PhillySound: new poetry

This week (May 28-June 1) the Tavis Smiley Show on PBS will be airing "Right to Return: New Home Movies from the Lower 9th Ward," a five-part documentary directed by Jonathan Demme. The series charts the efforts of a disparate group of New Orleanians attempting to reclaim their homes, their neighborhoods and their lives. Click here to go find out more about the series and local listing information. Channel 12WHYY Philadelphia airs the Tavis Smiley Show at 11:30pm.

- Frank Sherlock

The murder of Erika Keels is going to be the LAST murder of transgender people in Philadelphia the police attempt to rule out as an accident! (If you scroll down this blog to May 9th you'll see my original post).

Recently I attended a meeting to build a coalition of different activist organizations in Philadelphia to organize a protest in front of city hall, as well as build official appeals to city hall for opening an investigation into Erika's death, and to set up guidelines to prevent police from ever again ruling such murders as accidents.

Please read the following petition and consider signing it! We must all work together at ending this form of discrimination in Philadelphia! A very large number of transgender people have been murdered in this city over the years with no police investigation and no criminal charges brought against the murderers.

This is the sort of hidden genocide most people will look back on from the future with shock, and some of those people will find a way to rationalize what went wrong. That's fine, let the future rationalize things, but today we have to stop this madness! Please, let's do this together!

Here's the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/ErikaK

A VERY BIG THANK YOU to Savannah Hornback for working so hard at bringing us together to bring justice in the name of Erika Keels.

The protest will be in June, and I'll let you know time, date, and other info,
CAConrad

It's not at all an exaggeration when I say that I have been waiting 15 years to see THE HOLY MOUNTAIN on the big screen! The only version I've ever seen is the bootleg copy at TLA, which is a video tape made from a Japanese laser disc, dubbed into English with Japanese subtitles. But I LOVE it. I have LOVED it like I have never, ever LOVED a film! No film has ever encapsulated the zodiac, for instance, like Jodorwsky's. It's a work of genius from start to finish, and I intend to sit in the FRONT FUCKING ROW at the International house to absorb it as best I can. And I want to see the bootleg video from TLA just before going, so that I can examine the poor copy I know, which is not a letter box cut, so I can see what I have never seen of the film, and see it, in many ways, for the first time when seeing it on the big screen. And the screen at the International House is TRULY a big screen, which also makes me happy!

Also playing is EL TOPO. I'm also looking forward to seeing this other Jodorwsky flick, but if THE HOLY MOUNTAIN wasn't also showing I doubt I'd make the trip to the theater. Anyone wanting to see THE HOLY MOUNTAIN should get their asses to Philadelphia's International House on Saturday, May 26th, 7pm. It's going to be a long double feature, but BE PREPARED TO BE CHANGED! Am I being dramatic? Go see it and tell me after that you are not!

CAConrad

June 3rd, 4pm
ROBIN'S BOOKSTORE
108 S. 13th Street, Philadelphia

Tim Peterson is the recipient of the Gil Ott Book Award for SINCE I MOVED IN (Chax Press)

The late Gil Ott touched many lives, and helped change the Philadelphia arts scene for generations to come. We will be gathering to honor Gil's legacy with a reading from the first book award, and to hear readings of Gil's work by his friends, family, and admirers. Readers will include:

Eli Goldblatt, Alicia Askenase, Joshua Schuster, CAConrad, Jenn McCreary, Ron Silliman, Chris McCreary, Linh Dinh, Ryan Eckes, Bob Perelman, Tim Peterson, Frank Sherlock, Kristen Gallagher, Julia Blumenreich

Gil Ott ONLINE LINKS:
for TRAFFIC
for THE FORM OF OUR UNCERTAINTY
for INTERVIEW in BANJO
for 2 audio clips
for PENNSOUND
for VIDEO clip
for WIKIPEDIA (the Wikipedia folks misspelled Gil's middle name, which should be Frederic with no "k," how do we get them to change that?)

Brenda Iijima's Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs is NOW ONLINE! Click HERE to see the website. Brenda thanks Cecilia Wu and Christina Strong for their assistance in helping with the site. The initial page is something I like a lot, something to look at for a long time, moving with the lines, against the lines, moving moving, a meditative moving. Is that original image made with thread? Yeah, I think it's thread, what do you think, maybe it's not? But I think it is.

Some of my favorite chapbooks have been put out on this press, two of my absolute favorites being Christina Stong's ANTI-ERATO, and John Coletti's PHYSICAL KIND. And I HAVE TO SAY how happy I am that Brenda has provided an "INFO" button for each title where you can read an excerpt, and find links to reviews, or blogs, etc. It always AMAZES me when small presses have these websites with no excerpts! Don't you ALWAYS want an excerpt!? Because I know I ALWAYS want an excerpt! Check out this website because I guarantee you that there are books here you will want to read, no doubt about it!

CAConrad

CLICK HERE!
(posted by CAConrad)

Stacy Szymaszek was born and raised in Milwaukee, WI. From 1999 to 2005, she was the Literary Program Manager for the nonprofit literary organization Woodland Pattern Book Center. Her extensive curatorial and editorial work during this period helped galvanize a community of poets in the Midwest region with Woodland Pattern serving as one of several meeting places. In 2005 she answered the call to move to New York to serve as the Program Coordinator at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. This year, she also served as the Monday Night Coordinator. She is the author of several chapbooks including Mutual Aid (gong press, 2004), Some Mariners (Etherdome, 2004), There Were Hostilities (repair, 2005), Pasolini Poems (Cy Press, 2005) and from hyperglossia (Belladonna Books, 2005). Her first book, Emptied of All Ships, was published in 2005 and her second book hyperglossia is forthcoming in 2009, both with Litmus Press. Her work appears in the recent anthology For the Time- Being: The Bootstrap Book of Poetic Journals, as well as in numerous journals and web-zines. She is also a coeditor with Instance Press, contributing editor of Fascicle and editor of the poetry magazine Gam.

