Hemingways: Night of 6/30

Summer reading at Hem's featuring Robin Clarke, Deb Bogen, & Robert Gibb tonight. I missed Fred Shaw's performance, as usual my place of work won't let me out in time. This reading was notable for Pittsburgh (for me) because it featured 2 surrealistic, associational, non-literal poets, Robin and Deb.

Robin struck a very dark tone, asked the audience not to applaud, brought up as introduction {someone I failed to record the name of|}, a man who "was by all accounts and measures schizophrenic" and who though the government was monitoring and mind-controlling us, but as Robin points out, was not necessarily wrong (not a joke). Her poems followed that stream of conscious, fractured style you might in passing associate with schizophrenia: "Everyone wants to live, not even Robocop" "The powerful can do anything to your family in Pennsylvania" "To Warren Bogland, heads vanish into good intentions force, soldier". There were a great deal of powerful images, often in fragments, that displayed a kind of concern with disaster: "362 ghosts relay coal into trains day and night" "Smoke & Flames pouring down the shaft" "Calling them survivors was a mistake."

There was a silence in the audience as Robin read. Everyone had a look of concern or deep thought. In the past I've attributed this kind of look to boredom, assumed that, in the presence of poetry which is obscure and cannot be followed syntactically, people listen to humor the poet. With Robin's work this was clearly not the case, so I had a chance reexamine my assumptions.

Deb's work still made use of a lot of disconnects, but was less fractured... here are some excerpts: "4 heads burnt, no, branded by heat" "beneath the gargoyles the babies sleep" "no one says these stones aren't pillows". She had a poem about a tai chi lesson composed of little metaphors as spoken by a teacher: "your arms are broken sisters... make use of that joy." Several poems were titled in the format "_____ in the space of freefall" (e.g. "You in the space of freefall") and the method of freefall may have been the composition of these poems.

As I listened to Robert Gibb, I was overcome with nostalgia... thinking of the golden age of the 60's and 70's: Terence McKenna, wisdom gleaned from psychedelics, and so forth... not because any of his poetry was along those lines, but because of his voice, which was so mellow and understated, plus his appearance, with the beard, collared shirt, and age. Robert read "unconcerned", delivered his poetry as if nothing was troubling him, almost as if he was dead, although not without a great tenderness. Following his book "Sheet Music", and a trend in the night started by Deb who mentioned Roger Humpheries' band over in the north side, Robert talked mostly about Jazz... notable for me was a poem entitled "Early Jazz Greats Trading Cards Created by R. Crumb." Crumb is quoted in the poem, when listening to jazz: "One of the few times I actually [...] have a kind of love for humanity."

Gibb's last poem had quite a kick for its last line (also about jazz): "seemingly pitched to some infinite woe/ comes the last misshapen solo." Writing notes, sitting in the side of Hem's back room, wishing there was better lighting, I felt a kind of calm descend... Did not feel pushed or pressured into listening to poetry, rather just enjoying it... There's hope I think for poetry if the poets are good, and the crowd is at least a little friendly. --poetryburgh@gmail.com

Chuck Joy, Jason Baldinger, Cee Williams, and Chatham MFAs, Oh My!

I finally found them... The Chatham Writing MFAs. Couched in a little house behind a school in Wilkinsburg, over on Hay Street, the coincidentally named Whitney Hayes (along with Kelsey Leach) hosts the Hay Street Reading series, a summer substitute for Chatham's Word Circus, a monthly event which hosts mostly Chatham writers. The Hay Street Reading Series is open to non-MFAs: when I got there, Amanda Collins, a local singer-songwriter, was performing. Hayes also stated that she wanted the event to be "more open to the community". I'll be reading next month, probably, and in any case, I read at the open mic this month, along with my twin and six other readers; it was a nice crowd of around twenty people, BYOB, etc. Featured readers included Ben Gwin who I sadly missed because I was over at East End Book Exchange, listening to Jason Baldinger, Cee Williams, and Chuck Joy at Chuck Joy's new book release, the book being: "Said The Growling Dog."

Jason Baldinger as usual talked about local Pittsburgh/Pennsylvania haunts including a long poem about a shitty diner called "Hagerstown Sometimes." As usual Jason was notable for his clear, local, and fatal eye: "When you're in Hagerstown, you have to ask if the sun hasn't already set." He also talked about a UPMC commerical location scout visiting, and being told to fuck off out of, Jason's record store.

