Museletter Correspondents' Choice: Favorite Live Performances
BOB HOLMAN: Also: I was Born With Two Tongues at NYU on Nov. 18, 1999. These guys have taken ensemble poetry to a new heart and spread it like that. Ballistic Kisses indeed.
Also: Sherman Alexie vs. Patricia Smith NY Championship Bout, and Ani DiFranco, Utah Philips, Sekou Sundiata at The Peoples' Poetry Gathering, April 9, 1999, Cooper Union (NYC).
BOB'S STATE OF POETRY SHANN PALMER (Virginia): SHANN'S STATE OF POETRY IAN FERRIER (Montreal): IAN'S STATE OF POETRY GARY GLAZNER (Santa Fe): GARY'S STATE OF POETRY JASON PETTUS (Chicago): JASON'S STATE OF POETRY BOB REDMOND(Seattle): BOB'S STATE OF POETRY LEONARDO DELLAROCCA (Miami): LEONARDO'S STATE OF POETRY VICTOR INFANTE (Orange County): VICTOR'S STATE OF POETRY MARJ HAHNE (Philadelphia): MARJ'S STATE OF POETRY TA'SHIA ASANTI (Denver): TA'SHIA'S STATE OF POETRY STAZJA MCFADYEN (Austin): Heritage House, Larry Jaffe and Dr. Marvin Kimbrough, Saturday, September 20, 1997 -- my first production, more painless than giving birth. I witnessed two poets making love with words in a banquet of soul food enough to feed a small planet.
National Poetry Slam individual finals at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Patricia Johnson, Saturday, August 22, 1998. Patricia knew going in that “the kink fell out of my hair” would exceed the time limit, and did it anyway, with show stopping majesty and dignity that transcended contests and prizes.
East Side Black & White Poets at Ebony Sun Java House (Austin), John Sinclair, Thursday, March 18, 1999. John arrived thinking he would be doing a Starbucks reading. When he felt the sanctity of the vibe at our church of words, he read a sacred legend of the white buffalo that literally flushed out the one soulless bastard in the house.
Electric Lounge city slam-off (Austin), Mike Henry, Tuesday, April 5, 1999. It was the last slam at the lounge & Mike captured and encapsulated it in 3 minutes + (with a 1.5 time penalty). We cried.
Movements Gallery Blast Your Own Breath 2nd anniversary, Wednesday, January 26, 2000 -- Tammy Gomez, Blake Hurzeler and the whole BYOB famdamily, over the top and out the roof into the wee hours of Thursday.
STAZJA'S STATE OF POETRY CRISTIN APTOWICZ (New York): CRISTIN'S STATE OF POETRY JENNIFER JOSEPH (San Francisco): JENNIFER'S STATE OF POETRY
Right now it’s Taylor Mead, Max Blagg, Mike Parker, Penny Arcade, and Laurel Barclay at the Den at Two Boots (NYC), 2/20/00. Mead, at 70-something, dove right into that moment in the 60s when he was starring in Frank O’Hara’s
“The General Returns From One Place to Another” on a double-bill with LeRoi Jones’s “The Baptism” and if that fact alone weren’t enough to bring to life one of poetry’s liveliest albeit forgotten moments, then his amazingly light, droll, avant, self-deprecating poetry performance proved it. Plus he did it all in a brutal arm cast. Blagg’s NY poem is nonstop subway express to the apple’s core -- it must be heard to be lived. Parker, once lead singer for the Ballistic Kisses punkband, is now a judge in Colorado (!) but is still the anarcho-shouter of Loweast Side memory. Penny did her great Margo Howard Howard “I Was a White Slave in Harlem”: showstopper. And 21-year old Laurel Barclay fell off her stool in her millennial rendition of “White Rabbit”: Not Since Patti Smith.
BOB'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
The next reading is always the best. Every time I read it's a new experience and something always makes it special. I've seen Pinsky, Levine, Strand, Brooks, Ashbery, and a host of others. The most enjoyable times for me are with real people: cooks, teachers, lawyers, mothers, teens, all those people who read from the heart while working diligently on the craft of poetry to show the audience a little piece of the story from their point of view.
SHANN'S CHOICE WEB SITE CD PERFORMANCE
Best reading or performance, because it's haunted me all these years: Michael Ondaatje at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada in October 1971.
IAN'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
A fascinating combination of science and art, “Universe of Lorca,” produced by Juan Mata at the Planetarium of Granada, Spain, in December of
1998. It brought together all the elements of Lorca's creativity: poetry, music, drawings, with the backdrop of the stars and moon.
GARY'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
I Was Born With 2 Tongues at the Guild Complex in late 1999. I'm not sure I'll witness a poetry show like that again.
JASON'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
Saul Williams w/band, outside at the Bumbershoot Festival, Seattle, Labor Day 1999: One of those “remember when” sets. Stunning.
BOB'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
I don't really have “favorites” in the long term, but in the recent past the best poetry reading I've attended has to be by Yusef Komunyakaa. He read in January, 2000, at Florida International University in North Miami. He's a very musical reader, and his “earthy” voice lends itself to the material he reads. Sort of like wooden windchimes and a tenor sax.
LEONARDO'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK PERFORMANCE
Double argh. . . . Patricia Smith at Bookpeople in Austin, Texas, at the 1998 National Poetry Slam Finals. Close 2nd being Sherman Alexie at the Taos Poetry Circus in June 1998.
VICTOR'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
Carl Hancock Rux, Friday, 1/28/00, at The Point in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania: Rux speaks liquid dark chocolate.
MARJ'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
Last but not certainly not least, the hottest poetry reading I recently partook in was a set called “Cafe Nuba, It's Hot & It's Black” organized by Ashara Ekundayo and Sistah Mutima in Denver, Colorado at the Gemini Tea Emporium. The theme was Erotica and I wake seeking erotic poetry, chile! This reading was steaming like six a.m. java. It happens the last Friday of every month. You need to be there to feel it!
TA'SHIA'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
Tough tough tough tough tough choice. . . Here are the top five that leapt to mind in chronological order:
STAZJA'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
My favorite is my own reading series, the Urbana reading series in New York City. I know it might seem unfair to choose your own reading series as your favorite, but I have watched it grow from an idea to a damnable series run out of a theatre basement where we brewed our own coffee to sell in unwashed mugs, to finally finding a home at CBGB's, and because of it I have grown to be a more responsible and educated poet. It's my baby!
CRISTIN'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
The Paradise Lounge, 11th and Folsom Streets, San Francisco, every Sunday at 8 pm. Hell, I've been running this reading every week since 1988, so it must be pretty swell (or I have a high threshold for pain) -- great room, intelligent poets, terrific audience, it's free, and the featured readers get paid.
JENNIFER'S CHOICE WEB SITE BOOK CD PERFORMANCE
Museletter Correspondents' State of Poetry
Choice WEB SITES BOOKS CDs PERFORMANCES
