Help Print The OWS Poetry Anthology!

 

I’ve started a campaign for printing the OWS Poetry Anthology, the goal is to raise $40,000. You can check out the fundraiser on indiegogo here.

The OWS Poetry Anthology was born the second week of the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Assembly. I was so overwhelmed by the diversity and greatness of the poems presented during the first week of the Assembly, that I knew the assembly must be archived. So at the second Poetry Assembly I asked the poets gathered if I could archive it, then I gave out my email, expecting only a few poems to show up in my inbox. The response was overwhelming, and in the weeks that followed, I received a steady stream of poems from people all over the world. It seemed everyone that had been struck by the Occupy Movement had something to say, and an open Poetry Anthology, that was open to all voices and all types of “poetry” seemed like the appropriate way of archiving the inclusive spirit of Occupy Wall Street.

Many names have contributed to the anthology, some of which you may know: the visual artist Molly Crabapple did the cover art and some of the more prominent poets that contributed are Adrienne Rich, Eileen Myles, Ngoma Hill, the Allen Ginsberg Society on behalf of Allen, Wanda Coleman, CA Conrad, Dodie Bellamy, Kevin Killian, Charles Bernstein, Eliot Katz, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lee Ann Brown, Anne Waldman, Puma Pearl, Danny Schechter, Stuart Leonard, Filip Marinovich, Ariana Reines, Frank Sherlock, and many many more…

The money donated to this project will allow for the OWS Poetry Anthology to be printed and given away to a lot of people. The more money the project receives, the more copies we will be able to print. The anthology has been open to anyone to send in poems of any size and definition since early October 2011. It’s over a thousand Microsoft Word pages. It’s probably the lengthiest, most inclusive text the Occupy Wall Street movement has yet produced and its a direct reflection of the SOUL of the movement. On April 14th, the Jefferson Market Library in Manhattan will be hosting the OWS Poetry Anthology community for an afternoon of open readings, where anyone can come and join and read a poem. To mark the occasion, we will be presenting the library with the first book print copy of the anthology for them to have on record. Also the money will go towards shipping and storage fees.

The Anthology is over a thousand pages, it’s a very big book. Originally I was going to ask for $50,000.00 as it’s going to be expensive to print this book and ship it. But in the interest of just getting copies into the world, I figured it was safer to shoot for $30,000.00. However, if the goal is met, and more money comes in, that will mean more copies can be printed. The more copies printed, the more people will be able to own it and the more special collections we will be able to get it into. By the time this project is completed, the NY Public Library and Poet’s House in NYC will already have copies in their collections. I’d like to get this important record into as many public collections as possible.

For the past few months I’ve been trying to persuade publishers to print the book in its entirety but it seems the values of this book do not mesh with the values of a publishing company, as we would like for this book to be given out to people freely and we would prefer not exclude any poets nor poems from its pages. So it seems the only way to keep the book, in all its magick, is to print it ourselves and to bring it to the people ourselves, and to read from its pages ourselves. This book is a radical departure from the traditional structure of the “anthology”, most anthologies are very selective, while this collection seeks to welcome all forms of poetry and engages in experiments like placing a famous poets poet next to a never before heard poet. What happens when you don’t exclude an idea and you let everyone encounter the idea? What happens when you print thousands of copies of a book of poetry and GIVE IT AWAY FREE?!

The poems that have comprised this anthology are poems from the soul, poems demanding a new world, poems begging that the recession end, poems from hysterical and starving peers, even poems from the 1% ready to argue against Occupy Wall Street, there are poems from the world over that is standing up virtually naked at the feet of a corporate beast, a war of David versus Goliath scope, and the people that have assembled and added to the OWS Anthology are ready to speak out against the atrocities destroying our Earth, fight back and create a future that can beget a future.

I read from and spoke about the Anthology on WBAI a little while back, you can listen to that program here. The Anthology has received a lot of press, from independent press to the Nation to the Wall Street Journal. So if you’re interested and unfamiliar with this project, search around the internet and you will find a lot of information about what we’ve been doing! Thank you!