Cee Williams was next, and I've heard Cee's name a few times before, although I hadn't seen him previously. He started with something memorized that seemed like slam, but then broke out the print-outs and had a few less end-rhmey poems... "You Picked a Fine Time To Spank Me, Lucille" recounted, in not particularly humorous terms, Cee's painful time in Catholic school (fraught with racial inequality). He also had a poem about Ronald Reagan... "only poverty trickles down."

Jason and Cee both had affected eading voices. Jason seems to have a kind of arch, romantic, and revelationary tone: his speech is  always rising and falling in long arcs, even when he's talking about hangovers, and his poems tend to end with a defiant and concessionary exclamation from the self: 'I don't have health insurance but I told the UPMC guy to fuck off' (not a quote). Cee, as I said, is close to a traditional slam poet's voice in a lot of ways, but what I saw from him Saturday was more muted. Chuck Joy, however, the poet that everyone had gathered to see, was kind of a powerhouse when it came to affect. He had a sort of nasal blast that would accentuate his meter... the effect I thought was "Newyorkian"... He even recited a poem in series about his trip to New York. Moments from this poem: goes to a NY restaurant, repeats "house beer!" in disbelief... uses the book he is reading from as a prop: "sign here on the contract." --poetryburgh@gmail.com

now to find the CMU MFAs, please contact me if you are out there and here in PGH this summer xoxo

"loser" poetry

I talked to Jay of Curbside Twist LLC last night at Little Lou's in lieu of the usual Haven people, who had either blown off the night or left early with some biker chicks on a trip I wasn't invited to be a part of :( . Jay talked about his past in Trinidad, the intricacies of marketing, and argued with another guy Max about outsourcing (Jay was against it). At one point Jay made a graph illustrating various bottom lines and modes of power, using beer bottles, Max's phone, a pack of Newports, etc. Then Max turns to me, asks me what my passion is, I say "poetry" so he leans back says ok do some.

I tell him that I already thought this out, I've already looked ahead to the point in the evening when someone would ask me to do poetry, and I'd already thought about how I would say that me not reciting poetry then and there was kind of the basis of my poetry, that basis of being "a loser", not a "do-er" like these two entrepreneurial gentlemen. I've got "do-er"s in my family: my sister was focused on her future since middle school, shot up like a rocket through Ivy League and kept going, now lives in Philadelphia doing some kind of work with NPR, raising millions per year. My brother just started a business education at Pitt... we'll see if he gets as far...

Jay was selling his business persona the way some business people will do anytime they meet someone in a bar... like it's not just your full-time job, it's your nightlife too. That kinda state is my ideal goal for my poetry, to be a poet "around the clock."So what to do when someone asks you to do poetry "on the spot"? Well, I'm really into surrealism...--poetryburgh@gmail.com

Barbara Edelmen, Mike Schneider, Michael Smith & Ellen Smith @ Hemingway's

Barbara Edelman and friends killed it. I'm (full disclosure) a personal friend and once-classmate of Barbara's, who's name, as she brought up in one of her poems, means "Stranger", this I assume having to do with the Barbara/Barbarian etymology. Barbara's poems, issues of critical distance aside, made me look up from the crook of my arms, where I had collapsed in penitent hunger (I eventually folded and bought a Baja burger). Ms. Edelman's performative voice was excellent; she took on multiple personas, ranging from the more standard literary poet to a crazy-over-talkative drone, and never missed a beat. Her poems were also extremely good in the way that you can expect academic's to be... "The poem shudders through the ice-drawn branches." (this is a complete misquote... I didn't buy the book).

I saw Mike Schneider the night before at East End Book Exchange and didn't really pay attention to him then, but this night he stood out with his long and heartfelt (his voice quavered at appropriate moments) poems about WWII and the Boy Scouts. I admired Michael Smith, the founder of Autumn House Press, by the way, for sort of similar reasons, he had some impassioned political appeals in verse in a style that I've been trying to evince myself lately, sort of just directly talking to the audience in broad values-terms about issues such as war while maintaining a good sound. The way Michael broached these topics made me think that I'd have to look him up to improve my own technique. Ellen Smith read a series of poems in the format of instructions on how to sell various products for advertising agencies... "how to sell catheters" and, more abstractly "how to sell sleep." These were funny and straightforward and well composed in a appealing way, and they took the time to reveal some deeper thoughts about advertising and desire in general.

