Caffeinated Video from the Poetry Industrial Complex and the April giveaway winners

We closed out National Poetry Month with a Poetry Industrial Complex showcase at Obliq Art Gallery in the Arizona Center. I was fortunate to be reading with Jack Evans, Jeff Falk (accompanied by percussionist Greg Roberts), and Bill Campana. The audience and venue were wonderful. Someone even came all the way from California to see us...and she said it was worth the trip. It's always difficult enough to attract folks who live all the way down the street, so that was nice to hear.
This is a clip of me reading "Hymn Latte" at that show.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this year's Big Poetry Giveaway.
Hope you discovered some new poets and blogs. As for the winners of my drawing:

Michael won Ai's "Cruelty/Killing Floor"

Lana Hechtman Ayers won the latest issue of Thin Air Magazine.

Until next year...

Three Poems with Audio Clips in the new issue of Canyon Voices

Since I had work published in the past few issues of Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, I wasn't planning to submit anything this time around. I've had some great times with their journal, staff, and launch readings...so I didn't want to wear out my welcome. But as the deadline drew near I got an email from their current lead poetry editor (thanks, Arthur Morales!) to ask if a particular poem that he once heard me read was available. Unfortunately, it was awaiting publication at another press, but I did submit another batch of poems.

A few weeks later, I was happy to learn that they were not sick of me (yet) and picked up three of my poems for their latest issue. This time you can even hear audio clips of me reading these poems into the abyss of cyberspace, by CLICKING THIS link for the POETRY section of Canyon Voices Issue 7.

A few quick notes on the poems:


DEDICATION spun out of a Julio Cortazar poem called "The Good Boy." He's been one of my favorite writers, mainly known for his short stories, but I once stumbled onto a collection of his poetry with a great cover photo of him with a cat and it made me very happy.

UNABLE TO SURFACE FOR AIR DURING SHARK WEEK spun out of cable television's tendency to be a muse and the pets that have taken over my own house.


CHEESE was shortened from a piece that I originally performed at an Encyclopedia Show about The Moon...making it obvious that I've never taken an astronomy class.


 

My Gilligan's Island "Performance Writing" Poetry Workshop

I was asked to do a THREE HOUR workshop on something along the lines of spoken word at Glendale Community College.

There are some people who are obsessed with separating everyone into categories of Performance Poets or Page Poets. Nowadays, they usually try to place me into the Performance Poet category (because you simply MUST be placed into one of these boxes. Apparently, the world is not varied enough to encompass more than one distinction.)

To be fair, I have been presenting my writing to live audiences in a wide variety of settings over the past few years (between professors in coffeeshops, between punk bands in bars, during the spin cycle at a laundromat, etc). But those stages don't exactly reflect my background. For years, I completely avoided poetry readings. Even while I began getting published, I assumed I would despise hearing poets put on their lame "poetry voice" and sling words for a crowd. It wasn't until a small press published my first chapbook that I finally went to a reading.

And I was surprised that it wasn't the horrible experience I was dreading. In fact, there were some poets doing amazing things in amazing ways that inspired me in new ways and opened possibilities that I never knew existed. It began to influence my writing in exciting new directions. Sure there were plenty of forgettable poets and lame poems, but I also learned quite a lot from those, as well.

So I decided to focus this workshop on aspects of reading poetry in front of crowds that had a big impact on my own writing. I like to think of it as "Performance Writing."

I was able to share a few videos throughout the workshop, so we could go over some poets who were doing things in front of crowds that I found impressive/inspiring. So I thought I would post some of those here:

This first one is from my first and biggest influence, when it comes to giving a voice to your writing. Even though I wasn't attending readings, I was listening to stacks of William S. Burroughs CD recordings and his delivery and tone were so perfectly matched to the voice of his pages that I would never get it out of my head.


 


This clip is from Nebraska poet Matt Mason. Years ago, I was lucky enough to get scheduled to open for him when he came to AZ for a reading and workshop. I didn't know him at all, but he was great and I've kept my eye out for his work ever since. This poem will be included in the next Pushcart anthology. Of all the bios I've seen over the years, bragging about their nominations, Mason is the first poet I've ever noticed to actually get one in. Right on.





This next one is from Ohio poet Scott Woods, whom I was fortunate enough to see/hear twice in the past few years. This one hit pretty close to home for a few people in the room, as I watched the reactions.

I included this Aimee Nezhukumatathil poem as a great example of a wonderful "page poet" who doesn't act like reading her poems with a little energy and vitality will craft that went into creating them. 

Big Poetry Giveaway 2013 (updated with a sample poem from Ai)

Just realized today is the deadline to participate in this year's Big Poetry Giveaway, so here we go:

My name is Shawnte Orion and I am an Arizona poet who has participated in this blogaway for the past few years.


This year I will be giving away Ai's "Cruelty/Killing Floor"

PROSTITUTE


Husband, for a while, after I shoot you,
I don't touch your body,
I just cool it with my paper fan,
the way I used to on hot nights,
as the moon rises, chip of avocado

and finally, too bored to stay any longer,
I search your pockets, finding a few coins.
I slip your hand under my skirt
and rub it against my chili-red skin,
then I put on your black boots.
I stick the gun in my waistband,
two beaded combs in my hair.

I never cost much,
but tonight, with a gun, your boots...

