by Ayshia Stephenson
I don’t want him to tear my clothing off anymore. I don’t want him to crush my serenity
into this tiny spit of a paper ball, pit stuck in my throat, like it sits in a child who can not
say: please get it out. Branded knees need a buffer from a pebbled surface. Can I stop
this? My voice echoes throughout the room and seems to become louder, as the
restraining order blows around knowing it came to watch dust grow on useless pews. My
eyes slide shut and the bible in my hand haunts me – takes up face of the man who I
never thought would stand at the church door, to give out pamphlets on my secrets. The
sunlight paints as it passes through windowed blues and reds and purples to land against
hairs old and newborn, still upper back of my neck. Nobody’s all bad. So was it my
imagination? For maybe my travel has maddened my memories to make things look
messy. I’m two tolls, two states, and too much fresh air away from him – but still gasping
for the repaired mobility of my movement. Here to communicate lines cut off from a
mess of leaky circulation. Now where from when wine went unconsumed, it’s a pity I
still want to taste it. When misery splatters, you can never clean it up. Crevices of grapes
nurtured to death smell up my shack. It’s a brown paper bag turned inside out.

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 from pretend memory? Where were the other lovers you left in no extravagant hurry? You crooned on, not missing a beat, not looking at me, You’ll be at the airport with your husband a child or children in tow— maybe twos, sevens or threes. (Does math really matter when your forecast is untold?)

I closed my dry contact-lensed eyes, waiting to hear your rendition of my airport reunion song. Who were they— this “airport family-to-be”? I had trouble imagining exactly—which of the two forgettable back-up singers was I supposed to be? Please kindly remind me which one you didn’t want me to be—the beautiful apron-less wife, to the right? Or was I to be the eager baby-faced woman, on the left—doe-eyed (no headlights in sight?)

Could you help me now to rehearse my bird-chirp, my love-like sing-along-ling? Oh, will you listen to my redemption of our re-mixed reunion? Are you ready? I must warn you I’ve regularly been missing, practices.  Can you hear my heart beating? My beatific heart rhythm? Dance a little for me—you can strut, you can saunter—no, no, pump the beat up reggae man. HUH?-huh?-HEAR? me? I can see, yes I can. Why don’t you stir it up, little retard, little… are you ready to shake it off? Play one more…right. Slow swaying, no dry.   

Ah, yes, you could dance. I’ll cover my eyes. (Yeah, right.) Actually, when I open my eyes, I see I’m not in line—I’m flying coach, shifting stiff-necked, smiling at the air hostess, telling her “I’m fine.” A female voice announces, Please remain seated with your seatbelts securely fastened. We’re afloat in pockets of sudden gusty bounces. Everyone remains seated unconcerned, unaware of people in airports, who are checking in their luggage to a similar budget sky motel. The people are waiting, waiting in line—“Next! Yes, sir-ma’am, would you like the deluxe suite, seat is number four-oh-four?”

Meanwhile you, you’re waiting like you’ve done this too many times before— at the baggage claim, standing like those around you, waiting impatiently and bored. You roll your eyes, wishing to abandon your suitcase or let it go missing, get stolen. You could sigh in relief, walk away unencumbered, propelled out of this Earthly remake of Hell— bystanders, collectors at a horse-free, each-person-personally-tagged-baggage carousel?

I tap the small screen set in the seat in front of me. I tap through the menus, craving a familiar face, a happy-to-see-me voice, an unrehearsed display of affection. I resign myself over to a Schumann Carnaval, start to wonder about your latest lover. You know—the promised One. The one you promised me. Will she be there at the airport?

Is she waiting at arrivals to drive you home? Will she wait by the phone somewhere in Rome, New York? Or is she hot-cooking in the kitchen, vengefully roasting a stork?

Yes, yes, truth-behold, I imagine I will despise her. She must be long-legged, teen-like feline slinky tease. Her glossy, puckered lips appease me. Kitty, pretty. Kitty. (Please).

