This is NOT Zeno’s Roost

“	That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.	”
—Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10

Some of you may be familiar with Zeno’s Paradox, which says movement is impossible.  Before you can get from point a to point b you have to get to the halfway point. And before you get to that half way point, you have to get earlier half way. And the one before that. And the one before that. Things keep chopping up so small and halved, that movement is impossible.

REALITY WORKS DIFFERENTLY, AT LEAST WHEN IT COMES TO THE ROOST. WE HAVE NOW MADE IT TO THE HALFWAY POINT IN THIS 8 WEEk SERIES OF MUSIC AND POETRY AND THIS BLOG POST IS NOTHING BUT A WARNING THAT IF YOU DON’T GET TO THE ROOST SOON, YOU MIGHT MISS IT.

So you don’t know about the ROOST? This is project created by Mark Weaver to celebrate creative sound, improvisation, jazz. Local Poets Guild is proud to be a collaborator in this project and what we provide is a kick-off to each event with a poet we’ve attempted to “match-make” to the music.

ONLY 4 MORE SHOWS LEFT.

This week’s show is the Fifth in the series. Now Playing: three of northern NM’s finest improvisers join forces to address the earthy and volcanic music of Los Angeles’ legendary pianist and bandleader Horace Tapscott. Pianist Robert Muller, bassist Ben Wright, and drummer Dave Wayne promise to “stretch the music out in some very interesting ways”. And the poets opening this week are also a “trio”, a trio who toured together and have an at times almost inseparable rapport. You’ll hear a few minutes each from Katrina Guarascio, Zach Kluckman, and Jessica Helen Lopez. The energy from their poems will spark off each other’s work… these three are interconnected .

Let me just give you one plug: Jessica’s bio…

Jessica Helen Lopez is a three time member of the City of Albuquerque Slam Team and the 2008 National Champion Winning UNM Lobo Slam Team.  She has been the Poet-In-Residence in several New Mexico High Schools and continues her work in the classroom.  Mother to a vivacious nine year-old daughter, Lopez’s work has been published in UNM Press’s,  A Bigger Boat: The Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Slam Scene, Chicago Open Mic America Vol I, Feminism Now, Poetic Diversity, The Pedastal and Destructible Heart Press’s, Albumar Familia.  Additionally, she was the co-editor for Earthships: A New Mecca Poetry Collection 2007, a finalist in the NM Book Awards.  Lopez is a member of the Macondo Foundation. Founded by Sandra Cisneros, it is an association of socially-engaged writers united to advance creativity, foster generosity, and honor community. Some other activities and panels she has been apart of are the National Hispanic Cultural Center’s VOCES: A Writing Institute for Youth, Feature/Workshop Instructor for the 12^th Annual Las Mujeres 2007 Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, and has also  provided Poesia sin Fronteras  workshops/performances for the Verse/Converse Taos Poetry Bout and Festival 2009 and 2010.  She is the defending champion of the Silver Tongue Taos Poetry Slam. Lopez continues to organize not-for-profit poetic events and projects in and around Albuquerque, NM.  She has currently worked as the poetry intern at UNM’s literary magazine, Blue Mesa Review.  Her first collection of poetry entitled, “Always Messing With Them Boys” has just been published through West End Press.

Come join us.

The Roost co-sponsored by Local Poets Guild

7:30 PM Sunday Sept 4 @ The Projects (3614 High Street NE) $5

 

–LG

[Beautiful Photograph of Jessica by Gina Marselle]

Anouncing 8x8x8: Roost with a Spoken Word Bang

Local Poets Guild is proud to be collaborating with tuba-player Mark Weaver on his music series The Roost during the months of August and September. The intent of this series is to provide a regular forum for emergent creative music, which is to be made easily accessible to all members of our community.  The series is envisioned to include various forms of improvised music, original jazz, new music, and other types of musical experimentation, composition, and exploration, with a goal of trying to germinate and incubate creative music processes in our community.  Experimentation and incorporation of various media is encouraged, with a special emphasis this year on spoken-word elements.  Events are curated with an eye to originality, freshness of approach, and artistic vision. Each of the shows in the two-month series will be opened by a different poet or spokenword ensemble. That’s–count them–eight shows with eight spoken word performances each lasting about eight minutes. Poetry gets to kick the night into high gear–and you know that great dialogue will be fostered between musicians and poets and audience…

Check out this stellar line-up.

