PoetryCruise.com

FINALLY- Someone is offering poetry cruises! Click here to get the full scoop on Derrick Brown's Poetry Cruise.

Here's the pitch-
ROMANCE AHOY! BRING SOMEONE SPECIAL TO A ONE OF A KIND EXPERIENCE UPON THE PACIFIC WITH ONE OF AMERICAS MOST BELOVED AUTHORS.

Salty Dog Anyone?!

Verbobala designs Bill Board in San Francisco

This email just in from Logan Phillips-

Family, compañeros, todos,

great news. Galeria de la Raza has just put up the billboard that we designed as a commission for them in response to Arizona's SB1070, recently signed into law by Gov. Brewer. For me, everything that you need to know about 1070 is held in this 21 year-old woman's eyes as she was arrested for chaining herself to the state capitol as an act of civil disobedience. Nine were arrested in all.

More details, including the video, here:

http://www.verbobala.com/2010/05/billboard/

It was an honor to be asked to do this, and a privilege to be able to honor the "Capitol 9" in this way.

Next up, there is a chance that we will be playing at the Rialto Theater in Tucson next weekend at an anti-1070 event. The hip-hop group Cypress Hill recently canceled their concert as part of the Arizona boycott, and in response we're hoping to host a fundraiser for the humanitarian aide and legal advice group Derechos Humanos AZ, organizer of some of the largest recent marches in Tucson. More info TBA, check our website and the Verbobala facebook page at

http://www.facebook.com/verbobala

It's a heady time, and I'm glad to be able to be in Arizona right now to serve my community. In spite of its long history, I refuse to believe racism has any place in my state.

Arriba y pa'lante,

logan

Ai RIP

Salomé

by Ai
I scissor the stem of the red carnation
and set it in a bowl of water.
It floats the way your head would,
if I cut it off.
But what if I tore you apart
for those afternoons
when I was fifteen
and so like a bird of paradise
slaughtered for its feathers.
Even my name suggested wings,
wicker cages, flight.
Come, sit on my lap, you said.
I felt as if I had flown there;
I was weightless.
You were forty and married.
That she was my mother never mattered.
She was a door that opened onto me.
The three of us blended into a kind of somnolence
and musk, the musk of Sundays. Sweat and sweetness.
That dried plum and licorice taste
always back of my tongue
and your tongue against my teeth,
then touching mine. How many times?—
I counted, but could never remember.
And when I thought we’d go on forever,
that nothing could stop us
as we fell endlessly from consciousness,
orders came: War in the north.
Your sword, the gold epaulets,
the uniform so brightly colored,
so unlike war, I thought.
And your horse; how you rode out the gate.
No, how that horse danced beneath you
toward the sound of cannon fire.
I could hear it, so many leagues away.
I could see you fall, your face scarlet,
the horse dancing on without you.
And at the same moment,
Mother sighed and turned clumsily in the hammock,
the Madeira in the thin-stemmed glass
spilled into the grass,
and I felt myself hardening to a brandy-colored wood,
my skin, a thousand strings drawn so taut
that when I walked to the house
I could hear music
tumbling like a waterfall of China silk
behind me.
I took your letter from my bodice.
Salome, I heard your voice,
little bird, fly. But I did not.
I untied the lilac ribbon at my breasts
and lay down on your bed.
After a while, I heard Mother's footsteps,
watched her walk to the window.
I closed my eyes
and when I opened them
the shadow of a sword passed through my throat
and Mother, dressed like a grenadier,
bent and kissed me on the lips.

Photo Credit- Poetry Center

Here are links to obits for Ai:
Guardian books

New York Times

L.A. Times

Personal account in the Oklahoma State University paper

Many personal remembrances on the Best American Poetry site, including this:

I tried to imitate her every day of my life. She was the way to write, the way I wanted to write. Ai, I miss u.

Sapphire
Brooklyn, NY

Karen Finneyfrock New Book and Tour

Karen Finneyfrock's hot new book Ceremony for the Choking Ghost is getting great reviews, check out what The Stranger has to say. What makes the review even sweeter is over the years, The Stranger has snarked everything Poetry Slam, including an almost black out on coverage when the Nationals took place in Seattle.

Here is the reviewer Paul Constant, "In Reality Hunger, David Shields claims that he has grown frustrated with novels because "you have to read seven hundred pages to get the handful of insights that were the reason the book was written." Finneyfrock's poems, then, are Shields's perfect novels: a shelf full of long, elaborate, heartfelt books that have been whittled down to their bare, sharp skeletons."