I came out as "against" PGH poetry in a certain way, threatening to move to New York in a previous post, and even now I'm planning my escape... but it's good to know my dissatisfaction isn't as straightforward as I may have planned... there are good artists here, of course there are -- poetryburgh@gmail.com

porpentine. == poetry?

if you want to see work which is "unignorable"
if you want to see work which is "fresh"
if you want to see work which is accessible
if you want to see work which does new things with language
if you want to see work which broaches a lot of intense personal subjects
go look at porpentine porpentine porpentine

these are "games" more than poems... but still composed entirely out of language in sort of poem-like ways... using hyperlinks and macros... perhaps closer to interactive fiction (as the site advertises)? but assuredly unlike fiction in many ways...

from: howling dogs

We can consider this poetry b/c it's experimental... Poetry I guess is closer to the lines of "experimental words" or "experimental literature" than fiction? But again, maybe aspects of this isn't entirely experimental... "Nonstandard Literature"? Genre distinctions, the black hole of criticism/analysis...

What I mean to say is, Porp's games have a sort of defining quality in being attractive and click-through-able and innovative and also undoubtedly "literature"... But they are also built around a kind of punk aesthetic, see this excerpt from some of her writing:

Build the shittiest thing possible. Build out of trash because all i have is trash. Trash materials, trash bodies, trash brain syndrome. Build in the gaps between storms of chronic pain. Build inside the storms.

This quote being part of the work porp + friends built around the experience of being trans, being abused by various communities and treated as trash and so forth. A lot of the art comes as a consequence and method of coping to this abuse... therefore "trashbabe." Here's some more...

This is an original motivation + struggle + creative impulse, resulting in glorious, fresh, and appealing art... and it's in a (mostly written) form... You'd be lucky to find that in poetry. "Poetry is dead," as they say, but, you know, people are still doing interesting things with language and verse and lyric in different mediums such as for example rap... news to no-one... but this trans art trashbabe stuff also happens to be in the form of and strongly about video games, that defining new medium which most people don't have a whole lot of good things to say about, gamergate discussions non-nonwithstanding...

I just largely want to say: in the greater world of art, not just in Pittsburgh, I'm always frustrated by my own indifference to poetry... all the poetry put in front of me, I barely care about, can't really finish a chapbook without it feeling like work. However, there's a lot of language stuff I do care about which isn't really poetry, stuff that I spend much time with, like the work of porp... but to exclude these things from poetry is to put limitations on what poetry can be. Better than to stick to a genre, as I have done, is to stick to whatever appeals to you... stay less focused on one place, find the true patterns of your meaning--poetryburgh@gmail.com

HYCANITH GIRL + GIGANTIC SEQUINS PRESS // STEPHEN LIN // RUNAWAY STUDIOS VERSE SESSION // POND HOCKEY ETC.

"If I had to choose between body or mind, I would still choose both" says Kimberly Ann Southwick at the Gigantic Sequins  + Hycanith Girl Press Reading last night, the 20th... One of several readers over at Modern Formations... Kimberly's work was that which most impressed me, she built a kind of power out of insouciance to support her literary po-mo stuff... I think I heard her read poems about snakes going to prom last year at "Free Snake Poems About Snakes. Lets Do This.", another Hycanith Girl Press event.

Last Night: I went to four or five events, the Hycanith Girl/Gigantic Sequins Reading, a punk show over at City Grows featuring my poet friend Stephen Lin, part of the verse session at Runaway Studios, and the Bloomfield Tavern Bridge which featured Pond Hockey, a rock band composed of some of PGH's great literary minds, i.e. Scott Silsbe and Jason Baldinger, playing for the birthday celebration of Tommy Amobea, who is married to Phat Man Dee, who sang (Tommy Amobea also sang).

Most notable thing was Stephen Lin reading poems off a posterboard with post-it-notes on it, these poems composed of lines from the post-it-notes which were individually tied to letters of the alphabet which formed words chosen by the crowd. That is, Stephen asks the crowd for a word, someone says "Testosterone", so he links a poem together from the lines on the post-it-notes tied to T, E, S... This all sounds cheesy and gimmicky, but as I said to Stephen after the show, "I thought it was gimmicky but once you started doing it the poems were too good to ignore." These poems were too good to ignore, and everyone in the crowd was impressed, not just enthused.   ...I was also impressed. Maybe it's that the lines themselves were curbed from Stephen's other poems and therefore displayed his skill with sound and arch imagination: "His teeth rattled in his skull, as if in song." But I also think that the aleatory method behind the composition gave the poems a natural, organic feel; most of Stephen's poems are polemic, but these poster-board poems didn't have that opportunity.

At the Runaway Studio Verse Session: some guy I failed to record the name of, a mathematician who doesn't write much poetry, had some great poems, I think I can recite them by memory: here's one:

"pigfuck chuck" 

There was a kid named chuck in our school who fucked pigs. we knew this because he showed us pictures he took of himself fucking pigs. We would laugh at him and call him pigfuck chuck on the bus. He wasn't careful and left the pictures on his desk at school, and so a teacher saw it, and he was never heard from again. That was the end of pigfuck chuck.

