Farfalla, McMillan and Parrish

Todd D'Anna (1977-2012) Ropes & Flowers

2012-01-22T12:01:00.002-05:00

Todd D'Anna and Jessica Rogers

Ropes &Flowers

Picture of her and the sky

And

Like a dog I chase the shadows

Of a dance

I danced

Ten Years ago

You always take my watch off

Before we get into bed

And the seconds

Drip from my wrist

With fresh suicide

Ten years ago

Danced

A dance

Chasing shadows

That wore your perfume

And

Like a dog I howl at the back of the moon

With hourglass rhythms

Singing acappella

Just to handicap

My dreams

Smells of rape in the cool California night

Morning after pill with pink liquor

Staining memory

She says

"you gotta work thru that shit baby"

Full moon empties into san francisco bay sunrise

Like a dog I howl

And wait for the rain to come

It never does

We lay in bed

A switch is touched

My watch is off

Suicide

Freshly

Ticks

Beside

Sleep.

Todd D'Anna (Poems from Penny Lane, 2002)

100 Thousand Poets For Change

2011-09-08T15:36:00.011-04:00

Poster Art by Trina Faundeen

9:00 am - Noon
Interactive Poetry / Collage / PicturePoem Responses to
WHAT MOVES YOU?

Panel includes Jim LaVilla-Havelin / Gary Parrish / Laurel Bodinus / and Bill Lewis

NOON at The Twig Bookstore

Local readers include:
Darby Riley
Mobi Warren
Gary Parrish
Laurel Bodinus
Palmer Hall
Fresh Ink - Anthony Flores
Jim LaVilla-Havelin

Jesse Cardona

Rod Stryker

The Twig Bookstore

200 E Grayson, Ste. 124,
San Antonio, TX 78215,
www.thetwig.com

100 Thousand Poets for Change Organizes Largest Poetry Event in History

Number of Participants Worldwide Growing Daily

600 events in 450 cities and 95 countries will take place on September 24 to promote environmental, social, and political change. Poets, writers, artists will create, perform and demonstrate in their communities, and decide their own specific area of focus for change within the framework of peace and sustainability, which founder Michael Rothenberg stated, “…is a major concern worldwide and the guiding principle for this global event.”

Bob Holman and Margery Snyder, in a recent article on About.com said, “the beauty of the concept of 100 Thousand Poets for Change is that it is completely decentralized and completely inclusive.” All those involved are hoping, through their actions and events, to seize and redirect the political and social dialogue of the day and turn the narrative of civilization towards peace and sustainability.

Poetry demonstrations are being organized in political hotspots such as Madison, Wisconsin and Cairo, Egypt. A poetry and peace gathering is planned in strife-torn Kabul and Jalalabad.

In Mexico there are over 30 events, with 18 poetic actions in Mexico City, where poets as well as environmental and political activists are hoping to encourage reflection and creative responses against systemic violence through the written and the spoken word with day long street events, readings and workshops. More than a third of these events are organized by collectives actively working towards a non-violent approach to solve the country's most pressing problems.

To date there are over 250 events in the United States. There are 20 events statewide in North Carolina where teacher/poets have mobilized to protest cuts in education funding. And along the Platte River near Omaha, Nebraska, poets will be demonstrating against TransCanada’s planned Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.  

More examples of events can be found at the 100 Thousand Poets for Change www.100TPC.org. Each event organizer has an Event Location blog page on the website for posting, poetry, artwork, photos, and video to document this global mega-event across national borders.

Immediately following September 24th all documentation on the 100TPC.org website will be preserved by Stanford University in California, which has recognized 100 Thousand Poets for Change as an historical event, the largest poetry reading in history. They will archive the complete contents of the website, 100TPC.org, as part of their digital archiving program LOCKSS.

Founder Michael Rothenberg is a widely known poet, editor of the online literary magazine Bigbridge.org and an environmental activist based in Northern California.

For information contact: http://www.100TPC.org

Contact: walterblue@bigbridge.org

Phone: 305-753-4569

Jamey Jones - Blue Rain Morning (Farfalla Press 2011)

2011-04-22T10:30:00.003-04:00

A book party & reception
'
for BLUE RAIN MORNING

a new book of poems by Jamey Jones

published by Farfalla, McMillan & Parrish

Thursday, April 28, 6 PM

Long Island University (Brooklyn)
H Building, 4th floor, English Department
Robert Spector Lounge

Jamey, an alumni of the MFA program at LIU, now living in Pensacola, Florida, will also read from his book

Copies of BLUE RAIN MORNING will be on sale

"A jolt of the glorious quotidian, startling moves and rhythms make BLUE RAIN MORNING one of the best books of the season."
Anne Waldman

"Jamey Jones finds the music in the sidewalk and the cracks between."
Jack Collom

"Jones is both a resident and traveler of these poems, where "abroad here means elsewhere" and elsewhere is "how to write / this new wave of lost."
Edmund Berrigan

"Jamey Jones communicates the truth in poetry."
Bernadette Mayer

A Tribute to Akilah Oliver

2011-04-06T23:44:00.001-04:00

A Tribute to Akilah Oliver

FRIDAY, APRIL 8th
8-10pm

A Toast in Your House:
a memorial reading to celebrate
the life & work of Akilah Oliver

Featuring:
Adrienne Dodt
Krista Franklin
Jenny Henry
Jennifer Karmin + dancer J’Sun Howard
John Keene
Kevin Kilroy
Marie Larson
Todd McCarty
Marissa Perel

Hosted by Rebecca George
& Luis Humberto Valadez

at Outer Space Studio
1474 N. Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL

$4 suggested donation
All funds will be donated to assist the Oliver family with the costs
associated with Akliah’s departure and to keep her work alive.

Co-presented by the Midwest Naropa Writers & Red Rover Series
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/redroverseries

AKILAH OLIVER was a poet, a dedicated teacher, and an inspiration to the lives she touched. Her books include An Arriving Guard of Angels, Thusly Coming to Greet (Farfalla, McMillan & Parrish, 2004), The Putterer’s Notebook (Belladonna, 2006), a(A)ugust (Yo-Yo Labs, 2007), and A Toast In The House of Friends (Coffee House, 2009). She taught poetry in New York at The New School, Pratt Institute and The Poetry Project. She also taught at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, http://www.akilaholiver.com.

We will remember her warmly, in a house of friends, with our words.

Akilah Oliver- In Aporia/The Stand Still World. Recorded with photos by Ambrose Bye

2011-02-27T22:25:00.003-05:00

Akilah Oliver (1961-2011)

2011-02-24T11:50:00.006-05:00

My friend, collaborator and Farfalla author Akilah Oliver has passed away. Her work is done here on Earth and like all great people and poets that's what we're left with. Thank you for what you gave here, An Arriving Guard of Angels, Thusly Coming to Greet, In Aporia and Matching Half with Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye with your accompaniment.

From An Arriving Guard of Angels, Thusly Coming to Greet

dear oluchi -

the light is blinking rapidly on the black boxy answering

machine. your room seems bigger than before and i am still

planning to read some of those robert jordan books of yours.

yesterday at the used bookstore where i was browsing the

mysteries to "stall reality"-- they are really not mysteries at

all, they just employ death as the plot mistress but are

unable to grasp its mystery at all-- well the point is, things

were calm down here for awhile and the world was little. i

want to be big like you. or i want you not vast, not dead, not

gone, but human small and here. i am so selfish. that is what

i really want. to see you again. to oil your scalp. to hear you

walk in the door, say, ma i'm home. give me a chance to say,

welcome home son. or when leaving, don't forget your hat.

what do you wear out there? i wish you could have taken

your new shoes with you. i'm so proud of you. i'm so sorry

for the way you died. i miss you all the time. even before, i

missed you. out there, one time, some different men said:

"shake for me girl, i wanna be your backdoor man". who dat

you love.

5/18/03

Howl Festival: Homage to Allen Ginsberg

2011-02-08T10:05:00.005-05:00

Friday, February 18th starting at 8:15 pm

Screening of the movie HOWL: starring James Franco

Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels and Treat Williams

at The Shambhala Meditation Center of San Antonio

1114 South Saint Mary's Street, San Antonio, TX 78210

10 dollar suggested donation. Pot-luck and BYOB.

Cocktails before and after screening at The Monterrey

Located across South Saint Mary's Street.

Saturday, February 19th starting at 6:00pm

Homage to Allen Ginsberg at The Twig Bookstore

@ 200 E Grayson St, San Antonio, Texas 78215

A reading of the complete text of Ginsberg's HOWL

Followed by a marathon open mic reading celebration.

This event is free, sign up or drop by The Twig

on the day of the reading to secure your time slot.

Small presses from around the southwest area

will be on hand with new books and broadsides.

Drive-In Picture Show by Gary Parrish

2010-08-25T06:44:00.009-04:00

Gary Parrish

Drive-In Picture Show

Erudite Fangs, 2010

Cover design, interior design & typesetting

by HR Hegnauer

Original Art Work

by George Schneeman

Boulder, Colorado.

There are two things going on simultaneously in Gary Parrish’s poems-- a mix of awkwardness and grace--the absentminded poet stepping on the toes of the goddess, and then apologizing, while his music plays on. The presentation of self is all periphery and sidelong glance and teetering at the edge, and tension--but with a bounce that keeps it all afloat.

