Ekphrastacy: Art and Poetry Continues

Shawn Watrous

EKPHRASTACY: Artists Talk + Poets Respond

Thursday, October 1, 7pm

Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Meredith Holmes has invited rising regional poets to respond with original verse inspired by select imagery in the exhibition. It’s always a lively time; come a bit early to get a seat and enjoy refreshments! FREE.

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Heights Arts writes:
Join us this week for Ekphrastacy. What processes and concepts are explored in contemporary art? Come hear Emergent 2015 artists Joanne Arnett, Abbey Blake, Matthew Gallagher and Shawn Watrous discuss their work, then hear Zachary Thomas, Aaron Bennett, Amanda Stovicek, John Roth, and Natasha Rodriguez-Carroll--poets in the NEOMFA (Northeast Ohio Masters in Fine Arts) creative writing program--read poems created in response to art on view in the gallery.

Emergent 2015, on view through October 17, showcases ten rising artists who graduated from area art programs in recent years and are now producing significant work.

2175 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118

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• Ekphrastacy Thursday October 1
• Heights Arts

Ohio Poet Laureate

Later this year, Ohio will have its first Poet Laureate

Eric Sandy writes:

• Ohio Will Soon Have its First Poet Laureate. What Does That Mean?

Lance Larsen, the poet laureate of Utah, says

"Kafka once said that a book 'should serve as the ax to the frozen sea within us,' If this is true for books, then it holds true in spades for readings and workshops and literary celebrations. We need to flex and stir our collective memories. Poetry, like theater, reminds us who we are, and temporarily brings interior and exterior landscapes together."

Happy Equinox

Miles by Lady

Happy equinox, everybody, as summer turns into autumn, and the sunset is due west, shining right in your eyes as you drive west.

To celebrate, Lady has put out the autumn equinox 2015 issue of her 'zine The City, with poetry and art by all of (well, many of) your favorite poets and artists, from Cleveland and elsewhere.

Enjoy!

Hundreds and Hundreds: Best American Poetry, and the Name of the Poet--

Sherman Alexie talks about selecting poems for the Best American Poetry.
It's actually pretty interesting.  When he says

"I had no idea that I would spend the next six or eight or ten months reading hundreds and hundreds of poems. Hell, it's quite probable that I read over 1,000 poems last year. I might have read over 2,000 poems. It could have been 3,000."

I think, hundreds and hundreds? That's all? There must be at least 5,000 zines that publish poetry in the US. Even if his top figure is right--  he read less than one poem, on the average, from each magazine.

But nobody (well, nobody but me) is talking about how he selected the poems. Everybody is talking about just one poem-- or rather, just one poet-- the poem by "Yi-Fen Chou," which (after he selected it) Alexie discovered is a pseudonym of a poet named Michael Derrick Hudson.  In his bio for the volume, Hudson gave his real name, and says that he used the pseudonym because the poem "was rejected under my real name forty (40) times before I sent it out as Yi-Fen Chou," and says "as a strategy for 'placing' poems, this has been quite successful for me." He didn't ever actually claim to be Chinese: just used a Chinese name and let the editors make assumptions about his background.

Hmm. Should we be outraged?

Angry Asian Man thinks we should.  LA Times says "Best American Poetry Under Fire".
What do you think? Is it cheating? Cultural appropriation? Proof of reverse discrimination?
Poetry is a tough business, or at least, it is if you think the only poetry that's not worth spitting on is poetry published in literary journals that gets picked up in Best American Poetry. Alexie said that, of the poets he picked, "Approximately 99% of the poets are professors." Since he only printed 75 poems, that means that just one poem in the volume was not written by a professor. Hudson is a librarian, not a professor: so when Alexie says he only selected one poem that isn't by a professor-- that was the one.

--On the other hand, in The New Republic, Theodore Ross says "Cheat! It's the Only Way to Get Published." Maybe that's the secret.

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BEATSTREET CLEVELAND 2015 IS ALMOST HERE!

It's almost here!  All the guests have been confirmed, and OH DADDIO, the excitement is reaching a fever pitch!

On Saturday September 19, 2015, Cleveland, OH will celebrate The National Beat Poetry Festival with the event BeatStreet Cleveland at the Barking Spider Tavern, 11310 Juniper Rd, from 3pm to 7pm, featuring poets and live music, with free admission and groovy giveaways.

YOU are invited to join us for this historic Happening!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT WILL BE RUNNING ON REAL TIME, NOT POETS' TIME!  It will begin promptly at 3 pm and will end at 7 pm...and you won't want to miss a minute of it!