This poem is very appealing. Cool things about this poem:

• It's impossible to make fun of.
• It's impossible to ignore.
• I can recite it from memory, only having heard it once, and it doesn't matter if it's paraphrased.
• It's controversial.

Is that what I'm headed for, when I think of "punk" poetry? Disturbing... --poetryburgh@gmail.com

also: check out stephen's bandcamp: http://stephenlinpoetry.bandcamp.com/

I ALSO WENT TO VERSIFY BUT IT WAS TOTALLY FORGETTABLE

Cornelius Eady @ Cave Canem

I cried a little during Eady's set... during this line: "For those of you that would rather stay inside your clubhouse, and keep me out of it: I am a brick in the house that is being built around your house." The crowd was under City of Asylum's "Alphabet City" tent, which was getting pounded with rain and threatening to blow over, climatically enough, during Eady's blues song, which I think may have been about Emmett Till, although somehow, it was in a positive light: during the song, Eady would coquettishely glance upwards, at the huge destructive rain, in a kind of battle/dance with the rain, as if he had some sort of past history with it, knowing, as none of the audience did, that the last line of his song was: "if you can stand the soaking!" He said this and then the crowd, half-crazed the way crowds get around giant amounts of weather, burst into laughter and applause.

Before the rain, it was hot. We were packed like sardines, about 2ft. sq space per person, and everyone was waving themselves with the programs... This was during Amber Flora Thomas's set (I arrived too late to see Willie Perdomo perform )-: ). Amber read with less affect, with a more subtle personality than Eady, or even Toi Derricote, who was only present in the form of a video and her son and grandson, who read poems for her. These by-proxy poems were often about the readers; see: "A Note on My Son's Face", which was read by the subject of the poem, the grandson. The evening revolved around the absent Toi, who had taken sick or something; Toi is a co-founder of Cave Canem (as the website quotes from Nikky Finney: "...the major watering hole and air pocket for black poetry") and both Amber and Eady talked about her importance to the group. Eady made it a point to discuss how Toi was a revolutionary, although people didn't often know it, because she was so loving and calm: a revolutionary on the basis of her saying "no"... Eady also discussed, briefly, the Charleston shooting. This was certainly something on the minds of everyone... A security guard outside the event, he and I exchanged a look, sort of in my mind confirming the fact, yes, it was obvious to both of us, that in my torn jeans and flip flops, no, I wasn't going to be shooting anyone, but also: yes, he was there to check, because of what had happened, although it was unlikely. Racial tensions are a thing in Pittsburgh, even the location of City of Asylum as a kind of bridge between the Mexican War streets upper-class communities and the rest of the North Side, a largely black population, has the stink of possible (or definite) gentrification... All of this in the air, inside the tent... But we were equally under the buckets of rain that started during Eady's set, and moreover, his words... Eady said, when talking about the Charleston shooting, that "the only thing we can do is resist. And the only thing we have are words." I think the black community on the whole is more willing to provide verbal accolades/assent/"hmm" noises during the work of poets. But under the tent, during the "brick in the house" moment, we all shouted, and it was loud... louder than the rain. --poetryburgh@gmail.com

surrealist pittsburgh: "Teleportaterz", "Poke Cake", inarticulate questions becoming articulate and an artist I know only as "Gunner"

I don't know the gender of Gunner or the preferred pronouns, and I'm only in the state of mind to talk about such things as pronouns b/c my friends/social media/personal self-education are becoming more and more gender-conscious over the years, more focused on that new brand of activism/ social justice/ trans-ness which I don't know how to google search for a term broad enough to summarize. My own relationship to the movement is this weird cis-y het white maleish side-to-side lean-y thing like the dance new husbands do at weddings... un-hip by default, the stick bug watches the butterfly emerge from zer cocoon... albeit my metaphor fails b/c as much as I am a part of the process, I do not understand my role in it... a totality of meaning that kind of empties itself out when examined, like some parts of quantum physics.

