PhillySound: new poetry

Courtney Shumway is making AMAZING (Soma)tic videos, as well as this digital art with a (Soma)tic introductory statement. Courtney's been making this available on Facebook and You Tube, and I've posted on the (Soma)tic site HERE. THANKS COURTNEY!

CAConrad

The new issue of Critiphoria features a true online treasure chest. Just some of the jewels included are Thom Donovan, Bhanu Kapil, Stephanie Young, Rodrigo Toscano & Natalie Knight, Marcella Durand, Julie Patton, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, and the Barking Dog of South Philadelphia- Jacob Russell.

Check everybody out. Cheers to Stephen Paul Miller, Cecilia Wu and Dominick Casazza for a great new issue of engaging work!

- Frank Sherlock

The Apiary Corporation is a new literary magazine that is currently accepting submissions of poetry, prose and artwork. The deadline for the first issue is April 23rd. And the first issue should be out in June!

For details, click here.

- R Eckes

Each weekday at 34th @ Sansom the manager of PENN BOOK CENTER David Hancock puts a new poem in the window on the 34th Street window in the corner. It's a project he does out of his love for poetry.

Stop by and read the daily poem.

AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SHOP THERE! Barnes & Noble did A NASTY TRICK by naming their superstore around the corner something which sounds similar to PENN BOOK CENTER. But it's not. PENN BOOK CENTER has THE FINEST (hands down!) poetry selection in Philadelphia! It's amazing, that poetry section, and we NEED TO KEEP this store going!

Let's not allow another independent bookstore to go under in Philly!

And poets should support PENN BOOK CENTER because PENN BOOK CENTER supports poetry like no other bookstore in the city!

HAVE A GREAT DAY!
CAConrad

Over a 7 year period the human body replaces all of its cells until -- 7 years later -- the body is completely new, a whole new body, a body which actually didn't exist 7 years ago. 7 years ago today we were not here as we are today. 7 years ago today when America invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq. Over a million people have been killed. Their bodies didn't make it here with us. So many people I'm never going to meet or see or know. I'm very sad today thinking about my new body, my luxury of a new body of cells over the past 7 years of war, 7 years of terrorizing people. This morning I went to the Kelly Writers House to hear Susan Howe give one of the finest Q&A's I've ever heard. And I almost asked her at the Q&A, "Susan, in your book THE EUROPE OF TRUSTS you write, 'Malice dominates the history of Power and Progress.' How do you feel about us stepping out of history today with today being the anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq?" But I didn't ask her that. She seemed so happy sitting there, and life is short, and here's this amazing elderly genius poet, and I thought, "Don't ask her that." So I didn't ask her that. Instead I asked her about her visit to Wallace Stevens's house, and how she had said that she couldn't believe THOSE poems came from THAT house, and I wanted her talk about HER poems being written where she writes them. Please tell us about the aura of space, is what I meant to say.
There's so much responsibility that goes into being a citizen, but somehow we have had the trouble of the responsibility removed from us. And it's the darkest thing, that removal. I'm not saying THAT I KNOW and UNDERSTAND the new bodies around me in the anniversary of America bringing UNIMAGINABLE suffering and agony to Iraq. I'm not saying THAT I KNOW but I do know some of the bodies in my proximity and how they fair. A week ago my new next door neighbor left the apartment with his girlfriend and dog, and said, literally said, "Well we don't have cable installed yet, so we're going to the park." He seemed sad about going to the park. The girlfriend said, "Yeah, the cable man didn't show, what a drag." The dog was the only one who seemed happy. And then the cable man came, and now, every single day, all day long I hear the television whenever I walk by their door. Canned laughter is what I hear sometimes. They're watching sitcoms or something and they're not laughing, just the canned laughter. And the dog is so annoyed that the cable man came, I'm sure of it. I'll always remember them leaving to go to the park, this very healthy young couple with their dog because they couldn't watch the television.
No, I'm not saying I understand what everyone's going through. Sometimes people watch a lot of television because they're depressed. But I'm not sure. And in Philadelphia we've been having Twitter Mobs (or some call them Flash Mobs), and part of me wants to say that I identify with these kids, today, on the anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. Hundreds and hundreds of them meet up, and then each time something breaks loose and they begin beating on people, wrecking things, hundreds of them. And I want to say that I understand their anger. But I don't. I'm angry. I'm very angry. Every single day I'm angry. I'm living in a country that cares more about bombing people of color overseas and stealing their resources than putting kids through college. And the ad campaigns to make us FEEL OKAY like saying "MARCH IS AMERICAN RED CROSS MONTH" because WE'RE SUCH GOOD PEOPLE! We're such good people, here, in America, today, on the anniversary of bombing where there are many people who still hear the bombs in the middle of the night, and sometimes it's a dream, and sometimes it's not, because it's still a war, it's still not entirely a dream. But I'M ANGRY AT THESE KIDS for scaring me on the bus the other day when I found myself in the middle of a Twitter Mob WHILE ON THE BUS and the kids banged their fists on the sides of the bus as we drove down the street through the chaos. And Frank Sherlock called me to see if I made it home safely, he's a very good friend. I want to be SO ANGRY at these kids because I would never want to hurt anyone, just anyone, just any stranger. But yet we're living in a country which does that. We drop bombs on people's houses. And the animals in the zoos. The zoo of Baghdad and the apartments, and, and, and, we have new bodies this year.
There's never going to be a moment in this lifetime for us, THOSE OF US ALIVE NOW, IN AMERICA, PAYING TAXES, WHICH PURCHASE WAR, we will never be able to apologize enough to the people of Iraq, and we knew it. We knew it. We all kept saying we knew it, we knew that there were no WMD's, we knew it, everyone knew it. We kept telling one another days before the invasion, "I THINK THEY'RE LYING DON'T YOU THINK THEY'RE LYING YEAH I THINK SO TOO YEAH ME TOO THEY'RE LYING WE KNOW THEY'RE LYING EVERYONE KNOWS IT!" But it happened anyway, the bombing. The occupation. And now the genocide of HUNDREDS of gay man in Iraq as a direct result of the invasion and occupation, we are now responsible for this new genocide. Gay men tortured and murdered in Iraq. A year of genocide. A year at the end of seven years of American occupation. And we distract ourselves with LISTENING about the health care reform. Health care reform? What about the health of EVERYONE in Iraq? What about them? But we get to feel good. And it's AMERICAN RED CROSS MONTH. And I'm not being mean, but that's fucked up to be saying MARCH IS AMERICAN RED CROSS MONTH when America brings more need for bandages than any other country on the face of the planet right now, how do we do it? How do we get to feel this way? How? I'm so sad today. I'm not being mean, I'm sad. I'm an American citizen who has believed lies and now I know I will never vote Democrat again. Ever. There's too much responsibility behind giving killers your time and your vote. It costs so much. I feel that costs today. I'm sad.