(Sigh) You’re right. What does it matter now? I know, “Get over yourself. Hit the good-n-cheap sauce—get ripped full throttle.” Nah, I think I’ll chug the good stuff—grey geese will fly outta the bottle, straight and neat, choke and drown my jealousy. Yes, I will projectile vomit a million, million dirty, bile-soaked, chunky cloaked, foul feathers all over your—her, she, buxom, bouncy supermodel perfect, perfect silicon derriere! 

Wait! Wait! How can I still hate you? After three so many years? Well, I’ll tell you baby, hate’s a long, long song where everybody’s trite and no one cares about what the hell went wrong. In our cross-referenced his-her story, you doused me in your music, I doused you in my sex. We had it out, we got, got it on—again and again. You know what though? Fire’s not so funny? It’s more sorta Ah-Ah, Burning! It’s a lot closer than the Sun. Lovers fires burn. Burn like the Sun, persistently, beautifully unaware, undone.

The heat must be getting to me. I forgot we were in an airport. No sorry, wait, it’s an imaginary airport with a plane-lined runway—in my delayed, noise and air-polluted imagination. Where are you and that perky-breasted…forgive me, I enjoy waiting room moments to unravel, rest, digress. Right… Where were we?… The once upon an airport. A heroine? A girl, girls, girls, girls. A stewardess, Ms. Blah, blah, blah. Pull the needle. Scratch. Pause. Hold your applause. This is my remix, rendition, my song I’m gonna tell you where I am, I’ll spare you where I’ve been. This morning I woke up to my mistress, her name is Summer. I turned to her, her face turned to me, her eyes smiled angelically in mine, like an angel who might sing, “So long! Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen. Good bye!”

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 enumerate it?
Why does bi-polar spring to mind
More or less instantaneously?
This spill, Which continues As I write
Is going to force us
to find a new form of darker energy
to clean it up
or leave thousands of turtles,
Birds, Shrimp, and
Other forms of life
Coated with black and as they die. Why?
Because some greedy fools
Possibly in London
Wanted yet more money than they have
And can’t contain
The disaster they have created.
They can’t or won’t
Even accurately measure it yet.
Also many thousands of real humans
Will lose their livelihoods
From the latest, grossest
Example of upper class
Human greed and now
The very Republicans who
Killed all the regulation
That might have prevented
This calamity want
To blame Obama for it.
May they burn in Hells
Created by burning oil
For their shenanigans over many years.
Meanwhile, let’s put BP out of business
With lawsuits
We human beings are the only animals able to institute this re-action
So we must. No trust or
Business must be
Allowed to be too large
To shirk its responsibility
For spoiling yet another part
Of this Earth nobody owns
But everyone borrows
On a long-term loan
Without enough conditions
So British Petroleum
Soon enough
(We hope) will come
For you to pay up, shut up
(Shut the pipe, if possible)
And, potentially,
To disappear.

Tom Savage
5/23/10

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. Others present : Head griller, drivers, husbands, videographer, Pouran Esrafily, recorder of Sunday Salons. Interminable.

The moment arrives. Louise, she enters. A tiny fragile lady replete with white cap on head, for what purpose (90 degrees in the room), supported by her assistant and Pouran. They place the precious 95 year old package on pillows in chair. We greet her with “Holy Mackerel”! Her request. I uttered “Cheez Louise” and was immediately pierced; those eyes. Sweating buckets in the airless room, we were. Louise, a cool cucumber. Mandatory bringing your work to share. I brought photos. Elected to go first, I proceeded to the “hot spot”, a table, her eyes so near, don’t touch. “Why did you come”? he asks, the poetic griller. Fumble and dodge. She looks, she sees. “no, no, no”, her words. Then, instructions to pass the photos around for group appraisal, that huge ostrich egg, my throat. I braced, Louise pierces. More questions: hows and whys. I perked up. She perked up. Six weeks post Louise, new painting territory, a real reason. “Holy Mackerel”! Louise.