1. August 7th Tracey Pontani kicks off the series by opening for the Zack Freeman Improv Trio and Ink oN pAPER
2. August 14th Brian Hendrickson opens for Tracy McMullen / Rob Wallace / Hal Onserud (pictured above)
3. August 21st Sari Krosinsky and Bob Reeves verbally spar before the Thin Air Trio
4. August 28th Mark Weber joins old friends  for Michael Vlatkovich Trio (Vlatkovich/Lee/McLagen)
5. Sept 4th The Beautiful On a Tangent Touring Trio of Kat Guarascio, Zack Kluckman, and Jessica Helen Lopez open for Now Playing – the music of Horace Tapscott (Muller/Wright/Wayne)
6. Sept 11th Erin Daughtrey kicks of a night with Nella Nairb (Brian Allen solo), plus Christian Pincock solo
7. Sept 18th LA Poet Brendan Constantine opens for LA group Slumgum
8. And Sept 25th Jazz Advance bloggist Richard Oyama closes it out for DJ Duo–J.A. Deane and Joseph Sabella

Every show will start at 7:30 PM on a Sunday night at the Projects 3614 High Street NE.

Here’s to getting some really fabulous interdisciplinary dialogue up and running and for the opportunity to enjoy dang good times for poetry and music.

Gracias to Mark Weaver for letting Local Poets Guild be involved in this project. An honor, a joy!!!

–LG

Wishing to be in two places at once…

Not only is a run of Urban Verbs being performed this next weekend, and we still have some tix giveaways for that June 17th going on here, but the Southwest Shootout is taking place also. A power-packed weekend with all the poetry you need…

So yes, as Don McIver says, The Poets are coming!  The Poets are coming!  

Join poetry slam teams from Colorado, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, and New Mexico at the 2011 Southwest Shootout Regional Poetry Slam in Albuquerque on Friday, June 17th and Saturday, June 18th.  The word slinging begins Friday night at Winning’s Coffee Company and the Peace & Justice Center at 7 PM with two bouts, then the poets drift over to Brickyard Pizza for Head to Head Haiku.   Then on Saturday, the winning teams from the night before compete for the title at the National Hispanic Cultural Center’s Bank of America Theater at 7:30 PM.   All proceeds from Saturday’s final benefit the 2011 ABQ Slam Team as they fundraise for the 2011 National Poetry Slam in Boston.   So, come check out some poetry and support your slam team at the same time!

What:   2011 Southwest Shootout Regional Poetry Slam
When:   Friday, June 17th at 7 PM and Saturday, June 18th at 7:30 PM
Where:   Friday at Winning’s Coffee Company & the Peace & Justice Center
Saturday at NHCC’s Bank of America Theater
How much:   Friday’s events are free, Saturday’s finals are $10.

For more information, please visit www.abqslams.orgor call (505)254-2285.

Have a great weekend and enjoy as many shows as you are able to catch!

LG

Beethoven’s Abkuhlungsmethode & Hip-Hop

Congratulations to John Crawford of West End Press who just won a pair of tickets to Urban Verbs with Carlos Contreras and Hakim Bellamy by writing in to Local Poets Guild about a time music especially mattered to him. John writes:

It was the summer of 1961, and I was in summer school at Cal. Berkeley.  I was taking German 102 at the time, and had dedicated myself to hearing the symphonies of Beethoven in the library at lunch. In German 102 we were reading a Cultural Graded Reader on the life of Beethoven. It seemed that late in life Beethoven had taken to pouring a bucket of water over his head while sitting at the piano composing the Fifth Symphony. It was in the summertime, he was nonetheless wearing his greatcoat, and in the throes of composition he must have overheated considerably. Doctors later attributed this habit of his to his increasing deafness, a deafness which may have contributed to the extreme difficulty musicians encountered in completing the later movements of the Fifth Symphony. The Cultural Reader called this his Abkuhlungsmethode, his cooling-off method. Reading this story, true or not, added to my enjoyment of hearing the Fifth that summer in the tower of Berkeley library. It did seem very hard to perform, I must say.