(We are working on securing a place close to the Barking Spider for an afterparty, where we can gather to drink, eat, talk, and groove together. This location will be announced as soon as I know we have it for sure.)

BeatStreet's confirmed features:

D.R. Wagner (California)

 D.R. Wagner is an author, visual artist, and musician. He founded press : today : niagara in 1965 and Runcible Spoon in the late 60s, producing over fifty magazines and chapbooks. He co-wrote The Egyptian Stroboscope with d.a. levy and read with Jim Morrison of the Doors in a legendary reading with Morrison and Michael McClure. He also has read with Ferlinghetti, Al Winans, Anne Waldman, and many other poets over the past forty years. Wagner's work is much published. He continues to design interior carpeting and tapestry, as well as write, perform, and publish poetry regularly.









Alex Gildzen (New Mexico)

Alex Gildzen is a poet and artist who uses film as the basis of his work.  He entered Kent State University in 1961, and while still an undergraduate had poems published in American Weave and Snowy Egret.  He met d.a. levy in 1965; levy published him in the Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle.  Hugh Fox included Gildzen in his 1973 anthology The Living Underground.  Crisis Chronicles Press published his book Ohio Triangle earlier this year to celebrate his 72nd birthday.  Find Gildzen at Arroyo Chamisa.

 

Theresa Göttl Brightman (Ohio)

Theresa Göttl Brightman won first place the first time she competed in a poetry slam.  She has won numerous awards, and has been heard throughout Ohio and points beyond, including Chicago's Vegan Mania, and 89.7 WOSU radio.  Her work has appeared in print and online publications including Pudding Magazine and Rubbertop Review.  Her full length collection of poetry is Stretching the Window (Buffalo ZEF 2007); a new collection is due out in 2016 from Coda Crab Press.  You haven't experienced her poetry until you've seen and heard her perform it!


 
















John Burroughs (Ohio)

John Burroughs, writer, editor, musician, and composer, is the author of The Eater of the Absurd and numerous poetry chapbooks; his poem "Lens" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.  His poems include "Cannot Believe William S. Burroughs Is Dead" and "Allen Ginsberg Wants You".  Since 2008 he has been editor/publisher for Crisis Chronicles Press.  Burroughs performs his dynamic poetry across the rust and coal belts.  His new book Beat Attitude (from NightBallet Press) will debut at BeatStreet Cleveland.

 







Joining John Burroughs: musician Étienne Massicotte:

Étienne Massicotte (Montreal)

Étienne Massicotte is a musician newly located to Cleveland, working as a trumpeter, composer, and teacher. He is currently engaged with the Tesla Orchestra of Case Western Reserve University, composing and arranging music for a performance this fall to feature three musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra and a spectacular array of lightning-emitting beacons known as Tesla Coils. Previous engagements include appearances with the Ashland Symphony and four seasons with the Ohio Light Opera Festival Orchestra.












Sean Thomas Dougherty (Pennsylvania)

Sean Thomas Dougherty's books include Nightshift Belonging to Lorca, Except by Falling, Broken Hallelujahs, Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line, and All You Ask For is Longing.  His awards include 2 Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowships in Poetry. Known for his electrifying performances, he has toured extensively across North America and Europe. His 1st featured reading over 25 years ago was at the Jack Kerouac Festival.

Ingrid Swanberg (Wisconsin)

Ingrid Swanberg is the founder/publisher of Ghost Pony Press, and editor-in-chief of Abraxas Magazine.  She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Garrison Keillor has read her poetry on The Writer's Almanac.  She co-authored  D.A. Levy & the Mimeograph Revolution, and  published a definitive collection of the work of d.a. levy, Zen Concrete & Etc.  Her two new poetry collections are Ariadne & Other Poems (Bottom Dog Press, 2013) and Awake (Green Panda Press, 2014).

Larry Smith (Ohio)

Larry Smith is the biographer of Kenneth Patchen and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He also has done biographical work with Ingrid Swanberg in d.a. levy & the mimeograph revolution (Bottom Dog Press). He has published numerous books of poetry, and wrote and produced two films on Ohio authors James Wright and Kenneth Patchen. Smith lives on the fringe of Cleveland in Huron, Ohio, where he directs Bottom Dog Press publications.


