Happy summer! It's a very busy time here at Hobblebush. We have lots of author readings planned, so if you're looking to get out of the heat and listen to some great writers read their works, we've got you covered! Be sure to check out the new events page on our website.

This month we explore what happens to the written word when it passes through the physical act of speaking or hearing (or memorizing). Our question for this month is:

Do you ever read out loud to yourself or others? If you do, when and why?

Please share your thoughts (short or long) with us on facebook or through email.

Poems are a different kind of reading experience. It's often not enough to see them on the page. They need to be spoken and heard.

You may have read about our new book, Sound Ideas, in our March newsletter. We are excited about this book and its potential for both general reading and for classrooms. Here's what some well-known poets are saying about Sound Ideas:

Hard to believe that anyone serious about poetry, either student or teacher, wouldn't want to own this book. —John Hodgen

Poetry weds the body to the soul, and Sound Ideas is a superb introduction to the manifold ways in which poets touch us to the core of our being. . . . This should be required reading for anyone interested in poetry, particularly for those who hope to make poems themselves. —Christopher Merrill

There have been many books about poetry and the craft of poetry in the last ten years, but Sound Ideas stands above the others—for sheer insight and joy in its subject—in a way that compares only to Kenneth Koch's Making Your Own Days. —William Wenthe

The following paragraph is from The Poem as a Marble, or How to Read a Poem: An Essay by Sidney Hall Jr.

This month, this special-edition chapbook comes free with the purchase of Sound Ideas at the discounted price of $16.

"Poetry is as common as flowers, as friendship, as loss, as evil, as good. At the most crucial or difficult times in our lives, we always turn to poetry. Funerals are pure poetry. But why wait for a funeral? Every poem is a made object that is very inexpensive and there for the taking. Take back your right to it! Surround yourself with these made objects. Devote a bookshelf to them. Best of all, keep a small store of them in your memory, to enjoy any time and any place. Let the ones that speak truth to you survive and let the rest become extinct. If you and I don't take advantage of this basic human privilege and pleasure, the little poems that speak lies to us will be the only ones to survive, and the ones that offer us hope will become extinct."

The dog days of summer are here, and Holly is taking full advantage of them! In the office, she sleeps in front of her own fan, but this picture shows what we think she is dreaming about.