“Red Chairs” by Neila Mezynski

“Three Dresses” by Neila Mezynski

“Three Horses” by Neila Mezynski

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 reseña, son las oraciones iniciales de los tres cuentos que aparecen en el nuevo libro de la puertorriqueña Lourdes Vázquez, titulado Tres relatos y un infortunio, publicado en la serie “Semillas de Eva”, de la editorial de la Fundación Ross en Rosario, Argentina. El propósito de esta serie es editar pequeños libritos, de 18 por 9 centímetros, para vender, además de en librerías, en puestos de revistas, farmacias, supermercados, etc., dentro de Argentina. Lourdes Vázquez es la primera extranjera que publica en esta serie, siendo todas las demás escritoras de Argentina.
En cada una de estas sorprendentes historias aparece el desastre, el infortunio, el accidente, la muerte, el dolor, la desgracia, como leimotiv de las acciones de los personajes. En “La habitación”, el primer cuento que abre la brevísima colección, se narra la vida de una hija que vuelve al Caribe desde Galicia para cuidar de sus padres envejecientes. “Accidentes”, el segundo cuento, habla de las anécdotas que cuenta Malena, una señora que limpia apartamentos, sobre los habitantes de una comunidad donde vive la narradora del relato. El último cuento, “Memoria de Guille” es casi un poema sobre un personaje fascinante, el típico viejito achacoso que descubre los límites de su cuerpo, lo que no invalida para nada su proclividad al deseo: “Guille, en la soltura de su vejez y a pleno día, quedaba quieto debajo de cualquier palo de jobos y entre el claroscuro de las ramas repentinamente surgían senos de hembras de diversas formas y color. Tanto seno le excitaba la memoria y alteraba la razón y la paz del día…”
Lourdes Vázquez es conocida por su poesía y su narrativa, la que le valió el prestigioso Premio Juan Rulfo de cuento (Francia) en el 2002. Su literatura tiene un centro solar: la problemática de la mujer contemporánea en sus relaciones con la familia tradicional que ha querido siempre alienar la identidad femenina al espacio privado de la casa. Vázquez crea, a través de su escritura, mujeres reales y fuertes que cuestionan estas artimañas que el patriarcado ha querido tenderle siempre a lo femenino.
“La habitación”, el primer cuento de Tres relatos y un infortunio, aborda la tensión cultural entre madres e hijas. La mirada que nos ofrece la narradora hacia la relación tensa que una hija tiene con su madre envejeciente es reveladora. El lenguaje delata esta tensión: “¿De dónde sale la fortaleza física de este esqueleto?”. La narradora protagonista nos pinta una imagen de la madre que va más allá de las visiones idealistas que tenemos del concepto de la maternidad. Aquí “el esqueleto” es la madre de la protagonista, y mantiene su autoridad matriarcal ante la visita de una hija ilegítima de su esposo. La crítica a la costumbre nada ortodoxa del macho caribeño que tiene hijos fuera del matrimonio humillando a su esposa ante la sociedad es mordaz. O así lo entiende la madre cuando dice: “…en esta familia las únicas hijas que existen son las mías”, afirmando su lugar de esposa legítima en el orden de las cosas. Para la hija, sin embargo, es la negación de conocer a otra hermana habida fuera del matrimonio. El rasgo que más destaca de este cuento es la distancia que toma la narradora protagonista al alejarse de la familia, y al optar por “construir mi mitología, para poder dar a mis hijos la esperma de donde puedan agarrarse”. Ella no será una madre castradora como la suya, sino que construirá su propia “mitología” más allá del seno materno y le dará a su prole esa “esperma” de la que “puedan agarrarse” para pisar firme.
“Accidentes” es un relato en el que se instala el rumor como protagonista. Malena nos cuenta, a través de la voz de la narradora, las historias de las personas que viven en un edificio de apartamentos que la misma Malena limpia, y al hacerlo, tiene un acceso ilimitado a la intimidad de sus ocupantes: “Malena me contó más tarde que le preguntó al viudo, qué va a hacer con la ropa de la difunta y el viudo respondió, ‘no sé’”. La diégesis o la narración se da de manera oblicua: de Malena, a la narradora, a nosotros: “No era muy fashionista la profe, me dijo Malena. ¡Qué buen corazón tienes Malena!, le contesté”. En este pasaje vemos el comentario de la narradora acerca de Malena y las palabras mismas de ella así como el comentario dirigido a los lectores por parte de la narradora. Todo un circuito de diégesis o narración que comienza con la primera mención del personaje en el cuento: “Todo esto me lo contó Malena mientras limpiaba mi apartamento”. Aquí Lourdes Vázquez se acerca a esa comunidad de mujeres que hablan entre sí y comentan la vida o los “accidentes” de los otros, acorde con el título del cuento en cuestión. Hasta que Malena desaparece con una sola nota: “No haga preguntas sobre mi paradero. Que sirva ésta para despedirme. He sufrido un grave accidente”. El desconcierto de la narradora protagonista la lleva a reflexionar sobre esta poética del infortunio que aquí nos ocupa: “Miré por la ventana, la gente caminaba con paso rápido y ojos de sospecha como temiendo una desgracia”.
“Memoria de Guille” en su brevedad y su efectividad es tal vez el cuento mejor logrado de la serie, no sólo por la ternura con que Lourdes Vázquez construye el personaje desde la dedicatoria (“Ay! Guille, me haces falta”), hasta la caracterización del viejito “dressed to kill” o vestido para matar, a la hora de alistarse para “su visita médica”: “Y ahora, Guille vestido con guayabera y pantalón haciendo juego. Perfumado con Old Spice, ya está listo… Vestido de inglés en expedición geográfica, vestido como un reparador de sillas eléctricas, o como un cowboy el día de su boda. Vestido Guille con gafas de Versace…”
Los achaques típicos de los viejitos a cierta edad, lo que recuerda al padre postrado en la cama del primer cuento, “La habitación”, es el paradigma que trabaja Lourdes Vázquez en este breve texto, donde la caracterización de un solo personaje clave, Don Guille, es el orden de la narración. El signo Guille encarna ese infortunio mismo que es la edad y la vejez, pero poetizado aquí por medio de las descripciones del individuo, que pese a la decadencia de su cuerpo enfermo, se viste de guayabera y pantalón “haciendo juego”, a la caribeña, llevando gafas de marca Versace. El título del cuento, “Memoria de Guille”, lo dice todo. Es el recuerdo, la imagen del tiempo detenido en un cuerpo disfrazado, como acaba la historia.