 Jim Lang (Ohio)

Jim Lang, poet, photographer, artist, in his own words:

"born in th 40's died in th 50's thrived in th 60's loved in th 70's coasted in th 80's predicted in th 90's reprised in th 2K's ~ a poet/photographer he published in newspapers magazines and small press books for 40 years ~ he taught at universities high & grades schools free & controlled ~ he hung at galleries from columbus to toronto ~ & he read & showed off & slept on walls & floors & lawns from sea to shining sea ~ "a @ 5 made fotos @ 16 & pots @ 50 a phopopotographer a little of each shows up" 











Steven Smith (Ohio)

Steven Smith--poet, memoirist, photographer, blogger, and collage/assemblage artist--has been writing poetry for nearly five decades. For more than 20 years he published the famed ArtCrimes journal. He created a massive online art/poetry archive at www.agentofchaos.com, and a wide array of his poetry and collages have been published in the critically acclaimed Zen Over Zero: Selected Poems 1964-2008 (The City Poetry Press). Smith makes his home in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio.

aaaaand the Peace, Love, & Music of Zach!

Zach Freidhof (Ohio)

Zach, recently named "Humanitarian of the Year" by Akron Magazine, is a yogi, Kingian Nonviolence Trainer, and World Peace Diet Facilitator. He is also a fantastic musician who believes “We should manifest ourselves in exquisiteness every chance we get.” Zach professes this mantra, his life’s philosophy, on his latest release, The Antidote, his 15th release is as many years. With a friend, he created the Akron Peace Project to spread nonviolence in the self, the home, and the community. Coupled with his Love Initiative movement, his music--naturally very hopeful and optimistic--has been able to lend its voice to the power we all have to change ourselves and the world. Learn more at www.zachmusic.net.

Mark your calendars for this Very Special Event.  Cleveland's heart will BEAT brightly with BeatStreet at the Barking Spider on September 19th!

Herb Kauderer interviewed

I want to give a shout out to this interview of Buffalo-area poet Herb Kauderer by Mary Turzillo:

• An Interview with Herb Kauderer

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MT:  So, are poems by nature lies, or only some of them?
HK:  That’s a marvelously metaphysical question that requires secondary definition. Is a lie only a conscious attempt to mislead? What if the teller of the lie believes it? If the latter is true, then the teller is not qualified to call it a lie or truth.
I write some poems that are intentional lies in pursuit of a greater truth. I write other poems that are as true as I can make them at the time of composition, only to find out that time has turned them into lies.
[...]
Therefore a concise answer to your question is, “only some poems are lies, but I’m not telling you which.”

The Book of Whimsy-- and Monsters

Orrery by Dianne Borsenik

OK, it's official! 
My chapbook collection of poetry, The Book of Whimsy, has now been released from Dianne Borsenik​'s NightBallet Press​. This one has 36 of my poems, mostly the funny and whimsical ones. 
Only $10.00 from NightBallet-- cheap!  (Well, plus shipping).
And, also just released, Mary​'s chapbook A Guide to Endangered Monsters. 
What more could you want?  Buy extra copies so you have one give one away to your friends!

• Monsters! Whimsy! What more could you ask for?
• NightBallet Press

Gundy at Sandusky

 Jeff Gundy of Bluffton University and the author of 6 books of poetry and 4 books of nonfiction will launch his new book Abandoned Homeland: Poems at the Coffeehouse Readings in Sandusky, Ohio on Saturday, Sept 12. The event begins at 2 pm in lovely and rustic downtown Sandusky at Mr. Smith's Coffeehouse. Hosted by the Firelands Writing Center and Bottom Dog Press. Jeff promises to also play guitar and sing. Open-Mic to follow.

Try These Visual Writing Prompts

  

Hello writers!

Cuyahoga County Public Library is looking for writers (any age) to post their creative writing (any genre) in response to the panels in our brand new "Stories Connect Us" mural at the Parma-Snow Branch.  Visit cuyahogalibrary.org/StoriesConnectUs to choose your favorite and upload your writing to share with readers everywhere.

The Library borrowed the "Stories Connect Us" theme from one of our favorite writers, Kate DiCamillo, who's made it her mission as the 2014-2015 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. You know Kate as the author of Because of Winn Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux (both made into movies). Last week, Kate came to the Cuyahoga County Public Library to see the mural in person and meet 400 fans. 

Stories connect us - so get writing!  Head to cuyahogalibrary.org/StoriesConnectUs and get inspired. 

Laurie Kincer
Cuyahoga County Public Library
lkincer@cuyahogalibrary.org

Announcing the launch of Literary Cleveland

Lee Chilcote writes:

Dear friends,

At the first-ever Cleveland Inkubator on Saturday, August 1st, more than 300 people poured into the Cleveland Public Library to learn about writing. From the inspiring kickoff address with literacy champion Margaret Bernstein, to workshops and craft talks with Cleveland writers Les Roberts, Susan Grimm and Charlotte Morgan, to the keynote reading with David Giffels and Thrity Umrigar, this was an event worth savoring.

