Split this Rock Poetry Festival, Thursday, March 11

I did my workshop, How to Build a Poetry Reading, this AM in the front room of the Thurgood Marshall Center. There were about 10-12 folks, including the late arrivals, many from the DC area, where there apparently are lots of readings/open mics/slams already. Toni Asante Lightfoot joined me in sharing her experience running poetry events.

Hung out having lunch & typing at Busboys & Poets, then took some time off before heading to the Poetry in the Streets event in Upper Senate Park, beneath the shadow of the Capitol. A string of poets threaded our way to the stage to each recite one line of poetry, limited to 12 words, a Cento sending a message of peace & "get off your collective asses & end the war" to the members of Congress. Check out the poem at the Split this Rock Blog. Hanging out with new friends, re-connecting with old friends. My picture ended up in the pages of the Washington Post the next morning. You can also check out photos by the omni-present photographer, Jill Brazel, on the Split this Rock Facebook page & on their website.

Time for dinner & a drink & then back to the Bell Multicultural High School for the evening's reading. Mark Nowak gave a reading with slides, touching on the Sago mine disaster & mining accidents in China, in what is being called documentary poetry. Lillian Allen, who lives in Canada, performed her poems in the tradition of "Dub poetry," reggae rhythms & the early roots of hip-hop. She took on the lingo & dance rhythms of the islands, mixing in sound patterns with the words, in such poems as "Limbo Dancer," poems about women in prison, in housing projects & giving birth, even a love poem ("would love to make a revolution with you").

Francisco Aragon's poem were mostly short, evoked the spirit of Garcia Lorca & Ernesto Cardenal. His poems to us "To Madrid," & Rome ("The Tailor"), & a strange slant translation of Rilke, "Torso." Nancy Morejon is from Cuba (& the Cuban ambassador was in the house).  She read her poems in Spanish, then in translations done by others, often touching on the Afro-Cuban themes of slavery & oppression, but in the rich, colorful images often found in poetry from the Caribbean.

Once again, a wonderful, full night of poetry, but run well, the readings moving along with variety & judicious sense of time. More detailed informaton about each of the poets can be found on the website.

Split-this-Rock Poetry Festival, Wednesday, March 10 - Part 2

Whoops, this is what happens when I start to write up the event late at night, needing to get to bed to be fresh the next AM, then finish it the next morning without going back over my notes.

In my account of the opening ceremony at Busboys & Poets I mentioned Regie Cabico doing intros but forgot to mention who he was introducing. Actually it was 5 fine poets, including winners of Split this Rock's World & Me Youth Poetry Contest & members of the DC Youth Slam Team.

The young poets all read strong pieces. They were Shannon, with a piece on gentrification, Malcolm, Alissa, Molly & Diamonte (with a quirky piece on "Buddha's awkward therapy").  Much too good to have been left out of my last report.

More to come.

Split-this-Rock Festival, Wednesday, March 10

Well, here I am in our nation's capital at Split-this-Rock Poetry Festival & already I'm having a great time, & heard some marvelous poetry. The opening ceremony was at Busboys & Poets at V Street & 14th, beginning with some energetic West-African drumming by the racially-mixed Young Women's Drumming Empowerment Project. Then collaborative poetry by young women in white, the Shakti Brigade, that if I didn't hear any more poetry tonight, it would have been worth the price of admission. Andy Shallal from Busboys & Poets did the energetic intros, with Regie Cabico helping out. Co-Directors/Mother-Goddesses of this festival, Sarah Browning & Melissa Tuckey, read poems by the gone poets Mahmoud Darwish, Lucille Clifton & Dennis Brutus (who had read at the last festival, 2 years ago) to bless the event.

From there a brisk walk (or a 1-stop Metro ride) up to Bell Multicultural High School for the first of the Featured Readings, making new friends, finding friends from the last festival, on the way. First, brief readings by the poets-in-residence at each of the Busboys & Poets 3 locations, Beny Blaq, Derrick Weston Brown & Holly Bass, a fitting introduction to the fine poets of this city (what Cornelius Eady later called "a grand city for poets").

Wang Ping began with short poem/response to the critic Helen Vendler, "Syntax." Among the poems she read was "Dust Angels," about Chinese production-line workers making religious items for the West; she read the Chinese first, then in English. Cornelius Eady began with a couple poems on the Obama inagueration, "Aretha Franklin's Inaugeral Hat" & "Praise for the Inaugeral Poet." His reading was a model of how to read quietly & let the words speak for themselves. In contrast, Andrea Gibson performed nearly all of her poems in an intense, slam style, in spite of her opening disclaimer that she "don't do much slam anymore..." Her material is intense, political but I found deadened by the sameness of her performance, in spite taped muscial background for some of her poems. Still, a great start, great poets & poems.

Then home (i.e., hotel room) tired, with words still ringing in my head.