All of this is relevant to Gunner's art... see: "Teleportaterz", written by Gunner, a musical put on over at the Spirit Lounge, more or less about queers in a science-fiction dystopia, a narrative that "disintegrates like a thomas pynchon novel" according to the bearded lawrenceville hipster guy I only sort-of know who lambasted me after the performance for criticizing the sloppiness of the second half of the musical . Sloppy is by nature part of Gunner's work: last night at the tail end of a samey hardcore punk show organized by Jackson Boytim as part of his last-minute Dumb and Also Bad Fest, Gunner + Caitlyn Bender (previously featured on this blog) + other friends did a little five-ten-twenty-minute-long performance titled, as I was able to awkwardly extract from Gunner a few minutes after we (the audience) stopped watching Bender lie motionless on the floor whilst medium-loud feedback played, after Bender gave up apparently on the expectation of us just leaving her there and got up turned off the speakers and got dressed, after that I was able to learn from Gunner who was sitting with a friend outside the venue, City Grows, a small independent gardening store in Lawrenceville curiously hosting this hardcore-y punk show, with the clerk at the front counter, maybe just the after-hours clerk or not an employee at all, being somewhat subtly rude to me I thought, me going to the venue that night wearing a bright pink striped button-down shirt, large white khaki pants, and flip-flops, in a style Jackson described as "cuban grandpa", this clerk not giving me my 50c change for the water I had purchased until I had to yell over the punk hardcore music that I wanted my 50c, the clerk then sort of edge-of-perception disdainfully handing me the two quarters, the rudeness therof I didn't know what to make of and may just assume was the clerk's reaction to my outfit but who knows(?), I was smiling a kind of strained smile much of the night due to having arrived alone but by the end of the night I felt pretty comfortable, partially comforted by the performances including the last, weird, caitlyn-bender-lying-on-the-floor-reciting-the-alec-baldwin-monologue-from-glengarry-glen-ross-the-movie-comma-not-the-play-while-gunner-sang-christian-church-music-and-occasionally-distributed-strange-objects-to-the-crowd-at-one-point-bringing-out-a-cake-which-in-its-center-had-what-appeared-to-be-bloody-testicle-like-objects-wrapped-in-a-female-condom-and-ate-part-of-the-cake-then-placed-it-on-the-staircase-such-that-several-punks-almost-stepped-in-it-while-another-of-gunner's-friends-wore-a-tinfoil-hat-that-had-a-second-tinfoil-hat-attached-to-it-like-a-satellite-and-got-audience-members-to-wear-this-attached-satellite-hat-while-they-looked-in-each-others-eyes-all-this-while-a-recording-of-bender-reciting-the-same-above-mentioned-monologue-played-over-a-loud-amplifier-but-was-schizophrenically-edited-such-that-a-phrase-would-only-be-uttered-every-couple-seconds-all-of-this-with-a-trigger-warning-at-the-start, and being so comforted by the veracity and inclusiveness of this performance I was able to extract from Gunner who clearly didn't want to have a conversation with me, sitting on the stoop outside the venue and kind of turning away from me and facing towards Gunner's friend while I sort-of half stooped to let them know I wanted their attention, it being obvious at this point b/c of the body language that they did not want to give their attention to me, I was comfortable enough to be able to emit a loud sort of squeaky yawp to formalize my request for Gunner's attention, which worked, and when I asked, "did that thing have a name?" Gunner looked at me and not unkindly replied "pokercake... the name was pokercake" (paraphrased) and I said "thanks" and walked away.

I haven't seen much else in PGH along the same lines of Gunner's work, Sunshine Ears the touring performance artist being a close exception. Gunner was also present at that performance over at the Cyberpunk Apocalypse, which like a true Apocalypse has lingered threateningly on the edge of my Pittsburgh experience... always threatening my perceptions of the PGH art scene with strange, young, appealing art from persons like Gunner. These people aren't from New York. I don't see them at (most) of the poetry events I go to. Did they all meet in college? Are they the remains of some other scene? Is there stuff in Lawrenceville I don't know about? It's disconcerting... The artists crawl out of their hole, put on some sort of insane display for no money, and go back. I don't think it would be necessarily impossible to crawl in there with them, but, as I think I talked about above, in my case there has to be some level of self-purification and -destruction to even get up the courage to ask. Jesus, the plot thickens--poetryburgh@gmail.com

The Pittsburgh Poetry Scene

I have to admit, I've seen very few poets writing exciting poetry in Pittsburgh... this has become a point of infinite trepidation for me. I consider where I could possibly find the kind of poetry I've learned to love, and I can think only of New York. I would not rate myself someone brave enough, or financially secure enough to move to New York, but it's fast becoming my poetry destiny.
Consider HeyEvent searches, over at heyevent.com (an event aggregator):
  "Pittsburgh poetry" pulls 14 events off HeyEvent.
  "Baltimore poetry" pulls 23 events.
  "Philadelphia poetry" pulls 33.
  "New York poetry" pulls 209, including events today, including events tomorrow, including events with poets I already know and love.