Tres relatos y un infortunio es, pues, la nueva entrega que nos hace Lourdes Vázquez como una filigrana. La edición en libro de bolsillo color naranja es como un folleto de viaje, palabra, narración y poesía, que nos acerca a tres historias sostenidas sobre el hilo fatídico del infortunio y su poética.

Daniel Torres*

· Spanish and Latin American Studies Professor at Ohio University.
· Lourdes Vázquez latest are Cibeles que sueña= Cybele, As She Dreams, Artist Book by Yarisa Colón Torres; the anthology Cuando narradoras latinoamericanas narran en los Estados Unidos (Ross, 2009) and the script: A Porcelain Doll with Violet Eyes Staring into Space=Una muñeca de cerámica con ojos violetas (Wheelhouse, 2009).

My wife exhorts me
to have fun but fun doesn’t
want me to have it.

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 inventive online blog http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/ 
 
Perl chose the title because much like tatoos, she feels the past is something one can never hide or erase.  This is not the poet’s first published works, “Belinda and Her Friends” was Perl’s first collection of poetry published in 2004.  The author describes the book as more character driven poems. 
 
Knuckle Tatoos can be found at St. Marks Bookstore in Manhattan and Amazon.com

BY STEPHEN WOLF
Recently, on a cloudy spring afternoon a slender and stylish woman dressed customarily in New York black (with a bit of color beneath her coat, of course) sipped black coffee and gazed with amazement and a tinge of regret across Bryant Park.

A Downtown girl (Bronx-born but on Bank Street for the past 30 years), she hasn’t stood beneath these healthy trees in the center of Midtown since the bad old days. Then this was no Eden amid the traffic and skyscrapers. Back then this was Needle Park — where junkies in the shadows and shot heroin scored at Times Square down the block; where the hookers earned what their catch paid them and garbage, not water, filled the fountain.

“There’s even children here,” she says above the delicate tables and chairs, chess games and laptops, the genuine flowerbeds, and the lawn as green as the plastic grass in Easter baskets.