We've rarely seen so many Cleveland writers in one place, and we don't want to let that energy simply dissipate into the air! That's why a group of us are launching Literary Cleveland, a new, fledgling organization whose vision is to create a stronger community of writers and readers in the Greater Cleveland area through classes, workshops, readings and other events. Our goal is to bring you Inkubator-style programming year-round.

By starting small and being intentional about how we build our efforts, we believe Lit Cleveland can be a sustainable organization for writers and readers. Today, we're writing to share a few programs we've just finished organizing for September. Please take a moment to check out these workshops and events, sign up if you're interested, and share with others. Send feedback and suggestions to litcleveland@gmail.com.

Tuesday, 9/8, 7:30 pm
An evening with D.M. Pulley, author of The Dead Key
The Happy Dog, 5801 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland OH 44102

D.M. Pulley's first novel, The Dead Key, was selected as the Grand Prize Winner of the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Join Lit Cleveland for a discussion with Pulley about the story behind her compelling first novel, the research she conducted to bring its details to life, and her upcoming works.
$: FREE

Saturday, 9/12, 10:30a-12:30p
Public poetry writing workshop
Cleve. Public Library, Lit. Dept., 325 Superior Ave., 2nd Floor, Cleve. OH 44114
For writers of all levels. Sharpen your craft and receive comments and suggestions on your work in a friendly group format. Please bring 20 copies of a poem. Led by writer and poet Lee Chilcote and guest facilitators.
$: FREE

Saturday, 9/19, 10:30a-12:30p
Personal essay writing workshop
Carnegie West branch, CPL, 1900 Fulton Rd. Cleve. OH 44113
For writers of all levels. Learn how to turn your memories into stories with Lee Chilcote. Workshops to offer exercises and feedback on participants' work (sent in advance after the first workshop).
$: FREE

Saturdays, 9/19, 9/26, 10/3 (10a-12p), 10/17 (7p)
Truth, beauty and you: An ekphrastic poetry workshop
Heights Arts, 2175 Lee Rd., Cleve. Hts. OH 44118
Learn the art of ekphrastic poetry (poems that respond to art) with former Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Kathleen Cerveny. Organized in collaboration with Heights Arts.
$90/person

We'll be back in touch soon to announce more workshops and events for the fall. We hope to see you around town soon!

Sincerely,

Lit Cleveland organizing committee

• Literary Cleveland

Cleveland Public Poetry will present Bruce Weigl on August 22nd

Ohio Center for the Book

The Persistance of Litmags

A lot of poetry--the published poetry, anyway-- in America is coming out in literary magazines. Some of them have names that are words of power: Kenyon Review. Ploughshares. Paris Review. Threepenny.  But-- does anybody read them? Why do people start litmags, anyway?  And... after the excitement of the first few issues.. why do they keep at it?
And, more important: how is it that they keep surviving in the 21st century?
In the New Yorker, Stephen Burt writes about The Persistence of Litmags... and how they've adapted to the electronic age.

• Bookfox ranks literary magazines
• Top 50 literary magazines
• Top ten literary magazines to send your poetry

INKubator tomorrow!

Building community one draft at a time.

Dear friends,

This is just a final reminder about the Cleveland Inkubator taking place tomorrow, 8/1 at the Cleveland Public Library. If you haven't had a chance to register yet, then you may do so here. Some of the offerings of the event include:

- Inspiring workshops and craft talks with celebrated local writers
- Writers UnBlock room with coffee and snacks
- All-day resource fair with independent booksellers
- Keynote reading with authors David Giffels and Thrity Umrigar
- FREE ice cream from Mitchell's and food from Susy's Soup and Deli food truck
- Youth performance with writers from Lake Erie Ink and Cleveland School of the Arts
- Open mic hosted by Michael Salinger + Damian Ware + YOU!

Please remember, most workshops are now full, but there's still space in the craft talks. If you don't get a chance to register today, then you can always register onsite. And finally, if you're unable to attend the workshops, then feel free to join the party at 5 pm to check out the readings (in the Stokes Wing auditorium) and open mic (in the Eastman Reading Garden, weather permitting).

We look forward to INKubating with you!