It's the [sad] fact that my current challenge, if I want to be true to myself, is not developing an understanding of the PGH Poetry scene. My current challenge is finding a way to move to New York.
--poetryburgh@gmail.com

Michael Albright/ Joan Baur @ Classic Lines (Sign of the Bear Reading Series) ALSO AMAZING BOOKS OPEN MIC

It's been a stacked night... I don't have too much time to write.

I went to the last half hour of the Sign of the Bear Reading Series and it was Alright.

Joan Baur killed it and had a couple good poems.

All of her gestures were totally potent.

She accenuated certain lines, and moved quickly over others.

She had great feeling and made eye contact with the audience.

Michael Albright said mostly nostalgiac poems.

A lot of them were from the perspective of children.

"Grandma gave me a taste for the sweetest things." (paraphrased)

He read with wet, round tones.

I spent some time over at Amazing Books.
There was an open mic.

They were hosting an event to benefit Summer Reading for children.

There was a group of young people there! And they host their own readings...

I gave them my networking info, so I'm very excited. --poetryburgh@gmail.com

June 9th Slam -- And What My Relationship to Slam Poetry Is, Again

You know what's cool in Pittsburgh? The Slam Poetry community... Specifically known as: The Pittsburgh Poetry Collective. They run weekly slams and monthly workshops... I have to get these on my calendar.

I've attended only one other slam event before, and it was in the same format as this one: up to eight poets read poems in three rounds; each poem is judged by random audience members using a rating between zero and ten. The winner receives a $25 prize. The event this week was enthusiastically hosted by Slammaster Lori Beth Jones.

I was one of the randomly selected audience members to judge. I gave both high and low scores; in the first round I thought I was only going to give everyone 5's and 7.5's, but by the end I had handed out at least one 9. Slam poetry is unignorable. The poets put a lot of emotion and energy and preparation into their performance; and being able to deliver a good performance is one of the essential bases of the art, unlike in (for lack of a better term) "literary" poetry. There were several gripping performances the night I attended-- the highlight goes to the contest winner, Rhetorical Arts, who was able to deliver an intense & loud anger without ever losing the pace or clarity of their poems, covering topics including their own chidhood autism diagnosis ("they said autistic, when they should have said artistic") and troubles with depression (central metaphor: sharing a [relation-]ship with their disease, understanding that they have to live with it... but if it won't cooperate, they will starve it).

I'm at odds with the social justice and positivity that slam promotes. The emotional reality of what is being said comes through to me, but there's always a righteous moral positioning that I do not vibe with. At the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange workshop earlier this month, Joseph Karas discussed how he always looked for poetry "which does not spare the writer." In that vein, I don't think the slam I've heard was composed with that kind of self-destructive tendency that I appreciate. This may be from the genre expectations: slam is still considered to be a community-building resource, a venue for positive social messages, while "literary" poetry has the benefit of being a mostly defunct mode of art. --poetryburgh@gmail.com

Millvale Mash-- Grist House Brewing

The Millvale Mash is an monthly open-mic run by my friend Adam Dove. Adam also runs the Writer's Workshop hosted at the Millvale Library; so I have to check that out too.

I had no idea Adam was a part of this, so it was a pleasant surprise to meet him at the event. Grist House Brewing is lovely: there's a large porch that merges into the bar which merges into the brewery itself. It's intimate and the crowd is local and friendly. During the Mash, it was raining outside sporadically, and the pirates game was playing in the background; when it wasn't raining here it was raining on the Pirates downtown.

I was the only poetry act; luckily, I killed it. I met a group of people incl. Adam's friends and Anita Kulina Smith, a kind of local historian; we had some great talks about the early days of Greenfield where there were apparently gangs outside of every store, which makes sense, because that neighborhood has always felt like a reformed gangland to me. Notable acts included Kim Sedlock reading her story about adultery-tempted skiers, Amy Dean playing a Japanese flute with a cover of El Condor Pasa, and Adam and his friend nailing a Mewithoutyou and Coco Rose cover. The night ended with a group performance of "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

I'm thinking about moving to Millvale. It's closer to the city than I thought, it's dirt cheap and it's beautiful. A valley neighborhood... tree enclosed, it feels so isolated and quiet... and Mr. Smalls is right there! --poetryburgh@gmail.com

Missed West Word b/c I've got flu... here's some thoughts on community

The dream of an imaginary community that allows total identification with one’s role within it to an extent that rules out interiority or doubt, the fixity and clearness of an external image or cliche as opposed to ephemera of lived experience, a life as it looks from the outside.