Buy the book on the WriteBloody Store
You can catch up with Finneyfrock on her extensive tour:

March 9, Seattle Poetry Slam

March 12, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

March 18, SEATTLE BOOK RELEASE PARTY, Richard Hugo House

March 19, Youth Speaks Seattle Finals, The Moore Theatre, Seattle, WA

March 22, Poetry Night, Bellingham, WA

March 31, Berzerkeley Poetry Slam, CA

April 1, Tourettes Without Regrets, Oakland, CA

April 6, Wordplay, Chicago, IL

April 7, TBA

April 9, Workshop with Vox Ferus, Chicago, IL

April 11, The Green Mill, Chicago, IL

April 14, Cantab Lounge, Boston, MA

April 15, Providence Poetry Slam, RI

April 17, Kitchen Sessions, Mike McGee’s House, USA

April 19, Louder Arts at Bar 13, NYC

April 20, Urbana, Bowery Poetry Club, NYC

April 22, Loser Slam, New Jersey

April 23, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NYC

April 24, Jack McCarthy Invitational Slam, Marysville, WA

April 25, Seattle’s Grand Slam at Town Hall, Seattle, WA

May 8, SPRUNG with Tara Hardy, Elaina Ellis, more info TBA

May 11, The Round at the Fremont Abbey with Write Bloody author Josh Boyd

May 20, SAM Word at Seattle Art Museum

June 8, 826 Seattle “Write Like I Do” Class for Adults

Poetry Projection: A White Wing Brushing the Building

Please help fund the projection of New York's poems onto buildings around town using a high-powered 10,000-lumen digital projector. By imagining the sides of buildings as blank pages for the dramatic presentation of the poet's work we engage our community in a creative and innovative act of reading, we reinforce the value of those poems and provide a dramatic backdrop for their words.

Check out the project at KickStarter

We kick off the Poetry Projection: A White Wing Brushing the Building with the poems of the West African community in the Bronx, including the work of our Griot-in-Residence, Papa Susso!

The technology for the projections will be provided by media partner, Local Projects, whose many credits include being lead exhibition designers for The National September 11th Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center.

The vehicle that transports the projector is the Pizza-Poetry Mobile sponsored by Two Boots Pizza. This unique art delivery concept was created in partnership with City Lore and Bowery Poetry Club.

Imagine a colorful food truck festooned with poems and outfitted on top with a state-of-the-art digital projector, parked on the corner of a high traffic street corner, blasting laser poems on near-by buildings, the Pizza Person reciting poems, and distributing delicious “Poetry Pie,” pizza slices.

Project Directors, Gary Glazner, Bob Holman, and Steve Zeitlin will work with 12 ethnic poetry groups, including poetry clubs and small presses from the Persian, West African, Yemeni, South Asian, Egyptian, Russian, Basque, Sicilian, Russian, Yiddish, Filipino, and Mexican poetry communities, among others. We will work with community groups to select poems for the projections. Each project event will include a performance of the poems.

The project title comes from Martin Espada's lines: “God must be an owl, electricity coursing through the hollow bones, a white wing brushing the building.”

Help celebrate the poetry of New York -- the poetry of the World!

Gabrielle Bouliane- RIP

Below is a post from Mongo of IndieFeed with the sad news about sweet, talented and dedicated poet Gabrielle Bouliane. I met her in the mid 90s through her work with Poetry Slam Inc. Missing her madly. Below is a video of her performing at the Austin Poetry Slam.
xox
Gary



IndieFeed Family...

As many of you doubtless already know, Gabrielle Bouliane passed away last night. She was surrounded by friends and family, and it sounds like she slipped away quite peacefully.

For the 35 of you who left messages for her, to be included in our special show, the sad news is that she passed away before we were able to produce the show, and get it to her. She just left us far too quickly, there at the end.

But as I discussed with Cristin this morning, healing and mourning are jobs for the living. So maybe, in that way, these messages were actually for us all along. And being able to share this great flash of hope after she is gone makes the timing quite perfect.

The show was recorded on Thursday, and releases on Monday. But it's available now, if you'd like to hear it:

indiefeed_gabriellebouliane_lifesentence.mp3

Feel free to share this link widely, forward this message to your mailing lists, e-mail the info to friends, and post it to your journals and websites. Let's all sing and remember Gabrielle, and Bunny Up for her one more time.

With a heavy heart, but one buoyed by the love of this family...

--Mongo

P.S.. I posted this link to my LiveJournal this morning, and Cristin has also been sending it out this morning. In just over two hours, 65 people had downloaded the audio. Gabrielle continues to inspire!!!!

The True Story of Emily D

Check out this amazing animation by Flash Rosenberg. I was blown away by the research Lyn Pentecost of the Lower East Side Girls club did into Dickinson's life. Turns out most of what we think of the lonely, recluse, dressed in white drifting upstairs like a ghost, is BS. Ready to have as Emily says, "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry." This video will loosen your skull cap or double your money back! I like this new Emily- she's gutsy- like her poems.