In Memorium of Stacy Doris: The Cake Part

Recently the poetry community lost Stacy Doris. Last night at Lee Ann Brown’s home, a bunch of people gathered to remember Stacy. People read from her work and shared personal stories about the love and grace she brought into the world. It was a stunningly emotional night.

Stacy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She received her AB in literature and society from Brown University and an MFA in English and creative writing from the University of Iowa.

Her books include Knot (University of Georgia Press, 2006), Cheerleader’s Guide to the World: Council Book (Roof Books, 2006), Conference (Potes & Poets, 2001), Une Année à New York avec Chester (P.O.L., 2000), Paramour (Krupskaya, 2000), La vie de Chester Steven Wiener ecrite par sa femme (P.O.L., 1998), Kildare (Segue Foundation, 1994).

A translator from French and Spanish, she has co-edited anthologies of French writing in translation including Twenty One New (to North America) French Writers (1997) and Violence of the White Page (1991). She is also the translator of Dominique Fourcade’s Everything Happens (2000).

Doris has also published two short books written in collaboration with visual artists: Mop Factory Incident (with Melissa Smedley; Women’s Studio Workshop, 1996), and Implements (for Use) (with Anne Slacik).

She taught at several colleges and universities including the University of Iowa and Hunter College.

Stacy Doris died on February 1, 2012.

Before she passed, Stacy Doris sent many of her friends translations of French Pornographic works she uncovered from the French Revolution. She sent the texts to many of her friends with instructions to make a video. This project is called The Cake Part. After people read and shared Stacy Doris’s work at last nights event, a bunch of videos from The Cake Part were screened.

And here they are for your enjoyment:

Join Us: Tuesday and Thursday of This WEEK!!!

Tomorrow, January 24th 2012, the People’s Library requests everyone in solidarity with the library to join us at the Red Cube at 4pm. As many of you know, since the raid we’ve had quite a few encounters with NYPD and Brookfield Security resulting in the seizure of more books. It’s an outrage that books are being seized by the people in power and tomorrow at 4pm we are hoping you will join us and help us voice our outrage. We will require your participation for about an hour, and be sure to wear your walking shoes as we will be taking a little field trip… Join us as we fight against censorship and the seizure of books, and fight for the dissemination of knowledge and free literature. Please spread the word to all that are in solidarity with the People’s Library of Occupy Wall Street – Meet at the Red Cube at 4pm SHARP! January 24th 2012 at 4pm!

On Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at The Bowery Poetry Club from 5:00pm-7:30pm the Poetry Collective of Occupy Wall Street invites you to share your poems at our Winter Poetry Assembly. We imagine a kind of poetry town hall meeting where EVERYONE can assemble together and share words. This event is FREE.

The way Poetry Assemblies operate: show up, put your name in a hat, and eventually you’ll be called. This method is used to show that there is no hierarchy in determining the order.

Please choose a poem no longer than 3 minute. The Bowery Poetry Club has generously waived the usual entrance fee (it’s free!), but not the whiskey fee, which is understandable given the crowd.

Remember these devastatingly beautiful nights!!!

Poet Michael O’Brian

I met Michael while living in Liberty Sq. Michael is amazing. Hope you’re well Michael! Stumbled on these videos on youtube and brought back some sweet memories!

Ziad Ghanem Revolutionizes London Fashion Week

This past London Fashion Week I dipped my toes into the fashion world as part of Ziad Ghanem’s show at the Freemason’s Hall, copies of my book GHOSTS were on every seat of the front row for all the fabulous glitterati to get their hands on as I werrrrked the runway. I feel so blessed to have been part of Ghanem’s show. His shows are so much more than fashion, they incorporate theatricality, performance and now poetry…

Here are the official details:

The profound and yet touching Polish film Matka Joanna od aniolów (Mother Joan of the Angels) provides the inspirational backdrop to Ziad Ghanem’s Spring / Summer 2012 ready to wear collection.