We have more tickets to give away for the Friday June 17th Show by Carlos Contreras, Hakim Bellamy, and Diles. All you have to do is write to localpoetsguild@yahoo.com with a sentence or a paragraph or a poem about a time music mattered in your life. For more info, click here. First come, first win tickets!!! We have four pairs of tix left. If you submit, just let us know if it’s okay to publish what you wrote on the website. If not, that’s fine too. We’re glad to have the opportunity to offer tickets to such a great show.

Thanks,

Lisa Gill

 

NOTE: I JUST CLARIFIED THAT WE ARE OFFERING A PAIR OF TIX TO EACH WINNER. 4 PAIRS LEFT.

Lift your hands, lift your pens! Get Tix.

Local Poets Guild has tix to give away for Urban Verbs on Friday June 17th. Carlos Contreras says, “[For the tix giveaway,] How about [calling for submissions] something along the lines of a time when people “came back, or went to, music” we’ve all had those moments in the car, shower, after a break up, the day of a raise… that that song just makes sense!  Music moves us!  It flows through our lives’  and makes us all members of the same club….. we believe hip hop is a cultural dialogue that builds communities…. something that speaks to the heart of music being able to do that…”

This is how you can get free tix to Urban Verbs on Friday night: Write us and tell us how music moves you. Let us in on a particular instant or story. It’s a very loose prompt— a time when music mattered. And you can write in with poetry or prose. You can even tell us how music impacts your poetry. (I may do that myself for fun as Eminem inspired a pile of hard core geeky form poems from me.) Anyhow, the deal is simple. We have ten tickets to give away to Friday night’s performance.  That’s right, 10!!! You can save yourself $12 dollars. You can simultaneously enter dialogue with your community on this website. Hope you’ll participate. Just email responses to localpoetsguild at yahoo dot com as soon as you can…. and the first ten responses get tix and we’ll set you up for Friday night the 17th. (We’ll also post responses online on the website.)

[Note: This prompt is for adults. Youth can get free tix direct for Sunday's show which is subsidized by various donors. If you need info on how to get tickets for youth, query me and I'll point you in the right direction.]

For more information on what Urban Verbs is, the official scoop, see previous post.

Here’s what Urban Verbs is to me: an example. A beautiful example of what happens when three people–Contreras, Bellamy, & Diles–come together and trust each other enough to tackle large subjects of disenfranchisement and reclamation. Urban Verbs is a triumph of spirit, an offering of sustenance to the community–all achieved through the hard work of collaboration. Not to mention, the show does what I’m most fond of: reap interdisciplinary bounty with music, film, performance, and poetry. It’s a joy to watch–and in many ways, Urban Verbs is an explicit call for more arts action from the community. Poets step up. Go see the show and get inspired to try what your own authentic voice requires.

LG

[Photos taken at the Projects 3614 High Street by Antonio Rael. Thanks!]

Urban Verbs is Coming — (and tix giveaway starting tonight)

Last weekend, I had a chance to see the sneak preview of Urban Verbs, which was as fresh as it was the first time I saw the production at 516 ARTS. Hakim Bellamy, Carlos Contreras, and Diles flat out wow and are not mistaken (in my mind) when equating god and art, music and love, life and poetry. Integrating hip-hop, documentary film, poetry, and performance, the show is thought-provoking and engaging–a very solid effort with community creativity at its heart. Urban Verbs is a collaborative effort with vision. I commend it heartily.

Local Poets Guild has garnered some tickets that we’re going to be giving away on the website—watch for my next post or come out tonight to Triptych where I’ll announce it. (We’ll ask you to do a little writing.) Later I’ll also tell you more about why I think this show is important.

