Many thanks to the Editors of Kulupi Press for awarding Anywhere Avenue with an Honorable Mention in their “Sense of Place” chapbook contest. Big-ups to Kate Chadbourne, the Finalists and other Honorable Mentions as well.

2007 Winner – “Sense of Place” Chapbook Contest

Congratulations to Kate Chadbourne of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, whose work, Fisherman, Fatherman, was selected as the winner of Kulupi Press’s 2007 “Sense of Place” chapbook contest.

We were very impressed by the overall quality of entries this year, which featured locales from inner-city America to the far reaches of the globe. Picking a winner from the 130 submissions was not an easy task. After much deliberation, we chose Fisherman, Fatherman for its high poetic quality, the unique way it developed a sense of place through the poet’s family experiences and relation-ships, and the strong sense of the person behind the words.

Finalists, in alphabetical order:
Dreamtime by Cliff Bernier
Penobscot Voices: Kikukus by Michael Campagnoli
My Homeland by Jennifer Greene
Nearing Chernobyl by Katherine Young

Honorable mention, in alphabetical order:
Anywhere Avenue by Oscar Bermeo
Drowning in the Desert by Mikki Mendelsohn
To the Opposite Shore: China Poems by Kenneth Parsons

Thank you to all the poets for participating and entrusting us with your worthy work. We found it well crafted, thoughtful, and inspiring to us as publishers, editors, writers, and readers. We look forward to seeing more of it in the coming years, as we remain committed to publishing words of place.

“A place is not a place until it has a poet.”
— Wallace Stegner

www.kulupi.com

slamming at the nuyorican poets café
Originally uploaded by geminipoet

Every once in a while, I really get that deep urge to write about poetry slam but the urge goes by the way side quickly when I keep in mind some key plus and minus points:

(+) I did slam for almost two years in NYC (one of the most competitive scenes in the country).
(-) I did moderately well in those slams.
(+) I qualified for the Semi-Finals at Bar13 louderARTS.
(-) I came in dead last at that Semi-Final bout
(+) but experienced duende on stage for the first time.
(+) Received two invitations to compete at the Friday night slam at the Nuyorican Poets Café.
(-) Came in second-to-last place both times.
(+) Slammaster for two years at louderARTS.
(-) I became slammaster because of my ability to compute numbers, remembering which poems were performed over the course of a year and getting in timely paperwork; it had very little to do with my mastery over slam. And Yes, I think the title is silly sounding.
(+) Coaching Team Acentos for the NYC Regional Slam in 2003, 04 and 05.
(+) Team Acentos consistently delivering great poems that worked on and off the slam stage.
(+) Connecting with poets from across the country at the National Poetry Slam (NPS).
(+) Road tripping to my first NPS in 2002.
(+) In my first year at NPS, sac-goating (Slam jargon for a non-competing poet who is judged first in order to give the judge and audience an idea of what the scoring process is like) for a San Francisco vs Chicago vs Boston vs Los Angeles bout.
(+) Hosting an NPS bout.
(+) Being included in the 2003 NPS Poetry Anthology.
(-) Enduring through a ton of bad slam poems in order to heard one good poem.
(Double -) Griping to the choir about said bad poems.
(+) Being invited to be a part of the Rules Committee for the 2005 NPS.
(-) As member of said committee, witnessing first hand the petty arguments concerning the competition.

Luckily, that last negative is not my last image of Nationals or slam. For the most part, my memories involve a lot of good camaraderie and some damn good poems. And of those good poems, only a very few are mine which is why I walked away from slam, it wasn’t helping me write better poems.

Uhhhm, looks like I did write that post about slam after all. ;-)

Well, if you want some more insights regarding the National Poetry Slam from some one who actually made a slam team, appeared on Def Poetry, is widely anthologized and an adjunct lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University, then you should check out Tara Bett’s guest post over at Tayari Jones’ spot.

Went to the Mutanabbi Street Memorial Reading this past Sunday mostly because of the announced lineup, which included some stellar poets who I know by reputation but have not heard read.