It preimered at the big Emily Dickinson Birthday Bash at The Bowery Poetry Club on Dec. 10th, This piece was commissioned by the Lower Eastside Girls Club as part of the National Endowment for the Arts initiative, 'The Big Read.'

Emily Dickinson – Her True Self from Flash Rosenberg on Vimeo.

An impressionistic animation about Emily's life and poetry, energetically revealing the truth about her spirit. It's a myth that Emily was stuck in her little room. She was aware of the world, much loved, prolific and had the courage to follow her own imagination.
11:30 minutes
drawing, script and direction: Flash Rosenberg
video editor: Sarah Lohman
original music: Ken Rosenberg
voices: Renee Laster, Flash Rosenberg
produced by: The Lower Eastside Girls Club, New York City

Beth Lisick Stars in "Everything Strange and New."

I met Beth Lisick in the mid 1990's when she was burning up the poetry scene in San Francisco. She has gone on to write many books including, "Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone," published by William Morrow. Adding to her many credits she is now staring in a new indie film "Everything Strange and New." Here is a little from the San Francisco chronicle review-

"Director Frazer Bradshaw has worked as a cinematographer, which you might guess from seeing his new feature, "Everything Strange and New." This drama about the existential woes of a blue-collar worker is told in a strikingly visual way.

Bradshaw is drawn to long takes and a motionless camera to tell the story of Wayne (Jerry McDonald), an Oakland construction worker coping with a rocky marriage and a general sense of frustration. Wayne informs us (he's also the narrator) that he had a satisfying sexual relationship with his wife (Beth Lisick) early in their relationship, but now, with two kids to support and finances tight, his home life isn't so rosy" read the rest of the review here SF Gate



I felt lucky to be in San Francisco to see the opening. The acting in the film is spot-on. Bradshaw has a sharp eye and has written a compelling screen play. The title comes from a line in "The Pied Piper Of Hamelin," by Robert Browning, which is recited in the film in a pivotal scene-

"It's dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can't forget that I'm bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me:
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles' wings:
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the Hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!

Michael O'Keefe's Book Party for "Swimming From Under My Father"

Michael O'Keefe's Book Party for "Swimming From Under My Father"
At the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, New York City, Sunday Oct. 25th, 2009, 4pm EST.

With special guest readers: Mary-Louise Parker, Michael Lally, Portia, and Saul Rubinek .

Watch it live on the WEB!

http://www.rfg3travel.com/bowerylive103008.html

Thrilled "Weeds" star Mary-Louise Parker will be at the BPC today to support her friend Michael O'Keefe and his first book of poetry!

And course Lally is one of my favorite poets!

More on Swimming From Under My Father here

Here are the closing lines from O'Keefe's poem, "Campaign Plans,"

Ol’ Roscoe smiled and returned to his task,
which was to mop the cheap linoleum floor
sending waves of ammonia and loss to the heavens.

It looks to be a great event. Hope you can make it down or get a chance to catch it live on the web.

Performance at the Literture Festival in Berlin

Poetry in Motion Redeux

Danny Heitman's New York Times article from 8/16/09 ruminates on Marianne Moore's flirtation with the Auto Industry.

Here are a few examples we think poets might drive:

Billy Collins- 1941 red and white, Mitsubishi Lanyard, with Nine Horse engine.

Coleman Barks- 1937- Ford Whirler

Pablo Neruda- 1904- VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Trabant- Is there anything sadder in the world than a Trabant standing in the rain?

Marianne Moore- 1887- horse drawn Ford Fiddle, I too dislike it...

Langston Hughes- 1902- Deferrer, with exploding ejection seat

Shatner does Palin

Happy Firecracker Day!

Please check out this video I made with Mark Crutch to explain my absence from a Bowery Poetry Club staff meeting. I hope you enjoy it! Best, Gary

Jon Stewart on the Poetry Slam/ Poetry Jam Dust Up!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Old Man Stewart Shakes His Fist at White House Poetry Jams
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Economic Crisis

Stewart's best line, "The problem with Poetry Jams or Poetry Slams is the poetry part."

Hollywood Does Poetry

Sunday, May 10th
at the Bowery Poetry Club- 7pm

Second Annual Bowery Arts & Science Benefit
for the non-profit wing of the Bowery Poetry Club

6pm Cocktails with the Stars! Schmooze w/ the Poets!
7pm Main Event Hollywood Does Poetry!

Performers include:
Patricia Clarkson
Claire Danes
Michael Lally
Michael O'Keefe
Rene Ricard
Sapphire
Sarah Vowell
Amber Tamblyn
Kristi Zea
and Youth Poets from Urban Word NYC

Here are the opening lines from Amber Tamblyn's "Moth,"
you can read the whole poem here

I consider myself flexible in awkward positions.
Not a home wrecker,
but I do knock.
And you and I are pals.
The kind that
open up to each other but keep mouths
at a safe distance.