These poems are always on the verge--and then (at some point) they explode, like fireworks, in a shower of sparks. He’s been in some odd places, seen things no one else I know has seen, stepped back from and entered into experiences that required more than a share of providence to survive. His poems are just like him--shy and flirty without being coy. He manages to give it all away every time.

Lewis Warsh

To purchase a copy from SPD click here

To purchase a copy from St. Marks Bookstore click here

36th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit Reading

2009-12-14T10:20:00.007-05:00

January, 1st 2010

The Poetry Project

at St. Marks Church

131 E. 10th Street

New York NY 10003

212-674-0910

Poets and performers this year include Ammiel Alcalay, Bruce Andrews & Sally Silvers, Penny Arcade, Arthur’s Landing, Ari Banias, Jim Berhle, Charles Bernstein, Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Ana Bozicevic, Donna Brook, Michael Brownstein, Franklin Bruno, Tyler Burba, Peter Bushyeager, Reuben Butchart, Callers, Yoshiko Chuma, Church Of Betty, Michael Cirelli, Todd Colby, John Coletti, CAConrad, Brenda Coultas, Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle, Mónica de la Torre, Mina Pam Dick, Steve Dalachinsky, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Maggie Dubris, Douglas Dunn, Marcella Durand, Steve Earle, Will Edmiston, Joe Elliot, Christine Elmo, Laura Elrick, Maggie Estep, Avram Fefer, Jess Fiorini, Corrine Fitzpatick, Foamola, David Freeman, Ed Friedman, Greg Fuchs, Joanna Furhman, Cliff Fyman, Kelly Ginger, Pepi Ginsberg, John Giorno, John Godfrey, Toby Goodshank, Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan, Stephanie Gray, Ted Greenwald, Tim Griffin, Miguel Gutierrez, John S. Hall, Janet Hamill, Robert Hershon, Tony Hoffman, Lisa Jarnot, Paolo Javier, Patricia Spears Jones, Pierre Joris, Adeena Karasick, Erica Kaufman, Lenny Kaye, John Kelly, Aaron Kiely, David Kirschenbaum, Bill Kushner & Merle Lister, Susan Landers, Joan Larkin, Dorothea Lasky, Denizé Lauture, Joel Lewis, Brendan Lorber, Michael Lydon, Kim Lyons, Dan Machlin & Serena Jost, Filip Marinovich, Chris Martin, Gillian McCain, Legs McNeil, Tracey McTague, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Sharon Mesmer, David Mills, Rebecca Moore, Tracie Morris, Will Morris, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, Murat Nemat-Nejat, Jim Neu, Geoffrey Olsen, Dael Orlandersmith, Richard O’Russa, Yuko Otomo, Gary Parrish, Simon Pettet, Nicole Peyrafitte & Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Kristin Prevallet, Brett Price, Arlo Quint, Elizabeth Reddin, Evelyn Reilly, Ariana Reines, Citizen Reno, Bob Rosenthal, Douglas Rothschild, Tom Savage, Michael Scharf, David Shapiro, Frank Sherlock, Elliott Sharp, Nathaniel Siegel, Christopher Stackhouse, Stacy Szymaszek, Anne Tardos, Susie Timmons, Edwin Torres, Rodrigo Toscano, Tony Towle, David Vogen, Nicole Wallace, Lewis Warsh, Phyllis Wat, Simone White, Emily XYZ & more t.b.a.

This event will be held in the Sanctuary. General admission $18, Students & Seniors $15, Members $10.

Red Noir (Farfalla Press) Dec 7th -Jan 30 at the Living Theater

2009-12-08T09:05:00.006-05:00

based on the writings of Anne Waldman

adapted & directed by Judith Malina

OPENING DECEMBER 10th

Performances December 7-January 30

Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8pm

*(with the followingexceptions, no performance Friday, December 18).

Tickets are $20

(Wednesdays are Pay What You Can).

For reservations call 212-352-3101

Click here for Online Tickets!!!

The Living Theatre continues its 2009-10 season with acclaimed poet and experimental author
Anne Waldman's RED NOIR – a detective thriller based on film noir techniques and themes – with previews set to begin December 7 prior to an office press opening December 10 at The Living Theatre (21Clinton Street) in Manhattan.Judith Malina directs.

In RED NOIR, writer Anne Waldman combines metaphors of the film noir genre and reflections on modern life in our economically and ecologically trouble ridden war culture. Set on the Lower East Side, with an array of vivid characters whose lives intertwine, the play follows a female detective as she investigates a black market deal done by many greedy hands and pursues two men, each carrying a valise – one filled with a nuclear or toxic substance; the other filled with the seeds of the future.

Integrating Ms. Malina's direction and Ms. Waldman's vast and accomplished literary catalogue, RED NOIR exposes lists of toxic chemicals, reaches out to the Middle East, and expounds upon troubles in our worldly existence in an attempt to find ways toward revelation, revolution and redemption.

The ensemble cast of RED NOIR includes Camilla de Araujo, Brent Barker, Vinie Burrows,Maylin Castro, Ben Cerf, Sheila Dabney, Jay Dobkin, Luis Christian Dilorenzi, Erin Downhour, Eno Edet, Tjasa Ferme, Ondina Frate, Gemma Forbes, Maria Guzman, Home Hynes, Silas Inches Albert Lamont, Jenna Kirk, Celeste Moratti, Martin Munoz, Lucie Pohl, Marie Pohl, Erik Rodriguez, Judi Rymer, Anthony Sisco, Lori Summers, Enoch Wu, and Kennedy Yanko.

Since the 1960s, Anne Waldman has been an active member of the experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar and cultural/political activist. She has served as director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's and co-founded, with Allen Ginsberg and others, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where she remains a Distinguished Professor of Poetics and the Director of Naropa Institute's famed Summer Writing Program.

She has published more than forty books of poetry, including "Kill or Cure," "Marriage: A Sentence," "Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble," "Fast Speaking Woman" and epic "Iovis" trilogy. Her work has been widely anthologized, and her poems translated into French, Italian, German, Turkish, Spanish and Chinese. Ms.Waldman is also the editor of several volumes relating to modern, postmodern, and contemporary poetry. Her extensive historical literary, art and tape archive resides at the Hatcher
Graduate Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

assistant directed by Brad Burgess

lighting design by Richard Retta

set design by Judith Malina, Illion Troya, Richard Retta

musical direction by Sheila Dabney

To order a copy of Red Noir (Farfalla Press) by Anne Waldman click here

The Living Theater presents RED NOIR (Farfalla 08) Anne Waldman adapted & directed by Judith Malina

2009-10-22T07:36:00.005-04:00

The most radical, uncompromising, and experimental group in American theatrical history." - John Tytell

Red Noir is a detective thriller in genre, based on the film noir techniques and themes. It is also to serve as an anthem for non-violent anarchy. The play’s intention is to outdate and displace violence from the theatre to serve as an example of a general need for non-violence.

With: Judith Malina, Brad Burgess, Thomas Walker, Anthony Sisco, Eno Edet, Yasemin Ozumerzifon, Eric Olson, Maia Larraz

The Living Theatre, founded in 1947, has staged nearly a hundred productions, performed in nine languages in twenty-nine countries on five continents—a unique body of work that has influenced theater the world over. In 2007, The Living Theatre opened a new theatre at 21 Clinton Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side. The decision to return to the Lower East Side reflects the company's continuing faith in that neighborhood as a vibrant community in downtown Manhattan, without doubt a fertile landscape to cultivate new ideas in art and politics.

Upcoming: Red Noir opens in December and will run for 6 weeks.

Personal Stash (Recently Received)

2009-09-30T10:26:00.015-04:00

Joe Brainard - Postcard

Z Press - Calais, VT

1975

Kazuko Shiraishi - Let Those Who Appear

Translated from the Japanese by Samuel Grolmes & Yumiko Tsumura

New Directions, New York, NY 2002

Inside front cover.

Elio Schneeman - Along The Rails

United Artist Books, New York, NY

1991, Back cover photo by Robert Ullmann

Amiri Baraka - Somebody Blew Up America

Signed chapbook, Oakland layout by Black Dot Press

Cover art by Emory Douglas

Anne Waldman - Fast Speaking Woman

City Lights Books, 1975 San Francisco, CA

Front cover art by Sheyla Baykal

Thuggery & Grace - edited by Anne Waldman & Erik Anderson

Boulder, Co 2008 - Cover Image by Richard O'Russa

Contributors: Richard Froude, Andrea Rexilius, Eileen Myles, Ed Bowes, Philip Whalen, Reed Bye, Sara Veglahn and Maureen Owen

Reed Bye - Gaspar Still In His Cage

Erudite Fangs Edition/Smokeproof Press 2002

Cover collage by George Schneeman

Keith Abbott - Being Alone With A Girl

Blue Suede Shoes Press, 1975

Cover art by Opal L. Nations

Out There #5 - edited by Neil Hackman

Out There Press, 1974 Chicago, IL - Cover Art by Dave Lerner

Contributors: Peter Schjeldahl, Philip Whalen, Kenneth Rexroth, Tony Towle, Rochelle Kraut, Neil Hackman, Bob Rosenthal, Tom Raworth, Lewis MacAdams, Robert Creeley and Richard Friedman

Jim Carroll 1950-2009

2009-09-17T15:45:00.010-04:00

Jim Carroll, Jessica Rogers, Gary Parrish, Anne Waldman

when we die we might see the Virgin Mary

sitting before the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost

right now I'll settle for you

with your bra unhooked (under a tree)

on the Staten Island ferry.

