Poetry Readings

. https://youtu.be/9VRUjxFxQ2A?list=PLfUp4UiBMcEZC4Hgnr33FpijP5W5mRNo6&t=102 “A star!” the wise man shouted, “Look, a star!” forgetting the hour and his solitude, or else too overjoyed to heed the time— then, starting at the ghostly echo through the tower’s highest chamber, shook with fright and with a jolting hand silenced his lips. Nobody heard him;...

Originally published in The Epoch Times by James Sale Very recently, I hosted a live online poetry event for New York’s Society of Classical Poets (SCP). I introduced six American poets, of whom two were naturalized Americans, one originally from Russia and the other from England. In introducing them and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goCspjRZxic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0r7BFVRqY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1vX_ecpLxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWmGAoWQIzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRPTpa7gjkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGXI0U-5OPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmBx9zTV2XU

. Videos of this event now available here. You are invited to a reading of exquisite poetry and conversations with the poets. This reading is part of a quarterly series of online poetry readings planned for 2021-2022. . Sunday May 23, 2021 2 p.m. (New York time), 7 p.m. (U.K....

.   "To indulge in hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian tergiversation is not to show your erudition: rather, it is to be superficial.” ---Steven George Krantz Thalamic tarantismLed to tachyphagia...Ventripotential schism,Perhaps a slight dysphasia? My nudiustertian hike Featured pogonotomy.This mumpsimus is likeA walking botched lobotomy. Hippopotomonstro-sesquipedalianism,It sounds like an animal, thoughIt’s what every animal isn’t....

. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5FdfL8sVRM Like Abelard and Heloise Like Abelard and Heloise This woman has the gorgeous mind. Her touch of tenderness and ease Calms the ravages I find. Her cheeks are one dear downy bed For my sore heart to rest upon, And the sultry words she said Vanish but are...

  Introductory Note These paraphrased translations represent three short poems composed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a person so well-known that I will pass on offering a biography and only note that he lived 1749-1832. The first poem, "Der du von dem Himmel bist" ("You Who Are from Heaven") was...

originally published on November 2, 2020 on MacKenzie Lyric Poetry Where shall they hide now, the merchants of death, Who cloaked our eyes and robbed our throats of voice, Who muzzled minds and sought to gag our breath, Who in the blood of innocents rejoice? To whom shall they turn,...

    There’s lots of riots in the street or so I’ve heard from someone’s tweet; they’re pulling out all of the stops, those young people who fight the cops; I see the photos in the news, the broken windows to peruse; the videos by the headlines show angry mobs...

All of the below poems were read on May 31, 2020 at The Society of Classical Poets Symposium, which was held online due to the pandemic. Below are poems from Session II.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRsff4CR7do Bad Move by Rob Crisell The sun is out this afternoon— There’s not a cloud up...

on the 21st anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party's launching the persecution of the peaceful practice of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999   Hidden in a Flyer by Daniel Magdalen Slowing down my clockwork footsteps on the night-lit pavementFrom this workweek’s marathon, I start to scan a flyerGrabbed by...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=kRrLsMIaDcM      

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZUryvFffTQ   Some Sunny Day A tribute to Dame Vera Lynn who died today, June 18, 2020 (aged 103). She was the British Forces' Sweetheart who sang to the soldiers (including the poet's grandfather) during World War II, such songs as "We'll Meet Again." by Susan Jarvis Bryant Birds...

All of the below poems were read on May 31, 2020 at The Society of Classical Poets Symposium, which was held online due to the pandemic. Below are poems from Session I. Session II readings are forthcoming.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p33P5Y-_Ptg&t=2s What’s love got to do with it? (With apologies to Tina...

  Video and reading by Rob Crisell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDEnIR5ziHI&t=8s&fbclid=IwAR1pAlRNwLHVVh1LP0RlZIDMEJslUOhD1MZqoCPCHcvxHQtFK9EwlF8sJt8    

FIRST PLACE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F96xN0VV7JU The Virus and the Cure by Rob Crisell One hundred years of tyranny, One hundred years of pain and lies. If communists of China win, The Chinese culture dies. No virus spreads like wickedness. No plague infects like bogus creeds. No outbreak lasts a century, Nor’s worse...

  https://youtu.be/bYg-ITiEEyM   "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud," also known as "Daffodils," the poem by former British Poet Laureate William Wordsworth (1770-1850) read by the President of The Society of Classical Poets, Evan Mantyk, and filmed by Katy Mantyk on May 10, 2020, Mother's Day.     Daffodils, or...

Due to the unprecedented circumstances regarding the CCP virus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Symposium has been moved online. The details of the event have been adjusted.   Sunday May 31, 2020 Session 1: 12 noon – 1:30 p.m. Session 2: 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.   Location Click this link: https://zoom.us/j/92663079240...

