synonymUS at the Nuyorican, Wednesday, Aug 17th

synonymUS presents Pepatian with choreographers
CHRISTAL BROWN/ INSPIRIT Dance Company
MARION RAMIREZ and ALICIA DIAZ
ANTONIO RAMOS
COURTNEY FRENCH/VISSI Dance CO

at the legendary NUYORICAN POETS CAFE

Wednesday, August 17 7-9pm

Open Form@ begins at 7. Come and evolve your work
with the musicians of synonymUS, followed by an
improvised interpretive dance feature by the dancers
of Pepatian, including poetry by some of your favorite
Nuyorican and Nuyoworkin poets.

LOCATION:
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
236 East 3rd St, btwn Avenues B&C
Admission: $7

FOR MORE INFO:
synonymUS – http://www.louderarts.com/synonymus/
Pepatian – http://pepatian.org/
Nuyorican Poets Café – http://nuyorican.org/

nps 2005: opening day reception


nps 2005: opening day reception
Originally uploaded by oscarb.

it’s on like pancakes with syrup!

poetic dream has a ton of new images from nationals. david says he snapped over 11,000 images this year! the pics from the opening reception are up with this gem right here:

el profe & ob atop the pyramid of yaffa (inside joke bell) right next to the new mexíco dusk

back to the grind

now that i am back from nats i can (hopefully) turn away from slam for a minute and concentrate back on poetry. as a detox from all the lynchings, monkey knife fights, oversized ballerinas and theatrics from the last week i have re-read “Book of My Nights” damn, i musta been like a plant out of water for months cuz i ripped through it in record time. found this particular gem where stanzas 1-5 are so eeringly familiar to me right now, its not even funny. i am a bit perplexed by the ending but maybe that revelation will have to wait for a few months, or maybe never. i dont want every poem in the world to make sense to me. i dont want to be told exactly how to feel and what to think- thats a monologue. poetry should always be a dialogue between the poet & the reader. call me ole school and let me wonder at the complexities of a fated man.

Fill and Fall
from Li-Young Lee's "Book of My Nights"

As long as night is one country
on both sides of my window, I remain a face
dreaming a face

and trace the heart's steep path: Night
and falling.
There's no place

my hand, full of its own going away,
ever found along a body
falling beside me.

And the way to the crowning grapes lie sealed
to all but one who's heard
what nights are for: Falling,

as water falls
to fill and fall, overwhelming
basin after basin,

as each must kneel
inside himself to find
the tiered slopes
only brimming masters.

Li-Young Lee

nps 2005: end nats

alternate title ‘no sleep till brooklyn’

a ton of us are leaving on the red eye which means we have to leave the hotel at about 4am and finals ends around midnite and that all equals Big Booty all nite long. (Big Booty bein a kinda camp game involvin some dancin, some sound off and tons of alkeehol) some poetry tag was goin down as well but the snob in me was waiting to get the call that the No Whackness Reading was goin on. maybe the call did come but i have been pretty anti-social which is my norm for nats. i’d rather meet two or three really cool people than go around hand shakin anybody with a poets badge and makin sure they know my name… not my type of hype, y’all.

no late night talk of gov’t oppression or DNA sampling tonight. i head to the room to pack my bags and veg out in front of the tv. find a mailbox, grab some food, check out the pool and pass out for all of 20 mins as the alarm goes off.

get to the airport on time and the louderCREW just refuses (ding!) to let go of the fun vibe of abq. we snap on each other in the shuttle van to the airport (shut up, don goyo!) and after checkin in & requisite security check, congegrate by a common gate and get stoopid all over again. let your inner hatah loose!

the return trip was uneventful. i finally wrote a poem on the trip. a five page hand written epic that will probably get whittled down to haiku when its all over but still some good stuff.

ima miss burque and can see myself comin back one day jus to enjoy the sun, altitude and sopapilllas (fried sweet dough wit honey) hella happy with the tat which is healin as if i had an adamantium skeleton.

new york is humid, loud, crowded and dirty but still remains my first love.

live from the city of constant sirens,
ob

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nps 2005: end day five

in the ‘who are you? and what did you do with ob?!’ files: by 6am i was already having breakfast and writing by poolside as the sun was coming up over ‘burque. there were 20 or so slammers already up as well but it was more like ‘just got in’ than “just got up” kinda thing. an overcast sky gave me a less than postcard dawn but anytime you can greet the sun, you should take it. thats what ima miss most, how close the sun is in new mexico like a mothers cheek.

slamfamily meeting at 11. another well run gathering (thank you, scott woods) with a minimum of slam theatrics. afterwards, i hit the room for some reading and another shower/costume change then the hunt was on- time for a tattoo. i was tellin rich the week before that we should be open to the possibility…
(ron burgundy voice: activate) Rich, I’m going to put this out there. If you like it, keep it. If not, then just throw it back. (Anchorman clip: off)

anyhoo, i went searching for a tat parlor cuz the time was now. of course, i had NO idea what i as going to get which flipped the acentas out. then again, i did just sneak up and give em a heart attack a sec before so that may have had some thing to do with the fact that they kept callin me DUM.

found the ink spot. settled on a design. made an appointment. walked around a bit. appointment pushed back. went back to the hotel. costume change. returned. appointment pushed back. ob ready to choke a beech.

at this point i returned to my zen- something always has to go wrong, better its this then the tat artist saying “oops!” tu sabes?

i’ll post a jpg of the image i settled on later. i dont think i will be postin pics of the actual tat. seems kinda personal at this point.

as soon as im done with the body art, its time to head over for slam finals. once again, the lAp is reppin strong. i catch most of the indy competition (congrats anis!) till my knee starts feelin a lil funny and then i pull a disappearing act for the next hour. i return to see the end of the team competition, watch as burque takes the crown in their own hometown (a first in the 12 year history of nps) and then here comes the drama!
“NPS we know drama”

some of the losing teams heard booing when they were being intro’ed. (i couldnt hear it where i was sitting) a competitor took it upon themselves to invoke the words of danny solis and then use them to trash danny’s hometown by sayin that the people of burque had “no home training” ya know, that was kinda tasteless being that burque in general and danny in particular have treated everyone like royalty but the real shit is when said rep and some team members cross their arms above their heads in protest as team burque attempts to celebrate. the protest continues even as ken rodriguez announces that the one underage member of the team will finally get to recite a poem. the protesters are practically chased off stage and now danny is pissed. straight up. he tries to salvage the night by goin somewhere few would challenge by citing his personal love and devotion to slam. he then brings back the other teams to thunderous applause (not everyone came back). did this ruin nats? close but no cigar. ya knew something had to go wrong during the actual competition and it all got pushed back to finals night. i am sure some will side with the protesters but the majority of the support will go to danny & albuquerque. at least my support does.

time to get ready to go home. we take off at 7am so we need to be at the airport by 5. oh lawdy.

love ya like el corazon ama a aztlan

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