Living at the Movies JC

Recently Received

2009-09-17T09:59:00.014-04:00

The Boston Eagles at Walden Pond, 1973

John Wieners, Lee Harwood, Lewis Warsh & William Corbett

Photograph by Judith Walker, Postcard by Pressed Wafer

The Boston Eagle #2- February 1974- Boston, Mass

Contributors: John Wieners, Fanny Howe, Lewis Warsh, Lee Harwood, Michael Palmer, William Corbett, Jonathan Cott, Paul Evans, Gerard Malanga, Pat Nolan, Larry Fagin and Bill Berkson. Cover Art by Joe Brainard

David Cope: at the Scarab/Detroit

poems from Moonlight Rose in Blue (Selected Poems 1974-2009)

Dedication: for Suzanne, lover and companion

LeRoi Jones: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Chapbook: Totem/Corinth, Seventh Printing 1978, Cover Drawing by Basil King

Robert Creeley: His Idea

The Coach House Press, 1973

Photographs by Elsa Dorfman

Angel Hair 4 - Winter 1967-68 - NYC and Williamstown, Mass

Contributors: Kenward Elmslie, Anne Waldman, Tom Clark, Sotere Torregian, Dick Gallup, Jonathan Cott, Clark Coolidge, Lewis Warsh, Joanne Kyger, Ron Padgett, John Stanton, Philip Whalen, Peter Schjeldahl, Larry Fagin, Kenneth Koch, Kathleen Torregian, Ted Greenwald, Allan Kaplan, Ted Berrigan, Lee Harwood, John Perreault and Tom Veitch

Excerpt from Angel Hair 4- Unexpectedly, from the outside, it rains. Joanne Kyger

Anselm Berrigan: Have a Good One

Cy Press, August 2008

300 copy run in Myriad Pro

Luis Humberto Valadez - What I'm On

2009-07-06T08:38:00.002-04:00

Recently Received

Luis Humberto Valadez - What I'm On

University of Arizona Press, 2009 Tucson

Camino del Sol:

A Latina and Latino

Literary Series

Recently Received

2009-06-20T09:43:00.012-04:00

Simon Pettet- 5oo Postcard Project

Farfalla Press, Brooklyn NY, 2010

First 10 hand-made postcards of 400 to date-

Boston Poetry Marathon 2003 Postcard Set,

Boog City, New York NY, Border by Hedi Sorger

60 sets 26 of which are signed, this set being set R.

Contributers: Jim Behle, Dan Bouchard, Lisa Bourbeau, Lee Ann Brown, Maxine Chernoff, Sean Cole, Donna de la Perriere, Jocelyn Emerson, Thomas Fink, Joanna Fuhrman, Johannes Goransson, Paul Hoover, David Kirschenbaum, Tanya Larkin, Ruth Lepson, Lori Lubeski, Michael Magee, Wanda Phipps, Peter Richards, Douglas Rothschild, Linda Russo, David Shapiro and Diane Wald

Introduction to America, a History in Verse

Volume 3 (1962-1970) by Edward Sanders

Boog City, New York NY, 2001

Cover and inside art by E. Sanders

Layout by D. Kirschenbaum

Poem for Elizabeth Who in a Bar Mentioned a Horse

by David A. Kirschenbaum

Boog City, New York NY

Street Magic

By Grant D. McLeman

Spiritus Mundi Press 2009

Worthington, Mass.

The Recluse 5: Homage to George Schneeman

The Poetry Project at St Marks Church, Ltd. , June 2009

Front cover and inserts by George Schneeman

Edited by Stacy Szymaszek, Corrine Fitzpatrick and Arlo Quint

Contributors: Elio Schneeman, Michael Lally, Maureen Owen, Will Yackulic, Sandy Berrigan, Pamela Lawton, Vincent Katz, Elinor Nauen, Anselm Berrigan, Todd Colby, Lisa Birman, Steven Hall, Edmund Berrigan, Gary Parrish and Cliff Fyman

Three Poems by Chris Ide

2009-06-16T08:30:00.003-04:00

David Cope writes, Garage clean-up find: Chris Ide chapbook left while he was living with me

and kicking methadone (1992). About 100 poems circa 7-11-87 to 10-11-92.

inscription to a journal beginning 7/1/87

That future boys & girls might read

these days I drag-ass through & feel

a bit less lonely fear, I send back

my love, a confused hungover thing now,

nonetheless, take heed, my heart swells for you

from whatever foreign city state

or body I now inhabit,

I pray to touch you.

7/1/87

The way it works

If you are a poet

there will be days when you'll move to sing

& your lungs will fill with mud,

if you are a shoemaker

there will be times when you will sit

sole-less,

you're a mortician

there'll be periods when you're certain

that every damn man will live

forever,

& you will be

wrong.

One day you'll awaken

napping, in the very middle of the moon--

one day, you'll awaken

quite not at all.

3/3/86

Every Breath an Epiphany . . .

Some days I find an old friend in the mail box

all pals scattered 'cross country w/ their hangups;

helplessly in love, hopeless broken-hearted,

strung-out unk hungover or engaged

poets/writers all waiting for their literature

that one consolation for living which

is song, cuz love-pomes outlive love

& elegies might be immortal, mere

everyday details existing as one vast footnote--

If only we could live out our lives

in that single lucid stanza,

every breath an epiphany!

Instead time exits as a parasite, wristwatch

clinbs to arm like a blood-thirsty leech

tired years to drown it in liquor found

no poison strong enough instead

the liver swells up hatefull, brain

pickled in eternity of 2 am's

w/ shaky hands & no sleep, genitals

purple from self-abuse, the heart

refusing even to break, thumping out

its requiem beat from behind a cage of bones . . .

Angels of Satiety, I write you into existence,

come breathe life in & out my body

be done & leave me to a common grave;

let my corpse be a feast for scavengers

bind up my spirit hardcover, fingers

rattle my bones, this page will yellow

into dust intermingling w/ air that feeds

the lungs of a future beloved damned

to a life-span Earthling Poet . . .

Summer '89

The Recluse 5 Reading, honoring George Schneeman

2009-05-19T09:40:00.002-04:00

George Schneeman (seated) with Lee Ranaldo, Photo by Gary Parrish The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church 131 E. 10th Street New York NY 10003 May 25, 2009
8:00 pm Monday

Join us for our annual spring reading by contributors to the Poetry Project’s in-house magazine, The Recluse. Issue 5 is dedicated to the artist George Schneeman (1934-2009). Contributors include Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Sandy Berrigan, Lisa Birman, Todd Colby, Cliff Fyman, Steven Hall, Vincent Katz, Michael Lally, Pamela Lawton, Elinor Nauen, Maureen Owen, Gary Parrish, and Will Yackulic. Readers on hand this evening will be Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Todd Colby, Cliff Fyman, Steven Hall, Vincent Katz, Michael Lally, Pamela Lawton, Elinor Nauen, Gary Parrish, and Will Yackulic.

* Please note that there will be a formal tribute to George Schneeman on November 11, 2009 in the Sanctuary of St. Mark’s Church.

Robert Creeley - Listen

2009-05-19T09:33:00.002-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Robert Creeley - Listen

Monoprints by Bobbie Creeley Hawkins

Black Sparrow Press, 1972

First edition, with color title page.

Anne Waldman - Manatee/Humanity

2009-05-18T09:12:00.006-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Anne Waldman - Manatee/Humanity

Broadside/Print Art,

Shivastan Publishing, Woodstock, NY.

Printed by MandalaGraphics

Kathmandu, Nepal, 2008

Copy 62 out of 250

Mark Terrill - The Salvador-Dalai-Lama Express

2009-04-29T08:46:00.004-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Mark Terrill

The Salvador-Dalai-Lama Express

Main Street Rag, 2009

Charlotte, North Carolina

The Inspired Word Monday Reading Series Presents: Chase, Froman, Ollen, Parrish, Sherrard, Rees, Shmailo and Van Denburg

2009-04-25T10:53:00.002-04:00

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose

MC/Host: Marron Cox

Location: Tierra Sana Restaurant
http://www.tierrasana.com/
100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road
Forest Hills, Queens
New York City

Time: 7:00-10 pm (though you're welcome to stay until closing time!)

Free wine tasting! Free appetizers! Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!

Performer Bios:

Joel Chace has published poetry and prose poetry in print and electronic magazines such as 6ix, Tomorrow, Lost and Found Times, Coracle, xStream, Three Candles, 2River View, Joey & the Black Boots, Recursive Angel, and Veer. He has published more than a dozen print and electronic collections. Just out from BlazeVox Books is CLEANING THE MIRROR: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, and from Paper Kite Press is MATTER NO MATTER, another full-length collection. Just out from Country Valley Press is SCAFFOLD, the first part of an ongoing poetic sequence, and "(b)its," from Meritage Press. For many years, Chace has been Poetry Editor for the experimental electronic magazine 5_Trope.

