Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
Poetry Reading and Chapbook Release with Truong Tran’s Writing Workshop
featuring Maile Arvin, Oscar Bermeo, Eleanore Fernandez, Janell Moon, Nirmala Nataraj, Victoria Ngo, Lucie Parker, Michelle Ryan

Join KSW and Truong Tran’s KSW summer 2006 poetry writing workshop for a poetry reading and release of the next in KSW’s chapbook series, with original cover illustration and design by noted cartoonist and APAture 2006 featured artist Thien Pham.

Date/Time: Tuesday, November 14th , 2006; 7 – 9pm

Location: KSW’s space180, 180 capp street, @ 17th street, San Francisco

Cost: $5

Info: sam@kearnystreet.org; 415.503.0520; www.kearnystreet.org

ima transcribe this as best i can. all ya need to know is that it
happened at the corner grocery store at 7am in the rain as i wait for
my bus to bring me to work.

[Fiction was here. Can now be found at Achiote Seeds, Vol 2 and Points Not Found (Kearny Street Press, 2006).]

good discourse is still going on amongst my new york people as they rush to get their NYFA apps out on time. i wish them all love & short lines at the post office.

here in the bay, i met up with some peeps from the kearney street workshop to help with edits and tryin to produce new work. currently, i am at a stall. like a bird falling from the cornice of a building, wings out, knowing theres an air current and waiting for it to meet up with me. ok, not a bird, just a plain ole pigeon but ya get the deal. that little attempt at being poetic is just to say that i need to light a serious flame under me and make the work happen.

but all was not lost as i read some dope poetry that just gave me a glimpse of a scene between real people and let me overhear some dialogue that was all kinds of real. that and i may have formed a new collectiev: Mimes Who Refuse To Be Silent. we are taking the title of Mime back from the pretenders or sumthin.

and, just like that, you have experienced your jackass moment of the day.

spent a good time today trading emails with the louderARTISTS and friends. the posse has come back from the dodge poetry festival with quite a mix of stories. the exchanges were a mix of poetic discourse, cantankerous jackassery and plain ole love.

the consensus seems to be that mark doty is the troof (yeah, thats how you spell it) and that people who go over time are NOT

and the poet Ko Un is the hotness, with or without an interpreter

love ya like if i hiked through the woods in fifty degree weather to hear ya poems

One day
I thought it was a visitor.

One day
I thought it was the master.

Over the years
I dreamed of the smoke
Coming from the chimneys

I still do not know who the poem is.

© Ko Un

just breezed through ishmael reed’s very excellent Blues City: A Walk in Oakland reed focuses quite a bit on jerry brown’s term as oakland mayor and his proposal to bring 10,000 new residents to oaktown and its effect on the current population. part political attack / part walking memoir / part historical journey, blues city was a great stroll through the history of oaktown which, to me, seems like the place people come to (re)invent themselves. yeah, i’m down with that.

on the aborted reading side is Arthur Rimbaud: Complete Works by paul schmidt. i am interested in rimbaud because
a) hes french (always looking for alternatives to english-american & british poetry)
b) hes a prodigy
c) he has a few poems that directly examine the concept of city
sadly, his poetry is hella dense for me and i havent been able to make it all the way to when he actually starts writing about city so i may just jump straight there.

also looking forward to finishing pat rosal’s My American Kundiman (we were able to score a super advanced copy in exchange for good stories and scotch. well, not really, but thats how i’ll tell the story) and Puerta del Sol by francisco aragón

now, just out of curiosity (and to see who is still checkin out ye olde blog): what is everybody else reading?