Sincerely,

Cleveland Inkubator team
Copyright © 2015 Lee Chilcote, Writer, All rights reserved.
Updates and announcements about the Cleveland Inkubator

Our mailing address is:
Lee Chilcote, Writer
7212 West Clinton Ave.
Cleveland, Oh 44105

• Cleveland INKubator

Cleveland- a Town for Art

In "28 Days in Cleveland," Mogran Meis, first writer in residence at SPACES from June 15 – July 12, 2015, finds Cleveland a great town for art.

"...That stubbornness, I submit, has something to do with northeast Ohio. Can we all agree that it takes a bit more than the average amount of willfulness to choose Cleveland? For a normal person with any amount of artistic talent, the first instinct might be to get away from northeast Ohio, to go somewhere with greater resources for creating artistic careers.

"But the artists who have chosen to stay have, with a kind of devilish cleverness, hit upon an otherwise hidden benefit of a city that everyone else has been leaving for decades. If you are just bold enough to actually believe in your art and your ability to create what you want, Cleveland becomes a kind of secret utopia. No one outside of Cleveland gives a shit what you do inside Cleveland, so you can do it to your heart’s content. Add to this the fact that Cleveland is an extremely affordable city and you have a recipe for almost total aesthetic freedom."

• Spaces blog

Five to Nin

Nin Andrews answers five questions from Cleveland State University's Poetry Center:

• 5 Questions with Nin Andrews

Does poetry matter--one more time

Wow, you would have thought that there was no more to say on the subject of "is poetry dead"?
But, here's CNN, "Does poetry still matter?," in which Brandon Griggs discusses the new poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera:

Most Americans don't encounter poetry in the course of their daily lives. Most mainstream magazines don't publish it. Chain stores such as Walmart and Target don't carry it. The cult of people who buy books of poetry in the U.S. is almost certainly dwarfed by the 20 million or so viewers who watch a single episode of "Game of Thrones."

Poetry, said poet and associate professor Kyle Dargan of American University in Washington, is "not the kind of thing people are going to run into on their own. It's not 'Jurassic World.' " It's this cultural landscape that greets Juan Felipe Herrera, who this month was appointed the next poet laureate of the United States. As poet laureate, Herrera will be expected to serve as an ambassador for the art form and help boost its visibility through readings, workshops and other events.

...

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• Brandon Griggs,"Does poetry still matter?"

I Have Wasted My Life or You Must Be Suffering From Poetry

 “I have wasted my life.” Over at the Paris Review, Dan Piepenbring takes a look at James Wright‘s “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” and the many interpretations readers have brought to its famous last line. Among those readers is David Mitchell, who wrote about the same poem in an essay for The Atlantic‘s By Heart series earlier this year.


At The Toast, a linguist points out some of the ways in which we write out sarcasm on the Internet.

 Poets grow old like everyone else, and often their ideas about poetry grow old too...You Must Be Suffering from Poetry

Fight Club for Kids

Distinguished Gentlemen of the Spoken Word: in France

The Distinguished Gentlemen of the Spoken Word are bringing Cleveland poetry to France!  And getting some serious kudos from doing it, too.

The Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word is a group of African-American males ages 8-18 who study the art of performance poetry. These gentlemen take classic poetry pieces, movement poetry (mime/breaking/ flexing) and combine it with the art of spoken word.
Poetry has become the living tool that they use to help keep them focused and on the right path in school, at home, and within the community.

--(from their website)

 They've had some setbacks on their way-- attacks, losing money to a tailor who takes the money but doesn't deliver, working against social and institutional barriers... not even to mention the work it takes to raise $10,000 to get to France. (But they did!)  Now they're lionized in Lyon.
The Cleveland-based performance troupe was founded more than 12 years ago by poet, teacher and youth-advocate Honey Bell-Bey.
Can poetry change the world?  I don't know. But here are some young poets who are going to try.

• Article and photos from the Plain Dealer.
• Check their website at http://thedistinguishedgentlemenofspokenword.com/
• Or their Facebook page.

Congrats to Mary Weems

Congratulations to Cleveland Heights poet Mary Weems for winning the $10,000 2015 Cleveland Arts Prize for Emerging Artist (literature).

The prize will be awarded at the 55th Annual Awards event on Thursday, at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 6:30 to 8pm, with a VIP party before, and an afterparty afterwards from 8-9.

• Ticket info.

Dr. Mary Weems was the first African American Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights, and has taught at Cleveland State, John Carroll University and Ohio University. Her play Purses was performed at Karamu House, and she’s currently on a national tour performing her one-woman show, Black Notes, in support of her latest book, Blackeyed: Plays and Monologues. She is writing a new play, Gunfight, responding to random gun violence.And she is one of the original members of clevelandpoetics.
 

