PhillySound: new poetry

Thanks much to Autumn Konopka for the thoughtful interview & article that's just been posted on Philly2Philly.com- check it out.

See you on Wednesday.


- Frank Sherlock

CAConrad & Frank Sherlock read from the new book

Sunday, 1/31 at ZINC in NYC, details HERE

Wedensday, 2/3 at the ICA, details HERE

Have a great weekend, see you soon,
CAConrad

Here's a tribute to the People's Historian with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein and Anthony Arnove.


- Frank Sherlock

... from the Benjamin Franklin Look-Alike Contest. Note 1st Runner-Up CAConrad with an Adbusters calendar under his arm.

- Frank Sherlock

Our friend John Coletti just wrote saying "nice post by Ron." This is lovely, this post by Silliman, which I did not see coming! And to think that I ALMOST won the Benjamin Franklin look-alike contest due to Cindy Burstein loaning me her round spectacles to make me more of a spectacle! HEHEHE!
CAConrad

Jamie Townsend, co-editor of the marvelous new magazine "con/crescent", and member of The New Philadelphia Poets is circulating a petition to keep Elizabeth Robinson's seat at Naropa.

While I've never been to Naropa, and don't know her personally, I'm a fan of her poems, and don't mind one bit signing based solely on the poems. You'll need the password "saveERnow" in order to sign in. WHY one needs a password to sign an online petition is beyond me. OH, AND DO NOT BE FOOLED by the window which follows your initial signing of the petition, the one which asks you for a donation to the site, automatically asking you for 10 dollars. Just ignore it!

The petition is AT THIS LINK

CAConrad

this note from Brandon Shimoda at WAVE Books:

ONE DAY ONLY: In conjunction with Obama's State of the Union Address tonight (9 pm EST), Wave Books is offering a supreme discount on the REAL address: STATE OF THE UNION: 50 POLITICAL POEMS, an anthology featuring poems by 50 contemporary poets. $5 for a softcover edition, available today only and only through the Wave website here: http://www.wavepoetry.com/catalog/66

posted by CAConrad

...i am too drukn to writ4e anthing else. But to seay that Frank Sherlock and I were out celebrating the 3red anniversary of his not dyng.

It's beautifjl. It's marvelous when friends don't die, forgive my post,
Conrad

Elective Affinities is a new online cooperative anthology of U.S. contemporary poets edited by Carlos Soto Roman. So far, the poets who appear are David Wolach, myself, Hailey Higdon, Marion Bell, Laura Sims, Thom Donovan, Julia Bloch, and CAConrad. Each of the poets' given affinities will appear as part of the anthology in the future. The inclusion process is viral and ongoing- and I like that idea. There are also Elective Affinities anthologies for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Italy, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela. Check them out!


- Frank Sherlock

You'll want to check out Comedy Meltdown - the new video from Aaron Belz.

& keep an eye out for Lovely, Rasberry. It's Aaron's new book soon to be available from Persea Books.


- Frank Sherlock

I'm very excited about this, so I'm passing it on!!!

- Frank Sherlock

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

The 95 Cent Skool is a 6 day long experimental seminar that will be offered in Oakland, California, July 26-31, 2010. It is convened by Joshua Clover and Juliana Spahr. It will explore the possibilities of poetry writing as part of a larger social practice, at a distance from the economic and professional expectations of institutions. We believe a dozen people sitting around a table can’t ruin poetry, but that costs, professional context, mythologies of individual genius, and client/service-based models can — and in our own experiences teaching in pay-to-play writing programs, often do.

Our concerns in these six days begin with the assumption that poetry has a role to play in the larger political and intellectual sphere of contemporary culture, and that any poetry which subtracts itself from such engagements is no longer of interest. “Social poetics” is not a settled category, and does not necessarily refer to poetry espousing a social vision. It simply assumes that the basis of poetry is not personal expression or the truth of any given individual, but shared social struggle.

The 6 days will feature:
• Morning discussion groups lead by Juliana and Joshua
• Two guest speakers: one on the political economy and one on ecology
• Afternoon group and/or collaborative writing sessions
• Dinners and drinks at a nearby bar

The 6 days will not feature:
• Workshops led by a “master poet”
• Agents or editors who will advise your work into publication
• A Richard Wilbur Celebration Night
• Instruction in reciting poetry to bring out the emotional content of the poem

The final program will be available later in the Spring.

Each participant will be asked to contribute up to 1% of annual gross income as their 95 cents exclusively towards operating expenses. The workshop leaders and as many other organizers as possible will donate their time. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Email us if you’ve got questions about how much you can pay. We will also help in finding free housing for any participants in need.

