Sharon Elliot features January 9th

12/26 Holiday, No meeting. H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S !

1/2/2017 No meeting    H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S !

1/9/2017 Sharon Elliot hosted by Jim + OPEN MIC, always free except for restaurant purchases.

Sharon Elliott has been a poet activist over several decades in national and international social justice concerns, especially the rights of women and girls.  Her activism began in the anti-war and civil rights movements in the 1960s and 70s, and she spent four years working with women and teenage girls in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador, especially in multicultural women’s issues.  She is a Moderator of Poets Responding to SB1070, and has featured in poetry readings in the San Francisco Bay area. Her work has been published in several anthologies and her poem “Border Crossing” appears in the anthology entitledPoetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, Francisco X. Alarcón and Odilia Galván Rodriguez, eds.  She has read it in Los Angeles at AWP and La Pachanga 2016 book launch, in San Francisco and at the Féis Seattle Céiliedh in Port Townsend, WA.  Her chapbook, Jaguar Unfinished, was published by Prickly Pear Press, 2012.  She was an awardee of Best Poem of 2012 by La Bloga, for The Day of Little Comfort.  She loves to mentor young poets and assist them in spreading their creative wings.  She is studying indigenous traditions of Scotland and Norway and is searching for the home of her heart with the guidance of her ancestors.  She is fluent in Spanish and is learning her traditional language of Scots Gaelic.  A true child of the north, she loves cats, stormy blustery days by the sea, and blueberries.

she wears

her morning coffee

like


a tea stained dress


warm


audacious


chimera


fond of peaches


and dark chocolate

Copyright © 2016 Sharon Elliott. All Rights Reserved. 

David Erdich Features Monday, 12/19/16

12/19  David Erdrich  hosted by Bruce

Always open mic, always free except for restaurant purchases.

Combine the sensibilities of a stand-up comic

   With the observations of a naturalist

Serve it through a saxophone

    And you've got a full fool eating falafel--a poet

psychiatric social worker-schizophrenics, alcoholics, own daycare center, juvenile delinquents, senior meals program
Telegraph Avenue airbrush artist/street vendor/organizer

truck driver 

gardener

single father

grandfather

12/26 Holiday, No meeting. H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S !

1/2/2017 No meeting    H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S !

12/19  David Erdrich  hosted by Bruce   Plus OPEN MIC & Always free except for restaurant purchases. 

Combine the sensibilities of a stand-up comic

   With the observations of a naturalist

Serve it through a saxophone

    And you've got a full fool eating falafel--a poet

psychiatric social worker-schizophrenics, alcoholics, own daycare center, juvenile delinquents, senior meals program
Telegraph Avenue airbrush artist/street vendor/organizer

truck driver 

gardener

single father

grandfather

12/26 Holiday, No meeting. H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S !

1/2/2017 No meeting    H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S !

12/12/16 Julia Vinograd features

12/12 Julia Vinograd  hosted by Jim       Plus OPEN MIC & Always free except for restaurant purchases.

Julia Vinograd is a Berkeley street poet.  She has published over 59 books of poetry and won the American Book Award of the Before Columbus Foundation. She has a B.A. from UC Berkeley and a M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.  A Pushcart Prize winner for "The Young Men Who Died of AIDS," she has a Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award from the City of Berkeley and is one of the editors of the anthology New American Poetry Vol. I: The Babarians of San Francisco -- Poets from Hell. Her latest chapbook "Look Out"has just been published in October, 2016

12/5/16 features Garrett Murphy

12/5 Garrett Murphy hosted by Jan + Open Mic + always free (except what you order from restaurant) 

Garrett Murphy, a political and human nature satirist, lives in Oakland, CA, and has written several chapbooks of poetry and prose. 

THE OPPRESSOR RULE BOOK

ATTENTION:

If you are reading or hearing this

You have no doubt purchased

The

Oppressor Rule Book.

Rest assured,

our aim is to take you through each

commandment

in this manual

to make you achieve

all your effort’s worth

for your investment.

We shall begin the reading

of the commandments,

which are as follows:

Oppressors expect kudos from

the ones they oppress.

Oppressors feel good by

making others feel bad.

Oppressors pick symbols 

as easy targets

instead of going after

the actual culprits.

Oppressors believe that they

are the salt of existence.

Oppressors believe that only

they

can be right and are shocked

that others can possibly think

for themselves.

Oppressors always believe

that they are perfect

so how dare we oppose them!

The oppressor’s favorite hiding

places are:

            Tradition,

            Popular opinion,

            Authority,

            Poll numbers

and

            Sound bytes.

Oppressors never believe that

their actions are wrong.

Oppressors never believe

they can ever be wrong.

That is what makes them

oppressors.

WARNING:

Some oppressors believe

they can never be oppressors

simply because the institutions

make that “impossible!”

On the contrary-----

You don’t have to be a race

            to be an oppressor.

You don’t have to be a gender

            to be an oppressor.

You don’t have to be an economic state

            to be an oppressor.

Don’t have to be a hierarchy

            to be an oppressor.

Don’t have to be a religion

            to be an oppressor.