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• Scene article
• Cleveland.com article
• Interview at examiner.com
• maryeweems.org

Ornette Coleman and the NY School of Poets

Ornette Coleman (1930-2015), Frank O’Hara, Amiri Baraka

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Andrew Epstein

This morning brought the sad news that the groundbreaking jazz musician Ornette Coleman has passed away at 85.  There will surely be many obituaries and testimonials to Coleman’s importance and legacy, but I wanted to just note some the important points of contact between Coleman and the New York School and the postwar avant-garde.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Coleman became a central figure in the downtown avant-garde scene, beginning with a legendary ten-week residency at the Five Spot jazz club in New York, which was a regular hangout for Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones), Frank O’Hara, and other young New York poets. Coleman’s landmark 1961 album Free Jazz famously featured a painting by Jackson Pollock on the cover, underscoring the connections between experimental jazz and avant-garde painting.  

Coleman became friendly with the young Baraka and other writers in Baraka’s lively bohemian circle, which included O’Hara and other poets of the New York School.  O’Hara was taken with Coleman and his music, referring to him in his letters and including a reference to him in the experimental film he made with Alfred Leslie, The Last Clean Shirt (which includes the exclamation “Ornette!” at one point) (at 32:15 to be precise).

The most detailed treatment of these intersections can be found in Michael Magee’s excellent article “Tribes of New York: Frank O’Hara, Amiri Baraka, and the Poetics of the Five Spot” (which can also be found in Magee’s book Emancipating Pragmatism).  Here’s an excerpt in which Magee writes about Ornette Coleman, O’Hara, and Baraka:

O’Hara was very excited about Ornette Coleman. Part of the occasion for that excitement was the affair going on between Coleman and O’Hara’s friend Diana Powell. In a letter telling Don Allen about the affair, O’Hara underscores Coleman’s name as “ORNETTE COLEMAN!!!” and in a contemporaneous letter to Vincent Warren he notes seeing Coleman at the Five Spot, prompting Warren’s memory by describing the group as “the one with the little trumpet [Don Cherry’s pocket trumpet] and sax.” While the references are typically gossipy, and while O’Hara’s interest in Coleman included his usual lack of distinction between the artistic, the personal, and the sexual, they lead in the direction of a provocatively different version of O’Hara than the one commonly invoked.  As Baraka has recently explained,

Frank dug the music, went to the 5 Spot often. We were all hit with the heavy impact in G[reenwich] V[illage] of Ornette C[oleman]. He was a New Thing, in that era of new things … Jazz was New York! It was urban, new, hot, revelatory, &c, it was the anthemic back and foreground of the art denizens of the then and there. Like language and city sounds … Frank was always looking for inspiration. The music inspired him. (Letter)

Baraka goes on to suggest what it was about Coleman that would have inspired O’Hara: “Jazz is Democratic in form, it basically is collective improvisation. It is about singular and collective spontaneity, and composition, both formal and mise-en-scene.”

As Baraka suggests, Ornette Coleman was “a New Thing, in that era of new things,” and his bold and exciting music had an indescribable impact on Baraka himself, on O’Hara, and on the shape of jazz, and so much else, to come.

 

 Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets

The Fatal Problem With Poetry

In ninth grade English Mrs X required us to memorise and recite a poem and so I asked the Topeka High librarian to direct me to the shortest poem she knew and she suggested Marianne Moore’s ‘Poetry’, which, in the 1967 version, reads in its entirety:

I, too, dislike it.
Reading it, however, with a perfect
   contempt for it, one discovers in
it, after all, a place for the genuine.

 Ben Lerner stares into the mire of futility and falsehood that is poetry: “What if we dislike or despise or hate poems because they are—every single one of them—failures? … The fatal problem with poetry: poems. This helps explain why poets themselves celebrate poets who renounce writing.”

Post One Thousand!

Post One Thousand!

When Michael Salinger started clevelandpoetics: the blog back when the millennium was still young--July 2008, actually-- who would have thought we'd get up to 1000 posts?
Yet here we are: post number one thousand.
Or, as the Romans would put it: "M."
Yahoo!  1000 posts in just under 7 years.  Break out the champagne! News, views, info you can use, entertainment, infotainment, readings, rantings, ravings-- we've done it all.
Set your bookmarks here, and place your bets: Think we can do another M?

Clevelandpoetics: pageviews per month

• Post number 1

Juan Felipe Herrera, From Farm Fields to Poet Laureate

Calling all orange & lemon carriers,
come down the ladder to this hole
Calling all chile pepper sack humpers,
you, yes, you the ones with a crucifix

This poems ends:

Calling all tomato pickers,
the old ones, wearing frayed radiator masks.

