The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU

12/10/2024

RIP Nikki Giovanni. What a legacy.

The poet and activist was a leading figure of the Black Arts Movement. Giovanni was working on her upcoming book of poetry, set to publish in the fall.

11/13/2024

We love seeing how The Poetry Room has grown over the past seven years. Here's an awesome piece from an Ann Arbor writer about her first time at this amazing open mic and the power of spoken word poetry.

As I weaved through the verses, I felt myself steadying on stage, anticipating the next line and delivering it with just the right amount of gusto.

10/28/2024

Poem of the Week
*
Double, double, toil and trouble... in honor of Halloween, this week's Poem of the Week is an excerpt from the play Macbeth, written by the iconic William Shakespeare, called "The Song of the Witches." We chose this poem because of its inherent eeriness, with imagery that will stick to your mind and make you go as mad as Macbeth!
~~~~~~~~~~
The Song of the Witches
By William Shakespeare

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Copyright Credit: Copyright: Macbeth: IV.i 10-19; 35-38
Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983).
~~~~~~~~~~
Artwork by Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, 1841-1842, “The Witches in 'Macbeth'”

Send a message to learn more

10/24/2024

Tonight! Dianna Frid! - https://mailchi.mp/25317e8253f1/tonight-dianna-frid

10/23/2024

Has this ever happened to you?? 🤔

Join us this Thursday, October 24th, at 7pm, to see a performance by legendary visual artist Dianna Frid! We will be in the Snyder-Phillips theater in the basement. Come for a night full of free, artistic fun! 🖼️


less
original sound - RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU

Check out RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU’s video.

10/22/2024

Poem of the Week

In recognition of October as Filipino American History Month, we selected "I ask about what falls away" by Jason Magabo Perez for this week's Poem of the Week.
*
*
*
I ask about what falls away

Jason Magabo Perez

I ask about what falls away.
I ask about where water sings.
Here is surplus of sun, ocean
of excess, remaindered song.
Whose hands wash this sky?
Who drains this sun against worry?
Whose mighty ache makes history?
This is where water drains,
where gardens grow against
worry, against the crisis of capital,
& capital knows nothing but the
veil hiding hand from profit. Here
is leftover rice. & the wild imaginary
of hunger. Here is a canal in
the crook of the earth. & here is
where water sings. & this, this
is water singing us elsewhere.

Retrieved 10/21/24 from https://poets.org/poem/i-ask-about-what-falls-away

Copyright © 2023 by Jason Magabo Perez.
*
*
*
Jason Magabo Perez was born in Detroit, raised in Southern California, and is a longtime resident of San Diego.
He is the author of I ask about what falls away (Kaya Press, 2024); This is for the mostless (WordTech Editions, 2017); and Phenomenology of Superhero (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016). Perez has also written, developed, and performed three staged multimedia performance works.
Perez currently serves as the Inaugural
Community Arts Fellow at Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies and as an associate editor at Ethnic Studies Review. He is also a core organizer with The Digital Sala, a virtual Filipinx literary collaborative. Perez is an associate professor and director of ethnic studies at California State University San Marcos and is serving as poet laureate of San Diego.
*
*
*
Image "Sun and Sea" by Cynthia Llanes.
This artist’s studio was one of many in the River Arts District in Asheville, NC that was ravaged by Tropical Storm Helene.
Please visit the artist’s Instagram, or River Arts District for links to help.

Send a message to learn more

10/17/2024

The latest news from the RCAH Center for Poetry! - https://mailchi.mp/60e02b79d88a/the-latest-news

10/14/2024

It’s Indigenous Peoples Day and invites you to show up and show out all day!

10/11/2024

Starting in minutes! Come while the pizza (and poetry) is hot!

09/30/2024

Poem of the Week
~~~~~~~~~~
In honor of today being National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools, we chose a poem by Layli Long Soldier, who is an acclaimed Native American poet. “Obligations 2” discusses the grieving that comes with healing in regard to historical and past trauma, which is relevant to today’s remembrance.

Obligations 2
By Layli Long Soldier
(Not in the correct line format due to Facebook captioning limitations)

As we
embrace
resist
the future the present the past
we work we struggle we begin
we fail
to understand to find to unbraid to accept to question
the grief the grief the grief
the grief
we shift we wield we bury
into light
as ash
across our faces

Copyright Credit: Layli Long Soldier, "Obligations 2" from New Poets of Native Nations. Copyright © 2018 by Layli Long Soldier. Reprinted by permission of Layli Long Soldier.
~~~~~~~~~~
Artwork by Joan Hill, “Butterfly Medicine Wheel”

09/23/2024

Poem of the Week
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In honor of the International Day of Peace that took place on September 21st, we have chosen this week’s poem to be “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry! In this poem he writes about the peaceful beauty that surrounds us in nature.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

from The Peace of Wild Things And Other Poems (Penguin, 2018)
Copyright (c) 2012 by Wendell Berry
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Artwork on slide 1 next to poem text: Great Blue Heron
John James Audubon and Robert Havell, Jr.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.32352.html

Slide 2: BW photo of Wendell Berry
Text: Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Land (1981) and The Unsettling of America (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is also found in the novels and stories of Port William, such as A Place on Earth (1967), Jayber Crow (2000), and That Distant Land (2004).

09/20/2024

Greater Lansing Poets! Here’s an excellent submission opportunity!
Guidelines:https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54ca7acde4b0f9873cc3306e/t/66cf3c7ee94579103652b3c0/1724857470725/ELAF+Poetry+Journal+Guidelines+25.pdf

Once again, we are taking poetry submissions! The 2025 East Lansing Art Festival will include the 10th edition of the East Lansing Art Festival Poetry Journal 😀

09/20/2024

LIT Festival