An interplay of good and evil, black and white; a dark tale unfolds of a nun processed by demons and where love and sacrifice provide her only salvation. Poetic and high on emotion Ziad references the film throughout the show and in his styling.

Silhouettes are kept close to the body with structured curve-enhancing corsetry while silk organza and Italian vintage fabrics provide texture and opulence. Sensual and erotic there is more than a nod to temptation while the monochrome colour palette bleeds into vibrant reds, pinks and peaches.

The antithesis to a straight up and down catwalk show worn by roster of same-size models Ziad openly embraces the unique by casting a broad range of individuals to model his designs. Characters this season will include the performance artist CHOKRA, who also specially composed the music, while the show, much like the collection, will be brimming in provocative drama.

CHOKRA composes Second_to_NUN.wav a 22 minute art work in digital and analogue sound for ZIAD GHANEM’s catwalk extraordinaire MATKA JOANNA Spring/Summer 2012. Second_to_NUN.wav features CHOKRA’s audio compositions of What are you? and Z for Ziad synthesized with fragmented speech, binaural field recordings and the programmed filters of “exotica.”

Ziad Ghanem’s demi couture/ready to wear collection will be exclusively available in selected stores all over the world.

OCCUPY WALL STREET: POETRY ASSEMBLY

Travis Holloway and I each held cardboard signs reading, “POETRY ASSEMBLY“. Jennifer Blowdryer collected names in a box. Everyone and anyone could add their name to the box to read. Name cards were pulled at random to avoid favoritism and nepotism. We wanted a democratization of the poet’s platform, to create a space where headliners were equal to unknown poet’s. Major poet’s like Eileen Myles and Ariana Reines joined poet’s who had never made their voices heard. Filip Marinovich began the reading with a poem entitled “Funny Numbers (dedicated to the great gay poet Tim Dlugos)”. Maybe two or three poet’s read before the rain came pouring down. Everyone huddled in closer together, I pulled an opened cardboard box that had been made into a sign reading “POETRY ASSEMBLY” over Adam Fitzgerald and my own head. The rain came harder and harder but a core group of people remained undeterred by the rain and continually shared poem’s. People were supposed to read no longer than 3 minutes but some went over the suggested time limit while others were quite brief. The poem’s read ranged in style, emotion, content but all shared a desire for solidarity. The poem itself may not have expressed solidarity but the poet’s actions did. We continued to read our poems as the torrential downpour came down for close to an hour. People from all over the world shared. Some poet’s used the peoples mic since we were not allowed to use technological amplifiers. Other’s didn’t feel their poems could be portrayed using the peoples mic as their poems flow would be tarnished, so they did their best to speak louder so that the people occupying Wall Street would hear their cry.

The Poetry Assembly will continually be held every Friday night until the giants we are fighting adhere to our demands. Anyone can organize a reading or event as long as it is done through consensus with those present. We would like to be the community we seek. Please respect everyone through the use of a vote. Ask for permission from others to speak. Listen to one another. Let everyone’s voice be heard. In doing so, we’ll perform not only poetry but true, participatory democracy.

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect …our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known…

MASHA TUPITSYN: VIA THE SCREEN

Interview with Masha Tupitsyn on her new book LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film.

How do you prefer to watch movies? Do you think the way in which you watch a film contributes to your reaction to it?

The film critic Pauline Kael wrote: “When one considers the different rates at which people read, it’s miraculous that films can ever solve the problem of a pace at which audiences can ‘read’ a film together.’” It’s funny, a lot of people react to that line in LACONIA—where I write about watching movies alone. It’s like blasphemy when it comes to cinema. But it’s true. I do prefer to watch movies alone, for a lot of different reasons. I think they come in a different way when you watch them alone. When you do anything alone. I also started watching movies that way as a kid, and the way you start is maybe the way you always stay. I am really selective about who I watch movies with, so I had like movie friendships. Friendships that were based on watching movies together and talking about them. But I’ve moved away from that more and more, and DVDs and streamed movies only exacerbate my tendency. And since I’m also someone who writes about movies, I have particular tics and ways of watching them that would irritate someone who’s just trying to watch a movie for (uninterrupted) “pleasure,” because I’m constantly interrupting the cinematic fold, so to speak. Or maybe I’m never even in it in the way that a traditional viewer is supposed to be, which doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it intensely. Where you don’t talk while a movie is playing. You don’t stop and start a movie. Go back, go forwards. Re-watch. Watch a movie too late or over a period of 2 days. But for me it’s less about watching and more about working through a film: what it’s doing, what it’s trying to do, what it’s showing, what it’s not showing. What it does to me. What it does to the world it’s in as well the world that’s in a film. The world it makes and that makes a film possible.