Book-signing/Reading: Nate Pritts & Matt Hart, March 6

This was a small, informal gathering at the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza as part of a tour of these poet-friend-collaborators that will take them up & down the East coast & out as far as Kalamazoo until the end of the month. I had met Nate Pritts just last month when Daniel Nester brought him to the Social Justice Center with his class from St. Rose, & when he attended the Karaoke+Poetry=Fun event at Valentine's. Matt Hart is a poet, teacher, editor from Cincinnati, Ohio.

The center-piece of their reading was a neat little tour chapbook, Feelings, Assoc., of poems that play off each other, perhaps collaboratively written, so much so that none of the 12 poems contain the individual author's names & a few share titles or title variations. In their remarks, they explicitly referenced Lyrical Ballads, but neither was sure who was playing Wordsworth, who Coleridge.

They also seemed to share an affinity for public speech of the pulpit -- Matt read an affecting piece combining his background in a punk-rock band with childhood memories of listening to preachers in church, while Nate's latest book The Wonderful Yeare (Cooper Dillon Books, 2009) opens with a section titled "Spring Psalter."

Catch them as they fly by, if you can.

Metrobland Readers' Pole

I did some late night dumpster-diving into Metroland's trash & in addition to hundreds of Dunkin' Donuts cups & wrappers, a couple of used condoms, empty booze bottles (1 each Scotch, Bourbon, Vodka & Jameson), & a pair of panties (size 5), I found the tally sheets for the Readers' Poll. I didn't really care about most of the categories, but for "Best Local Poet" I can report that the votes were as follows:
#1. Mary Panza with 22 (she has a big Italian family & was once a bartender so lots of people know her).
#2. RM Engelhardt with 4 (Rob's vote for himself accounts for 1; I, again this year, voted for him twice; & it appears that Stephen Leon was the other vote).
#3. Dan Wilcox (that's me) with 1 vote, & I know who that was because he told me.

How much you want to bet that Metroland's own staff pick later this year for Best Local Poet will be an academic poet again? & whose panties were in the trash?

Poets Speak Loud, February 22

I have more fun at this monthly open mic than at just about any other around. Maybe it's the food at the Lark Tavern, or the drinks, or maybe it's my fantasy Nicole the Waitress -- could it be the poets? Nah!

Tonight the tag-team hosts were Thom Francis & Keith Spenser. & the first poet up was Sylvia Barnard with last week's "Ash Wednesday" & the companion "Easter Poem" filled with wind, tulips & Jesus Christ. I read an old poem, "Kissing Dina," from my new chapbook, then a new poem, "A Visit" (they were about 2 different people, if I didn't make that clear).

Don Levy rocked the house of unsuspecting diners with his "Underwear Boi Wonder," then, with Rob in the house, responded to one of his poems with "Hey This is My Street Corner You Poetry Skank." Jason St. Vincent Crane (he wanted to get the open mic folks to all sign up with "St. Vincent" as their middle name but didn't get here early enough (it's Edna Etc. Millay's birthday, if she were still alive); he did "I Am Not An Indian" & "Citizenship 101" which consisted of a series of commands -- good political pieces.

Tonight's featured poet, Carolee Sherwood, did all the right things: she brought her own crowd of friends & relatives (I mean, if they don't come to your readings, who will?). She is currently half of the President of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild & has been coming to lots of open mics, so it was a good chance to hear a big chunk of her work at once. She began ominously, with her husband in the audience, "Planning Hubbie's Funeral,' then into "Reasons to Stay Locked Up at Home". She read a cluster from a new poetry mss. she is putting together, including a group with "animals": "My Spirit Kamikaze" (a black bird), "Inspired by a Deer Carcass…", & "Godzilla Tears Up Main St. Castleton & Shows Me the Way Out." "Yield" was about growing apologies in a garden, followed by the instructions (which included a sword) of "How to Save Yourself." Leaving the mss., "What the Surgeon Couldn't Do" & "Definition" were on medical themes, which carried over into "A Love Poem." To Portland, OR for "Dinner at Deb's," then Picasso's great series of drawings about the Minotaur were the subject of "Minotaur Abducting a Woman" where the persona wants to be the woman beneath the Minotaur. "A Little Red Hen Has Pecked the Fence for the Last Time" seemed to return her to the themes of her opening poems. For her finale, "In the Porn Movie, The Poet Plays the Part of the Pizza Delivery Guy," she brought a local poet on stage (me!) to utter 2 lines, which I, being no actor, of course over-played -- it was great fun. Carolee is a fine poet & we are lucky to have her around & hope to hear lots more.

Tess Lecuyer has many fine poems about crows but tonight's 2 bird poems were not: "Strays" & one about pigeons & an owl, "City." Bob Sharkey ranged up & down the East coast with "Walk with Me in Portland" (Maine) & "For Her Metholated Spirit" at the Museum of Modern Art. Jill Crammond Wickham is the other half of the President of the HVWG & read 2 poems that she wrote together with Carolee, "The Eskimo Word for Woman is Abnack (? sp)" (where they used lines from Anne Sexton's poems), & a poem with a long title that Jill said I could just say was "The Kiss Me Mover Poem" that also was based on lines from other poets.