Becky Froman is a wayward performer and a graduate student at The New School for Media Studies and Film. She obtained her Bachelors Degree from the University of Maryland, College Park in Women’s Studies and Afro-American Studies, with a minor in Music Performance. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and hopes to one day have assets. She loves her tattoo and hates anything in bulk.

Sinje Ollen is a writer, knitwear designer, sculptor, and former actress. She has acted on Broadway, performed in the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival , appeared in experimental theater productions in New York and Europe, and starred in "The Tourist", a docudrama which aired at Lincoln Center, at MoMA, and on PBS. Sinje’s knitwear designs have been featured in the Fashioning Brooklyn show at the Brooklyn Library, and on the cover of the New York Sun. Her blog http://www.knityoursocksoff.blogspot.com features an ongoing series of Sinje’s reviews of New York yarn shops. She is also rewriting (hopefully for the last time) a memoir about her German family’s Nazi past.

82nd Airborne Paratrooper (98-01), Naropa alumni (02-06) and Long Island University M.F.A.(06) candidate, Gary Parrish co-edited with Leann Bifoss, Poems From Penny Lane (farfalla press 03) an all inclusive anthology featuring over 70 poets chronicling 20 years of poetry in and around Naropa University. He co-curated the year long Bowery Broadside Reading Series 07 featuring original artwork by George Schneeman at the BPC in New York City. He is the 2006 Pedro Pietri Memorial Prize recipient, awarded by The Bowery Arts and Sciences, LTD and The Ester Hynamen Award winner for poetry given by Long Island University (08). Gary's poetry and commentary can be found in Pinstripe Fedora, Big Bridge, Trans-Mountain Poetry, The American Drivel Review, Downtown Brooklyn, Four-Quarter Review, Puppy Flowers and Bombay Gin among others. The Meek, a long poem was published in the Italian Journal, Ludwig (Torino Poesia Press 08). Gary is a co-founder and editor for Farfalla Press, McMillan, and Parrish located in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn where he lives.

Aja Mujinga Sherrard is a multi-cultural, multi-racial wanderer, daughter, artist and student who fell into spoken word by the inspiration of her peers and influence of artists like Saul Williams and Ella Fitzgerald.

For the last six years, Lorraine Rees lived in the rolling mountains of central Virginia where she trained horses and worked as a consultant for fine dining restaurants. She published her first book, Contents Under Pressure, in September of 2007. Lorraine currently resides in Manhattan and looks forward to publishing her second book, The Goodbye Zoo, in 2009.

Larissa Shmailo translated the Russian Futurist opera Victory over the Sun by A. Kruchenych; a DVD of the original English-language production is part of the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Hirschhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institute, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art. She also contributed translations to the recent anthology Contemporary Russian Poetry published by Dalkey Archive Press. Her poetry CDs, The No-Net World (SongCrew 2006) and Exorcism (2008) with music by Bobby Perfect are frequently heard on radio and Internet broadcasts. Her latest chapbook is A Cure for Suicide (Cervena Barva Press 2008). Larissa’s full-length collection of poetry, In Paran, will be published by BlazeVox Books in May, 2009. Larissa lives happily on the upper West Side of Manhattan.

Carrie VanDenburg has been writing poetry since the 8th grade. She has been an editor of and been published in two college creative writing journals: Revisions and She's Aloud and was involved in creative writing groups in her undergraduate colleges. Currently, she spends most of her energy in graduate school studying social work but hopes to someday combine her love of creative writing with her love of helping people. Carrie lives in Flatbush Brooklyn with her roommate and two cats.

By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).

Hoa Nguyen - Hecate Lochia

2009-04-20T07:53:00.002-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Hoa Nguyen - Hecate Lochia

Hot Whiskey Press, 2009

Cover Art by Philip Trussell

1000 copies made

Tom Clark interviewed by Gary Parrish, April 2009

2009-04-16T22:06:00.014-04:00

Tom Clark and a stone fence in Vence, France, 25 July 1966

Sadly, this year we mark a decade without the poet Ed Dorn. Can you share with us your feelings or remembrances of him and his work, time spent together. Perhaps comment on Way More West: New & Selected Poems, edited by Michael Rothenberg, Penguin Books.

He is sorely missed.

The feelings and remembrances are present always.

A bit of the early history of this friendship is discussed in TC interview

The final chapter of the book written after Ed passed away is here: Edward Dorn: A World of Difference (Epilogue: The Last Range)

For those not familiar with the basic facts of his life and work, a short obituary essay: Edward Dorn obit (2000)

Latterly it has come to seem that one's subjectivities tell little about the objective truth of what exactly makes up the lives of others. Whereof one is uncertain one ought not to speak.

One thing that can be said objectively is that these are four of the poems from my own work that Ed was generous enough to favor--and they have been posted in his memory:

Following Rivers into the Night

All I want to do...

Grasses

Earthshine

During the course of this interview baseball anomaly Mark "The Bird" Fidrych passed away on his farm in Massachusetts. Fidrych, known for his surreal approach to pitching often talking to the ball and presenting himself to the pitchers mound was an instant fan favorite for the Detroit Tigers. Interesting that after the '76 season you both would collaborate on Fidrych’s autobiography, No Big Deal. Could you speak about that time preparing the manuscript with Fidrych and the atmosphere in America during the bicentennial?

There was a certain patriotic need for symbolic figuration at the time. In the course of the 1976 season the outfielder Rick Monday, then of the Chicago Cubs, "rescued" an American flag which had been "disrespected" by a drunken fan invading the turf at Wrigley Field. Much was made of it. But the glorification of Monday's act was as nothing compared with the true and real cultural phenomenon created by Fidrych, whose innocence, intensity, vulnerability and infectious joy in life had a deeper reach, entering the American psyche not through the cheap pimping and hypolatry which are the sustenance of celebrity media, but through an actual possibility of fan identification with someone who was not an image construction but a living, feeling being (and those feelings were unselfconsciously exposed and immediately apparent). There has been nothing like it since, and one doubts there ever will be.

Fidrych did not enrich himself. The very sad ensuing seasons of injury and failure brought self-doubt, pain and bitterness into the story, but Mark then proved himself superior to these disappointments and worked earnestly to make a living and a home for himself and his family in a way with which, again, the common person could identify.

Singing the praises of humans once they are gone is always too little and too late, but one tries:

No Big Deal: Mark Fidrych

New College of California, a bright spot on the landscape of the Mission District in SF for poets and thinkers alike has closed its doors as of '08. Can you speak with us about your time in residency there, 1987 to '08? What will you miss most? New Stars on the Horizon.

The school did provide a haven for many who for one reason or another couldn't manage to fit into conventional academia. I suppose I was one of those misfits. Let's not gild the lily here. For all my nutty love of scholarship, the business end of academia has always seemed to me to represent a bullet in the heart of whatever poetry is.

It should perhaps be explained that over the nearly thirty years of my connection with New College the only class I conducted at the Mission District campus--well, the mortuary--was a writing workshop I offered as an adjunct instructor in 1978. When in the following decade I returned as what was dwarf-grandly called Core Faculty in Poetics, I began teaching my classes at home in Berkeley.

Most of those classes were historical, with concentration on specific periods and single poets. There were three courses in particular which I taught every other year for two decades or so, and to these three courses I directed a good deal of preparation and research.

The method was to inscribe poems and lecture notes, together with drawings, cartoons, and other forms of eye-candy (anything to keep students from nodding off) on large (48" by 36") sheets (actually the verso sides of the architectural plans for a Kaiser Hospital in Fresno--I had found them in somebody's recycling bin). The sheets, actually more like large scrolls, were then affixed to a large painted styrofoam easel so that, during lectures, students would be able to stare at it, a form of attention hopefully quite a bit more pleasant than staring at their teacher and quite a bit more useful to their intellectual growth than staring out the window.

Then again, now that one thinks of it, staring out the window into the microworlds of the middle-tier branch structures of a century-old redwood might well have proved more pleasant and instructive than either of the abovementioned options--and indeed some students did opt for this.

Those three courses alluded to above were: Poetry of Ezra Pound; Lyric Poetry of the English Renaissance (Wyatt, Donne, Jonson, Campion, Herrick, Marvell); and This Living Hand: Poetry of John Keats.

For those whose lives are sufficiently empty to allow space for such pursuits, reproductions of eight of the twenty-nine Keats sheets--or "Deep Keats Scrolls" as Bill Berkson has dubbed them--can be found here:

Ode on a Grecian Urn 3/15/09

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Ode on Melancholy 3/15/09

Ode on Melancholy

Eve of St. Agnes 3/15/09

Eve of St. Agnes

Isabella 3/15/

Isabella

Byron on Keats 3/15/09

Byron on Keats

Want of an Object 3/15/09

Want of an Object

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer 3/15/09

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Negative Capability 3/15/09

Negative Capability

I have listed the scrolls in reverse chronological order, with the entry-pieces at the bottom. Anyone who wishes may click the links, then click again to enlarge, and presto--a New College Poetics degree!

