Some Thing I've Been Up To Including News On An Exciting December Reading

I have a collab list with Katy Henriksen up on Coldfront featuring some excellent poetry subscriptions. Check it out here.

I also have an essay write-up on the Poets House (Re)Writing Culture panel featuring Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Barbara Jane Reyes, and Craig Santos Perez. Check that out here.

InDigest Magazine is having a 3 year anniversary reading & I've been invited! There will be broadsides & an amazing line-up featuring: Becca Klaver , Martin Rock , Leigh Stein , Ronaldo V. Wilson , Erica Wright , me , Bianca Stone , Jackie Clark and Autumn Giles. It's on December 12 at 7pm. All info here.

Readings!!

Tonight!
SUPERMACHINE
Fri., Nov 12, 8pm
James Yeh
Hailey Higdon
Luke Bloomfield
Dan Magers
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SATURDAY November 13, 2PM
POETS HOUSE, 10 River Terrace
www.poetshouse.org

(Re)writing Culture with Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Craig Santos Perez & Barbara Jane Reyes

In this panel, three young poet-scholars investigate the intersection of research and poetic practice, including Perez’s interest in ethnography and poetry, Reyes’s practice of rewriting/retelling Filipino mythology and Lee’s exploration of geography, psychology and the textuality of nations (focusing specifically on the United States and North and South Korea).

$10, $7 for students and seniors, free to Poets House Members
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Yardmeter 13 presents:
readings by
Phill Provance
Natalie Lyalin
Ben Fama
and paintings by
Doug Campbell.

This all happens at
Shelton Walsmith's stuido,
7 p.m.,
November 13, 2010.
Please bring your own beverage.
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Farrah Field & Christie Ann Reynolds

Sunday, November 14 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm
82 W. 3rd St.
Zinc Bar Reading Series
Farrah Field’s first book of poems, Rising, won Four Way Books’ 2007 Levis Prize. Her poems have appeared in many publications and are forthcoming in Fou, Drunken Boat, and Mantis. She co-hosts a reading series called Yardmeter Editions and blogs at adultish.blogspot.com. Her second book of poetry is forthcoming in 2012.

Christie Ann Reynolds is the author of Supermachine's first chapbook, Revenge Poems. idiot heart, a previous chapbook, was the 2008 winner of The New School Chapbook Competition. She teaches writing at Hofstra University and is co-curator of the Stain of Poetry Reading Series.

We request a $5 contribution.
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Join us for a night of poetry & libation!
Verlaine

Readings by Craig Santos Perez, Jason Koo & Solmaz Sharif

Open bar, 4:00 - 5:00pm
...Reading begins promptly @ 5pm
$5 suggested donation

Poets' Bios:

Craig Santos Perez, a native Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guahan (Guam), is the co-founder of Achiote Press and author of two poetry books: from unincorporated territory [hacha] (Tinfish Press, 2008) and from unincorporated territory [saina] (Omnidawn Publishing, 2010). He received the Poets & Writers California Writer’s Exchange Award in 2010. He earned an MFA from the University of San Francisco and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jason Koo is the author of Man on Extremely Small Island, winner of the 2008 De Novo Poetry Prize (C&R Press, 2009). He was born in New York City and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his BA in English from Yale, his MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston and his PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri-Columbia. The winner of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center, he has published his poetry and prose in numerous journals, including The Yale Review, North American Review and The Missouri Review. He teaches at Lehman College, where he serves as Director of Graduate Studies in English. He lives in Brooklyn.

Born in Istanbul to Iranian parents, Solmaz Sharif holds a BA in Sociology and Women of Color Writers from U.C. Berkeley and an MFA in poetry from New York University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in jubilat, Diagram, Witness, and PBS’s Tehran Bureau. Between 2002-2006, Sharif studied and taught with June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. She is the managing director of The Asian American Writers’ Workshop.


MISSION STATEMENT
Kundiman is dedicated to the creation, cultivation and promotion of Asian American poetry
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Sunday, November 14 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Soda Bar
629 Vanderbilt Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
Readings and Conversation with:
Mairéad Byrne, Daniel Groves, Stephanie Barber, Andy Devine, Adam Robinson

Mairéad Byrne emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1994, for poetry. Her books include The Best of (What’s Left of) Heaven (Publishing Genius 2010), Talk Poetry (Miami University Press 2007), SOS Poetry (/ubu Editions 2007), and Nelson & The Huruburu Bird (Wild Honey Press 2003). She lives in Providence and teache...s at Rhode Island School of Design. Check out the new book at http://www.whatsleftofheaven/.