Julie Lomoe read her Blog entry on blogging & the changing tools for the artist to get her or his work out there, "A Starving Artist in a Viral Spiral."  Avery Stempl has become a regular with his social consciousness irony; "The Puzzle" which was his section from a longer, collaborative poem, then the rant "Meditation on the Super Sizing of America," which was sort of like kicking a dead cow.

You can read RM Engelhardt's poems "Lexicon" & "A World on Fire" on his website. As Charles Bukowski once said, "You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.” Shannon Shoemaker said she inherited her mother's tiny bladder & read "Bathroom," revised to include the Lark Tavern in its stops; "Summer Breeze" (sex) was a good way to end a Winter night.

Like I said, it's always a good time here on the last Monday of each month at Tess' Lark Tavern on Madison Ave. in Albany -- great bar food & beautiful waitresses.
Oh, & great poetry too!

Karaoke+Poetry=Fun, February 20

How can I write intelligently about a night out at a bar with poets drinking & doing karaoke? I guess I can't. Besides, half my notes are illegible. I'll try to hit some of the high (or is it "low"?) points & deal with the revisionists later.

The host/MC/party leader was Daniel Nester who organized this event in conjunction with the CLMP Small Press Book Fair held at the College of St. Rose earlier in the day. Of course, Nester jumped in throughout the night with a faux guitar, or not, on stage or on the dance floor. He even gave me a fling (literally) at one point. The banner, as you can see in some of the pictures (if not here, then a more complete collection on my Flickr site), was certainly correct: "mic+pen=beer". He started off the night with a reading of the Mooning section from his recent book How To Be Inappropriate, then sang "Can't Get Enough of Your Love." Later in the night he read a Robert Hayden poem (a nod to Black History Month, I guess), then sang "My Sharona." At times he joined other readers on stage, such as Michelle Bulla, as well as other groups. Did he learn anything from writing that book? You'll have to check out the pictures -- I ain't saying.

I read way up front as one of the "featured poets" since I always know what I'm going to "sing" at these things & it gets it out of the way so I can enjoy the rest of the night; I read the old QE2 poem, "Where Were the Professors" & followed it with my standard, "Wild Thing." Another early reader was maveric-press icon Geof Huth, who also handed out a folded broadside, karrakokkoe, of the poems he read, including a version of "Louie Louie," the song he performed.

Eric Auld's poems were mostly humorous lists of stuff (his list of reasons to apply to grad school made me think I should have read my "27 Things to Do With Your MFA") & then he performed "Me & Julio." Cara Benson's poem was "Ain't She Pretty" then performed "Material Girl" (I think). Tobias Seamon's poem was "a rip off" of a Philip Larkin poem, he said, then sang "All Along the Watchtower" (the Hendrix version). One of Alifair Skebe's poems ("Bird Caged") she described as "another lovely absurdist piece" then sang "Day-OH" (a connection there?).

Shannon Shoemaker who had on 2 different hats because everyone liked the little black fedora she arrived in & wanted to wear it, did her Emo boy poem & then "Born to Run." I think (if it matters) that the best poem of the night was one Kira Brady read from her iPhone, about the changing of the seasons, the solipsistic "The Return of Brown Kira." & I was particularly thrilled when one participant (Carissa Haberland) read my poem, "Ordering Lunch," from my new chapbook boundless abodes of Albany.

Mary Panza & Murrow, with guest singer Tony the Intern, turned things around by doing "Sister Christian" (she loves them mullets) before they performed their poems. Typical. Mary did the street-feminist "Girl Busts Finger," while Murrow (Thom Francis & Keith Spencer) followed with a couple pieces, the "3rd can poem" & "Aftermath."

There were some karaoke virgins & poetry virgins as well, including Sue Conroy, who was the first woman to read after about 5 guys, with a prose piece of family drama & "The Beat Goes On" with Lila as back up singer. Carmine came with his daughter, a student at St. Rose, & he read some of his own rap, & Marie's poem was "Home."

Others I've barely retrieved from my notes include Tony Geras ("Tony the Intern"), his roommate Jessie, Dan Henderson (whose poem was about a fuzz-ball game, if I got it right), Michelle Bulla (sorry about spellings, there was no sign-up sheet to consult afterwards) with a Taylor Mali poem & Danielle S. Ely with a grim poem about Florida.

& of course, without whom we wouldn't know the words, Lila from The Karaoke Zone, who helped out on some songs, & joined in with the faux guitar, patient & good-humored throughout (did anybody buy her a drink?).

With an expensive banner like the one hanging behind the stage, I expect this event will re-surface from time to time. You can always practice in the shower.