Meanwhile, here’s the OFFICIAL SCOOP:

Urban Verbs is a video, audio, visceral performance piece that is dialogued entirely in poetic verse. Comprised of Hakim Bellamy, Carlos Contreras, and Diles, the three are a collaborative of individual artists across many disciplines including literature, music, audio/sound engineering, film, visual art and theater. Urban Verbs is an alternative interpretation to the brainless, heartless, materialist, violent, sexist, homophobic, self-involved popular perception of Hip-Hop.  They aim to create a progressive narrative around Hip Hop culture and facilitate the practice of EVERYONE telling their story through Hip Hop as a form of love, a form of intelligence and a way of better living. To increase the respect and acceptance of Hip Hop as a legitimate and visionary art form and worthy of academic inquiry, to be an example of how one can feed their family and live their dream through Hip -Hop that builds rather than Hip-Hop that destroys – To fashion Hip Hop into the tools that bring people together, stops wars, makes babies and raises them!

All Shows at The Filling Station in the Barelas Neighborhood of Albuquerque (1024 4^th St. SW)

June 17^th 7pm Show Urban Verbs + Live Art Creation/Auction & DJ

June 18^th 8pm Show Urban Verbs + Live Keg & Musical Guests BrokenBreadWinner

June 19^th 1pm Show Urban Verbs (Curbside Classroom* Version feat. Q & A)    

For Fri. Tix

For Sat. Tix         

Thanks also to Antonio Rael who photographed the preview show at the Projects. You can find his photography page on FB. I just used one image here—but more coming as I let you know how to get tix and give my two cents on the project. Don’t forget to come to Triptych 7:00 pm at the Projects is where I’ll launch the getaway.

–LG

Two New Pages Added and Nice Choices

You can now check out Taryn Marie‘s page. (She is aka TeaSea Inc.) [Photo by Gina Marselle]

And under ABQ series you can now find proper information for Smokin Slam and a link to a full page. It’s a good event to check out today, as the Smokin Slam is one of your options for tonight. The Smokin Slam has host Carlos Contreras tonight and features Joaquin Zihuatanejo and the Off the Page and on a Tangent Tour (Katrina Guarascio pictured here in a photo by Mark Peevy, plus poets Zach Kluckman, and Jessica Helen Lopez.)

The other option is Triptych at the Projects 7:00 pm at 3614 High Street NE (east of Edith and North of Candelaria) with Sarah McKinstry Brown from Omaha, Jasmine Cuffee, and Sari Krosinsky.)

A difficult choice: you win either way.

Sari Krosinsky June 9th: How Fragments Create Echoes

Sari Krosinky says, “My poems most often start as fragments–as images or ideas or words come to me, I write them in a poetry journal I carry around. The fragments come both from random things that strike me and from whatever I’m obsessing about at the moment–most often something to do with death and/or relationships. When I’ve collected enough fragments, I start picking through them, cluster the ones that seem like they fit together, build on the individual pieces and draw out connections between them. I don’t really think about craft or what I’m trying to do in a poem until it’s done. Then I hope the poem communicates something that others will find either echoes their own experience or shows them a new perspective. But ultimately I just write whatever I feel driven to write. “

And one of her poems:

Hunger

I cook like my grandmother, whipping up a badass stew

from spare parts. Hers, variations on leached chicken

swimming in grease. Mine, resurrecting potatoes-on-the-edge

with a couple cans green chilé. I mince garlic as you read

to me, baritone against the percussion of popping oil.

Looking at you, I reach for the pot, char my finger.

I thrust my hand under the tap; you go on reading

as cold water seals the burn in a scar.

Like my grandmother, I cook to feed armies. She rallied

relatives, friends, strangers to divide the booty.

I have you. Like her, will I never learn

to cook for one? Or like Orpheus, would I follow you

to Hades and, failing, survive still? When you’re gone,

I’ll play your cd, seal my hunger in your voice.

You can hear Sari Krosinsky read at Triptych this Thursday at 7:00 pm at the Projects (3614 High Street NE, through the garage doors, North of Candelaria and East of Edith.) She’ll be featured alongside Sarah McKinstry-Brown and Jasmine Cuffee.

I’m really looking forward to this night!

lg

East of Edith: Ghazals and Such

Tonight at East of Edith, mixed into the open mic, I’m going to share contemporary poems from Pakistan, partially as I’ll be fresh from a talk at Creative Albuquerque. Neal Copperman of AMP Concerts is giving a presentation called “From Albuquerque to Islamabad.” From the amp concert website:

In October 2010,  AMP Concerts’ Executive Director Neal Copperman learned about Center Stage, a State Department sponsored cultural exchange program designed to bring foreign artists to do short residencies in small and mid-sized cities around the US.  He sent in a proposal to have Albuquerque included in the project and received a surprise call inviting him to join the scouting mission to Pakistan. This project will culminate in a visit by one of the Pakistani groups in the latter half of 2012. [The talk is today 6/6/11 at 5:30 at Creative Albuquerque  - 115 4th Street N.W. (on the 4th St. mall, just south of Copper).]