—Stephen Murphy

I'm fine admitting this blog is more of a self-care action, in a lot of ways, it's me searching for a community to inhabit with my poetry... but this goes along with a lot of what I understand poetry does: self-care... those at the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange were talking about how poetry can be written just for the writer, how it doesn't have to be for an audience... and those at the Hour after Happy Hour were talking about how there are "more poets than poetry readers." It's an odd central thing w/ poetry: it's easy to write a poem, but not exactly guaranteed to be enjoyable to listen to: it's a cliche that poetry is bad. 

I'd like it if poetry was not bad. The central question of this blog is, how can poetry be [fun, punk, sexy, exciting == good]? Right now, in answering those questions, I'm hung up on communities. This is partially attributable to the lesson behind the quote above: I'm looking for the imaginary community that guarantees fun/punk/sexy/exciting poetry, along with commensurate fun/punk/sexy/exciting people. Think of the Beats, or the Modernist writers, or the popular image of artists in general; think of 'Midnight in Paris'.

As the quote suggests, though, this search for a perfect community is a trap. It is an attempt to displace personal pressures onto exterior social pressures; "someday I will find the right people for me."

I've been saying this repeatedly so I think I'll just come out and state that the purpose of this blog is not to "find the perfect community" but to learn as much about Pittsburgh's poetry communities as I can, for my own and for the reader's education. --poetryburgh@gmail.com

PRETTY OWL POETRY @ CLASSIC LINES /// Hour After Happy Hour Followup

Today's post is transcribed from the notes of my twin who visited Classic Lines's Pretty Owl Poetry Spotlight Series today. I was at The Hour After Happy Hour Workshop, who reviewed and trashed my poetry. They said it didn't connect with them! for the most part. I get it.

Reading at the Spotlight Series were: Deena November, Kazumi Chin, Dakota R. Garilli, and Dan Nowak. Here's Rob (my twin)'s notes:

Deena:
"Dickwad" (the title of Deena's chapbook -ed) is from a graffiti (sic) on a bathroom stall- where all wisdom comes from. Her poetry is ephemeral & familiar with the grossness of life, while holding back little, including alcoholics, sex w/ 15 yr olds, being a mean mom. Her voice is subtlety poetry voice, almost too quiet, although her piece about birthing was very pushy.

Kazumi:
Entertaining, enthusiastically bashing race politics. Really he seems alienated by his body due to him understanding his own whiteness. He uses his hands to tell us the meter, and enthusiastically sways. He makes beautiful metaphors while staying political. Mostly he could write less but it's not his style. He is telling these beautiful stories that mostly are about hate & alienation. Funny though, & he has obsessions with Ariana Grande.

Dakota:
Nonfiction writer turned poet --a queer poet, not that it matters. He has a sense of humor that's quiet. His poems are sexual, tantalizingly so- while his masculinity keeps it in check. His voice is powerful, measured & aware of the tension in his poetry. People know not to laugh, yet they sit; encaptured by his words. His brevity at times leads to cliche & often it ends without flourish, but with a whimper.

Dan Nowak:
In the introduction, he asked the person reading his bio to lie about him. Then he told us he did that. He thinks he is reading a storybook, but he's forgotten to show us the pages. His voice fails to capture the weight of what's being said. He's funny though, he can talk about armadillos & leprosy.

Thanks to Rob Webb for that --poetryburgh@gmail.com

The Haven // Squirrel Hill Workshop @ Hem's

I spent part of last night at Lou's Little Corner Bar w/ The Haven people and the rest of it at Hem's for the readers from The Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop (or: the Squirrels).

The Haven: the group this week was four people not including me. It's an intimate space and they mostly workshop fiction, while drinking much beer and smoking a little pot, in the back porch of Lou's. Not much else to report besides that... I only stayed for ~30 minutes.

The Squirrell Hill Poetry Workshop: all the readers were either wearing orange or supposed to be wearing orange, in recognition of the issue of gun violence. There were about 13 readers! It was a long show! From what I've read Karen Lillis write about putting together a show, you probably should only have four or five; the event dragged, man! That's not to say the readers weren't good. There was a consistently high level of skill. Here are some of their last lines:

"Love is the loser in tennis, doesn't fare well in life either."
"Consider how even the most decisive action is mimicry"
"No longer chasing illusions of love/ I have had 20 years to value yours"
"We take things, not just because we have no money, but because we have parts missing."
"I regret nothing in my life, except I didn't stay in Paris with that other man"
"What is history but war? The rest is punctuation."
(Ann Curran, Erin Garstka, Christine Doreian Michaels, Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, Joanne Samraney, & Shirley Stevens)

