WELCOME TO THE BCPaW READING ROOM!
Great writers must also be great readers. Whether our focus is writing poetry, fiction, essays or non-fiction, there is nothing more vital to the transformation of natural talent into accomplished and publishable work than frequent immersion in the best writings of the finest authors and poets our (global) culture has to offer. In addition, we must acquire the technical tools of our trade. Poets must learn the difference between rhyme and alliteration, formal and free verse, similes and metaphors. The fiction writer must understand voice, tone, tense, the use of foreshadowing and flashback. We must study the craft of writing, the practical and theoretical “nuts and bolts” required to translate thoughts and feelings convincingly to the page, to create living, breathing human characters, to grab and hold a reader’s attention, etc. These twin paths walked in concert – immersion in great reading, while simultaneously working to develop our technical skills– is our one sure pathway to accomplishment as writers, to one day finding ourselves counted amongst the “greats” that future generations will look to in the course of their own development.
In service to these worthy ends, both the immersive and the technical, we have created the Barton County Poets and Writers Reading Room!
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LISTEN, READ, LEARN
In the gray “pages” menu box in the right hand menu bar of this page , you will find three links beneath the words “Reading Room” – Listen, Read and Learn:
LISTEN: Especially if you are a poet, though it is true for fiction writers and essayists as well, there is no greater gift you can give your writing career than an inexpensive MP3 player. They are available in most department stores, in a variety of styles and colors, with many perfectly good players selling for under $50. You DO NOT need an expensive IPod. Any MP3 player will do. If you don’t want or can’t afford a portable MP3 device, rest assured that the files linked in the LISTEN section can be played on almost any PC, using Windows Media Player or a similar program. Something that will work is almost certainly already on your computer – just click the link and see what options for opening it pop up on your screen. The portable devices are great, though, because they allow you to download files for mobile listening, freeing you to transform previously wasted time (when driving, stuck at the Laundromat, waiting in line at the DMV, etc.) into your own “private university” (BCPaW-U!) for studying the art and craft you love.
In the LISTEN section you will find links to live poetry readings across a spectrum of styles, from American Poet Laureates like Donald Hall, Billy Collins and Robert Pinsky to the poetry slams of inner city street kids and everywhere in between. You’ll find fiction readings by well-known novelists and short story writers bridging a span of genres, from great literary authors to the best Science Fiction, Horror, Mystery and Romance writers. You’ll find interviews with famous poets and authors, and even some videos playable on Windows Media Player on your PC, or on your MP3 player, if you splurged and got one with a video screen (mine has one, and I only paid $44 for it, brand new!). Some videos will come from places like YouTube and Google Video, in which case they will play right there on the webpage. Just click “start!”
READ: The READ section includes links to as many top-quality stories, poems and literary essays as we can find, in text form, free on the Web, again, across a vast ocean of generations, genres and styles.
LEARN: In the LEARN section, you will find a combination of articles and audio/video material focusing on the craft of writing and publishing, from scholarly essays on the nature of poetry, fiction and other styles of writing, to lectures and interviews with authors, publishers, agents, writing instructors, etc., all the way to full blown classes on various aspects of the craft and business of writing.
Some material will overlap these categories, as with MP3 recordings of authors both reading from their work and discussing the “how to” of writing in the same program, so be sure to look frequently at all three pages. You never know what treasures you will find!
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TWO IMPORTANT NOTES CONCERNING
THE USE OF THE BCPaW READING ROOM
Important -Please Note:
1. The Barton County Poets and Writers Reading Room is a work in progress, launched in late January, 2009, and there is only one person at this moment doing the work of putting this website together, a person who also has a family and a full time day job, so please practice compassionate patience in your judgment of this Reading Room’s development! Bookmark this page and come back frequently to see what new links have been added. The BCPaW Reading Room is an unpaid volunteer labor of love that will gradually unfold into an amazing resource for writers in Barton County, Missouri and everywhere else, via the Internet. You are cordially invited to come along for the ride – but please be aware from the outset that it is, in fact, a ride, and not a race!
2. The great literature of our time, of all times, is great precisely because it traffics meaningfully in the highest heights and the most profound depths of our common flesh and blood, bone and gristle, real-life humanity — in what Irish poet W. B. Yeats labeled, “The foul rag and bone shop of the heart” — and not in spite of that fact. The works linked in this Reading Room represent the great literature of our time, across a spectrum of styles and genres. But despite stylistic differences, one thing all included works have in common is that they represent the creative expression of adult authors and poets writing for adult readers. A certain level of open-minded maturity is assumed on the part of such readers. Barton County Poets and Writers neither practices nor condones censorship of any kind. The rubric used in the selection of works for inclusion in the BCPaW Reading Room is best exemplified by a quote from the Roman poet Terrence, who said “I believe that nothing human is foreign to me.” The exploration of our common humanity in all its “minute particulars” (to quote William Blake) is the whole point and purpose and value of literature, and we honor that value in this Reading Room without bowdlerization (“to remove those parts of a text considered offensive, vulgar, or otherwise unseemly,” according to wiktionary.org).
That said, welcome, fellow writers, to BCPaW-U! Now go forth and explore, enjoy and learn!
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