The Library of Congress is to announce on Wednesday that Juan Felipe Herrera, a son of migrant farmworkers whose writing fuses wide-ranging experimentalism with reflections on Mexican-American identity, will be the next poet laureate.

More poems here

Blood on the Wheel

By Juan Felipe Herrera

     Ezekiel saw the wheel,
     way up in the middle of the air.
               TRADITIONAL GOSPEL SONG

Blood on the night soil man en route to the country prison

Blood on the sullen chair, the one that holds you with its pleasure

Blood inside the quartz, the beauty watch, the eye of the guard

Blood on the slope of names & the tattoos hidden

Blood on the Virgin, behind the veils,

Behind—in the moon angel's gold oracle hair

                    What blood is this, is it the blood of the worker rat?

                    Is it the blood of the clone governor, the city maid?

                    Why does it course in s's & z's?

Blood on the couch, made for viewing automobiles & face cream

Blood on the pin, this one going through you without any pain

Blood on the screen, the green torso queen of slavering hearts

Blood on the grandmother's wish, her tawdry stick of Texas

Blood on the daughter's breast who sews roses

Blood on the father, does anyone remember him, bluish?

                    Blood from a kitchen fresco, in thick amber strokes

                    Blood from the baby's right ear, from his ochre nose

                    What blood is this?

Blood on the fender, in the sender's shoe, in his liquor sack

Blood on the street, call it Milagro Boulevard, Mercy Lanes #9

Blood on the alien, in the alligator jacket teen boy Juan

                    There is blood, there, he says

                    Blood here too, down here, she says

                    Only blood, the Blood Mother sings

Blood driving miniature American queens stamped into rage

Blood driving rappers in Mercedes blackened & whitened in news

Blood driving the snare-eyed professor searching for her panties

Blood driving the championship husband bent in Extreme Unction

                   Blood of the orphan weasel in heat, the Calvinist farmer in wheat

                   Blood of the lettuce rebellion on the rise, the cannery worker's prize

Blood of the painted donkey forced into prostitute zebra,

Blood of the Tijuana tourist finally awake & forced into pimp sleep again

It is blood time, Sir Terminator says,

It is blood time, Sir Simpson winks,

It is blood time, Sir McVeigh weighs.

                   Her nuclear blood watch soaked, will it dry?

                   His whitish blood ring smoked, will it foam?

                   My groin blood leather roped, will it marry?

                   My wife's peasant blood spoked, will it ride again?

Blood in the tin, in the coffee bean, in the maquila oración

Blood in the language, in the wise text of the market sausage

Blood in the border web, the penal colony shed, in the bilingual yard

                    Crow blood blues perched on nothingness again

                    fly over my field, yellow-green & opal

                    Dog blood crawl & swish through my sheets

Who will eat this speckled corn?

Who shall be born on this Wednesday war bed?

Blood in the acid theater, again, in the box office smash hit

Blood in the Corvette tank, in the crack talk crank below

Blood boat Navy blood glove Army ventricle Marines

in the cookie sex jar, camouflaged rape whalers

Roam & rumble, investigate my Mexican hoodlum blood

                    Tiny blood behind my Cuban ear, wine colored & hushed

                    Tiny blood in the death row tool, in the middle-aged corset

                    Tiny blood sampler, tiny blood, you hush up again, so tiny

Blood in the Groove Shopping Center,

In blue Appalachia river, in Detroit harness spleen

Blood in the Groove Virus machine,

In low ocean tide, in Iowa soy bean

Blood in the Groove Lynch mob orchestra,

South of Herzegovina, south, I said

Blood marching for the Immigration Patrol, prized & arrogant

Blood spawning in the dawn break of African Blood Tribes, grimacing

& multiple—multiple, I said

Blood on the Macho Hat, the one used for proper genuflections

Blood on the faithful knee, the one readied for erotic negation

Blood on the willing nerve terminal, the one open for suicide

Blood at the age of seventeen

Blood at the age of one, dumped in a Greyhound bus

Blood mute & autistic & cauterized & smuggled Mayan

& burned in border smelter tar

                    Could this be yours? Could this item belong to you?

                    Could this ticket be what you ordered, could it?

          Blood on the wheel, blood on the reel

          Bronze dead gold & diamond deep. Blood be fast.

Juan Felipe Herrera, "Blood on the Wheel" from Border-crosser with a Lamborghini Dream. Copyright © 1999 by Juan Felipe Herrera.  Reprinted by permission of University of Arizona Press.