Stacy also co-edited EOAGH #3: Queering Language

Stacy is interviewed in KICKING WIND and CHICAGO POSTMODERN POETRY

(posted by CAConrad)

When I worked at Giovanni's Room Bookstore there were multiple murders of trans-brothers, trans-sisters, and each time the police did nothing. Here it is 2007 and the police are still doing nothing! It's hard to see where the crime against these people stops, does it stop with the murderer, or continue with the police?

There's going to be an organizing meeting this Friday. Anyone who can be there, please BE THERE! It's time we say we've HAD ENOUGH! Below is the e-mail, report, and contact for Savannah, hope to see you there, CAConrad

CALL OUT FOR SUPPORT TO DEMAND JUSTICE FOR ERICA KEEL

THIS FRIDAY, MAY 11TH, 4pm, at 12O1 LOCUST ST
OPEN PLANNING MEETING

On March 22nd of this year, Erica Keel, a 20-yr-old African American trans woman, was fatally run over at Broad and Thompson streets in North Philadelphia. According to witness accounts, the driver in question intentionally ran over Erica four times after ejecting her from his car. A medical examiner's report supports these accounts. However, the police have ruled Erica's death an accident and have refused to conduct an investigation. The driver, Roland Button, fled the scene but was later apprehended by police. He has yet to face criminal charges, including "hit and run." When friends of Erica, who are themselves trans, questioned police officials about the classification of Erica's death as an "accident," they were asked to disclose their "birth" names and were told they were "trying to make something out of nothing."

As community members and allies, we are asking for your support in challenging police injustice by demanding a thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding Erica's death. Our efforts to demand justice for Erica are part of building a larger strategy to address state violence against trans youth of color in Philadelphia.

Please join us THIS FRIDAY at 4pm at the Washington West Project, 1201 Locust St, to help plan a demonstration.

For more information contact Savannah: 267-879-1339
Or e-mail at: n_hornback@yahoo.com

ONE OF THE BEST PIECES OF NEWS lately was from my friend Magdalena that her manuscript THE BRUISE was JUST selected as the winner of the RONALD SUKENICK INNOVATIVE FICTION PRIZE, and will be published, finally! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!

Here's the website for the prize: http://www.fc2.org/Sukenick%20prize.htm

For years now I've been privileged to read this stunning novel as it came to life! Draft after draft! And it's a poem to me, really. But it's a novel, and I'll say it's a novel because Magdalena wants to say it's a novel.

If you have never read a single page from this book I envy you, as I would LOVE to remember none of it and be consumed for the first time all over again!

And if you ever get the chance to hear her read from it PLEASE don't be foolish enough to pass on that opportunity! She gets fucking PUNK ROCK! This is one novel that can really use a back-up band, YES I'M SERIOUS!

Here's a sample page recently published in EOAGH: Queering Language
http://chax.org/eoagh/issue3/issuethree/zurawski.html

KUDOS MAGGIE Z! Let's CELEBRATE ALL NIGHT! DRUMS AND GUITARS!
CAConrad

Below is the official statement sent out today by Ashraf Osman. When I first heard from Ashraf that the person known as Administrator Josh turned out to not be an employee of FACEBOOK after all, but instead an evil prankster, I asked Ashraf for something to post above the interview on PhillySound which was published online yesterday. Someone I know has already contacted me to accuse us all of acting too quickly, and foolishly. I completely disagree. Ashraf and his friends made immediate contact with Josh, asking what could be done to stop the shutdown of the "Arab LBTG" site. Josh responded, not only with more details of the situation, but with the willingness to negotiate the terms with which the site should be managed in order to avoid termination. It's clear that Josh, whoever Josh really is, has an agenda one way or another. The fact is Ashraf and his friends on the Arab LBTG site were doing the best they could, working under the pressure of an assumed deadline for action, and trying their best to rally support, while at the same time gathering other ideas around them of how to act. Whether Josh knows it or not, Josh proved to the Arab LBTG group and others that NO ONE was going to let anything happen to this group without a fight! But of course the best news is that Josh is a fake. It's terrible that there are gay and lesbians in Arab nations right now who are still probably unaware that this was a hoax, and very worried for their lives. This is not a joke at all, because if you read Ashraf's interview yesterday he mentioned such e-mails from others with subject lines like, "You could get killed... I am worried about you guys." And if Josh knows what's best for him he will keep his own identity in the closet, because I for one would like to punch him in the face!
CAConrad

FROM ASHRAF OSMAN
It has just come to the attention of the administrators of the petition to prevent Arab LBTG from being shut down that we have been the subject of a malicious ploy. It has emerged, after concerns about the authenticity of the person representing Facebook have been raised, that the person in question is an impostor and does not represent Facebook. Facebook stated that they have not been contacted by any governments about the group, and that they will not be shutting it down. (The full statement can now be found on the petition page.) I apologize on behalf of the petition administrators for propagating this without being more questioning in the first place. And while this certainly is a huge relief, and the reaction to the matter was highly validating of the genuine concern for civil liberties and free speech in this country and the cyber-society as a whole, it remains that many of the issues brought forth by this unfortunate debacle are true, including the lack of rights for persons of alternative sexualities in Arab and Islamic countries, and the censorship of governments around the world of cyber-content.

Thank you for your understanding,

Ashraf