I haven't yet found a publisher for my first book of poems, so instead I will be giving away one of my copies of the current Thin Air Magazine, which I recently blogged about (at least it contains one of my poems, "Kentucky Freud Chicken").

To enter just leave a comment below (with some way to contact you).

"We've always believed that humorless literature isn't literature at all"

Here's something that annoys me at some of the University-type poetry readings I've attended:
There will be a poet brandishing all of their MFA or Professorial glory, while doing everything they can to suck the life out of their own poetry, through monk-like devotion to robotic library-voiced monotone (as if injecting any vibrancy at a volume that people in the back row can hear somehow devalues what they've put onto the page).

Then they suddenly come to a line that is only slightly amusing and the audience bursts into guffaws, even though it wasn't funny enough to elicit more than half a smile under any other conditions or circumstances ("University funny"). Either the audience is not used to hearing anything remotely funny or so longing to enjoy themselves that they leap at the first hint of an opportunity.

I appreciate when poets like Denise Duhamel, Hal Sirowitz, Stephen Dobyns, and Jeffrey McDaniel utilize humor in ways that earn every laugh.

Which poets make you laugh?

In related news, I am thrilled to be one of the poets included in the upcoming HUMOR issue of Barrelhouse.
Their thoughts on the role of comedy in literature made me feel like I wasn't alone in this world:

We’ve always believed that humorless literature isn’t literature at all: life is weird, and funny, even absurd, and any attempt to capture or catalog that life through language has to at least acknowledge the funny bits. Otherwise you’re just being maudlin, sentimental, a Lifetime movie. You’re being dishonest about the human experience.
For this special issue, we’re looking for work that not only acknowledges the comedic but revels in it.

But a comic sensibility can be dark, even bleak. Often, comedy is what happens when we stare into the void and choose to laugh, rather than cry our eyes out, or give up completely.

I can't wait to see everything else that ends up in this issue.

Fast Food Psychology, Doves Murdered By Fastballs, and the rest of Thin Air Magazine

Inspiration comes from anywhere.
I'm always amused by the random phrases that my musician friend Doug Bale posts on facebook. One of those two-word status updates was "Kentucky Freud." It caught my imagination and I couldn't stop thinking about "Eleven Herbs and childhood traumas" until it grew into an entire poem.

Thin Air Magazine  published this "Kentucky Freud Chicken" poem in their latest issue, so I went on a little day-trip up to Flagstaff to read at the volume 19 launch party. I loved the cover art.

 

Of course I first had to wander around some of the bookstores and coffeeshops to get in a Flagstaff state of mind.

It was held at a cool billiards bar and I read for about 12-15 minutes, before the Thin Air staff shared some of the other pieces from contributors who weren't in town.

The entire issue is wonderfully eclectic.

It begins with two companion pieces from Michael Martone titled WOW and MOM.
Some of the other poems that immediately grabbed my attention include:


Kirk Schlueter   - 14 Ways Of Watching Randy Johnson Kill A Dove With A Fastball

Through a television's eye
a dove is a cloud of feathers
that glues itself together and flies.

*** If you're not familiar with this infamous incident, here is the spring training footage:

Caylin Capra-Thomas   - I Could Tell You Again

He lost his ears in the fire. Let me
tell you again how luck's reserved
for prom night & rented like tuxedos.

 Ross Losapio   - I Knew (after Malcolm Browne's photograph of the burning monk)

In the moments before, I knew
the quiet sigh of cushion on asphalt,
which is no comfort,
& the smell of gasoline

Chloe Warden   - To The Woman Who Died After Being Electrocuted While Crossing A Las Vegas Street

Maybe the moment before, you were happy --- maybe restless
thinking about how many times you'd thought to call the babysitter
but didn't.

Jia Oak Baker   - You Who Are Getting Obliterated In The Dancing Swarm Of Fireflies

and the next. Fireflies expand into stars. Who are we
to find in infinite spaces but ourselves?

*** the title is from my favorite instillation at the Phoenix Art Museum by artist Yayoi Kusama, where you wander through a dark mirrored room, alone except for all of the LED lights.

Kate Rosenberg   - All Night Architecture

My second death: when the last person who knows me dies.

There are also Mad-Libs For Politicians by Martin Ott, a Frida Kahlo poem cycle from Robin Silbergleid, and much much more.


So if you're at AWP, stop by and see Thin Air Magazine at table N21.

Haiku Valentines for everyone who came to hear Jennifer Spiegel at our GCC reading

In February, I give out  Haiku Valentines on those little elementary school cards
at the monthly reading I host at Glendale Community College.
Stuff like this:




I love you the most
when you're missing me. Let's drift
apart together.


Cold feet dance away.
Hit club. Occurrence at Owl
Creek Chapel. She does.


I hate when sexist
frat douchebags objectify
babes like that one bitch

Be mine to share
Facebook Valentine
Like at first sight


xo xo x
xo xo xo x
o xxx o


Only one winner
of her affection. Rock, Paper,
Narciscissors.


Titanic smile. Your
kiss is the iceberg I can't
circumnavigate.

This month we had a great turnout for Valentine's Eve and Jennifer Spiegel 

signed and read from her new novel Love Slave (Unbridled Books) 

and her short story collection The Freak Chronicles (Dzanc Books)..