There are two quotes about cinema from Steve Erickson‘s novel Zeroville that I always think about. The first is: “Last night, the movie became mine and no one else’s.” Which is the idea that there is a kind of alchemy between a film (the true or secret film that is underneath the false film, as Erickson says repeatedly, which is the one everyone watches together—the “official film—at the same time. The film you’re meant to read in a certain way) and a viewer, so that cinema is also about who’s watching it—the chemistry between a particular film and a particular viewer, at a particular time, and that, like a book, has an ideal reader that contributes to the meaning and existence of that book, and the writer who writes it—a film needs the right pair of eyes to really see it.

The second quote from Zeroville that applies to what we’re talking about is: “The thing is, that movie last night is a completely different movie when you watch it by yourself. Why is that? Movies are supposed to be watched with other people, aren’t they? Isn’t that part of the point of movies—you know, one of those social ritual things, with everyone watching? It never occurred to me that a movie might be different when you don’t watch it with anyone else.” Having said this, it’s important to distinguish the critical, discerning, and radical intimacy between a viewer and a film from a kind of purely fetishistic and possessive relationship to images that is dangerous and titillating and alienating, and which Michael Haneke so brilliantly conjures in Benny’s Video, for example. And with Pablo Larraín’s Tony Manero. Where images are used to feel less, not more. Where images are used to cut us off from knowing what things really even feel like in the real world—off the screen. To engage with the real world less, or only via the screen. So that Benny thinks killing a pig, or watching a pig get killed, is the same thing as killing a girl in real life, in his house.

What I’m interested in now is an evolution of what I’ve always been interested in when it comes to film: The cinematic subjunctive. That is, the relationship between what’s possible in the cinema (how the cinema influences and/or hijacks our idea of possibility and potentiality) and what’s possible or not possible in real life—the gap(s) in between and what those gaps do to and mean for us—for our hopes, desires, and dreams; whether they limit and expand them, whether they hold them hostage in cinematic space, and how one—offscreen vs. onscreen—affects, shapes, and confuses the other. How they overlap and blur. Rub up against each other and clash. Sometimes even cancel each other out. Which is, in many ways, what I’ve been looking at all along—in LACONIA, Beauty Talk & Monsters, and Life As We Show It. For me, the real question is always: What do images want and what do we want from images? But not just from images when we look at them, but what wants of ours are stored in and reflected back to us (often unconsciously) by/through images—films? And can we access and live those wants and desires unless they are mediated and contained by images? How do images mediate and contain us? And more, how do we live because of movies? For as Geoffrey O’Brien writes in his book about movies, Phantom Empire: “If only it had been possible to live like this.” This is what every movie is always engaging with and putting us in touch with—if only it were possible to have this, to want this, to be this. Because as O’Brien also points out: “It wasn’t narrative that drew them but the spaces that the narratives permitted to exist.”

What is your favorite period in film history?