She wears heels and her blonde hair long, carries a street-smart attitude and maybe a knife (“if you tread/ on me,” she wrote, “you tread on apple, / snake, eve.”). Her eyes are observant, lively, and with none of that most un-New York fear or resistance to look at people: “do not tell me not to talk to strangers” she wrote in “I AM A NY WOMAN.”

This New York woman is Eve Packer, and she’s written remarkably about “all that secret shame” when “there were whores & pimps & thiefs & all kinda stuff.” Her poems tell of a time when, if you were a young woman, “I mean you just didn’t go the 42nd St.”

But Eve did, and with a sharp and sensitive eye wound her own way through 42nd Street where all the theaters showed bad Kung Fu movies, when Eighth Avenue had peep show palaces and “Playland” and “Playpen.” At “Show World” on 8th and 42nd, she was at first kicked out for being a girl; and there was Sally’s — the transvestite showplace beneath the old Times tower. Even the police station now at W. 43rd (where Broadway crosses 7th Avenue) was a sex shop with XXX in the windows between sex toys and promises of “fantasy and fun.”

She explored this male world forbidden to women (except for the strippers and hookers) with compassion. Sinister, sleazy, dangerous, sexy, this world also teemed with dreams and desire, theatrics and even humor. Initially she watched. Later, she took notes. In time, the strippers and hookers, shemales and pimps, junkies and dealers recognized her. Some even trusted her.

“What is love?” she asked them and learned enough to write in her poem “fantasy booth” the voice of the girl who dances (actually just gyrates) for men enclosed in booths for 15 seconds for a quarter: “I go up real/ close, it’s all about giving them/ some & pulling back.”

Her eye and pen captured more than just the sex shops and drugs, for gravitating to this world on the city’s ragged edge despite its centrality were the homeless, the disposed, the forgotten, the lost — staggering and desperate through a time when New York’s murder rate was five times what it is now; when crack vials and tiny plastic bags of different colors, empty of heroin, were everywhere; like a million plastic, fallen leaves throughout Bryant Park.

Educated first at New York’s High School of Music and Art, then the University of Michigan with degrees from the London School of Economics and NYU in psychology, she’s received grants from New York Foundation of the Arts, a National Endowment for Poetry, twice “Downtown” Poet of the Year, and has read/performed at all the finest poetry clubs in the city. She’s taught at Queens College, the New School, and the NYC Department of Education’s Learning to Read Through the Arts program — but her real education and her varied life’s best work came from these busy, gaudy, once-treacherous streets. Her poems are fun, thrilling, provocative; her wit, sharp as stiletto heels.

Her poetry collection “playland: poems 1994-2005” was published by Fly Night Press. Hearing her read is even better (though we miss then her inventive spelling and typography), for Eve doesn’t just read her poetry as most poets do. Eve performs them, giving words emphasis, even acting the girl in the fantasy booth. Her voice can fall into secrecy, slowing down, speaking softly — while at other times, she talks tough or audibly strokes the images with a sensuous, even erotic (though never vulgar) voice, all entwined with an alto saxophone provided by the esteemed Noah Howard, or on piano, the inimitable, the timeless Stephanie Stone.

There’s an exciting CD of her reading, “west from 42nd” — and with a jazz accompaniment, she reads her work on the CD “Now Playing” (also available at Left Bank Books on Eighth Avenue near W. 12th Street). Both CDs are easily gotten on-line through CDBaby as well as NCD Sales. But best is to see/hear her live, on stage, in performance.

“do not tell me what I cannot & can do,” she wrote in her signature piece “I’M A NY WOMAN, I DO WHAT I WANT.”

“do not tell me to wear long black baggy pants
when I wanna wear a short sheer orange
see-thru mini on subway, bus…
“do not tell me not to bite my nails,
color my hair…stop giving taxi drivers
a hard time piece of my mind,
cross against the light…
do not tell me not to talk to
strangers, flirt, network my cleavage, keep my legs
and mouth shut…
“do not tell me what I cannot & can do”

Eve saw the change coming, of course; first, the Disney deal, and there’s a Duane Reade’s where Show World once lit and lured on 8th Avenue and 42nd Street. With families now hurrying to see “Mary Poppins” in Times Square, with flowers growing in the ivy and true lovers strolling Bryant Park, she knows the change is for the better, blinks slowly, and says just above a whisper, “Yet like the song says, but not for me.”