Or ideology, size, nationality

or any other demo

            to be an oppressor.

You just have to oppress

            to be an oppressor.

And not even for twenty-four hours

            to be an oppressor.

And you sure can’t be

            BORN

            an oppressor.

for

Oppression is action

            plus intention

not accident of birth.

Oppression

is

Oppression

is 

Oppression

is

Oppression.

Therefore,

you

            too

can

            be

an

            oppressor.

And now the replies from the

makers and readers of this book.

What do you have to say?

NO

POPPYCOCK

PREPOSTEROUS

ERRONEOUS

I DO IT BECAUSE I LOVE YOU

BALONEY

I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG

DEAL WITH IT

IT’S YOUR FAULT

YOUR  PROBLEM

GET WITH THE PROGRAM

GO WITH THE FLOW

BECAUSE I SAID SO

RESPECT YOUR ELDERS

YOU’RE JUST JEALOUS

IT’S ALL IN YOUR MIND

YOU’LL THANK ME FOR IT SOMEDAY

OBEY AUTHORITY

MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY

DO AS I SAY

NEVER MIND WHAT I DO

IT’S YOUR DESTINY

IT’S GENETIC

IN-YOUR-FACE

YOU JUST MADE IT UP

                        MADE IT UP

                                             made it up…

(Well,

what can you expect from a perpetrator

but a typical oppressor line?)

That concludes this reading of

the Oppressor Rule Book.

See NEVER for more options.

                                                Garrett Murphy

© 1995 Garrett Murphy

Lily Fangz a Surprise Feature 11/28 (plus our usual prompt night open mic)

11/28 Surprise Feature: Lily Fangz!: Plus,"Pool" is the prompt. (prompts are thought directions and your poem does not have to include the words of the prompt – use prompts as a cliff and jump off!) 

 Wordsmith, Painter, Poet, Speaker, HipHop Artist

See Lily Fangz TED Talk at the address below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HZp1fh7KUw

Lily has had roles in “Deliver Us” and “Alfosantory: City of Broken Dreams.”

Also see her facebook site at Lileana Fangz

For more info see  http://www.planetfangz.org/

Maverick & Prompt nights the group nominates a work which then is eligible for publication in our on-line magazine at the end of the year.  hosted by J.D.

Lucille Lang Day features 11/21

11/21 Lucille Lang Day hosted by Bruce

Lucille Lang Day (http://lucillelangday.com) has published ten poetry collections and chapbooks, most recently Becoming an Ancestor and Dreaming of Sunflowers: Museum Poems, winner of the 2014 Blue Light Poetry Prize. She is also a co-editor of Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California and the author of a children’s book, Chain Letter, and an award-winning memoir, Married at Fourteen: A True Story. The founder and director of a small press, Scarlet Tanager Books, she worked as a science writer and science educator for many years, including seventeen as director of the Children's Hospital Hall of Health, a museum formerly at the corner of Shattuck and Kittredge in downtown Berkeley. She is of Wampanoag, British, and Swiss/German descent.

COSMOLOGY LESSON

When I was four, my friend Diane
said her cousin Claire thought
she was the center of the universe
and everything existed just for her.
I was stunned. “I thought I was
the center of the universe,” I said,
my lip starting to quiver. “We all
start out thinking that,” Diane, age nine,
who’d taught me how to add and read,
explained as I burst into tears, scared
in a brand new way. Her mother said,
“She’s just a little girl. Don’t make
her cry,” but it was too late. Birds
were already singing for someone else,
maybe themselves. Even my parents
and my toys no longer belonged
only to me. The sun, moon
and stars trembled as they turned
away, leaving me alone, small
as a bit of broken shell on a beach,
helpless before the gathering waves

Lucille Lang Day features 11/21

11/21 Lucille Lang Day hosted by Bruce

Lucille Lang Day (http://lucillelangday.com) has published ten poetry collections and chapbooks, most recently Becoming an Ancestor and Dreaming of Sunflowers: Museum Poems, winner of the 2014 Blue Light Poetry Prize. She is also a co-editor of Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California and the author of a children’s book, Chain Letter, and an award-winning memoir, Married at Fourteen: A True Story. The founder and director of a small press, Scarlet Tanager Books, she worked as a science writer and science educator for many years, including seventeen as director of the Children's Hospital Hall of Health, a museum formerly at the corner of Shattuck and Kittredge in downtown Berkeley. She is of Wampanoag, British, and Swiss/German descent.

COSMOLOGY LESSON

When I was four, my friend Diane
said her cousin Claire thought
she was the center of the universe
and everything existed just for her.
I was stunned. “I thought I was
the center of the universe,” I said,
my lip starting to quiver. “We all
start out thinking that,” Diane, age nine,
who’d taught me how to add and read,
explained as I burst into tears, scared
in a brand new way. Her mother said,
“She’s just a little girl. Don’t make
her cry,” but it was too late. Birds
were already singing for someone else,
maybe themselves. Even my parents
and my toys no longer belonged
only to me. The sun, moon
and stars trembled as they turned
away, leaving me alone, small
as a bit of broken shell on a beach,
helpless before the gathering waves.