CAConrad

Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 8:00 p.m.
SUSAN HOWE & LAURA NEUMAN
Temple University Center City, 1515 Market Street, Room 222

A new reading series will begin at MOSTLY BOOKS this Friday, March 19th at 9pm.

Mostly Books is 529 Bainbridge St, between 5th and 6th, Phila.

The first reading will feature:

Marion Bell, Bela Shayevich, Leeann Thomas, and The Neo-Baroque Variety Hour.

Hosted by Brandon Holmquest.

- R. Eckes

...Red Cross Month. I had just had an amazing day walking through Philadelphia to The Book Trader with my good friend Frank Sherlock. It was beautiful to recharge in the sunlight and run into old friends, people, trees, buildings.

After Frank went home I walked over to the library where I found a table proclaiming that March is American Red Cross Month. Brochures of how GOOD we are, what GOOD people we are helping THE WORLD. I walked up to the table and said to the young man, "MARCH IS AMERICAN INVASION OF IRAQ MONTH!"

We had a debate, a heated back and forth, and a librarian asked him if he was okay. IS HE OKAY? There's something incredibly SINISTER about this country, how we can invade and occupy countries, be responsible for OVER A MILLION people losing their lives, and MILLIONS more suffering the consequences of our greed, yet we manage to make ourselves look like GOOD people who are HERE TO RESUCE THE WORLD.

HOW DARE WE! It is times LIKE THIS where I understand TRULY UNDERSTAND the MANY American Iraq War Vets who come home after their tour of duty in Iraq, LOSE THEIR FUCKING MINDS at shopping malls and movie theaters and restaurants because NO ONE is allowing the truth about who we are and what it is we're doing AND THEN THEY GO to Germany where their base was located, marry German women, and denounce their US citizenship. I understand it COMPLETELY that kind of anger!

AND THEN OF COURSE THERE ARE THE STUPID GAY PEOPLE who want to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell so that our military can be a nice cozy PC world of tenderness with machine guns at the ready! My petition, in case you haven't yet seen it, it is here!

THE WORST THING THOUGH was walking home after the library, and I look up at the massive digital screen on the PECO building many stories above the city and it reads (I'm NOT KIDDING!) MARCH IS AMERICAN RED CROSS MONTH! OH MY GOD, I couldn't believe it!

CAConrad

2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of Philip Lamantia's THE BLOOD OF THE AIR

We're having an URCHIN reading 3/20/10 at the transition into renewal of the air, where the blood of the air awakens with pollen, sex, life. Details HERE

(NOTE: AT 7PM ONE BLOCK AWAY COME CELEBRATE STAN MIR'S NEW BOOK AT A BOOK PARTY AT BRICKBAT BOOKS)

CAConrad

On Saturday March 20 at 7:00 PM, come celebrate the release of Stan Mir's book, Song & Glass, at Brickbat Books. He'll be joined by Jason Ajemian & members of the High Life before they head out on tour in support of their new album, Let Me Get That Digital. Jason is primarily an improvisational musician based in NYC. He & the High Life will perform a short set early in the evening, then Stan will do a short reading from Song & Glass, and finally there will be another longer set of music from Jason and Co. It should be a great night!

Brickbat is at 709 S. 4th St. (just below Bainbridge).

- R Eckes

- Frank Sherlock

Greg Bem has been recording poetry readings all over town and linking them on his blog. There you can find the Chapterhouse reading that Conrad just mentioned here, as well as the Kaia Sand/Jules Boykoff reading at the Wooden Shoe, and the Haiti Benefit reading at L'Etage from last week.

Greg is also constructing a poetry map of Philadelphia and writing some good poems. Check it out.

- R Eckes