Chicago blur: 1995 to 2020

I’m excited to share that my poem “Chicago blur: 1995 to 2020” was published this month in the poetry journal Spillway 29, guest edited by Patricia Smith, who recently won the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize; and Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate of the City of Los Angeles.

As writers and artists, we are constantly being influenced by those who came before us and those who are working alongside us. In the early days of the pandemic, in April 2020, Creative Distancing, in partnership with the Philbrook Museum of Art, published a series of creative project tutorials on YouTube, offering artistic prompts from a number of creators. One of these featured a poet, author, and educator whose work I love, Quraysh Ali Lansana, talking about a form he created, the blur poem.

If you’ve never encountered the form, you can also read Quraysh Ali Lansana’s blur poems “Tulsa blur: 1921 to 2012” and “basement blur: wisconsin“.

I was inspired to write my own blur poem and worked on it during those early months of the pandemic. I’m delighted for it to be included among so many wonderful poems in Spillway 29. The annual poetry journal is not online but is available for purchase through Small Press Distribution.

Valya holding a copy of the poetry journal Spillway 29.

2015 Fuller Award to honor Haki Madhubuti

Sculpture by Ron Swanson

On November 18th at the Poetry Foundation, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame will be awarding the Fuller Award for Lifetime Achievement to Haki Madhubuti.  In past years we have honored Gene Wolfe, Lisel Mueller, and Harry Mark Petrakis.

Haki Madhubuti has not just left his mark on Chicago and the nation’s literary landscape, he has helped to reshape it in such important ways. One of the architects of the Black Arts Movement, he is an award-winning poet, publisher, an educator, and the recipient of so many well-deserved honors and fellowships.

Please join us in honoring him at this free event on November 18th. I hope to see you there.

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Love & Words

Back when Turntable.fm just started getting popular, a few of us joined Neil Gaiman on the site to share recordings of poetry in “Neilhimself’s House of Poetry.” The site had a small selection of recorded poems, but many of us scoured the internet and personal collections to find our favorites to share: Poe, Glück, Yeats, Levertov, Cummings, etc. It was a nice way to spend an hour at midnight while taking a break from writing.

It’s been over a year since the last poetry sharing night, so when I saw that the Poetry Foundation was celebrating with recorded love poetry for Valentine’s Day, I was excited to listen. The Poetry Foundation page is here and will lead you to a selection of recorded love poems. This is from their website:

Send your beloved one of these love poems submitted to our Record-a-Poem group on SoundCloud. Or go to our SoundCloud and record your own love poem.

I was tempted. I know many people protest, but I love the holiday (you can read why here).

So here’s my poem for you, a gift for Valentine’s Day. It’s a little cheeky, a little sexy, and I was more than a little nervous recording it. But Valentine’s Day seems as good a day as any to take risks for things we love, so here goes…

Click here to listen to Sediction by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

 

 

Sediction 

I want to seduce you with my words—wistful and wanton.  I want you

to feel me behind each one. Not brief like breath,

not

quick

like

Cummings,

my lines are long, stretching like lavish strokes to reach you, sliding along the page

to create a scene where you can dwell. Words to slip you inside,

surround you with sounds, and hold you at the threshold between desire and pleasure.

 

When I enjamb, it’s to create tension that can only be released when you move down

to the next line, and if I drop a line, like layers cast away, I do it by design to create

anticipation.

So much is rush and flash and burst in frantic fleeting glances, but iambs

keep the rhythm steady, help me straddle the canon, holding onto Williams’s foot

while riding Whitman’s whimsical waves. Then there’s the break

 

to make you wait, to leave you wondering why and when it will all start again.

Hanging off the end of a dash like Dickinson, I want you—

to imagine. Desire requires space,

the white around words,

the uncertainty of ellipses . . .

 

by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

© 2014 Valya Dudycz Lupescu

 vday cheers