And by the by, Gary, anybody who thinks a New College degree is not something to die for should consider the data in this recent article:

The Dark Prince

Wow, give me a day to research this and I'll send a new question.

Research like that can ruin your dreams, Gary, I wouldn't recommend it.

Did/Do you know Kaushal Niroula?

Gary, you have just made my day by reminding me of one happy fact to take away from my New College career. The answer is no.

Matthew Knudsen and Lily Scarborough

2009-04-15T10:21:00.000-04:00

Reed Bye - Border Theme

2009-04-13T10:30:00.003-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Reed Bye - Border Theme

1981, Z Press Productions

Edited by Kenward Elmslie

Book designed by Freeman Keith

Made in a edition of 500 copies

Lunenburg, Vermont

Robert Creeley - Mother's Voice

2009-04-11T09:32:00.003-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Robert Creeley - Mother's Voice

Am Here Books/Immediate Editions

Cover and Drawings by Tom Clark

Published in 1981

Anselm Hollo - Curious Dada

2009-04-07T11:01:00.004-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Anselm Hollo - Curious Dada

White Pine Press, 1978

Buffalo, NY

For George Mattingly

& Lucy Farber

Gerry Mulligan & Big Scream 47

2009-04-03T10:54:00.004-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired, Big Scream 47
Winter-Spring 08-09, Big Scream/Nada Press, Edited by David Cope,
Contributors: Anne Waldman, Jim Cohn, Bob Rosenthal, Audre Puchalski, Katrina Kalisz, Leslea Newman, David Cope, Maura Cavell, Sharon Mesmer, Randy Roark, Donna Emerson, Kelley White, Jane Cope, Eva-Maria Sher, G.F. Koreck, Marc Olmsted, Alan Catlin, Katherine Marty, Peter Marti......This issue completes the 35th year of continous publication.

Gerry Mulligan #0, Edited by Ben Tripp.
Printed at Bard College, January 2009. Cover Art by Ray Graflin.
Contributors: Tom Savage, Emily Greenley, Andre Schiavelli, Elizabeth McDaniel, Samuel Greenberg, Ted Greenwald, John Weiners, Wade Savitt, Columbina Zamponi, Sylvia Gorelick, Clark Coolidge, Rodger Van Voorhees, Lydia Davis, Gerad Argeros, Bill Berkson, Robert Elstein, David Perry, Charles North, Trevor Winkfield, Anselm Hollo, Aaron Simon, Maria Tananyan, Andrew Dieck, Duncan McNaughton, Marcella Durand, Ange Mlinko, Kit Robinson, April Koester, Elizabeth Bryant, Omar Husain, Jennifer Kietzman, Laura Hunt, Ann Stephenson, Florence Kindel, Alex Hampshire, Cassandra Pantuso, and Thomas Lovell Beddoes.

Review of Blue Rain Morning by Jamey Jones

2009-04-02T10:19:00.006-04:00

New from Fell Swoop Press (New Orleans) and Jamey Jones comes a beautiful mimeo, Blue Rain Morning. Jones crafts in this small chapbook (26 pages) some of the best poems I've read this year, whole hearted, rich and accessible. The text, as precise an identification of what poetry can represent after the millennium, after WCW, after Mayer, after and away from Ryan. Jones composes himself to his environment with a confidence that the world is set well and grounded in his ear and eye. Check out this first stanza of Swoon as an example:

Swoon

for Cayne Miceli

Because the light falls,

Littering the surfaces, crevices,

Nooks, crannies, corners and

Hidden spaces.

It falls to the floor, reaching

For the darkest layers, composting

Leaves, rolly pollies, worms, and

Inner-earth.

It reaches towards the hearth,

The heart, the legendary

Center, core.

Find this book, walk out through your neighborhood and read slow on a bench in Central Park or on Bourbon Street while enjoying a Handgrenade or Hurricane. Read it, to your grandmother or lover as the pots boil with fresh greens and slices of delicate meat. Read it, in heaven where the copies are many and the poems stand side by side written into the clouds.

Paul Blackburn: Brooklyn - Manhattan Transit

2009-04-02T10:09:00.005-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Paul Blackburn
Brooklyn - Manhattan Transit
a bouquet for Flatbush
Totem Press - New York, 1960
Cover photo by Leroy McLucas

A written testimonial by d.a. levy for John R.Scott who painted flowers.

2009-03-25T12:10:00.005-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired.

For
John R. Scott
who painted flowers
A written testimonial
By d.a. levy
r.j.s.
T.L. Kryss
D.r. Wagner

Ghost Press Cleveland, 1968
255 copies made, copy 112

Screens by Kryss

Bill Berkson - Recent Visitors

2009-03-23T08:29:00.006-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

Bill Berkson- Recent Visitors

Angel Hair Books, 1973

Cover and Drawings

By George Schneeman

Dedicated to Lewis Warsh

1000 copies made.

Edward Dorn- Recollections of Gran Apacheria

2009-03-20T12:52:00.005-04:00

Recently received or acquired

Edward Dorn, Comic book

Recollections of Gran Apacheria

Turtle Island Foundation, 1974

San Francisco, CA

Cover art by Michael Myers

Dedicated to Robert Creeley

The Bingo Dick Gallup

2009-03-18T10:55:00.006-04:00

Recently Received or Acquired

The Bingo by Dick Gallup
Mother Press, 1966
Editors Peter Schjeldahl
& Lewis MacAdams
Original cover art by
Joe Brainard
Limited to 500 copies.

Castlist for production in New York:

CAL: Ron Padgett

ANDREW: Phil Lopate

SAM: Rudy Burckhardt

CASS: Mike Brownstein

LUCY: Katie Schneeman (May 19th) and Joan Fagin (May 22nd)

FLOYD: George Schneeman

MYRNA: Holly Solomon

SARAH: Maureen Owen

.

John Wieners- Pressed Wafer

2009-03-12T15:36:00.008-04:00

Recently received or acquired

John Wieners- Pressed Wafer

1967, The Gallery Upstairs Press

Buffalo, NY, 1000 copies made
Book design by David Roth

Andrew Lundwall & Donald Dunbar

2009-03-10T11:21:00.013-04:00

Photos of Lundwall- Dunbar

Cloud Against

i certify rung by rung
it’s all true wine-dark bruises
a vividly dream from last night
or before that i am exactly who
to remember sprung out you think
i am wisconsin is a place glamour

goes to drown coughing once
a cautionary mirror leaf-loose
i won’t decriminalize that
mosquito-white true as all marys glare on the lens
in the suicide scene scratches
have mastered levitation smoke's sibling in the soundtrack,

description of the mail-order milk

to un-bedded yeses making a crazed cancer,

the christs echoing in the marquee swarm,
strangers' contrary parts low-flying dosed

are because it caught on fast like stifling
no video will prove me wrong no medicine

no just-love-me-like-thats no pills saved
for no sunday night understand it to be

sort of strapped in anybody's apart

a hand of wood pulls back sheets mostly

maybe using recreationally a one per turbulence

per ghost besides prefer to think of fancy dance moves

nearly conjured the most perjured nights destined to be purged

Recently Received or Acquired

2009-03-09T11:21:00.004-04:00

Elio Schneeman, In February I Think
A “C” Press Publication, 1978
Ted Berrigan Editor
Cover Art by George Schneeman

Like finding Barry Sanders Score Rookie Card, 1989

Downtown Brooklyn 09 Book Release and Reading

2009-02-20T09:25:00.003-05:00

Please join us for a reading to celebrate the latest issue (#17) of Downtown Brooklyn: A Journal of Writing (the literary magazine of the English Department).

Readers

Rudy Baron
Wayne Berninger
marita casartelli downes
Charulata Dyal
Christine Gans
Stephanie Gray
Kathleen Kesson
Matthew Nagin
Gary Parrish
Zahra Patterson
Jon Peacock
Howard Pflanzer
Giorgios Qure-Lacroix Retsinas
Jessica Rogers
P.J. Salber
Charles Thorne
Mike Traber
Lewis Warsh

When & Where Details

Sunday, February 22, 2009
4-5:30 PM
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (at the foot of First Street)
Between Houston & Bleecker
Across from CBGB's

F train to 2nd Ave
4 or 6 to Bleecker

2 drink minimum

Amy King, Gary Parrish, Buck Downs and Todd Colby

2009-02-16T11:41:00.002-05:00

Friday, March 6, 2009
	5:00pm - 6:00pm
	Bowery Poetry Club
	308 Bowery
	New York, NY

The Bowery Poetry Club in collaboration with Farfalla Press (Brooklyn) invites you to

NEWS: North East West and South Poetry Series.

A poetry Happy Hour featuring poets and publishers from Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Washington DC area. March reading

featuring: Amy King, Gary Parrish, Buck Downs and Todd Colby.

Amy King is the author of I'm the Man Who Loves You and Antidotes for an Alibi, and forthcoming, Slaves to Do These Things (Blazevox Books). For information on the reading series Amy co-curates, please visit The Stain of Poetry: A Reading Series (http://stainofpoetry.wordpress.com/) or visit her at amyking.org.

