Meetings, open to anyone in the greater Salem area who is interested in poetry, are held on the second Saturday of the month, 1 to 3 p.m., in room 102 of the Oregon State Library. Those attending share poems of their own or by others plus local poetry news, then discuss MVPS projects.
Ongoing projects include a monthly column on Oregon poets in the Salem Statesman Journal. After publication there, the articles are posted on the Resources page of the OPA website. To date, there are 21 articles on poets from pioneers to the present. The November column will be an article by Steve Slemenda on Mary Barnard’s translations of Sappho.
As a result of initiatives by Ruth Hudgens and Ada Molinoff, there is now the possibility of a column featuring poems and short fiction pieces or excerpts in the Salem Weekly. Sample columns will be presented to the editor this month.
The MVPS will be presenting its second Poetry in Performance event on Thursday, December 5, at 7-9:30 p.m., in the main room of the IKE Box in downtown Salem. It will feature Don Colburn, performing the persona poems that make up his sequence Tomorrow Too: The Brenda Monologues, scheduled for release this month. Admission is free, and the event will include an open mic.
Anyone wishing to know more about the MVPS is welcome to contact Eleanor Berry using the Mid-Valley Poetry Society email contact form.