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  • A Gathering of the Tribes

    A Gathering of the Tribes is an arts and cultural organization dedicated to excellence in the arts from a diverse perspective. Located on the Lower East Side of New York City, Tribes has been in existence since 1991.


  • A Gathering of the Tribes, 285 East 3rd St, 2nd Floor (between Avenues C and D)
    Phone: 212-674-3778
    Fax: 212-674-5776
    Email: Info@tribes.org


  • Tribes is a member of Chamber Music of America, Poets & Writers, Poets Society of America, St. Marks Poetry Project. We are Funded by NYC DCA, NYSCA & The Andy Warhol Foundation among others. All contributions are tax deductible.

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  • The 16th Annual Charlie Parker Festival

    Throughout the forties, Charlie Parker revolutionized jazz and immortalized the Lower East Side by capturing its combustive atmosphere and translating it into music. It is no wonder that every year the Lower East Side returns a little bit of the favor by celebrating Charlie Parker, his life and his legacy, as well as his deep rooted relationship with this neighborhood, through A Gathering of the Tribes' Charlie Parker Festival.
    This year, A Gathering of the Tribes is please to present the 16th Annual Charlie Parker Festival, entitled "BIRD LIVES," from August 2 - August 29. More information about this year's festival can be found here

Latest Reviews

Whitney Biennial 2010

By Vedan Anthony-North

With a name like “2010” you don’t really know what to expect when heading to the 2010 Whitney biennial. Unfortunately, you don’t really know what to think about the exhibit after leaving either. Though the theme of “2010” is justified by the curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari in the exhibit’s […]


THE LATEST FROM OILSPILLVILLE

By : Brian Boyles, New Orleans
It was getting a little too possible, you know? That we might make it, that whatever the forces leveled at our survival, they were internal, fixable, matters of fairness or racial understanding or budgeting. We could do that, couldn’t we? The Saints won, didn’t they? […]


Poética para un infortunio

reseña por Daniel Torres en Lourdes Vásquez reciente libro “Tres Relatos y Un Infortunio”

“Estoy cerca de la puerta. Presiento que cada pisada marca el final de mis días. Detengo el paso en el dintel”.
“La gente es propensa a toda clase de accidentes”.
“A Guille le falleció una pierna”.
Estas tres oraciones, que sirven de epígrafe a esta […]


THE PERL OF PROSE

Written by Phaedra Pinkston Arising NYC poet Puma Perl newly released poetry book, “Knuckle Tatoos” accounts the artist’s exploration from the hard knocks of self liquidation to personal fulfillment.  The Brooklyn native grew up being  inspired by the beatnicks of the 1950s and keeps busy performing open at open mic nights in lower Manhattan and postings on her […]


DOPE *1968* a film by Diane Rochlin (Flame Schon) and Sheldon Rochlin

Review by Bonny Finberg

I just finished watching Sheldon and Diane Rochlin’s  powerful 1968 film “DOPE.” It documents a unique world and time through the lens of London 1967.
There was an international cabal at that time of artists, junkies, hippies and other unclassifiable characters on the periphery that fueled a a new world order before […]



Latest Poetry

The Reunion: A Forecast by Suejin Suh

 
The Reunion: A Forecast                                                                           by Suejin Suh
 
 
Has it been more than three years?  Three or four years-ish since you cleverly sang,  
At the airport, we’ll cross paths walking, walking towards opposite ends/ like almostly- forgotten lovers who had seeming common sense.” (They lusted. Lusted incensed.)
 
Or was this an impromptu melody I made just […]


Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and Darker Minds

This poem is not about the Cosmos
Or some dim idea people have
About a consciousness
Responsible for it all.
This is about the oil spilling (glug glug) into the gulf of mexico
Out of a pipe
Some greedy capitalist erected
To give themselves more money
Than they already have.
Can a new expletive be invented
To encompass British Petroleum
Or BP as all the media […]



Latest Essays

Louise and Me by: Neila Mezynski

Louise and Me
New York City, Sunday afternoon, six hopefuls and Louise Bourgeois. For 30 some years, Louise (not Ms. Bourgeois- her choice), has invited artists to her home to share their work; sculptors, painters photographers, writers, dancers even . We sat. We waited. The heat. No air. Louise. Her scrutiny, the grand dame. […]