Some of Gary Parrish's work can be found in Bombay Gin, Big Bridge, Puppy Flowers and Downtown Brooklyn. Co-founder of Farfalla Press, Gary edits the video poetry series viewable here http://www.farfallapress.blogspot.com

A native of Jones County, Miss., Buck Downs lives and works in Washington, DC. Recent books include Ladies Love Outlaws and Recreational Vehicle. This reading kicks off Buck's first leg of YOU CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF WHAT YOU REALLY DON’T NEED: Buck Downs 2009.

Todd Colby is the author of Tremble & Shine (Soft Skull Press, 2003), Riot in the Charm Factory (Soft Skull Press 2000), Cush (Soft Skull Press, 1995), Ripsnort (Soft Skull Press 1994).

5 dollars at the door and enjoy some of the best taps in on the Bowery.

Art work by Frank Tashlin

Old Man Blue by Boulder Poet Jonathan Witherspoon Huey

2009-02-14T14:33:00.005-05:00

Old Man Blue

Old man

I’ll walk slowly behind you

I’m in no rush

consider the bread:

whole wheat, pumpernickel, rye expressions,

consider the soups: buy 2 get 3 free

chunky goodness

what a bargain—

Consider the white haired lady

hunched over eggs—

Does yr eye take in her form?

Old man—

tomorrow we’ll walk slowly across the plains:

a million acres of sunflowers will sprout from yr brain

You’ll dream of pretty women on bicycles with

ice cream cones—

The sweet technique of tongue—

the curl, the wrap around tingle vision:

Two still squirrels

perched on fence:

Old crow unafraid

pecking the snow:

One worm in the brain

the other hidden:

Look through yr broken window

at vast blue expanse—

A single seagull

sun-stained unbelievable afternoon—

Whose socks are you wearing anyway?

Why do these trees still have leaves?

Where was I when that douche-bag fractured yr back?

When you shed four units of blood unnoticed?

When they pumped zanax into yr veins unrequested?

When yr uterus was removed? When you decided to quit smoking?

A Dios Mio

Ya’ Allah—

If the bodhisattvas

are busy then Jameson & I will have to

see you through—

You shouldn’t be with someone

if yr offended by their eyes:

If the gaze lacks spirit

if the glance:

Hollow/Magicless/Killjoy—

Better to sign up with

Somalian pirates

& chase luxury cruise ships

& hijack oil tankers

Better to sign a 6 month contract with Blackwater

and make a pile of money escorting politicians

& to return from Baghdad unharmed

with a new pickup truck and tattoos

to the open arms of the Catacombs—

Better to cough up blood in the women’s room at the Boulder Theatre

to have yr hand held & yr hair stroked in the back of an ambulance—

Better to lay in bed drunk laughing at sausage pizza

inventing typewriter fantasies grateful for a little chaos—

Better to laugh hysterically until yr too tired to have yr eyelids kissed

to ride yr bicycle in the cold snow slush & have yr ass soaked

Grateful to the elements:

thankful for being alive for a time—

Better to be held:

nostrils filled with sea spray

Sprawled on the deck of a ferry

bound for Santorini:

To chase fireflies in July

& bats in September

Green Indiana hills

train tracks & cheap rice wine—

Better to sit Vipassana ten days & freak out

Noticing sensation of Royal Air Force Sonic Boom

Over Herefordshire England—

& to freak out again

On a double decker bus

listening to the kids speak Welsh—

Better to make $7 an hour beat boxing on the mall

in the Wells Fargo breezeway full of Dushanbe chai fearless & silly—

To recite old poems for spare change & eat chocolate covered mushrooms

& waltz into the Sundown Saloon hungry for conversation:

Then to abandon the whole scene & climb the red rocks

& dance barefoot in the new spring air—

Better to slant yr beret

don yr commando sweater & khakis

lace up yr combat boots & drill with Kasung Brethren—

Better to abandon desire

better to rule desire—

How many nails for Jesus:

Do you blame the gypsies?

Do you blame Oliver North?

Does yr blame fester like a dog’s wound

somewhere in Michael Vicks’ canine dungeon?

Do the unborn blame more or less than the living?

Are the cold asteroid cities of the future disingenuous?

Will their inhabitants not dance like Zorba?

Will they not toast the utterly un-opinionated egolessness with chamomile or whiskey?

you

find

this

problematic?

Will our grandparents always set the thermostat to 79 degrees Fahrenheit?

Would the world financial system collapse if they didn’t?

Ah—

Rain soaks tombstones

hummingbirds will return

Unborn born and reversed

& nobody will believe

except the beggar that thinks he’ll make more

standing on the edge of the Safeway parking lot

than he would on the edge of the Whole Foods lot

& that certainly is his prerogative

& all the peaceful & wrathful deities have their prerogatives too—

& are 13 gallon garbage bags hefty enough to hold

all the Shiner & 1554 bottles I’ve collected in my hobbit-like bedroom?

Who can say—

not even the sun

& Mr. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sings

“ Fill Up My Empty Beggar Sack”—

All the rest

vain slideshow bullshit—

Clandestine operations

objectives sought ‘neath sheets—

Visions of golden sky-hairs

Goose cries

manic conversations

dirty laundry—

Halfway asleep thinking of thoughts—

leaves in the wind softly to naught—

Dreams fulfilled when they come:

discipline to let them leave

Beyond the turquoise horizon sea:

pleasure is nothing—

Empty forms, Companions

Judgement disconnected

Sorrows absolved—

Rib cage tingle & Loss—

with old man aches:

Present luminosity

pretends to remain

Economics & political display

ancestors dissolve without thought—

Sorrowful as it flies.

All is well.

Ed Baker Interview

2009-02-09T07:45:00.007-05:00

Photo by Evie Baker

Interview with the poet and painter Ed Baker

conducted January 31st to February 5th by Gary Parrish

Question 1

GP: How did you find yr way to New York in the late fifties, early sixties? Do you have a particular memory of poetry from this period, how did you become engaged?

EB: OK! my mother born in Manhattan in 1915! HOA I got stories! I once

asked her about her dad who had a horse wagon selling cloth and needle

about Charles Reznikoff.. she knew him from the home "Charles was

always well dressed. His family in clothing.. an he was a good dancer"

soooo that first question... I go wayyy back into NYC / Brooklyn...

then meeeting Pauline (Fay) Chin who yet lives in Manhattan 1959 this

inter view will be phun. one question at a time.... please

so I was connected to NYC in 1915 and before prior to my birth in 1941

I used to go up to may aunt an uncles 176 th and Longfellow Ave in the

early 50's more drive-by gang shootings than "poetry"

Question 2

GP: Can you speak a little bit more about how you came into contact with poetry, perhaps an early memory of writing or reading and having some satori.

Answer

EB:

Sure I can

in 6 th grade I had a teacher...Miss Strawn

and, as I clearly recall on Octobre 7, 1951

wrote my first poem I guess I was about 10

Harry Truman was President (he came into my dad's grocery store (Herb's

Market) once looking for fresh herbs!

it was for a geography class subject: Chile

Chile is long

Chile is thin

Chile has a lot of tin

Chile is about sixty miles wide

and Mount Popocatapolt reaches from side to sid

Chile is a large producer of copper

I don't know what country can top her

oh well

:then I discovered Stefan Vincent Benet ...

next I lept into the phray! so.to.speak:

I discoverd Pushkin (and some othe Russian poets (in translation)

which led me directly to WCW, Pound (not so-much the cantos except I

"really" got into The Pisan Cantos

(see my Hopkins thesis OKEANOS RHOOS

http://edbaker.maikosoft.com/okeanos_rhoos/1.html

hey, my early writing 1950's - 1965 or so...

all that "stuff" was in a trunk... when I got back from

Mexico/Greece/etc ((((I was traveling steadily around from about

1960-1970 so out of ALL poetry scenes then and now and especially

between 1078 and 1998)

when I got back all my "stuff" had

been thrown out by my parents who wanted the trunk to store their tax

returns!!!

even when I was in The City visiting friend I prefered her AND thos

neat book stores one in about 1970 carried my Butcher of Oxen..

on consignment 60/40

so I am standing there holding MY book and oogeling this cute girl just

off my left shoulder and says: "This is my NEW book." she replied

and one thing led to another and she said "I'll buy your book if you

sign it." "Sure, ($1.50 and no charge for my signature) what name?"