Eve Packer’s poem “playland” appears in “I Speak of the City: Poems of New York” (Columbia University Press), edited by Stephen Wolf. On May 14th, she’s part of CCNY’s Annual Spring Poetry Festival, and performs solo on May 22nd (between 5 and 7 p.m.) at Small’s Jazz Club, 183 W. 10th Street, just west of Seventh Avenue.

WALTZING IN QUICKSAND: POETS IN COLLAGE
May 21st - June 27th, 2010
Collage Workshop: Sunday June 6th, 2-4 pm
Opening Party: Sunday June 6th, 4-6 pm

Music in the Garden by Michael Shenker!

Sunday June 6, 6:30 pm

Tribes Gallery
285 East 3rd St, 2nd Floor
NYC 10009

Tribes Gallery is excited to present the exhibition Waltzing in Quicksand: Poets in Collage. This is the most recent and ambitious showing of the work of Poets in Collage regulars Steve Dalachinsky, Bob Heman, Yuko Otomo, Valery Oisteanu, Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, and Bruce Weber, who have been exhibiting together in various permutations around town since 2006, with the inspired addition of Star Black, Aaron Howard, Nicole Peyrafitte and Lewis Warsh.

This exhibition of over 30 astounding images features multiple works by the artists that range from Steve Dalachinsky’s dazzling series of decorative ethnic fans to Star Black’s precise geometric cuttings that glance in and out of magnificent architectural spaces. Also featured in the exhibition are Yuko Otomo’s dancing abstractions in line, Aaron Howard’s boldly colored collages picturing out of this world creatures floating menacingly on the pages of an ancient edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, Bruce Weber’s confluences of shoes, tires and people peering out surprisingly from corners, Nicole Peyrafitte’s re-imaginings of classic naturalistic scenes by Winslow Homer, Lewis Warsh’s expansive permutations of the alphabet, Jeffrey Wright’s punchy experimental shiftings of stamps, magic markers, gouache, spray paint and collage, Bob Heman’s box-like investigations of emptiness and sound, and recent works from the last Surrealist Valery Oisteanu’s erotic model series.

There will be no opening reception on May 21st, although the show will be available for viewing.
Sunday, May 23r from 5 to 7 pm  there will be a reading with Donald Gardner and Steve Dalachinsky, Yuko Otomo & guests….Open Reading & Contribution!

Sunday June 6th from 2 to 4pm

A collage workshop led by Jeffrey Wright and Valery Oisteanu. Anyone can join in making collages, donation based* Following the workshop will be the party from 4 to 6 pm in the garden!!

Sunday June 13th 5-7 pm

Kathryn Takara & Rashidah Ismaili Read Islands, Issues, Identities: Poetics from the African Diaspora : “Hawai`i and West African Black scholar/poets reflect on the politics of identity, family, community, alienation, and assimilation.”

Sunday June 20th 2-5 pm

The Vision Festival Presents Poetryby:Jeff Wright, Bob Heman, Lewis Warsh. Poetry & Music : Albey Balgochian & Jane Grenier B, Barry Wallenstein, Yuko Otomo - Shayna Dulberger, Jake Marmer / & Alon Nechushtan, Aaron Howard w/Gwen Krueger & Tomislav Butkovic, Steve Dalachinsky , Alexandre Pierrepont,  Tamara Singh, Tsaurah Litsky, Steve Ben Israel  Musicians/Improvs: Ellen Christi, Max Johnson bass, Andrew Barker drums, Charles Waters reeds

Sunday June 27th 5 to 7 pm

What happens next zine collating/reading: Host: Eve Packer: contributors, artists & poets: including Joanne Pagano Weber, Marilyn Sontag, Bruce Weber, Keith Roach, many others.

FREE COLLAGE WORKSHOP

Poets-run collage workshop

Tribes Gallery, 285 East Third Street, Manhattan

 June 6, 2010 from 2-4 in the afternoon.

