Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Monday, June 2, John B. Rowe is featured

6/2/14 John B. Rowe 



Author of At My Wit's Beginning (Eventuality Press, 2003/2007) and Winsome Losesome(Eventuality Press, 2010)
Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review, Brevities,Carquinez Poetry ReviewThe Crazy Child ScribblerGRRRRR--A Collection of Poems About Bears (Arctos Press)Minotaur, Out of Our, Poetry Depth QuarterlyRemembering (anthology of Poets' Dinner contest winners), San Francisco Peace & Hope (online) and elsewhere. 
Frequent award-winner in Artists Embassy International's Annual Dancing Poetry Festival Contests, including a Grand Prize (2002) and a First Prize (2010). 
Grand Prize winner in the first Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review Contest 2010
In 2008, served on the selection committee for the first poet laureate of Albany, California: Christina Hutchins. 
Co-host of the monthly (2nd Fridays) Last Word Poetry Reading Series, held at Nefeli Caffe in Berkeley.
Long-time President of the Bay Area Poets Coalition and co-editor of Poetalk magazine.  

https://sites.google.com/site/rowepoet/ 

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

5/26 is Long Poetry NIght, readers chosen by lottery


5/26/14 Long Poetry Night: Open Mic by lottery order, read one of your longer poems. 5 min. rule is suspended for tonight only.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Indria Allegra featured Monday, 5/19


5/19/14 Indira Allegra  

Indira Allegra is a poet and artist exploring intimacy, intertextuality, affect and endurance through performance, video works and handwoven textiles. Indira has contributed works to 25 for 25: An Anthology of Works by 25 Outstanding Contemporary LGTB Authors,Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art and ThoughtDear Sister: Letters From Survivors of Sexual Violence and Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two Spirit Literature among others. In 2013, she was interviewed by BBC Radio 4 for Poetry of Gold and Angels, a segment on poetry in the San Francisco Bay Area. Indira's experimental videopoems Blue Covers and Weep Willow: The Blues for Lady Day have screened at film festivals such as MIX NYC, Perlen Hannover LGBT Festival, Visible Verse Festival and Fusion. She is currently completing her first collection of poems entitled Indigo Seasonindiraallegra.com



Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Tom Odegard & Ms G Featured Monday, 5/12

5/12/14 Tom Odegard:

Tom Odegard (aka Tom/Ms.G) arrived in the Bay Area from Portland when he was eight, in 1948.  When he was 12 he set about writing a science book but soon discovered that he only knew enough to write the introduction at which point he switched to poetry.  Since then he’s lived in many places in multiple states of mind, and written too many pages of words some of which he’s read at venues around the Bay or put into chapbooks. He’s published two books: Friends Well Met – a collection of poems - and Past Lives Led – a poetic memoir both from Beatitude Press in Berkeley.

He shuttles back and forth between Friday Harbor Washington and Oakland spending four months in California where he reads and writes and polishes his nest eggs. His poems have been published in a number of collections including, Spasso’s, Sacred Grounds, and Living in the Land of the Dead a production of Faithful Fools.


In 2005 he discovered he was intersex and came out as a “Two Spirit”, Tom/Ms.G. He takes great delight in sharing his double gendered points of view with anyone who’ll listen.  Mark States favorably compared his poetry to e.e. cummings, to which accolade he remarked, “Yikes!”




Herewith  three samples:

To Mel C.
We were mezmerized this evening by the Coronor's office
that turned down the air conditioning to save on power
that resulted in a bad smell issuing from the morgue
that gave the lie to Justice in it's greek geek form
where the homeless classic a**hole rates a burial at a dump
...and the cosmic lassie gets laid out on a pyroclastic slump
but it all fell down when we saw sirens at the door
and the fuzz came in and nailed the poet to the floor...
Muh, muh, muh, mel we love you...
you and that saucy little sweetums under your too cute hat.

Mind Quest  2013

we open our mind and find
a bearded horseman bending down
to talk to Ms. G – she grips his arm
and horse-leather-sweat fills the air
she says, “we have to take him – he’s the body”,
he barely nods his head
then turns impossibly far in his saddle
grabs my shoulder lifts me onto the grey mare,
saying,  “Mount up!”
So, we flow into vistas of circular star bales
in yellow fields outlined by dry stone fences.
Ms. G easily snugs up behind me whispering,
 “You’ll love it, we’re going on another quest.
There are valleys to explore
abandoned villages from childhood and
teenage angst demanding attention.”


Circus Song © tom odegard –

Don’t be kiddin’ me honey ain’t no Circus in the Real
the mind’s full of candy canes and money on the wheel
grandiloquent magnanimity makes Bozos of us all
so the Zoot Suit Leader like the rest of us will fall.

Soon the muzak squeaks Jimi’s Star Spangled tunes
while the horses jump arabesques upon poltroons
there’ll be mind slaughtered veterans waving the flag
as the carnies run the marks through a flat for a gag.

Yes you can’t beat illusions for entertainment’s sake
you can’t deny beliefs by reasonable restraints
you might take a flyer at tyranny and shame
but the odds say you’ll fail ‘cause everyone’s insane.

Refrain:
You can search this weird from stem to stern
you can be a patriot, a tea man, perhaps a turd
but you’ll never find the outside of this circus train
‘les you look inside your bias and trim your brain.