Ziggy Edwards had a killer poem about Hansel & Gretel in space, and all of Shirley Stevens' poems were brutal. --poetryburgh@gmail.com

Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange--- the workshop @ brentwood library

Brentwood library is like a mile down Brownsville Rd and there's a poster about the "persecuted church" of Christianity above the waterfountain but it's a nice building located next to a nice high school campus with an outdoor street hockey rink. The workshop took place in the rec room below the library, a large basement-but-above-ground space full of book sale books, fooseball and air hockey tables and other churchy parephenalia that was very cozy. Does the PPE have ties to the church? Their second-to-last reading was at the South Side Presbyterian, albeit their latest one was at Hemingway's, so for now it's only my sneaking suspicion...

The group this week was 13 people, ages 60+ with a handful of exceptions, myself included. They are a delightful. intelligent, and capable group of workshoppers; informed digressions, such as the etymology of "normalcy" (at length!), were not uncommon. Michael Wurster is the bon roi of the group, hosting and contributing to and leading discussion; his work always goes last, and he is the only writer to actively defend his work, but he is pleasant and educated and fair and a great leader for the group.

The format is: everyone brings 16 copies of a poem to distribute during their turn and reads the poem aloud, once. Then everyone else gives feedback from that alone. Many workshops rely on email lists and the like to give everyone a chance to prepare responses, but the PPE does analysis by first impression. This gives the workshop a somewhat looser feel, a somewhat more informal and even playing field; everyone has to live by their wits so to speak and can only give the advice that is obvious enough to be formulated in a few minute's time. It also takes away the pressure of reading work before the event.

There was a mix of poems I personally liked and some I did not like; the group neither reserved judgement on controversial poems nor displayed passive-aggression or cruelty. There were strong opinions and tensions, particularly regarding one poem about elephant poaching, but those involved were mature enough to keep everything honest and respectable. It think it's the advantage of having an older group of people, that kind of maturity and above-the-board honesty, as well as the sheer education and experience; but there was also a great deal of energy in the room, it felt very productive.

I presented & read, too, and everyone loved my poem. My work, I think, was the least conventional of the bunch, I'd posit, so that might be both a) the thing distinguishing me from the group and b) the thing I'm bringing to the group... so often I feel like these two points are in conflict, I'm always looking for a group of poets who write like me who I can commiserate with... leveraging my own individuality against communities. What occurs to me is the advice given to me by members of the Haven last week: "you're looking for what you can get from the scene instead of what you can contribute." A continuing dilemma for poetryburgh... I'm going to go see the Haven ppl again tonight for their formal workshop and maybe some of the Hem's reading, so you'll hear about that --poetryburgh@gmail.com

Ben Gwin, Jennifer Bannan, Ben Stein, Michael T. Fournier @ East End

Host Karen Lillis introduced the night as "three novelists and a poet"; the poet was Ben Stein. Ben Stein reads with a lilting thick and high voice, and his poems covered everyday topics; many of these poems were from a collection of "Sunday Poems"; he and long-distance friends would send each other poems on Sunday.

"Either this cat think he's laundry,
or the half-empty hamper
is too warm to pass up"
- from "Apartment"

Ben Gwin and Michael Fournier both read fiction, in a way that really turns my dials: clear enunciation, slow and measured, stories about "fucking" or in the case of Mike, fast food service and "punching people in the face." All emotional rumination in their stories happened more or less in the context of action, and in simple-ish sentences. Mike did the voices of some of the characters-- these are all the qualities I would look for in performed poetry, a kind of conservancy of words, making an emotional impact with only a few tools. Plus they were both thirty-something-plus deep-voiced writers, reading stories about blunt subject matter, which as I said are just some things that I go for. And I'll honor that:  the writing that appeals to you immediately is the stuff that gets to the meat of what writing can be in our world.

I talked to Karen Lillis after the show in what was one of my most productive blog-network-conversations yet. She talked about composing and promoting readings, the trick thereof being inviting writers from several different "cliques", therefore bringing in several different audiences. Poetry in PGH is apparently made of "weird little bubbles" of people (this quote overheard from Ben Gwin in an adjacent convo). As I expressed to Karen, "it would be great for me [poetryburgh] just to know about all of those cliques." So, if anything, that's one good use of the blog part of this blog: I can verbally detail these different groups, come up with good ways of describing them, share my thoughts, document them, maybe make them a little less disparate, as Karen was doing.

I'm going to the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange workshop tonight, as I said I would, so I'll have more to share on that group of people and their sensibilities. --poetryburgh@gmail.com