Darwin Inspired by his Grandfather's Poetry

This recent New York Times article on Charles Darwin's great-great-Granddaughter British poet Ruth Padel's new book of poetry "Darwin: A Life in Poems" got me thinking about Darwin's other poet relative, his Grandfather Erasmus Darwin.

Here is a quote from an article in "The Guardian."

Darwin's long poem "The Botanic Garden" (1789) is one of the most extraordinary - some would say bizarre - works in English literature. Arching between two eras, it was a final exuberant flowering of Enlightenment experiment and optimism but also a glittering treasure trove of images and ideas for the coming Romantic generation, plundered by Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth. Four thousand lines of rhyming couplets humming above thickets of footnotes, with engravings by Blake, Fuseli and others, it consisted of two parts, "The Economy of Vegetation", and "The Loves of the Plants".

With wit and sly humour it mixed poetry, science and startling radical notions: a sheaf of "Additional Notes" explored everything from meteors to Wedgwood's Portland vase, from clouds and coal to shell-fish and steam-engines. Most disturbing of all to contemporaries was the poem's first hint of a new theory of biological evolution - 50 years before his grandson Charles published Origin of Species.
Portrait of Erasmus Darwin by Joseph Wright- c 1792-3 (or after)

click here for the full article

For me the Times missed a crucial element by not including the full story of the Darwin family's poetry connection. Here are a few lines from Economy of Vegetation:

"LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
Astonish'd Chaos heard the potent word: -
Through all his realms the kindly Ether runs,
And the mass starts into a million suns;
Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst,

And second planets issue from the first;
Bend, as they journey with projectile force,
In bright ellipses bend their reluctant course;
Orbs wheel in orbs, round centres centres roll,
And form, self-balanced, one revolving Whole.

Happy Poetry Month

Colbert! Penn! Pinsky! in the Meta-free-phor-all--shall-i-nail-thee-to-a-summer-s-day-

This is a great clip from April 2007.
Penn was a drinking buddy of Bukowski.
The opening clips shows Penn and Colbert as butterflies!
In the great evolution of the poetry slam this is akin
to walking upright! Why don't more Slams take this format?
Challenge to anyone organizing a performance poetry contest!

Photography by LaVerne Harrell Clark

The University of Arizona Poetry Center's next exhibition will feature photographs of poets and writers taken by the late LaVerne Harrell Clark, the Center's first director.

Here is a wonderful photograph Harrell Clark took of Joy Harjo in 1975. This was shortly after Harjo's first book "the last song," came out from: Puerto Del Sol Press, located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was released. The exhibition is being held in honor of Clark, who died Feb. 24, 2008. Here is a story on the exhibit from UA News.

You may view more of Harrell Clark's work at Artistic Network including great photos of Creeley and Borges.

Buson Poem and Grave Stone

The spring sea rising
And falling, rising
And falling all day.
The spring sea rising
And falling, rising
And falling all day.
The spring sea rising
And falling, rising
And falling all day.
The spring sea rising
And falling, rising
And falling all day.
The spring sea rising
And falling, rising
And falling all day.
The spring sea rising
And falling, rising
And falling all day.
The spring sea rising
And falling, rising
And falling all day.

Indie Feed does Howl

Mongo from Indie Feed writes:

Dear IndieFeed Poetry Family...

It isn't frequently that I feel compelled to drop a note to every poet that has been on IndieFeed over the past few years. But today is such a day.

I just wanted to thank each and every one of you for being a part of our channel since we debuted, three years ago this week. During the past month we've had a huge number of anniversaries for us, and they all illustrate how successful the show has become:

* 3 years of podcasting
* 2 million + total downloads
* Our first month ever (January, 2009) surpassing 100,000 downloads
* 200+ poets featured

And to me, most importantly:

* 500 shows!!!!


If you haven't checked in with the show lately, this would be a good time to do so. This morning we released, through special arrangement with the estate of Allen Ginsberg, his epic poem "Howl (for Carl Solomon)". By far the longest, and arguably, the most historically important piece ever to appear on the channel.

IndieFeed

I've enclosed a press release that we've been distributing in advance of the show's airing today. If you have a blog, or any other place that might find this interesting, please feel free to use it or forward it widely. The great thing about podcasting is that once a piece is up, it remains available for download in perpetuity.

But the real reason for this e-mail is just to thank each and every one of you for being a part of what we do. I wish I could reach out and give every one of you a hug, not only for being on the show, but for keeping the flame of performance poetry alive each and every day, for all of us, and for generations yet to come.

You all mean the world to me. Keep doing what you do...

Much love,

--Mongo
Founder and Host
The IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel
http://performancepoetry.indiefeed.com

PS You can catch some of my poems on IndieFeed as well!