under
the bright stage-light,
and, as those in their seats wait
to be wowed, words
drip off the bard’s lips
in the sheer shape of poems,
rhymed or not, he reads
with surprising alliterative
ease, then nods at the sudden
outbursts of applause,
at the oohs and ahs in just
the right places, he smiles
a septuagenarian smile
in gratitude at something
significant having been affirmed.



From Facebook: likes...11...Linda Eva Williams, Meredith Moeckel and 9 others
1 share
Comments

Stan Burfield Thanks, Donald Gutteridge. Your poem has also affirmed the value of London Open Mic Poetry. I just hope we can find someone to carry it on past this season.
Like · Reply · 22 November at 14:40 · Edited

Heather McIntosh Gutteridge · Friends with Donald Gutteridge
A poem about a poet reading his poems. Very nice Don. Dan
Like · Reply · 22 November at 16:07

Linda Eva Williams I would love to hear the poem being read.
Like · Reply · 22 November at 20:51

Stan Burfield Yeah, me too.
Like · Reply · 1 · 22 November at 20:53

Meredith Moeckel Me three!
Like · Reply · 1 · 23 November at 01:10
Write a reply...

Stan Burfield He's the easiest poet to listen to I can remember:https://youtu.be/KfJgQdhnBRw...

Don Gutteridge (Feature Poet) | Open Mic Poetry November 2,…
YOUTUBE.COM
Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 2 · 

Picture
0 Comments

New Poet Laureate Tom Cull's acceptance remarks and 1st on-the-job poem.

7/19/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture

Thanks Mayor Brown, thanks to the City of London, and thanks to the London Arts Council for creating and funding this position. Finally, thanks to all of you who have come today. I see representatives here from London Poetry Slam, London Open Mic, and Poetry London—I am so grateful that you are here for this announcement.


I am thrilled and excited to be named Poet Laureate for the City of London. I want to begin by acknowledging the hard work, devotion and successes of my predecessor, The City of London’s first Poet Laureate, Penn Kemp. The first poem I ever published was part of a program called Poetry in Motion, a program Penn created in her time as the Poet Laureate. Poetry in Motion was a poetry competition that invited submission for poems that would be published on city busses. My poem was one of 50 poems chosen and I remember quite distinctly meeting Penn soon after. She said “you are a poet—keep writing” This was a very important moment for me and it gives me a great deal of appreciation for how this position can be used to reach out to artists and would-be artists to help foster and encourage their development.

This is an exciting time to be a Londoner; there is an energy and dynamism in this town and it is being felt nowhere more keenly than in the Arts. I look forward to using the position of Poet Laureate to not only champion artists and arts institutions in this city, but I also want to focus on projects that build and encourage inclusiveness, diversity and collaboration in our city. The arts are for everybody. The arts can help us think through what we as citizens collectively value, and thus the arts can facilitate engagement with the civic process—giving us ways to think creatively about how we want to build and shape this city we share.

To this end, I’d like to conclude with a poem that is inspired by my love and concern for one of London’s most defining natural features---the Thames River, or Antler River as it was and is known to First nations groups whose traditional lands, the river runs through.



Trash Fish

In April, the carp return to Wellington Bridge.
Lumbering mud barges, they dredge the muck,
sub-terminal mouths shaped like the Scream of Nature--
they munch tasty bits of crud, sending up plumes of silt
like spice harvesters on a watery Dune.

Saturday six-pack anglers sit under the bridge,
flick cigarette butts into the river and wait
for the bobber to dive. The ponderous pull
of a hooked carp is hardly sport—landing
one is like lifting a sleeping infant out of a car seat.

The man hoists his catch for his toddler to see.
Spent, the fish musters one mechanic convulsion and falls on some rocks.
The man kicks at it and it slaps back into the water.
Too late, too battered, it flounders about in the shallows gasping--
capsized like a Carnival Cruise.

The cars rush overhead; home from the market, hemp
bags stuffed with tilapia, trout, farm fresh salmon, line-caught halibut.
The fishermen beneath crack their last tall boys, the osprey
and heron bide their time, and the carp under Wellington Bridge
hunch against the current—their teeth in their throats--
and continue to pack on the pounds.


​The London Arts Council's biography of Tom Cull


​

From Facebook: likes....35: Frances Sullivan, Charmaine E. Elijah and 33 others
4 shares
Comments

Brad Shiell · Friends with Tom Cull
Thomas I looked up on google what your role is as poet laureate and you came up on Google ! The girls in the office think you are "hot " ! You now have a following in Australia !

Like · Reply · 2 · 11 hrs

Tom Cull Thanks Brad. the photographer used a special lens called "hot in australia"
Like · Reply · 34 mins



Debra Franke Way to go Tom Tom Cull--what wonderful news!
Like · Reply · 11 hrs

Tom Cull Thanks Debra Franke!
Like · Reply · 32 mins



Cornelia Hoogland Congrats Tom, enjoy the postition!
Like · Reply · 10 hrs

Tom Cull Thanks Cornelia!
Like · Reply · 33 mins



Patricia Black Great poem Tom; great cause; We do have Poetry in Motion in common.
Like · Reply · 10 hrs

Tom Cull Fantastic! That was a fun program. Guess I'd better get to work!
Like · Reply · 32 mins


Anna Yin Congratulations!
Like · Reply · 2 hrs

0 Comments

I ALWAYS THOUGHT I WAS REASONABLY BRIGHT...

2/21/2013

0 Comments

 
...but when some of our really sharp poets get wound up at the mic the main thing I experience is a dull sinking feeling. And the need for another cup of coffee.

Well, we at ‘Open Mic Night’ (I’ve ...heard that term floating around lately), and the people over at Brick Books, have come up with two different solutions to this one hurdle that’s very common at poetry readings like ours.

