Author Archives: Oscar Bermeo

culture is not a crime
Originally uploaded by Dawn Endico

Change.gov joins the Creative Commons movement:

Toward a 21st century government

President-elect Obama has championed the creation of a more open, transparent, and participatory government. To that end, Change.gov adopted a new copyright policy this weekend. In an effort to create a vibrant and open public conversation about the Obama-Biden Transition Project, all website content now falls under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

More here

This news comes right as I’m in the middle of Sound Unbound and really feeling the message that the more ways you can find to actively get your idea into the world, the better chance it has of actually becoming concrete. You would think this was simple enough and that poets would be the first ones behind this concept since
a) the vast majority of poets I know make more revenue from live readings/seminars/workshops than they do from the sales of their text
b) the art is based on the distribution of idea in an easily memorized structure
but then you have the case of British Poet Wendy Cope that declared You like my poems? So pay for them.

Cope makes a few good points but then fails to realize my other point
c) poets love to have their work taught
and that means most of the time a poem is photocopied out of a book or anthology (a No-No if you are following © down to the letter). I am sure Ms Cope can also make this demand: Want to teach one of my poems? Buy the whole damn book. But I do respect her stance and so you won’t find any of her work on this site.

Quick side note: If I ever do post a poem, MP3, or video that highlights you and you don’t want it displayed, lemme know and I’ll take it down. It’s already happened once, I was asked courteously, and so the media was deleted. Simple as that.

Back to sharing poetry: My own venture into gift economy has been working out pretty well with three used novels, one perfect bound chapbook, a bootleg John Legend CD, and a brand new hip-hop poetry CD to show for my efforts. I’m expecting a couple of more CDs and what has been described as a very rare poetry chapbook soon, but the coolness is being able to share the work with folks while still feeling like my poems are valued. Word.

Join us at the Koret Auditorium/San Francisco Main Library on Saturday, December 6 at 2:30pm for a book launching of Luisa Igloria’s Juan Luna’s Revolver (winner of the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry), and readings from Barbara Jane Reyes, Karen Llagas, Joi Barrios Reception will follow the reading event.

In the morning, come discuss and write poetry with multi-award winning poet Luisa A. Igloria and Karen Llagas in a half-day workshop to be held at the Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room A at the SF Main Library from 10:00am until 1:30pm.
Visit: http://www.pawainc.com/poetryworkshop1.html
for more information and registration. Fee of $35(student), $45/50(other) includes breakfast, light lunch and refreshments.

These events are part of the PAWA Arkipelago Author Reading and Workshop Series. The December 6 events are made possible by PAWA, Inc., the Filipino American Center of the San Francisco Main Library, Arkipelago Books, Poets & Writers, Inc.

November
Originally uploaded by Tuva Moen Holm

• Rooftop Piper by David Hernandez
• Involuntary Lyrics by Aaron Shurin
• When I Look at Pictures by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
• City of Buds and Flowers: A Poet’s Eye View of Berkeley edited by John Oliver Simon
• Big City Primer: Reading New York at the End of the Twentieth Century by John Yau (poet) and Bill Barrette (photographer)
• breaking poems by Suheir Hammad
• DC: The New Frontier, Vol. 1 by Darwyn Cooke
• Hip Hop Speaks to Children with CD: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat edited by Nikki Giovanni
• Rita and Julia by Jimmy Santiago Baca
• The Eight Stages of Translation by Robert Bly

This is Kerouac’s List of Essentials
Originally uploaded by ethernautrix

• Rich posts his own list of influences. Good stuff, especially his list of musical recordings. If there was one CD I would want my body of work to sound like, it would be Prodigy Present: The Dirtchamber Sessions Volume One. Just thought I’d share that.

• Latino Stories puts out its Top 10 “New” Latino Authors to Read. Nice to see one poet on this list, even if it is for fiction.

• Among the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2008 are Robert Bolaño’s 2666 and Juan Felipe Herrera’s Felipe Herrera’s Half of the World in Light.