"just sine it 'to Hettie'"

so early on I came to poetry via cute girls... Pauline was my

Original Muse'

Williams, Ths Wyatt, Fenoloosa, Yeats,Olson etc etc etc I gleaned and

skimmed and seeked out a form/style to imitate

best I could do was cop an attitude or down right steal a posit

when ever I met a poet I "laid" an ms on 'em ( I always carried some

xeroxe copies w me every where I went in Manhattan, in San

Fransico/Berkeley, Portland, Seattle, Corvallis,

so... "hey John (Cage), you got time to read this?" and then I'd go

read everything tha John Cage had writte.published

same with countless othe writers (HOWEVER! in NYC with Pauline along

side we went int the poetry cafes/clubs mostly The Beats and to me

mostly bores and not nice people

so I pretty much did my "own thing" (while out in Eugene about 1973

was on that Multicolored Bus Ken Kesey, Hunter T, Jamie Brownlow and a

dozen others:

mostly I listened, didn't inhale, drank a beer

so, Kesey tells me "just, get-in-you-bag and do your

thing"

hey, I'm forgetting the original question! shit.

oh:

"how you came to poetry"

well that is an heavy question and deserves a straight/serious/cogent

response:

I came naked and virginal and naive and (all) trusting

;the first time was in the back seat of a 1955 Buick Special

GAWD! "She" yet dominates my (thinking/doing/writing/drawing)

I call her by her real names : Wild Orchid, Full Moon, Shrike, UMA,

Stone Girl, Some Flower

I just seem to be consumed!

in a way I am just doing what comes naturally what do those (present)

Credentialist Poets-Teachers-Experts call "it"

stream of consciousness? lanpo? mopo, mepo etc etc

I feel very close to these poets (and I may leave someone out but,

pardon me,

I gotta pee and check the Silliman blog-n-roll)

WCW, Larry Eigner, Frank Samperi, John Martone, John Phillips, John

Levy, David Giannini, Thomas Wyatt the Elder ( now I REALLY got to pee!

hey, I better read one of your previously don intervies to see how I

should (fuckin) behave and maybe spell-via-a-dictionary.

here is a little piece I wrote as a reply to something Cid (Corman)

saud-wrote to me ( I think in here

http://edbaker.maikosoft.com/restoration_letters/1.html

sometimes

it s not so easy

being myself.

oppps saud =s said

Question 3

GP: Did you experience any change in the central components of your poetry and other artistic endeavors since suffering a stroke? Or, have any new doors for the creative process been opened to you by this experience?

EB: well; that's a deep subject (old child hood joke get it? deep dark

well) dig it!

there is now a hole in my mind

(actually it is the back as you are looking forward in the back lower

right quadrant now, if you look in The Mirror thing reverse and get

turned "upside down)

through which things

willy-nilly

just come and go

well, sometimes after going and "they" come back

so that 'every thing depends' 'nothing is permanent'

the morphine was great! In it, I discovered my other country and the

attention that cute nurse paid to me showed me "herself" as more than

metaphor

as far as 'experience"

I can truthfully say that, all of a sudden, I realized!

I realized that I am nothing more that the sum of my own

e x p e r i e n c e s

and that I (can) extend those experiences via my written pieces and my

visual pieces

which, are in themselves as what they become adequate

just as they are

and I seem to have returned to embrace those "things" that I hate.

so I do what they ask me to do... mostly "goddesses" I just gotta get

things out of mind and into some kind of a

viewable form..

the form depends on the needs the thinking brings to a certain kind of

"reality" or should that be a question

three things The Goddess has taught/thought me:

1. every time something good comes in, the shit gets there before it.

almost immediately.

2. it's not the words that tell us. It is the experience of the thing.

3. if I am teaching someone through something that I've done (created)

THROUGH MY EYES, then it is wrong.

4. kiss kiss kiss kiss-kiss all you think about is sex. what kind of a

koan IS t h a t?

well

you following this line of thinking? hell, I'm not answering your

question. Shit! I'm "doing" it! regardless of the con:see:quences

any other need/want/desire or any other ersatz political/religious

dogmatic drivel

I got my own drool to use/clean-up

Question 4

GP: The "be here now" quality of yr work and life suggest that you have a

relationship Buddhism, not dogmatic but filtered through your own

experiences. Can you speak about yr own enlightenment during this

lifetime, art or otherwise.

EB:

not really. oh, I suppose

that

I could invent something specific to this....

however: I just don't know!

I mean,

it's like playing with no thought, it's near-on to impossible to

live

w out thinking

so, if you want to say

some thing

just say something

and, maybe go with

Walking Mind (my Japanese name I gave to myself)

something like "kokoroarunite"wher I now can accompany Stone Girl

wherever thinking/mind/heart takes us...

this is now practice zen not Buddhism as thought at, say Nairopa

Youniverse

or that mass-movement BeatZen

I do read lots of "stuff" S Suzuki, Thick Knot Hands, Seung Sahn,

Dogen, etc

also, Reid's book, The Tao of Health,Sex, & Longevity

and,

My Husband the Poet then, The Unknown Craftsman, Brush Mind

heck, in the tradition of many of those GREAT zen-monk poets I've even

eaten

The Comma Sutra for Idiots (yeah, I know KARMA SUTRA) but

I only read the good parts!

Philip Sudo's little book also "big"

so, as far as "enlightenment" goes:

just switch on the light! or switch off the light(I wrote a poem in

1969 or so "Ode to Ths A. Edison: Switch off the Light" it's around

here some where.

so:

I practice my own brand of "zen/religion" which "means" soething or

other:

I just don't know

if this sounds crazy well, we can call "it" Crazy Buddhism/zen and

progress to a posture of

Crazy Learning/Crazy Teaching

vice-uh-versa

I suppose I got "enlightenment" first time I saw Victor Borge do that

Punctuation bit...

or was it when Milton Berl ?

does this answer the question... or beg it?

what Cid wrote me stands: "do not beg what you have yet to give.".

Question 5

GP: Ed can you talk about the projects that you have going on now or on

the horizon, writing or otherwise?

EB:

Projects? let me see...

just last week "completed" Hexapoems ll, Asherah, and Ratula and got

them into the computer

thinking of scanning ALL of my 8 1/2 X 11 paintings watercolores and

sumi-ink things and the little sketches and crayons-ed things and the

"doodles (vispo?) things-things must be about 3216 of these in plastic

(acid-free) sleves in binders

- a daunting task

then there are piles of half-started or half-finished or half-abandoned

(real-lized and released),or half-ass-ed "books" to work to frewition

then there are lets see approximately 143times60 (8580) pages of my

emails that I printed out cause of the veryEEus and sundry possible

"stash" of poems there-n to make... I mean on every page! countless

twists and turns of/ my 'sent' emails..

well "everybody" 's got their "The Collected Letters of {put your own

name here}

mine will be: The Collected E-mails of Ed Baker

projects completed when they get "published

like Neighbors (first of the six books just last week "put up' on New

Mystics (at the bottom of) here:

http://www.newmystics.com/lit/EdBaker.html

some of G OO DNIGHT done by/in/on Sketchbook Journal

here:

http://poetrywriting.org/Sketchbook2-1Jan07/Jan07SKB_Ed_Baker_00_Goodnight.htm

as a matter of fact I am in as far as I know) every issue of sketch

book:

http://poetrywriting.org/Sketchbook0-0Home/Archives_Sketchbook_A_Journal_for_Eastern_and_Western_Short_Forms.htm

HERE I found it:

http://poetrywriting.org/02SketchbookTributeEdBaker08-03April/Sketchbook_3-5_May_2008_Ed_Baker_Contents_Tribute_Page.htm

then I wrote! STONE GIRL E-pic

I got it somewhere in my computer as I scanned ALL SIX BOOKS in all

525 pages

so, not much to do and I spend all of my time doing it..

everyday I write a book

everyday I do some art

http://edbaker.maikosoft.com

a photo attached and also one on the New Mystics site.

well, I am very hungry! think I'll go eat two poems today! I mean,

with the economy

the way it is and it's effect on Poetry, what's a boddhi to do?

but, Eat their own poems?

and try to maintain

George Schneeman 1934-2009

2009-01-27T21:01:00.005-05:00

Collage by George Schneeman and Ron Padgett

George Schneeman, a long time resident of New York's Lower East Side, whose paintings have accompanied poets Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Michael Brownstein, Tom Clark, Edwin Denby, Larry Fagin, Dick Gallup, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Greenwald, Steve Katz, Lewis MacAdams, Alice Notley, Ron Padgett, Harris Schiff, Peter Schjeldahl, Tom Veitch, Anne Waldman, Lewis Warsh, and many others, passed away this morning.

Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to Katie and George’s surviving sons—

Paul and Emil—and grandsons—Luke and Mark

A remembrance from Michael Lally Here and Tom Raworth Here

Beat Scene NO 57. Picks Up Matching Half

2009-01-11T07:57:00.005-05:00

Review of "Matching Half" by Kevin Ring. "Beat Scene" No 57. Winter 2008. Click image to read.

Homage to Jeffery Miller

2008-12-20T11:05:00.007-05:00

Photo by Michele Neff

After reading You Can't Come Halfway Home From the Bar By Ian Daly on Poetry Foundation's Harriet Blog, I thought that I might relay some memories I had of the The Heart is a Quarter Pounder book release in 2005. Daly article is a rare and awesome sojourn that captivates its reader from the first word on.

Boulder. 04

I first heard of Jeffery Miller at Naropa, from Tyler Burba and Tom Peters. Tom pulled out an old copy of The First Ones Free at his bookstore on Pearl Street, the infamous Beat Book Shop, and began to read a few poems. Later that night at the Corner Bar sitting with Tom, Tyler, Andrei Codrescu, and a collection of people who gravitated towards him, Tyler hit me up that we were in the running to get a manuscript that Andrei was saving - a sort of collected Jeffrey Miller. This is my first memory of The Heart is a Quarter Pounder (Farfalla Press 05).