Poética para un infortunio

reseña por Daniel Torres en Lourdes Vásquez reciente libro “Tres Relatos y Un Infortunio”

“Estoy cerca de la puerta. Presiento que cada pisada marca el final de mis días. Detengo el paso en el dintel”.
“La gente es propensa a toda clase de accidentes”.
“A Guille le falleció una pierna”.
Estas tres oraciones, que sirven de epígrafe a esta […]



Latest Fiction

Gone Fishing, Again

by Christopher Heffernan

The cult classic Trout Fishing in America, written by Richard Brautigan and first published in 1967, has been released in a new edition by Mariner Books, a subsidiary of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.  The book has not been published on its own since the early ‘80’s when […]


Armory & Accessories

An extremely long and image-dense New York art fair report by Janet Bruesselbach
Everything I shot from Wednesday to Sunday is here.
FIRST COURSE: The Armory Show
I registered as press in advance for this and showed up about ten minutes after the press conference to pick up my badge. I briefly glanced at Pier 92, where […]



Latest Videos

A Starter Kit for Collectors: Exposition et vente au profit de TRIBES

A Starter Kit for Collectors: Exposition et vente au profit de A Gathering of the Tribes
Samedi 1er mai – Dimanche 16 mai 2010
Vernissage: Samedi 1er mai 14-18H
Réception pour les artistes : Samedi 1er mai, 19h-22H
Tribes Gallery
285 East 3rd Street, 2ème étage, NYC 10009
A Gathering of the Tribes est une association artistique et culturelle qui […]


A Starter Kit for Collectors: Art Exhibition and Sale A Benefit for A Gathering of the Tribes

A Gathering of the Tribes is an arts and cultural organization dedicated to excellence in the arts from a diverse perspective. Located on the Lower East Side of New York City, Tribes has been in existence since 1991.   tribes-poster-color.jpg
Saturday May 1st, 2:00 - 6:00 pm : Public preview
Saturday May 1st, 7:00 – 10:00 pm […]


Seven By Seven (Or By Twilights) - by Patricia Magalhães

There was no blue or red

But nothing else would matter in my eyes

nothing more than the vision of the invisible of the flowers.

And that which was, was.

Let’s then be:

I will be that being that is without consciousness

that comes and goes as yellow butterflies-

I will drink the tears that fall from what is black blue sky

(like “black-black-black people”)

There will be no red or blue.

No, I don’t know extempore love.

I don’t know words-spoken-to-the-wind.

Would you tell me what the monads are, before my death comes?

And the wheel of nature?

Would you give me a little of what I need?

There is a blank: emptiness and desire, that which fills and

leaves a blank again.

And the notes escape and go inside my ears like ants.

Leave me alone! Don’t touch the hair on my navel!

don’t smell my armpits

or imprison my soul with photographs.

“Oh, just wonder about this mixture”

of hair on the arms and color that shines with honey bun lotion

oh, yes, there is the sweetness of the honey bun, sticky, molasses

but there is the bitter taste of madness which doesn’t escape

slipping through the fingers

there is madness going through the legs’ veins up to the aorta,

swallowing me by the nipples,

suffocating like massage from one who doesn’t know how to massage.

Salivating, salivating…

There is what I don’t even know.

There is so much that there is even what I don’t know the name.

There is so much that I will create just to try to know.

I will create to try to utter something about the unutterable.

I keep creating, I keep creating.

I keep creating as spiders weave webs.

I keep creating and by creation itself I create myself

(with no red or blue)

Dear “Bird of Paradise” (the Heaven that pursues me as a Hell…)

song for missing the unknown

nostalgia of what was not even lived.

Well, but that which is to be lived, wasn’t it already lived?

(That which was is here already, and that which will be has

already been! What!?!?!?!)

May the desire be cut with the sharpest dagger that exists

that which cut the thought and the breath

and which makes one bleeds inside

But there are pains that don’t bleed.

There is blood that doesn’t coagulate.

Bleed! Bleed as spring of perennial river and menstruation

(perennial is that which is eternal or that which lives so much

that we don’t even see the death?

And the beginning?)

In the beginning was the Verb, and the Verb was God and God was nobody

But men thought less of God being so much and not being someone

that wanted him to be his image and creature.

That which is divine can not be imprisoned in labels or created.