Daniel Groves was born and raised in Narragansett, Rhode Island, and educated at Johns Hopkins University. His first book, The Lost Boys, was recently published as part of the VQR Series (University of Georgia Press). His poems have appeared in Paris Review, Yale Review, Poetry, and Best New Poets 2005. He is on staff at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

Stephanie Barber is a multi media artist who creates meticulously crafted, odd and imaginative films and videos as well as performance pieces which incorporate music, literature, video and anything she is thinking about. She has had numerous solo screenings of her film and video work including shows at MoMA and Anthology Film Archives (both in NYC), San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center, Chicago Filmmakers and The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Her performances have been featured at the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Milwaukee Museum of Art, The Haggerty Museum of Art and galleries and artspaces around the world. Her book poems was published in 2006 by Bronze Skull Press and these here separated to see how they standing alone or the soundtrack to six films by stephanie barber, a book and DVD, was published in May 2008 by Publishing Genius. Included in this book is her experimental essay “the inversion, transcription, evening track and attractor” (the soundtrack for the video of the same name) which was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Andy Devine’s alphabetical fiction and essays have appeared in a variety of literary magazines, including New York Tyrant, Unsaid, Elimae, Everyday Genius, and Taint. In 2002, he was awarded the Riddley Walker Prize (for a work that ignores conventional rules of grammar and punctuation). In 2007, he published a chapbook, “As Day Same That the the Was Year” (Publishing Genius). In 2009, Andy Devine was awarded The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Award (for fiction in the face of adversity). WORDS (2010, Publishing Genius) is his first book. Andy Devine Avenue — in Flagstaff, Arizona — is named after him.

Adam Robinson lives in Baltimore, where he runs Publishing Genius and plays guitar in Sweatpants, a rock band. His first book, Adam Robison and Other Poems, was just released by Narrow House. He writes for HTMLGIANT, the Internet literature magazine blog of the future.

Weekend Wrap = Monday Blah

I've been prepping for my Harlem Renaissance class all day- reading, making lecture notes, & just spacing out.

On Saturday I went to a reading featuring work written in the "teenage years." It was a blast & Farrah has a pretty damn nice review of it plus pics here.

On Sunday, I participated in the Save The Libraries Reading Marathon. The New York Times has a review of it here.

The debut ish of Lantern Review is up & it has poems by label-mate, Angela Veronica Wong, dopeness by Barbara Jane Reyes, awesomeness by Jai Arun Ravine, & lots of other great work. Check it out here.

Here comes the sun or so some say

I went to bed around 2 or so, yet woke up at 6:32. I could not fall back to sleep. I watched Battle Star Galactica. I read. I somehow made weak french press & did my dishes. I went to eat yogurt but found out I am out of granola. I thought I just bought granola. I have not eaten. I have not gone back to sleep. I fretted over losing my fourth class, which is the only class I was looking forward to. Spent hours crafting the perfect syllabus & making a packet containing poems by Gingsberg and Reyes, as well as, short stories by Barthelme, Wong & Borges. I will read my packet and pretend I am teaching. No I will shower, do laundry, clean my room, buy tickets for the Crystal Stilts show (assuming it is not sold-out) and walk to St. Mark's Bookstore. Or maybe I'll fall back asleep and dream of doing all of these things, or,,,

Orr floating in a river without an oar

I've been reading comments about Orr's article on "greatness" since Saturday. Greatness is a difficult one because Orr's idea of what is "great" is different than my idea or your idea of what is "great," however, I think ambition is a bit more palatable. I'm not sure which contemporary poets Orr is reading-- but I can think of a ton of poets that Orr is NOT reading if he thinks that greatness & ambition will pass away with Ashbery.

Y-A-W-N.

Ken Kesey once said that he believes a man should be as big as he has it in him to be. Now let's remove the gendering of that comment and simply say a human should be as big as a human desires to be. I strive for "bigness," yeah I like to get my B.I.G. on-- often times it fails, but the inner-tune remains the same. The biggest problem with Orr's essay is that "greatness" seems to be engendered as "male." While not surprising, it does explain why he thinks greatness will die with Ashbery- we're surrounded with astounding works of "greatness," "ambition," and poems that live large aka "B.I.G." but Orr is not reading any of it-- which is his lost. I suggest he spends less time looking for "greatness" in Barnes & Nobles and supports small presses. Who knows, he just might stumble upon some inspiration.

Here's a list of other bloggers' thoughts:

Amy King
Barbara Jane Reyes
Justin Taylor
J.Mae Barizo
Cooper Renner
John Emil Vincent
Niina Polari
Reb Livingston

I think ultimately that the Orr article is worthy because it has generated some serious dialogue and many poets have taken up the challenge to not let him define us or our ambition.

Keep the modest flows for practice

My Intro to Lit class is over on Monday. Sigh. This was actually an awesome class. We read Barbara Jane Reyes' West Oakland Sutra for the AK-47 Shooter at 3:00am and other Oakland poems, as well as, Claudia Rankine's, Don't Let Me Be Lonely. There were a lot of good discussion in regards to Rankine, but the Reyes seem a little bit more difficult- or so I thought. To my surprise & delight a lot of their last papers & answers for the finals all talk about Reyes' poems. I think it took longer for them to digest the complexity of her work, but I feel good knowing that this beautiful chapbook has imprinted itself upon so many of their brains.

While they working on their finals, I finished reading Eric Baus' newest book. It's better than you think! Buy it.

[state of emergency]


To honor movement in crescendos of text, combing through ashes
for fragments of human bone, studying maps drawn for the absurdity
of navigation-- what may be so edgy about this state of emergency
is my lack of apology for what I am bound to do. For instance, if I
dream the wetness of your mouth an oyster my tongue searches for
the taste of ocean, if I crave the secret corners of your city on another
continent, then it is only because I continue to harbor the swirls of
galaxies in the musculature and viscera of my body. You will appear
because I have mouthed your name in half-wish, reluctant to bring
myself to you. You will appear for me, because you always do, with
earthen skin outside the possibility of human causation.

Barbara Jane Reyes from Poeta en San Francisco