Sunday, May 18, 2014

PTNYC Founder Megan DiBello Debuts as Inspired Word Host + Q&A Interview

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This Wednesday, May 21, Poetry Teachers NYC founder Megan DiBello joins The Inspired Word family as one of the regular hosts of the new Wednesday night open mic @ COFFEED in Long Island City, 7pm-10pm.

We've already collaborated with Megan and PTNYC - quite successfully - on our new 3Po3try NYC project (along with great weather for MEDIA) and we're delighted to bring her deeper into the fold.

Here's her impressive bio:

Megan DiBello founded Poetry Teachers NYC in 2010. She holds a M.F.A from Naropa University, in Writing & Poetics and a B.A. from Marymount Manhattan College. She has been published in Fact-Similie, Flanour Foundry, The Bathroom, & Monkey Puzzle Press. Megan has performed at the White Box Gallery, The Bowery Poetry Club, The HOWL Festival, The Socrates Sculpture Park, The Center of Book Arts, Metropolitan Pavilion, Columbia University, and the DUMBO Arts Festival. Her first hybrid book is entitled, Voyeur Without A Title. You can find Megan/PTNYC on Twitter @poetryteachnyc and @megandibello. And PTNYC's website is http://www.poetryteachersnyc.com/.

The following is a brief but revealing Q&A interview we did with Megan:

How did you come to found PTNYC?

When I moved back to New York after graduating from Naropa’s MFA program in the summer of 2010, I wanted to teach poetry as a full-time job. Coming from an entrepreneurial family, I knew that I wanted to create something outside of standard academia. With encouragement from someone I knew who lived his life teaching his own tango school, I decided to channel that energy along with the great words Anne Waldman once told me, “Don’t Wait To Be Discovered, Discover Yourself.” So I did. And Poetry Teachers NYC formed. Daniel Dissinger, (now co-founder) and Aimee Herman (faculty) found me a year or so after I had the original concept. Since then, we have been teaching workshops and producing events. We're planning on growing this school and one day, perhaps in the not so distant future, open a space.

What is its core concept, mission?

Teaching adults poetry. Employ poets (any maker or doer) so they can teach as a job and do their art as a career.

What one word describes your writing style?

Song.

What's your idea of the perfect poem?

One that layers song and poetry.

What's your best writing moment? What's your worst writing moment?

Best— where I forget what I am singing or saying, but believe in myself to know the words and melody are there to guide me.

Worst— defining the difference (if there is one) between my poems versus my lyrics.

If you could steal one line from any poem, what would it be?

Walt Whitman - “Ah Lover and Perfect Equal” from, Among the Multitudes.

What time of the day do you mostly write?

I write in motion. On trains or walking or in airports. I call it my Kinetic Poetics.

What do you do to get into your writing sessions?

Take a shower to practice my vocal techniques.

What's the weirdest place you ever wrote?

A salt cave

What's the weirdest thing you ever wrote on?

Electronic eulogies.

What book changed your writing forever?

Joan Didion’s The White Album.


What poet, dead or alive, would you like to be friends with?

Joan Didion or Joanne Kyger.













Do you have any writing superstitions?

When I write, so does the truth. I let recordings of my voice tell the real story.

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