It varies culturally, of course. Whether it’s European cinema or Third World Cinema or avant-garde cinema. But in American cinema, it’s the 1930s and 1970s. With the 1930s, you have this athletic, dexterous, and energetic attention to language. To the elliptical way people talk and feel. Their rigorous back and forth—a sign of tenacity—of not being able to let something or someone go. I think one of the great things about the screwball comedies of yesteryear (and there are many) is their velocity, because that speed and energy and attention have to do with the quantity and quality and intensity of feeling and interaction and desire. In the 1930s, as Geoffrey O’Brien writes, “a movie was a completed destiny,” which has so much to do with the motif of time and memory; the way the characters live in and through and for time. So there’s this wonderful cadence and rhythm to everything. To the way things are felt and said and done. And in the 70s, you had the recognition of social reality and what it does to people’s lives. You had incredible doubt and skepticism and suspicion of dominant power structures, so that for a moment there was a sense that things could change politically and socially.

What’s your biggest critique of the industry?

Exactly that—industry. The way everything gets turned into industry these days, including people. I think Beauty Talk & Monsters really answers that question though.

In Aporia: The Annual Akilah Oliver Memorial Reading

The annual Akilah Oliver Memorial Reading honors the memory of Lang professor Akilah Oliver, a radical poet, feminist, and activist. The first of this annual reading series, this event will feature the work of work of Oliver’s contemporaries Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Rachel Levitsky and Lang Alum, Lauren Nicole Nixon, along with Oliver’s former students Erik Freer, Karl Leone and Kaley Foley.

September 12, 2011 at 7pm
Lang Café, Eugene Lang College
65 W 11th street

Rachel Levitsky is the author of Under the Sun (Futurepoem 2003), NEIGHBOR (UDP 2009) and the forthcoming novel,The Story of My Accident is Ours (Futurepoem 2011 or 2012). She is also the author of seven or eight chapbooks, most recently a prose work, Renoemos (Delete Press 2010). Levitsky teaches Writing and Literature at Pratt Institute, Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program, Poets House and Bard Prison Initiative. She is a member of Belladonna* Collaborative–a hub of feminist avant-garde literary action: www.belladonnaseries.org. Four of her mini-essays on Confinement can be found online: http://poetryproject.org/tag/rachel-levitsky. With Christian Hawkey and a bunch of their students, she recently opened The Office of Recuperative Poetics, a mobile installation of cultural recollection and reanimation.

Julian Talamantez Brolaski is the author of gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2011) and several chapbooks. Advice for Lovers is forthcoming from City Lights in spring 2012. Julian lives in Brooklyn where xe is an editor at Litmus Press and plays country music with Juan & the Pines (www.reverbnation.com/juanandthepines). New work is on the bloghermofwarsaw.

Lauren Nicole Nixon is a Brooklyn-based artist representative and poet. Nixon holds an M.A. in Arts Politics from NYU and a B.A. in Dance and Culture/Media Studies from The New School. Recent and forthcoming work is published in Bone Bouquet, The Tulane Review, apt, 491, Jelly Bucket, No, Dear and In Posse. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Erik Freer is an undergraduate student at The New School in the dual degree program pursuing a BFA from Parsons the New School for Design in Communication Design and a BA from Eugene Lang College the New School for the Liberal Arts in Writing. At Parsons his focus is on Information, Print, and Typography and at Lang his focus is on Poetry and Play writing, with a minor in Japanese. Erik possesses a deep interest in ideas of mapping (or un-mapping) and the visual representation of information. Erik dedicates his spare time to any and everything cultural and creative he can produce and experience.

Kailey Foley is a poetry major in her third year at Lang. She resides and works in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which is often detrimental to her health if not instrumental to her writing. Her favorite poetry includes that of Charles Bukowski and the female Language poets. She spends most of her time composing 90’s power-hour playlists and thinking about syntax. Kailey has had pieces published in Voice and Moth Mouth literary magazines and online at Spillway publications. Cool, whatever.

Karl Leone is a junior at Eugene Lang College of The New School and is honored to be taking part in this fall’s reading honoring his dear friend, mentor, and teacher Akilah Oliver. As an actor, Karl’s New York stage credits include “Marat/ Sade,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Laramie Project,” and “Undermilkwood. 4 Recent film credits include “Keep the Lights On” dir. Ira Sachs and “Going Out” dir. Leah Samuel. Most recently, Karl has been concentrating on the genre of poetic drama and is developing a play called “Our Aporia” influenced on the writings of Oliver’s “A Toast in the House of Friends.”

