Seeing Red at Redroom.com

Redroom.com is a new venture founded by entrepreneur and management consultant Ivory Madison. It made its debut on Dec. 21, 2007, as an encyclopedic global online community for writers and their readership. Redroom.com is a pragmatic response to the well-established fact that many authors whose primary focus is the printed word are strangers to self-promotion via the Internet.

The Red Room site provides a forum for viral marketing on the www. It is meant to appeal to readers, authors, booksellers and publishers as a kind of one-stop shop for biographical information, book reviews, video and audio content as well as authors' events calendars. Its goal is to showcase esteemed writers by way of creative social networking through original, author-generated content and comments.

The Red Room roster of authors is expanding at an explosive rate. The latest and most prestigious addition to the Red Room community is Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama.


See Barack Obama's Redroom page

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Visit the Red Room corner of Poet Ana Elsner


[Related: "We are the ones"]

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Hear This

If you live in or visit the San Francisco Bay Area you will have an opportunity to hear the poet Ana Elsner read from her book CIPHERS OF UNCOMMON ORIGIN and from her new manuscript ALL POEMS ACTUAL SIZE. Philip Hakett will also be reading.



The San Francisco Public Library presents

An Evening of Poetry

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007

at the North Beach Branch,
Columbus Ave. at Mason

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For a complete schedule

of Ana Elsner's featured readings

and upcoming public engagements

please go to her

Events page

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[See also: 'P' is for Poetry]

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti at 88

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By The Commentator

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born 1919 in Yonkers, New York), is a prominent and internationally renowned American poet, artist, publisher and recipient of various honors and awards.

After earing a master's degree from Columbia University and studying in Paris at the Sorbonne, Ferlinghetti followed the urging of fellow American poet Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) to go to San Francisco, one of the strongholds of the burgeoning counter-culture dubbed 'The Beat Generation'. Shortly after his arrival, Ferlinghetti started a bookstore and publishing house in 1953, named after the Charlie Chaplin film, City Lights, and specializing in poetry. Its most famous publication was 'Howl', the controversial and legendary book by Allen Ginsberg.




The "Beats" were a loosely defined group of young and struggling American writers, students, anti-conformists, bohemians, hustlers, and drug addicts who emerged in the late 1950 - early 1960s and spawned such groundbreaking novels as Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' (1957) and William S. Burroughs's 'Naked Lunch' (1959).
Ironically, these works, formerly labelled as 'progressive and provocative', have now become pseudo-classics, time-stamped, stereotyped and pidgeonholed.

While most of his notorious compatriots have come and gone, Ferlinghetti has weathered the changing times and tides with remarkable resilience. Over the years he smoothly transitioned from pacifist, to anarchist, to teacher, to businessman, to Poet Laureate, to feted celebrity - all in a life's work.

Ferlinghetti is the author of more than thirty books of poetry and eight plays as well as fiction, art criticism, and essays. His poems are simple and speak plainly.




Settled down in the tranquil and beautiful surroundings of the Marin County seashore and somewhat reclusive, Ferlinghetti, now 88, still continues to paint, exhibit and sell his artwork. He can be spotted at his art show openings as well as at the occasional literary event here and abroad.


"It seemed to me
all you have to do
is conceive of the whole world
and all humanity
as a kind of artwork,"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
'Instructions to Painters and Poets'

Watch a 7 minute film clip of the KQED documentary interview of Ferlinghetti in his studio

See also: Lawrence Ferlinghetti about the poet Ana Elsner

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Ana Elsner pays tribute to the Oboe

OBOE

The unhurried echo

of an oboe,

attuned femaleness

of sound,

contains me.


Chromosomes of Woman,

bestowed on me

in my wombed beginning,

make me

a sounding reed,

like the oboe.


Chromosomes of Woman,

my manifest prerogative,

make me

subject to no restrictions

of scale.


Like the oboe

I am the unhurried echo

of female sovereignty

trailing

the wind.


© Ana Elsner

From 'CIPHERS OF UNCOMMON ORIGIN -Poems by Ana Elsner'.

Reprinted by permission

Read other poems by Ana Elsner

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CIPHERS By Ana Elsner - First Publication

"CIPHERS Of Uncommon Origin -

Poems by Ana Elsner", Volume I

First Edition June
2007.

28p.; 22cm; full color semi-gloss cover.

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"My work is seasoned by a life lived in a great diversity of cultural contexts, which enables me to transcend the limits of one-dimensionality. ... Although often provocative and (self) critical in tone, and neologistic in language, I consider my poems to be ageless and intellectually and emotionally accessible to a broad and diverse readership,"
Ana Elsner, 2006

: Visit the world of the poet :

"To create true poetry requires hunger and passion, and Ana Elsner has it, in spades,"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
Poet; Artist; Publisher,
City Lights Books,
San Francisco;
Recipient of the 2005 Literarian Award

HAIKU versus MOKU

'Moku' is a brand-new term in the world of poetry. This term was first coined by poet and writer Ana Elsner.

'Moku' is short for 'Modified haiku'. It was originally used to describe Elsner's own characteristic 3 liners which are based on haiku but do not conform to the traditional 17 syllable format.

Contemporary poet Ana Elsner further breaks with haiku tradition in that her imagery is not necessarily based on nature. Instead, her Moku often treat with urban situations, or shine the spotlight on a specific character or state-of-mind.

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MOKU NUMBER TEN


this baleful time of keening

ghostly alchemy of our deferred grief

glaciers weep


© Ana Elsner

(reprinted by permission)

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Read another Moku

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