When he came back from Pakistan, he brought me a book edited by Iftikhar Arif called Modern Poetry of Pakistan. I’ve been enjoying. So I’ll kick off the open mic probably with a ghazal, and then mix in some snippets between poets. The ghazal is a lovely form, long-lined couplets, like beads on a necklace, a form originating in 6th Century Arabic verse and still universally appealing today. Read more.

Anyhow, if you’ve got a new poem (any form) or two poems, or one of yours and a new favorite you just found in a book, come share at East of Edith open mic. Likely there will be goodies, and drinks, and we’re also going to be able to keep the swamp cooler on to keep things nice and comfortable. We start at 7:00 (or shortly thereafter) and the venue is through the open garage doors at the Projects, 3614 High Street, just north of Candelaria and East of Edith. I’ll also have some announcements: including forthcoming tix giveaway for Urban Verbs, and this Thursday’s Triptych, and also upcoming P(EAR) and a nonviolence writing workshop… Things are moving along.

Hope to see you.

Regards,

lg

Jazz in the Universe June 9th

Next Thursday June 9th at 7:00pm at the Projects (3614 High Street NE), you can experience a trio of female poetry powerhouses. Along side Sarah McKinstry Brown, who I have already blogged at this link, and Sari Krosinsky, who I will be blogging in a few days, you’ll be able to indulge in the words of Jasmine Cuffee.

The three together are guaranteed to blow your mind and ears. Each one has unique strengths and beauties, and together I suspect the complimentary forces will be powerful.

So let me tell you a little about Jasmine.

A native of Albuquerque’s South Valley, Jasmine Cuffee has been active in the Metro Area arts community for nearly 10 yrs now both as a performance poet and as a former staff member at the National Hispanic Cultural Center and has worked extensively with the youth of Albuquerque and New Mexico in both capacities. Jasmine was a member of the 2004 Poetry Slam team, 2005 Youth Poetry Champion, and 2007 City Slam Champion. As a performance poet and slam poetry champion, Jasmine has led numerous writing workshops and performances throughout New Mexico and the Western U.S. She has appeared in the Bigger Boat Anthology, Earthships: A New Mecca Poetry Anthology, and ¿De Veras?. She is currently working on her first manuscript Where the Arroyos and Train Tracks Meet which will be the follow up to her first and only chapbook Sunshine and Rapture released in 2007 . When she is not poeting, she manages Public Allies New Mexico, an AmeriCorps program that focuses on leadership development for young adults, strengthening non-profits and communities, and social justice.

What I personally find is that her exuberance is contagious. No matter how complex or difficult the emotions and subject matter of a poem may be, Jasmine exhibits a true joy in life. Every poem is an embrace of possibility. I love this. I am heartened. The world in its mixed bag seems like something to be cherished and held close and given time and respect. I’ve had the luxury to read some of the poems from her manuscript, Where the Arroyos and Train Tracks Meet, and yes, her work is about intersections, disparate forces, families and cities, sky and land, grief and joy, all coming together in a new way that asks you to be fully engaged in life.

And listening, we are fully engaged. Because she’s a consummate performer, as well as wordsmith. And undoubtedly, we are changed.

I love Jasmine’s work and am glad the Local Poets Guild can offer Triptych, so you’ll have a chance to hear a hefty featured set of her voice. Events like this are made possible in part by the generosity of the McCune Charitable Foundation. And Jasmine Cuffee deserves the time and space and we are lucky to be able to listen and afford this opportunity.

So remember: Next Thursday June 9th 7:00 at the Projects 3614 High Street NE. Pass the Hat.

(Triptych, like Verso Quatro, is one of our ongoing literary featured series. Expect three or more per year. Each one features three poets reading for 20 minutes a piece.)

Hope to see you,

Lisa Gill