Check Out Kevin Killian’s Amazon Review Poems

“How does one review a legendary reviewer such as Kevin Killian?” I asked myself after reading his newly published collection, Amazon Review Poems? To be honest, the only real answer I could give myself was, “you just fucking do it.” So here goes:

Kevin Killian, for those of you unaware folks, is a cult icon in the experimental writing world. He’s published essays and art critiques, has a stack of published poetry, runs a poetry zine, writes for numerous publications, has written countless plays, short stories and novels and even has biographies under his belt, yet, he still somehow manages to find the time to be one of the top reviewers on amazon.com and he’s probably out of those ten the best.

Needless to say, Kevin is a genius. He’s probably written more words than there are seconds I’ve lived and all of the words he’s fastened together are poignant, all full of worth. I used to have the luxury of living in close proximity to Kevin. During some of this time I studied under him and like to say he’s just as genteel a guy as his poetry makes him out to be. That said, he’s also at times devilishly funny, with the ability to make you cry and scratch your head as you ponder the insightful new thought he’s cleverly dressed up and illuminated for your pleasure. Kevin is a man of pleasure and the world, and his amazon reviews insightfully open eyes to such far ranging subjects as the occult magickal teachings of Aleister Crowley and Highland 1039500 Black Rainproof Car Top Carrier and Duffel Bag. Kevin is such a reliable, unreliable narrator, that readers must question whether or not his interactions with the subject matter is truthful every step of the way. In one sense, this book proves just how connected people are to their things, and to the world around them, and I’m talking in both the metaphysical sense and the hoarder sense, just as this book calls into question the reliability of the Internet. Most importantly of all, Kevin repeatedly proves that it is of little consequence whether his stories bare truth, for truth to Kevin is a fiction. What is fundamentally at the heart of his reviews is his desire to interact with the world, to be the world, to become so much a part of the world that the incalculable amount of subject matter the world possesses lives through him. Surely to have written so many reviews on such wide-ranging topics proves Kevin’s sensibilities are overflowing. These poems can be read as refined poetic gestures to the authors, books, and films that inspire them or this book can be read as a subversive assault on the nature of poetry. Can something as mundane and free-for-all as an amazon review be considered poetry? I’m sure academics are shaking their heads as Kevin proves again his ability to defy literary notions. Who was it that said literature is way behind in terms of progressing when compared to other art forms? Obviously they had never read Kevin Killian. And if you haven’t you really really should click here.

Love, Lust, and Loss: An Interview With Shane Allison

Bent Boy Book‘s latest publication “Remembered Men” by Shane Allison is a must read for all lovers of experimental narrative and/or gay sex. The book is an adventure into gay life told in exquisite lyrics of love, lust, and loss, “Remembered Men” is a must read in the post everything period of the forever now. A long poem in the great tradition of American erotic poetry, this is a roller coaster ride in which you’re always getting off but never exiting the ride. Once the book is opened the eyes and soul soar into a world wherein the individual is transposed upon the collective, every cock it’s own and every cock the world. This book and Shane Allison reinforce the power in chapbooks.

Shane Allison has authored six chapbook collections of poetry including Ceiling of Mirrors, Black Fag, Cock and Balls, I Want to Fuck a Redneck, I Want to Eat Chinese Food Off Your Ass, and Eros in a Tearoom. His first volume of poetry, Slut Machine is available from Queer Mojo. He edits gay erotic fiction anthologies for Cleis Press, Rebel Satori Press and Bold Stroke Books. His erotic fiction has been published in Velvet Mafia, Las Vegas Noir, Best Black Gay Erotica, Best Gay Bondage, and five editions of Best Gay Erotica. He is at work on a new collection of poetry and a sex memoir.

Last night I was a little drunk and a little facebook happy, and I managed to connect with Shane and we composed an “interview” via facebook messages. I was a little sloppy during the process so forgive and be sure to get a copy of Remembered Men!