The program is open to any interested participant with any level of prior engagement with poetry. This program is not affiliated with any institution of higher education and no transferrable institutional credit will be offered. There is no application fee, but space is limited. Please send a note indicating interest and experience to 95centskool@gmail.com

Please feel encouraged to re/post this listing to your blog or otherwise redistribute. If you would like to receive further information about the 95 Cent Skool, please email the address above, or join the 95 Cent Skool facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=300963159304&ref=mf
The 95 Cent Skool will happen with the support of Small Press Traffic and 'A 'A Arts.

Thank you very much,

the 95¢ Skoolers —

Philadelphia to San Francisco astral poetry transmissions...

On Sunday, January 24th, CAConrad will visit The California College of the Arts in San Francisco by way of astral poetry travel.

Poets David Buuck and Jen Benka will be in front of the college at a table with crystal infused water (Fiji has one of the highest silica infusions on our planet) from 1:30pm to 3:00pm Pacific Time. Passersby will drink the water and TUNE IN as David and Jen bring CAConrad in via astral transmission, as he meditates on the same source of crystal infused water in his little apartment in Philadelphia.

Poets will record sensations and messages from either end of the cosmic correspondence.

If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, or know anyone in the Bay Area who would be interested in participating, get yourselves to

The California College of the Arts
1111 8th Street

NO, Sasha's not in jail! But if you order any book from Greying Ghost Press you get a free copy of Sasha's new chapbook, We Are All Of Us Up To Something, but only while supplies last!
CAConrad

upcoming PhillySound events in new ICEPACK!
CAConrad

The San Francisco Bay Guardian has selected OVER HERE by yours truly as one of the Top 10 Sexiest Books of 2009.

I'm both humbled and honored to be included as the only book of poetry on the list. I'm also glad to be selected on the basis of a less-than-conventional defintion of "sexy." See the entire article HERE.

- Frank Sherlock

Chapter & Verse kicks up again this Saturday, December 16th at 8pm
w/ readings from Daniel Lin, Laura Jaramillo, and Heather Green.

Details here.

- R Eckes

I'll be celebrating at VOX, details HERE
If you can't make it have sex with His music!
CAConrad

ANARCHY is the call from the very start of Anne Waldman's play Red Noir at The Living Theater, the legendary spot where Jean Cocteau staged his play Orpheus in 1954, and where Jean Genet, Bertolt Brecht and Jackson Mac Low staged plays in the 1960's. And now Anne Waldman in 2010.

Most of the lines are from Waldman's new book of poems RED NOIR, but there are also lines from Jack Kerouac's Mexico City Blues, the biography of Frederick Douglas, and Diane diPrima's famous line appears, "the only war that matters is the war against the imagination."

The acting of Sheila Dabney blew my mind right from the start. She has Outrider Outlaw stamped on her somewhere, no doubt about it! The intimate way the stage is set with the audience literally right up against the, and inside the, part of the, entire performance, gives us every turn of Sheila's eyes, limbs, her every mountainous syllable!

Audience participation isn't just mandatory, I mean to say by the time you're guided out of your seat to BECOME the play you already feel like you've been part of it. It feels entirely natural, the connectedness to the lines and to the actors as they gently direct you. We do reiki and meditative chanting, humming, and I REALLY DON'T WANT TO GIVE IT AWAY.

I'm no good at reviews because I'm always afraid I'll give too much away. If you don't see this play in its short run in New York City I'll be sad for you, whether you want me to be or not. I was sitting next to Wallace Shawn in the audience, but by the time we were guided into the magical fray I truly felt like I had acted in a play with Wallace Shawn, and that I should now be allowed to audition on Broadway and say so! Just kidding!

Another favorite of mine was Benjamin Cerf, who does work with Reverend Billy as part of the Life After Shopping Choir, he also works with THE YES MEN, Billionaires for Wealth Care, and calls himself an activist performer, which I like. Which makes so much sense that he would be in this very moving political drama of Waldman's.

Judith Malina, founder of The Living Theater in the 1940's directed this play, and was there in the audience.

I WANT TO GO AGAIN!
CAConrad

To be honest I hadn't yet met Penny Arcade when I created this exercise and wrote its resulting poems, but now that it's going up on the web it really fits her. The true FAGHAG BITCH WHORE QUEEN! We love you Penny! Here's the link to the January (Soma)tic Poetry Exercise, TOUCH YOURSELF FOR ART

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
CAConrad