  The Last Bard o Scotland Translation by George T. Watt, frae the original by Joseph Charles MacKenzie Watters o Irvine an Annock, Ma saut tears mell wi the sautie ocean, Wast o Arran Isle an the Clyde Thay watters flow wi the aul lang syne. Gilliland! Makar o muir...

    Read by George T. Watt The Scrieve fae Arbroath Non enim propter gloriam, diuicias aut honores pugnamus set propter libertatem solummodo quam nemo bonus nisi simul cum vita amittit. —Scrieve fae Arbroath (6 Aprile 1320) by Joseph Charles MacKenzie Arbroath! Sae lief tae the hairts o the free,...

  NOTE: This event has been canceled due to the CCP virus (COVID-19) pandemic. A new online SCP Symposium has been planned. The details of the online symposium will be available here on May 1. Date and Location Sunday, May 31, 2020, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. New Century Cultural...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ6QuvFS068    

Come to Bethlehem / Silent Night   Song and Poem by James A. Tweedie Come to Bethlehem, come and see God stripped bare of majesty. Fragile as a flower; Emptied of might and power; Come to set God’s people free. Jesus Christ is born. Born into a family. Died upon...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA_UsvwgdQ8 Our nakedness was swaddled by the night, With Eden’s worn-out dust our feet were shod, When heaven opened and a being of light Announced that earth had just received its God. And we beheld what angels had foretold: The Patriarch, the Virgin, and the Child. The barn was...

by James Sale Alessio Zanelli is a fascinating poet, and probably a fascinating man as well. This is his sixth collection of poems and part of his well-publicised and unique charm is that he is an Italian who writes creatively in the English language. This is an extraordinarily difficult thing...

originally published on MacKenzie Lyric Poetry Oh, run with the sun and the wind in your hair! Before the day-star sets in the west: Love flowers best in the wide, open air. Behold! The noon-tide waxes not more fair Than you, my one, as these my lines attest. Oh, run...

Mailied by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) How brightly nature Shines this morning! What radiant sun! How the fields sing! The buds burst forth From each green frond! A thousand bushes Resound with song! And joy and wonder Streams from each breast. Oh Earth! Oh Sun! Oh joy without rest!...

  This recording was made by M. P. Lauretta for the Southend Poetry Group in August 2019.   Sonetto n. 7 dal Canzoniere di Francesco Petrarca La gola e ’l sonno e l’oziose piume hanno del mondo ogni vertù sbandita, ond’è dal corso suo quasi smarrita nostra natura vinta dal...

Originally published here. ALBUQUERQUE, NM — July 27, 2019 — Sonnet 5, a marriage poem from MacKenzie’s Sonnets for Christ the King, has inspired award-winning producer, composer, and vocalist D.G. Hall to put forth a timeless song in the contemporary pop genre. With its positive vibe, soaring vocal lines, and...

https://youtu.be/RFqk98nHuA0      

https://youtu.be/Mgo1YAUIglg https://youtu.be/zhbwPHKXU-c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5XvAB3keVo&feature=youtu.be https://youtu.be/bFQnvh-pJ4Q

Poet's Note: These five sonnets and song are the product of a four-week journey taken in June to Ireland and through west central Scotland and the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Unlike the sonnets, the lyrics to the song were not composed as a formal poem. They are simply what they...

Her Love for Him My true love laughs, and angel choirs sing; The mountains echo back his tuneful mirth While Nature dances, heav’n in step with earth. ‘Tis music to mine ear; mine heart takes wing! Into my love’s embrace I fly secure, And tenderly he holds me in his...

A reading of the below poems by the poet:   The Loan a villanelle This life we hold so dear is but a loan. For good or ill, its balance must be spent, For life is not a thing that we can own. The wasting of our fragile flesh and...

    The man who never cries is like the ship That never sailed, or left the sleepy shores, Who’s never felt the waves of peril whip Against his keel far off from peaceful shoals. Afraid of what the sea’s dark depths might hide— Of the treasures beneath the briny...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9LEnZ9T4F0&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be  by John Keats When I have fears that I may cease to be __Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, __Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the...

The Bad The first video of Hannah Silva instructs us on the abyss that poetry reading has found itself in today. The irrationality and baseness of slam poetry has given way to experimental poetry that doesn't even involve words at all (sent in my M. P. Lauretta). If you find...

    When I was young, I’d disassemble clocks So I could understand what made them go. With tools in hand, and pieces in a box, I’d wonder, and I’d look, and then I’d know. But lacking tools to take myself apart, I understand myself through what I’m told, And...

by James A. Tweedie My interest in Sapphic verse arose from a discussion thread on an SCP post some months ago. I researched the subject and decided to try my hand at it. Recently, I submitted my poem to SCP and had it returned along with a suggestion that I...

  For Elizabeth La Cienega slept on a muted afternoon At old Las Golodrinas, when I spied a nest Of swallows beneath the age-worn latias, hewn By a hand that is gone with the days that were blessed; And I promised to knit for you a pair of gloves From...