Our’s is to post a batch of our featured poet’s poems on the internet (here and on our Facebook page) before the reading so everyone can read at least some of the poet’s poems as many times as they want to. And deeply.

Brick books has a totally different solution, but one just about as good. Podcasts. Put your headphones on and listen to Canada’s major poets read some of their poems, over and over and over...as many times as it takes. You can even stop them mid-stride and tell them to reread that bit. Anything -- run it through a voice analyzer. It’s like learning a language from a CD. Replay it till you get it:   Brick Books Podcasts
Here’s a fantasy of mine, just to take it to the limit. Tell me what you think: We bring a projector to the reading and have each poem, exactly as it was written, on a big screen behind the poet. You read the poem and at the same time hear the poet read it as it was intended to be read.
0 Comments

A poem by RL Raymond, our featured reader for December

12/20/2012

0 Comments

 
0 Comments

6th Poetry Night Essay

11/11/2012

3 Comments

 
Picture
(Stan: I only made a suggestion to Kevin, and a very light one at that, a couple times, that if he wrote a poetry-related personal essay for this page he would earn the right to have one of his poems posted with it. That’s all there was to it.)

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALREADY by Kevin Andrew Heslop
 
The purpose of the following personal essay is to make it clear to Stan that I refuse to write a personal essay under any circumstances whatever.

A personal essay seems so much margarine to me. With poetry, or with a list, even, you got the bullets: bang bang bang. I got the idea across. I got the information across. Good. Have a nice day. I mean, there’s usually so much fluff and pomp that you get bored and if you haven’t done by now I’m sure you won’t see my point. 


Read More
3 Comments

POST YOUR POEM HERE

10/16/2012

0 Comments

 
 Yes, we  will gladly take your poem and post it here, on our Facebook
page and also on our website. 

There's a catch, though. There has to be. If not, we would probably be
overrun with poems, and more than one from everyone. The problem is that in
order to winnow them down, I would have to judge them. And I certainly don't
have that ability. And even if I found a way to judge them well, I would be
leaving a trail of angry losers in my wake. Just as in any contest with only one
winner. So....

 My catch is that you have to write an essay for us. Then you’ve earned the
right to attach one poem to it. The essay has to somehow relate to poetry. A
good idea you had, an intuition, a revelation in the sense of a sudden
understanding, even an opinion. But you need to write it in the form of a
personal essay, not the formal kind you remember from school. A personal essay
has no citations, no footnotes, no bibliography, only you and your ideas. In a
personal essay you are the only expert that counts, and you tell your idea
breathlessly just as you would to your best  friend on the phone.
Including, if possible, how and where you came about the idea. Or, if part of it
is not your own, which is guaranteed, where that came from, in a general sense.
And so on. I wrote a personal essay below about writing personal essays, if
you’re interested. It’s called, ‘4th Poetry Night Essay.... Wanted:You’.

 Have fun.

0 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012


    Categories

    All
    Administration
    Alan Leangvan
    Allen Cook
    Allen Ginsgerg
    Andreas Gripp
    Andy Verboom
    Anthology
    Basic Poetics Study Group
    Bernie Koenig
    Bill Paul
    Blog
    Book Launch
    Brighton Mckinnon
    Brittany Renaud
    Carl Lapp
    Carolyn Smart
    Carrie Lee Connel
    Chapters
    Chapters Reading Series
    Charmaine E. Elijah
    Cheryl Cashman
    Children's Poetry Workshop
    Christine Thorpe
    Coming Events
    Couplets: Poets In Dialogue
    David Heubert
    David Hickey
    David Stones
    Dawna Perry
    Debbie Okun Hill
    Dennis Siren
    Don Gutteridge
    Dorothy Nielsen
    E-journal
    Elliot Sapp
    Erik Mandawe
    Erik Martinez Richards
    Essay
    Featured Poet
    Founder
    Frank Beltrano
    Frank Davey
    Future
    Gabe Foreman
    Gary Barwin
    Gloria Alvernaz Mulcahy
    Guerrilla Poetry
    High-school English Students
    Indigenous
    Internet Manager
    Interview
    Jacob Scheier
    Jaime R. Brenes Reyes
    Jan Figurski
    Janice McDonald
    Jan Stewart
    Joan Clayton
    John B. Lee
    John Nyman
    John Tyndall
    Josef Kaplan
    Journals
    Julie Berry
    Karen Solie
    Kathryn Mockler
    Ken Babstock
    Kenny Khoo
    Kevin Heslop
    Laurence Hutchman
    Laurie D. Graham
    Lemon Hound
    Leonard Cohen
    Light Of East
    Linda Burfield
    Lineup
    London
    London Arts Council
    London Open Mic Poetry Night
    London Yodeller
    Louisa Howerow
    Marlene Laplante
    Martin Hayter
    Mary Dowds
    Media
    Monika Lee
    Music
    Mykonos Restaurant
    National Poetry Month
    Ola Nowosad
    Open Mic
    Organizer
    Patricia Black
    Peggy Roffey
    Penn Kemp
    Penn Kemp
    Photography
    Poem
    Poet Laureate
    Poetry
    Poetry London
    Poetry Night Essay
    Poetry Reading
    Poetry Study Group
    Poetry Workshop
    Press Coverage
    Prison Poetry
    Projects
    Rl Raymond
    Ron Stewart
    Roy MacDonald
    Sebastian Rydzewski
    Sharon Bee
    Sheila Deane
    Shelly Harder
    Sidewalk Poetry
    Slam
    Social Media
    Stan Burfield
    Students
    Summary
    Table Reading
    The Ontario Poetry Society
    Tom Cull
    TOPS
    Tribute
    Videos
    Volunteers
    Workshop

Proudly powered by Weebly