Source: Border-crosser with a Lamborghini Dream (University of Arizona Press, 1999)

UPDATED! Cleveland INKubator: a free writing un-conference in August

Mark your calendars-- the Cleveland Inkubator Writers’ Conference --sorry, I mean "Literary UN-conference"--will take place Saturday, August 1, at the downtown branch of the Cleveland Public Library. This conference is free and open to the public, and will feature workshops, craft talks, and readings. A Resource Fair will also showcase information from area literary organizations, publishers, and bookstores.
This will be a great opportunity to network with other writers and create some energy around the Cleveland literary scene.
Visit the website to register for the workshops of your choice. Although the event is free, workshop sizes are limited so early registration is recommended!

A literary UNconference 

"The idea is the brainchild of Lee Chilcote, a freelance journalist, poet and teacher, and Amy Rosenbluth, Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Lake Erie Ink. There is a need for community-based programming for both teen and adult writers in Cleveland. Northeast Ohio has a wonderful literary scene and many talented writers live here, yet we need to foster more collaboration and connections between all of us. The goal of the Inkubator is to provide writing programs that celebrate our rich literary culture while nurturing the next generation of talent. Thanks to the generosity of the Cleveland Public Library, which has jumped on board and agreed to donate space and support the event, the Gund Foundation and other supporters, the Cleveland Inkubator is now a reality. "

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Update!

Building community one draft at a time

Dear friends,

Since we launched registration for the Cleveland Inkubator, Cleveland's first-ever free UNconference for writers on Saturday, August 1st, over 50 people have signed up to attend.

That means a lot to those of us organizing it. The response we've gotten validates what we believe: Cleveland needs an accessible, community-based forum to celebrate writing, build community, and help writers advance their craft.

Today we're going to give you three more reasons to sign up for the Inkubator and share this event with your networks. Our goal is to get at least 100-200 people (youth 14-18 and adults!) at the event -- help us make that happen!

The reasons are, of course, the fabulous presenters and workshop leaders we have lined up, in addition to our keynote readers David Giffels and Thrity Umrigar:

1. Award-winning poet Susan Grimm

Susan Grimm is leading a workshop entitled "Thinginess: Attending to the World Through Poetry." The description reads, "Start with this object, this patch of grass, this sunny room--how speaking of it becomes speaking of us. In this workshop we will focus our attentions on the things of this world, festooning our poems with the gladness and sorrow of physical presence."

Susan's poems have appeared in Blackbird, Poetry East, The Journal, and other publications. Her book of poems, Lake Erie Blue, was published by BkMk Press. She also edited Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems. She won the inaugural Copper Nickel Poetry Prize and the Hayden Carruth Poetry Prize. In 2014 she received her second Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council.

2. Freelance writer Christopher Johnston

Chris is giving a craft talk called "Live the Write Life: How You can Make a Living as a Freelancer." This one's going to be popular, we think! Here's how it's billed: "A freelance journalist since 1987, Christopher Johnston will help you explore different ways you can earn a living as a full-time freelance writer, whether you choose to specialize or be a generalist. You’ll learn how to pitch your ideas, pursue a book project, and build your platform. You’ll leave with ample ideas to launch your writing life!"

Chris has published 3,000+ articles in regional and national publications and had more than a dozen of his plays produced. Currently, he is adapting an Irish story for Talespinner Children’s Theater and writing a book about the 50 years of post-Vietnam War resiliency of the survivors of Bravo Company, First Battalion, Ninth Marines who served at Khe Sanh and suffered the highest loss rate in Marine history. 

3. Memoir writer Charlotte Morgan

Charlotte writes: "In this workshop, we will learn how to take memories, turn them into narratives and discover something about ourselves."

Charlotte Morgan knew she wanted to be a writer by age five and began filling composition notebooks with science fiction stories. Fascinated by nonfiction and literary journalism, she became a reporter and then a music journalist. Her writing has been published locally, regionally and nationally. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing (Non-Fiction). Presently, she teaches First Year Writing at Cleveland State University. She is completing Judgement in Goshen: A Taxonomy of Ordinary Murder, a crime memoir.

Want more information? Visit the Inkubator website for the full lineup.

We look forward to seeing you at the Cleveland Inkubator on Saturday, August 1st!

Yours Sincerely,

The INKubator team
Copyright © 2015 Lee Chilcote, Writer, All rights reserved.
Updates and announcements about the Cleveland Inkubator

Our mailing address is:
Lee Chilcote, Writer
7212 West Clinton Ave.
Cleveland, Oh 44105

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