Exit Strata's "30/30/30: Inspiration, Community and Tradition"

Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, whom I  had the pleasure of meeting at the Annual Chapbook Festival earlier this month, invited both my co-editor at Poets Wear Prada -- Jack Cooper -- and myself to participate in Exit Strata's "30/30/30: Inspiration, Community and Tradition" celebration of National Poetry Month. Each day a different poet shared their thoughts regarding another with a poem by their poetry muse and one inspired.

Jack's inspiration was Hala Alyan who has been recently making the rounds on New York poetry circuit, reading this April for both David Lawton at his At the Jujo Reading Series and for Puma Perl at her D-Day Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club.  Jack's praises for Hala with his and her poems can be found at: http://www.exitstrata.com/poetry-month-303030-inspiration-community-tradition-jack-cooper-on-hala-alya.  Hala has a book forthcoming from Three Rooms Press later this year.

My inspiration: Nuyorican poet Urayoán Noel, author of three poetry collections – Hi-Density Politics(BlazeVOX, 2010), Boringkén (Ediciones Callejón/La Tertulia, 2008), and Kool Logic/La lógica kool (Bilingual Press, 2005); Assistant Professor of English at SUNY; a Bronx Council on the Arts fellow in poetry, as well as a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.  Read my essay, poetic samplings of his and mine, and watch a Youtube clip of his performance at http://www.exitstrata.com/poetry-month-303030-inspiration-community-tradition-day-28-roxanne-hoffman-on-urayoan-noel/

Many thanks to Lynne for organizing this online celebration of National Poetry Month,  with a daily post by a different poet celebrating  our "inspiration, community and tradition."