Monte Rio, California

Book Release. 05

We had it printed in Denver. Collin McMillan and I met at the Oakland airport where I had five boxes of the new book stacked next to my backpack. Stayed in North Beach close to City Lights and China Town, Peep Shows, Gnats, and the Vesuvio. We had lunch with Andrei and Bruce Cheney, and then hit the town. Jeffery sent us a gift that night in the form of two tiny ballerinas that liked Jameson and out of town boys who could hold their liquor. We parted with them that next morning and made our way north to Monte Rio with Andrei and his wife.

At a sort of pre-party at Pat Nolan’s house I see David Bromage, Gloria Frym, Joanne Kyger, Michael Rothenburg, Bowie Nolan and many others. We eat food and sit outside writing and passing a poem around. I have a distinct memory of Bromage sitting on the porch and listening to the birds. Pat showing me beautiful broadsides from the 70’s hung on his wall and talking to me about forestry and the land outside the house and how there are trees outside as old as our collective ‘America’. I think about time and the soil and how Jeffery is a part of that now and grows here with the sun touching his branches and this made sense with all that I had seen so far. Kyger who walks, much more like a glide, a sort of movement with grace, asks me about my shirt. I’m wearing a white button-up shirt with small cigarette holes toward the bottom of the garment. She says, do you have another shirt? I remembered my small knapsack and said, yes I’ll put it on. We go outside, smoke, laugh and she talks about the foliage in the makeshift garden in front of us. I feel like she is perfect, a one-of-a-kind person you meet in a lifetime of regulars, if you look close enough she glows. That night Collin and I go to a nightclub with Bowie, but if I remember right Collin loses his ID, so we mostly just drove the country.

The book release was beautiful, people relating stories about Jeffery and having a good time. Bruce showing the tattoo on his arm, a quarter pounder, while on stage. All the readers enchanted in an individual time warp. The night let the past mingle with grandkids, heartbreaks, guilt, triumph and the human spirit of the poet that is Jeffery. Stuck inside the pages as well as in the hearts of the crowd.

That next day I saw the stump where Miller had died. Around a bend, if I remember right, thick base of a tree lowered to its roots. I had been in the world three months when Miller came around that corner in 1977, my mother not twenty years old. I started to wonder who else had walked here, pulled their car to the side of the road and picked up the dirt and held it, dumbfounded looking around.

Back in San Francisco we depart from Tristessa Café where Collin and I leave Andrei and Bruce to their cups of coffee, we hit ten bars that night and never tire, feeling lucky and blessed.

Gary Parrish and Tiziano Fratus

2008-12-12T09:10:00.002-05:00

The 35th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Reading

2008-12-09T11:24:00.002-05:00

Time and Place
	Thursday, January 1, 2009
	2:00pm - 5:00pm
	St. Marks Church in The Bowery
	131 E. 10th St.
	New York, NY
	View Map

Contact Info
	2126740910
	info@poetryproject.com

Poets and performers include Bruce Andrews & Sally Silvers, Arthur’s Landing (Ernie Brooks, Steven Hall, Yvette Perez & Peter Zummo), Jim Behrle, Martine Bellen, Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Barbara Blatner, Justin Bond, Donna Brook, Franklin Bruno, Tisa Bryant, Peter Bushyeager, Reuben Butchart, Steve Cannon, Yoshiko Chuma, Todd Colby, John Coletti, CAConrad, Corina Copp, Brenda Coultas, Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle, Steve Dalachinsky, Mónica de la Torre, Katie Degenetesh, Barry Denny, Maggie Dubris, Douglas Dunn, Marcella Durand, Steve Earle, Will Edmiston, Marty Ehrlich, Joe Eliot, Laura Elrick, Avram Fefer, Bonny Finberg, Jess Fiorini, Corrine Fitzpatrick, Foamola, Merry Fortune, Tonya Foster, David Freeman, Ed Friedman, Joanna Fuhrman, Cliff Fyman, Drew Gardner, John Giorno, John Godfrey, Abraham Gomez-Delgado, Sylvia Gorelick, Stephanie Gray, Ted Greenwald, John S. Hall, Janet Hamill, Diana Hamilton, David Henderson, Bob Hershon, Mitch Highfill, Bob Holman, Erica Hunt, Brenda Iijima, Lisa Jarnot, Hettie Jones, Pierre Joris, Erica Kaufman, Lenny Kaye, Evan Kennedy, Aaron Kiely, Paul Killebrew, David Kirschenbaum, Bill Kushner, Paul La Farge, Susan Landers, Denize Lauture, Joseph Legaspi, Joel Lewis, Rachel Levitsky, Brendan Lorber, Susan Maurer, Gillian McCain, Tracy McTague, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Jennifer Monson, Rebecca Moore, Gina Myers, Eileen Myles, Marc Nasdor, Jim Neu, Richard O’Russa, Akilah Oliver, Geoffrey Olsen, Dael Orlandersmith, Yuko Otomo, Ron Padgett, Julie Patton, Nicole Peyrafitte, Wanda Phipps, Kristin Prevallet, Arlo Quint, Chris Rael, Lee Ranaldo, Citizen Reno, Frances Richard, Renato Rosaldo, Bob Rosenthal, Douglas Rothschild, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Tom Savage, Michael Scharf, Harris Schiff, David Shapiro, Elliott Sharpe, Frank Sherlock, Nathaniel Siegel, Samita Sinha, Hal Sirowitz, Patti Smith, Christopher Stackhouse, Stacy Szymaszek, Anne Tardos, Steven Taylor, Susie Timmons, Rodrigo Toscano, David Vogen, Anne Waldman, Nicole Wallace, Jo Ann Wasserman, Phyllis Wat, Karen Weiser, Dustin Williamson, Max Winter, Don Yorty, Emily XYZ and more.

A ROOM IN JERUSALEM

2008-12-06T10:34:00.006-05:00

Cover Art by Giacomo Sampieri

New from Farfalla Press, A Room In Jerusalem

By Tiziano Fratus, translated by Gail McDowell

America Reading Tour

BROOKLYN-Long Island University, 2008 December 5 (h 5.00 pm)

NEW YORK-Bowery Poetry Club, 2008 December 6 (h 2.00 pm)

BURLINGTON-University of Vermont, 2008 December 9 (h 2.00 pm)

CHICAGO Think Art International art gallery, 2008 December 10 (h 7.00 pm)

Anne Waldman, Akilah Oliver & Ambrose Bye: WINNERS of the 2008 SEXIEST POEM AWARD

2008-12-03T09:32:00.010-05:00

The Sexiest Poem of the Year Award is given annually to a finely crafted poem demonstrating a fearlessness which confronts injustice. The panel of judges is CAConrad sitting in five different chairs manifesting five different facial expressions. The judges must have a unanimous decision in order for the award to be granted. In the case where a unanimous decision is not decided upon, no award will be granted that year.

THIS YEAR IT'S A TIE FOR WALDMAN AND OLIVER'S COLLABORATIVE POETRY/MUSIC CD

"Matching Half"

ALL DETAILS HERE: http://SexiestPoemAward.blogspot.com

Farfalla Press and Torino Poesia present Gary Parrish & Tiziano Fratus Book Release Party

2008-12-02T11:47:00.004-05:00

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, At the Bowery poetry Club, 2:00pm Sharp

Farfalla Press and Torino Poesia Press present two chapbooks done in collaboration: The Meek by Gary Parrish trans. by Tiziano Fratus and A Room In Jerusalem by Fratus with trans by Ann Gail. Cover at the door is 6 dollars or 3 euros and will get you either book.

The Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, New York, NY 10012
212.614.0505
foot of First Street, between Houston & Bleecker
across the street from CBGBs
F train to Second Ave, or 6 train to Bleecker

Wonderful

2008-11-14T10:30:00.009-05:00

Boog City 52, New York City Small Presses

Click here:

http://welcometoboogcity.com/boogpdfs/bc52.pdf

The issue features pages put together by four of New York City's finest small presses.

It is in conjunction with a Tues. Nov. 25, 6:00 p.m. levy lives event at ACA Galleries, 529 W.20th St., 5th Flr., featuring readers from each of the presses' authors.

Inside the issue are pages from the below presses with work from some of their authors:

**Farfalla Press

--Edmund Berrigan

--Anne Waldman

**Open 24 Hours

--Erica Kaufman

**:::the press gang:::

--justin katko and Jow Lindsay

--Evan Kennedy

--Manjula Martin

** X-ing Books

--Jeremy Schmall

--Justin Taylor

Erica Kaufman's from Censory Impulse is at SPD

2008-11-05T10:33:00.007-05:00

New from Farfalla Press comes Erica Kaufman's Censory Impulse

Praise for Erica's Work:

David Shapiro writes

"As I get older I know only two things: the starless chaos within (Kafka) and the random stars above (Proust). No moral center and thus no margin, no moral order outside or in and thus no disorder. In the poetry of Erica Kaufman, we seem to hear the music of this random landscape with no teleology but Darwin Her humor is full of horror at snobbism and injustice and the acceptance of the most comical social sketch.Her poems are by an adult woman who loves love without constraints, and no less believes that language is for a subversive voice, not simple structures. Who knows better that poetry is still woman in revolt?"

Pick up a copy of Censory Impulse Here

Jamey Jones: The New York Poems

2008-10-31T10:41:00.000-04:00

American poet Jamey Jones reads from the New York poems, Downtown Brooklyn, Oct, 08

Farfalla Press Video Poetry Series