That which is divine is.

And the divine is in everything, and everything is — ’cause it is

divine.

Being thus, there was no blue or red:

There was light!

And I killed the serpent closing my eyes

held the cold skin with firm hands

but it would slip, slip, slip.

How would the Siamese snake taste?

How many thoughts would Amphisbaena have?

I was drooling

I wanted the test, the taste

the flavor on the lips

the blood on the face.

Clenched jaws as one who grinds the teeth

and pulled the skin as one who fucks in slow motion.

The blood had color of butterfly.

That yellow one flying through the voices in Souillac

and butterfly crowd on the windshield at the Sunday morning.

The blood had color of yellow butterflies:

the taste was transformation.

In the castle there are amphisbaenas in the cellar

Geb and Nut in each end

and in every tower there are fireworks

(”num ninho de mafagafos h√° sete mafagafinhos;

quem os desmafagafizar” will find Hetep).

I walked around during raw stark* *dark nights in Havana:

A nigger on the Malecon told me 3 secrets:

“Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva”.

“Hey, to* *whom should I not tell?”.

“To you!” - utters, and falls in the sea.

From there I walked to the Calle Amargura and the mad guy said:

“Osiris, Isis, Horus”.

“And what does it mean?”.

“Search!” -* *shouts and tortures me.

The nurse whispers while she sews me:

“Head, trunk and limbs”

“And where will they take me to?”

“Walk!”

I go on, Siamese that crawls

snake that thinks

cannibal serpent.

My soul moves above and bellow

male and female, heaven and earth.

There is sex in the sky of multiple colors

tantric

vertiginous

a serpent which swallows its own tail…

And my soul moves in 7 by 7

my eyes look to the seventh floor of the building on the corner

but I don’t know how to count stars

I don’t want warts on my fingers

I don’t want to know about the universe -

I fear as I crave for the whole truth in my womb

shelter and sea

hot-water pool.

Demented, caliente, serpent of infinite and orix√°

(I wish I knew about Air√°’s fire –

could it lead me to Hetep

could it give me womb

could it be an end).

“My spirit is growing in 7 by 7″

My eyes are comprehensiveness.

My vision is life, alive, Frida

ah, suffered life.

So, Frida…I have corns on my heart and fingers

and blisters on my feet

(the walkway is long

and “there was always a stone in the middle of the way

in the middle of the way there was always a stone” –

that I removed with the tip of the tongue

muscle of discord and salvation).

Let me lay down my weariness on your shoulders

(I don’t even have a clock to measure my weariness)

I will sing you a lullaby in 7/4

and let you sleep 7 hours.

Your soul will grow in 7 by 7

(my fears will go in 7 by 7).

The nigger on the wall in Cuba is on the bathroom wall in Paris

I ask him the worst question seated* *on the water-closet;

“we live what must be, my little one. And that which must be, has

already been!”

I go on.

Choreograph seven steps to heaven

and slide as snail on slippery wall

Slippery as words-to-the-wind

hopeless as whale which dies on the beach.

Two weights, one measure

and everything measures as wet cotton.

Everything measures seven feet

and with seven feet I walk peacefully

(chords of Gregorian chants don’t calm me down).

I want the warmth of the first morn

the gift of creating and transcending.

Give me just one transcendental number and I will sing you an

inexact equation

a incorrect song

a passion, idiot!

I try half of the seven steps

(perfection wasn’t given to me in the beginning that was Verb).

The rest is attempt* *and error

but the way is path.

“I wish at least once”

to shout to south and north as the rattle of the serpent: to stay

or to leave Heaven?

I wish at six in the evening I would pray a Hail Mary and be a

believer

to meet Jesus on the cross and wipe off blood, sweat and tears.

The train is slow.

The life passes.

The past remains.

The recollection returns.

The recollection is skewed.

The recollection is dead?

Sure as death, sure as seven are the deadly sins:

I have hunger of hand on skin

envy of so many things

anger and despair, lust and greed

sloth of turning diseases into words

and it kills me the pride for victories and disgraces

(I am nothing but someone on the path

…  and the train passes).

The train passes at crepuscules.

There are times to rise and to set

dawn and dusks,

lucks.

Hail hour of androgyny, primordial state, picture of omnipotence

There will be no blue or red:

we will be light!

Translated by the author.