Yes, I still put a lot of personal value on a good live poetry reading, probably because that is the environment where I was first able to engage and be engaged by contemporary poetics. Even as I continue investing my energies into publication; studying (and occasionally being stumped) techniques surrounding line break, meter and white space; reading more and more authors who have mastered the previously mentioned techniques; I still feel that all these energies lead back to the origin point of reading the poem to a live audience.

The pitfall of the above statement is that a poet can then only be measured by how good they are at their last reading as opposed to looking at their entire history of letters. A proposition that is not only unfair but also risky for the poet since there are a variety of factors that are completely out of their control in a live reading. Of course, that risk can payoff in some deep rewards.

The live reading at the San Francisco Public Library was full of risk for the readers in attendance: how do you balance bringing to light the tragic events of Mutanabbi Street at a poetry reading and also your privilege as a writer living in America in the forefront? Maybe not the question the readers had in mind but a question that lingers with me whenever I attend a reading where art takes a charged political role.

I am happy to say that many of the poets dazzled me with well thought out pieces – poems, essays and/or cover poems – and just enough commentary to add a personal perspective to the aftermath of the Mutanabbi car bombing alongside some urgency in their reading.

Sadly, I did not find those details in Jane Hirshfield’s reading. From her first poem, describing a poet who can not get their words out to the world (a poem that left me wondering if she was talking about a writer in Iraq or someone in the US who doesn’t have access or can not find the mentorship/venue that can help them share their words), to her poem that stops abruptly with a grammatically inaccurate ending symbolizing those who have no say when their poems end. Again, is this a poet whose voice has been prematurely snuffed by an act of violence or someone who cannot get their poem past the first round slushpile? I also ask if that abrupt ending is something that happens a half-a-world away or part of the random violence I’ve been surrounded by my whole life in the United States?

Hirschfield was going to share another poem regarding world violence but deferred since devorah major had already shared a poem regarding Dafur. This left enough time to recite a poem written on (insert dramatic pause) September 14, 2001 (end with second dramatic pause). At this point I wanted to stand up and ask “Well, why is that date so important?” because that is how talked down to I was feeling. It all ends with a poem neatly wrapped it all up as Hirschfield reminisces on her Narcissus blooming in Mill Valley, the same way they bloom in this trouble-filled world.

While I did feel that Ms. Hirschfield’s poems were sound and lyrically rich, I also felt that they belonged in the same category as the empty protest poems I have heard at many open mics, poems invested in the political sensibilities of the writer and the popular stance embedded in their poems, which means that if I don’t agree with the sentiment and/or craft of the poems, then I must be supporting the terrible politicial (in)actions that helped birth the poem in the first place.

On a similar note, I felt that devorah major’s poems where steeped in anger but I never knew exactly what I was supposed to be angry about.

Flipping over to the positive side of things, I loved Bob Gluck’s reading. His choice of personal essay regarding him “home” in books was perfect for this reading and it was delivered with energy, wit and presence. Jack Hirschman shared poems from an Iraqi poet that proved that some poets do have a say as to where their poems end and how they get to the rest of the literary world. Genny Lim crafts her own histories into her poems with a voice that is aware in the everyday and in the rituals of the past. George Evans shared poems from Daisy Zamorra and his own that built, syllable by syllable, in intensity. And the poems of Michael Palmer were succinct, politically engaging and shifted seamlessly from the madmen that rule the world, to the madmen who let it happen, to the birds that will go on regardless.

Much to love and much to consider at a reading that left me wondering what poems I would choose and how important is that choice but also making sure that we properly communicate those poems to the world.

In Bermeo’s aesthetic cartography, the South Bronx becomes an unlocatable place—that is, a site of contesting representations. If no one knows where the South Bronx begins or ends, then its borders becomes determined by the “sweet recklessness” of our own individual mirrors.

The full review can be found here: galatearesurrection7.blogspot.com/2007/08/anywhere-avenue-by-oscar-bermeo.html