National Poetry Month, Thoughts, People's History of the American Empire

April is National Poetry Month in the United States. This is a good time to do poetry events, I guess. We had eight people who stayed through the whole poetry open mike the last time and four people who came in and out. It was kind of fun. Some people read their own poetry, but mostly people read from books of their favorite poems. I think it will grow slowly. There is no money spent on this kind of thing. Flyers and press releases cover advertising. I will probably be going around to post flyers at various places in the community as well.

I chose to fill the front three display cases with poetry books. A mix of beat, black, avant garde, and popular poetry. People like Wendell Berrigan, Nikki Giovanni, Charles Bukowski, Sapphire, Langston Hughes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alice Walker, Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Diane Wakoski, Sylvia Plath, Gary Soto, Hart Crane, Sandra Cisneros, Jean Toomer, William Carlos Williams, and others. I am hoping that people will take interest in the selection. It is always very hard to know with these things.

Matter by Iain Banks is on the Locus Bestseller list. I am enjoying reading it. It reminds me a little bit of Ringworld by Larry Niven. The action takes place on a giant hollow world with multiple levels and towers between the different levels. There are a lot of different aliens in the story. It is quite intriguing.

A new graphic novel just came out People's History of the American Empire by Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, and Paul Buhle. This is a left of center history in comic book form. Howard Zinn is famous for writing A People's History of the United States: 1492- Present. This book has an official release date of April 1, 2008. This means we cannot put the book out for the public without potentially breaking copyright and receiving fines. Publishers do check for this in bookstores to see if you are releasing a book early. One of our local libraries got fined for doing this. I am looking forward to getting a chance to read this book.

I haven't read A People's History of the United States. Sometimes, I can only guess at whether something is good from other peoples recommendations.