PhillySound: new poetry

Good luck to Brett & Janine, who are moving back to New Orleans today. Check out Ron Silliman's review of Ways to Use Lance by Brett Evans. Louis Zukofsky meets Linton Kwesi Johnson &...

- Frank Sherlock

Frank Sherlock's poem is in Tuesday's Commentary section of the Philadelphia Inquirer!
For some reason, the editors cut the subtitle. But here it is in its original form.
___________________________________________________

Refinery Deal Pays Off
(a Letter to New Orleans for New Year’s Eve)


There are the dead & those who talk to the dead
         through song    The parade is almost here &

this is an American mirror    Squint hard
    to see the Ninth Ward see Two Street    America

Cities are mothers that never stop raising
                   as long as the rhythms continue

And I will raise them up    And I will raise them up
And I will ra-ai-se them up on the last day

         Bayou Eagle feathers sewn into headdresses
keep the five-fifths citizen beat & burning

crude in the purified cold will be a dance called
         the dirty phoenix    This is American music

    A new year is coming with us    a dedication
Rebirth is playing our song    Don’t let them steal you

We come to party we come to remember
       We come to party & will not let you die

________________________________________________________

Thanks Frank for a great poem!

posted by CAConrad

What will the MFA Machine make of the genius project born from the vision of Buck Downs, Mel Nichols & Adam Good? The DC crew is developing the Zero Degree Writing Program, a free online MFA-equivalent course of study in poetry writing, poetics, and publications design. The program will operate with a mission of transparency & propagation, at once viral & open.

(as a number of the Blank Mountain School's posts are signed)
Outward,

Frank Sherlock

One of my favorite moments on trip to Baltimore and DC with Frank Sherlock and Brett Evans:

Frank: Hey, have you noticed how Rumsfeld looks like a porn producer?

Brett: Yeah! And Condoleeza Rice looks like Chuckie!

They're both so right? Don't you agree?
-------------

Reading with Frank Sherlock and Tina Darragh was a pretty fantastic good time!

Yes to the Yoko Defense League! (see Frank's post prior to this one --with the super Ono photo)! Frank brought his copy of GRAPEFRUIT (by Yoko Ono), which the three of us took turns reading from, something I'll always remember, damn that was fun to read!

A good recording sample would be Tina Darragh's CCCC! SOUNDS, wow, you have to hear her to believe her(!), with a mix of the sound of Olson's skull THUMP THUMP THUMPING in that footage of Olson hitting his head, getting his point across (in his kitchen) EXCLAIMING about the feds coming down on Timothy Leary.

We drove to DC for good hospitality of Buck Downs. Buck has a show at the DC Arts Center of his grave rubbing poems.

Hassen and Christopher Nealon read yesterday at the DC Arts Center. Let me share a bit from each of their readings:

from Hassen's long poem "Sculpture of a Poet's Mythology":

Either/Or

Such as serene detail of the wood-carved trim.
This is built piece by piece? Pre-
fabricated? A woman came from Manitoba to buy shoes.
She was superior. I did not know the meaning of Manitoba,
just as I do not know a chapter of Leviticus.
("Eating Blood Forbidden")

All poets should know this. A
lover may let you touch her hair in the summer. As
soon as you slip a pen or a candle from your pocket, as
soon as you begin any particular description, she will
become reproachful and there will be a killer waiting for you.
Under your car. You will become a killer with your own hide,
cover, with stars behind your eyelids.

This is the meaning of all dreams. Destiny, the evil interstate
without billboards. Head-on into the dark,
never arriving. All poets should know this. You follow
in the direction the wheel turns.

-------------

from Christopher Nealon's long poem "Concept and Category" in his book The Joyous Age:

It is very embarrassing to be devoured by your own hounds
Though I think the more empathetic four-legged animals understand
    how stressful it is to have your heart at the front of your body

And it could be worse: the vultures are merciless

There are qualities of mind we like to call emotion
There are qualities of speech that only come to matter if they're
    brought around to face the mind then sunk back down into the
    body

(why was he calling her, "little meester two eenches"?
"eew"
"give me a break, 'eew'"

[laughter]

-------------
posted by CAConrad

In response to the return of Yoko-bashing that has resurfaced during the anniversary of John lennon's murder, the Yoko Defense League (YDL) was founded in Baltimore by Frank Sherlock, CAConrad & Tina Darragh. The YDL is a de-centered organization that encourages cells all over the world to defend Ono from late-McCarthyites & arrested adolescents that smear the name of American hero Yoko Ono.

- FS

We're pleased to announce volume two of the ixnay reader, an ongoing, occasional mini-anthology of sorts. This issue features work by:

Fran Ryan
Kaia Sand
Kevin Varrone
Daniel Hales
Jen Coleman
Pattie McCarthy
Eric Keenaghan
and
Eli Goldblatt.

135 pages of poetic pleasure can be yours for a mere $5, payable to Chris McCreary, c/o ixnay press, 1328 Tasker St, Phila PA 19148. Or just email ixnaypress@verizon.net.

Better yet, come celebrate the publication at the first of two launch readings:

Jen Coleman & Fran Ryan
Sunday, December 18th @ 3:00 pm
Bennas Cafe
8th & Wharton
S. Philly, PA

It's nice to be back.