Coinciding with a show of poets’ collages curated by Bruce Weber, Tribes Gallery is sponsoring a one-of-a-kind special free workshop. Join poets and master collagists Jeffrey Cyphers Wright and Valery Oisteanu for an afternoon of creativity and learning.

Wright and Oisteanu are part of a long-tradition of poets who do collages. Wright studied with Alice Notley at St. Mark’s Church. His collages have been included in magazines and art exhibitions. Oisteanu was active member of Ray Johnson’s mail- art Correspondence school and teaches private collage and assemblage.

Materials such as rubber stamps, markers, glue and images will be provided but participants are encouraged to bring extra images. At the end of the workshop you will be able to take some of your creations home.

Wright and Oisteanu have curated several collage shows together and both write regularly for The Brooklyn Rail.

Other poet/ collagists in the show include Star Black, Lewis Warsh, Steve Dalachinsky, Yuko Otomo and Bruce Weber.

For your love
nothing is forever

(Steve Cannon 5/2/2010)

By: Tsaurah Litzky

A giant egg
cracks over our heads,
thunder and lightening,
out from the piano keys
the ship tosses the storm,
worlds tremble,
oceans crest and curl,
Africa splits at the equator,
Kilimanjaro rises, falls
into the raging seas of eternal sorrow,
hurricane winds knock out
the windows, blow off the doors,
he makes my confession for me,
playing an old upright on East Third Street,
sewer rats become serpents,
glide up into the ragged trees,
a motley Eden but something,
Matt’s fingers lawless, free,
the line of his back as he sits
on the piano bench graceful as a willow,
the air clears,
it smells like salt.

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 s’attache à la diversité.  Située dans le Lower East Side, à New York, Tribes existe depuis1991.

Samedi 1er mai, 14:00 -18:00: Vernissage
Samedi 1er mai, 19:00 – 22:00 : Réception des artistes
Dimanche 2 mai, 19:00 –22:00 : Musique et dance: “Ply Conundrium” Avec : Patrick Brennan composition/saxophone Lisle Ellis, Hilliard Greene, David Sidman –guitare, Larry Roland-basses, special guests: Tamango-percussions, Bern Nix-guitar, Patrick Holmes-clarinette
Dimanche 7 mai, 18:00 –22:00 pm $5 la soirée, $10 pour l’open bar: “Photo-POW présente: POW Debuts the World” Avec des diaporamas, de la musique et de la vidéo, de 18H à 20H.  BBQ dans le jardin de 20H à 21H. Performances live de 21H à 22H. Avec: ClockWork Cros, Miz Metro,Circa 95 & MC K Swift (programme susceptible de changer) Soirée proposée par www.photo-pow.com
“COME AND ENJOY THE SOUNDS OF SUMMER”
Samedi 8 mai, 18:00 – 22:00 Musique et vidéo Musique à 19:00 pm avec “Cack-A-Lack” Avec: Mahlon Hoard–composition/saxo, Justin Veloso–batterie, Paul Wheeler–guitare
Vidéo 20H – 21:00
John Veit: “Corn on Cotton”28min, 2002, documentaire
“Mutaints” 10 min, 2009, animation
Robert Tanzie Thornton:”Tributes”(extraits) 10 min, 2003-7
Documentaire
Joseph Nechvatal
Musique 21:00 – 22:00 avec “Cack-A-Lack”

Samedi 15 mai, 18:00 –22:00 Musique et vidéo avec… Musique 19:00: Cack-A-Lack avec Mahlon Hoard, Justin Veloso, Paul Wheeler Vidéo 20:00 – 21:00 : John Veit, Robert Tanzie Thornton, Joseph Nechvatal Musique 21:00 : Cack-A-Lack
Dimanche 16 mai, cloture, 19:00 – 22:00 Musique : On’Ka’a Davis présente D’Juke Music On’Ka’a Davis—guitare, violon électrique Electric Meg Montgomery—trompette électrique Nick Gianni—saxo et flûte, Rhadu Ben Judah—batterie David ‘Riddim-Athon’ Pleasant—batterie