Chris McCreary & Jenn McCreary
co-editors / ixnay press

...is being postponed until next Wednesday, noon to one, same spot, by the giant clothespin sculpture across from City Hall, downtown Philly. See you there? CAConrad

December 10
1891- Nelly Sachs born, Berlin, Germany
1921- Founding of Society for Human Rights, the first Gay Rights organization
USA- National Lager Day

December 10, 2005
Night Flag Reading Series presents
Eileen Myles & Greg Fuchs
Upstairs at The Khyber
56 S. 2nd Street Philly
7pm sharp

Eileen Myles has written thousands of poems since she gave her first reading at CBGB’s in 1974. Bust magazine calls her “the rock star of modern poetry” and The New York Times says she's “a cult figure to a generation of post-punk females forming their own literary avant garde.” Her books include Skies, (2001), on my way, (2001), Cool for You (a novel, 2000), School of Fish, (1997), Maxfield Parrish, (1995), Not Me, (1991), and Chelsea Girls (stories, 1994). In 1995, with Liz Kotz, she edited The New Fuck You / adventures in Lesbian Reading (Semiotext(e). She’s a frequent contributor to Book Forum, Art in America, The Village Voice, The Nation, The Stranger, Index, Open City and Nest. She is a Professor of Literature at University of California, San Diego. She has recently written a novel called The Inferno and an opera called Hell.

Greg Fuchs is a poet, photographer & journalist. He is the author of New Orleans Xmas (Range Press), a collaboaration w/ John Coletti entitled Street Debris (Open 24 Hours Press), Came Like It Went (Buck Downs Books) and Uma Ternura (Canvas and Companhia, Porto). He is the Program Director of FEVA in the Lower East Side. He has work in Thus Spake The Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader 1988-1998 (Black Sparrow Press, California).

Announcements:

Following Saturday's reading the will be an Irish Wake (meaning party) for the soon-to-be-defunct poet hotel, hub for quasi-radicalism & fucko behavior known as 260- aka our house. There will be a special appearance by former residents Brett Evans & Janine Hayes, as well as The Dirty Bird DJ Experience from forementioned poet Greg Fuchs. Don't miss it!

This friday, 11:30 a.m., at the Clothespin near City Hall in Philadelphia, join the protest for Mehmet! Below is from the press release Refusing To Kill & The Global Women's Strike has been circulating:

Mehmet Tarhan is a gay anarchist “total” conscientious objector – against all wars and any alternative to military service. He was sentenced to four years by a military court for “refusing orders”.

Turkey does not recognize conscientious objection and provides no alternative to military service.

For the Turkish military, homosexuality is an “illness”. Men applying for exemption on grounds of homosexuality must submit to an anal examination and often provide a video of sexual intercourse.

This is the equivalent of the notorious “virginity test” which the Turkish police and army have used for decades to judicially rape and sexually assault women, in particular Kurdish women.

Mehmet has refused to be classified as “ill” because he is gay and has demanded his right to be a conscientious objector. The Military Court of Appeal quashed the previous sentence, threatened judicial rape and ordered a re-trial on December 15.

posted by CAConrad

This from an astute editorial on the ban on gay priests published in this week's Boston Phoenix:

"Affront or not, barring gay men from serving as priests is an odd prophylactic--especially at a time when the Church is suffering a severe shortage of priests. It's even more curious when one considers that the next great scandal that threatens to rock the Church of Rome may well come from the AIDS-ravaged precincts of Africa and Asia, where unscrupulous heterosexual clerics violate their vows of celibacy to prey on young women for sex in the hope that those girls may be virgins and thus free from the HIV virus that spreads like a modern plague among the devout Catholics who observe the Church-ordered ban on contraceptives. It's odd indeed to passively promote death in the name of sanctifying life. But popes have been known to do some odd things."

-KC

Check out Tom Raworth's account of meeting poetic terrorist Cristobal Bianchi. He's bombed the Chilean Presidential Palace, Guernica & Dubrovnik with poems.

- Frank Sherlock

December 1, 2005

Friends,
I just thought we should all pause for a moment today to remember the simple act of courage, defiance and dignity committed by Rosa Parks when she refused to move to the back of the bus because the law said she had the wrong skin color. The greatest moments in history, the ones that have truly mattered and have taken us to a better place, are made up of scores of these singular acts by ordinary, everyday people who could no longer tolerate the crap and the nonsense of those in charge.

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.

Rosa Parks may have been alone on that bus at the moment of her arrest but she wasn't alone for long. The old order was shaken, the world was upended and, as a people, we were given a chance for a bit of redemption.

Perhaps the best way to celebrate this most important day in American history is to ask yourself what it is that you can do today to make a difference. What risk can you take to move the ball forward? What is that one thing you've been wanting to say to your co-workers or classmates that you've been afraid to say -- but in your heart of hearts you know needs to be said? Why wait another day to say it or do it?

There is probably no better way to honor Rosa Parks -- and yourself -- than for you to put a stop to an injustice you see, not allowing it to continue for one more second. Do something. Then send me an email (contributions@michaelmoore.com) and tell all of us what you did (I'll post as many as I can).

Fifty years later, the bus we're on could use a few more people simply saying, "No. I'm sorry. I've had enough. I'm not going to take it anymore."

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com