DAVE STEEL TRIES TO MAKE PEACE WITH HIS TWO WORLDS WITHIN

SHULAMITH WECHTER CAINE AND KENNETH POBO AT THE FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA

Author of nine published collections, including Cicadas in the Apple Tree (Palanquin Press) and his online chapbook, Open to All (2River Press), Kenneth Pobo introduced his poems about family, nature, “being a gay teen who didn’t, but tried to, commit suicide,” with animated anecdotal detail. He remembers four of his elderly relatives, all sisters, in “Summer of the Daughters”: “Summer is heavy with branches and falling fruit.” He honors elephants, “who perhaps treat the dying more humanely than we do.” Perhaps my favorite line came from “Steam” about the disembodied voices in a steam room: “I could disappear in steam. Like love, I keep returning to it.” Pobo closed with a poem about a lighthouse keeper, a life he would choose if he had nine lives: “Lake Superior is a man dancing alone.”

The Monday Poets Open Reading Series always closes with an open reading, and a surprisingly large turnout of 18 signed up this time. In fact, the reading drew a decent-sized crowd in spite of the rain. This season’s last reading will feature Janet Mason and performance poet Lamont Dixon (aka Napalm) on Monday, March 12 from 6:30-8:30 pm, in the East Corridor of the Central Library.

THINKIN’, FEELIN’, TEACHIN’, DEFYIN’, SINGIN’ IN THE COMPANY OF POETS
Calling themselves “Philly’s First & Finest Female Spoken Word Ensemble,” In The Company of Poets is a collective of five African American female spoken word artists dedicated to sharing the “stories of our wisdom on The Universe.” Debi Powell, Wisdom Poet, wrote Born Again: A Poet Resurrected and was Poet of the Month for the Philadelphia Tribune and Daily News. Nish Pugh, Conscious Poet, wrote I Ain’t a Poet…But and co-founded the spoken word venue, Vibes & Verse. Oni Lasana, Story Poet, wrote A Soul Sistah from The Cool World Valley and Real Tales of Rhymes n’ Reasons. Pat McLean, Warrior Poet and ensemble founder, wrote A Sister Speaks of and Ain’t Gonna Bite My Tongue NO More. Cora Williams, Diva Poet, wrote Pecan Preludes.

I happily found myself In The Company of Poets on Tuesday, January 16, at Robin’s Bookstore, 108 S. 13th Street, Philadelphia, 215.735.9600. After they each read or said a few pieces about “living 360 degrees of Life,” these sharp, straight-talking poetesses, in response to audience questions, commented on the still-male-dominated (I’m assuming local) spoken word scene, its disdain for the female-centric theme of love/relationships, and its devaluation of political poetry spoken by women. One male audience member astutely observed that the female poets he’s heard write powerful, socially conscious poems, while the male poets he’s seen more typically write political poems that are not much more than fact-driven rants. These five women are clearly committed to healing people, inner-city children especially, through the sharing and teaching of poetry. The good news is that they’ve been overwhelmed by the positive public response to their collaborative work and the subsequent volume of invitations they’ve received since forming this past November. For more information or to book In The Company of Poets, call 215.424.5015 or email PMCPoet@aol.com.

You may be graced In The Company of Poets on Sunday, February 25 from 3:00-7:00 pm, at the Vibes n’ Verse Anniversary Affair, for which all poets for the people are being called to the mic to feature!, at Club Enterprise, 3736 Germantown Avenue (corner of Broad Street and Germantown Avenue, off Erie Avenue), 215.226.6888, $5 donation.

HIGHWIRE READING SERIES GETS REWIRED
Co-hosts Greg Fuchs and Frank Sherlock have galvanized the former Highwire Readings Series. First, they moved to a more intimate space with food and drink. Second, they communicate fun-loving collegiality with their audience in their introductions of featured readers and in their e-mailings that announce upcoming readings and recount past ones. Poetry @ La Tazza, 108 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, 215.922.7322, is jolting folks every other Saturday at 7:00 pm (with one exception), $4 pass-the-hat. Playful co-host Greg Fuchs says, “Welcome to the new epoch.”

• February 3, Sharon Mesmer and Jay Brooks
  Greg first heard Brooklynite Sharon Mesmer read her poetry years ago in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and she was invited by Andrei Codrescu to read during the Erotic Poetry Festival. Greg touts Jay Brooks as “easily one of my favorite writers on the Philadelphia scene,” though Jay is moving to San Francisco, so this may be the last time to catch his “transgressive” work.
  
  
• February 10, The Portable BOOG Reader
  Come celebrate The Portable BOOG Reader: A Collection of New York Poetry and the Philadelphia Special Edition BOOG Reader. Confirmed poets and musicians appearing will be Holly Bittner, Sue Landers, Matt Hart, Greg Fuchs, Betsy Spivak, Ethan Fugate, Ethel Rackin, Betsy Andrews, Magdalena Zurawski, Wanda Phipps, and Bionic Finger. The series’ co-curators have issued a Special Product Warning: This is a David Kirschenbaum production, not a Greg and Frank Production. It will give you birth defects. And make you addicted to poetry.
  
  
• February 17, Tonya Foster and Tom Devaney
  Tonya Foster comes from Harlem by way of New Orleans, & she’ll “teach you something about poetry” including some N’Orleans words, says Greg. Philadelphia native and Brooklyn boy Tom Devaney, who inspired the series, has been writing about Ben Franklin. His American Pragmatist Fell In Love came off a Philly press, and his poem “Trying to live as if it were morning for Greg Fuchs” appears, along with his photo, on the back page of the November/December 2000 issue of the American Poetry Review.
  
  
• March 3, Erik Sweet and Kristen Thorpe
  Editor of Tool: A Magazine, Erik Sweet “is as sharp as cheddar and a laugh riot… one of the ‘reallest’ poets on the East Coast,” coming all the way down from Albany. Kristen Thorpe, a UPenn senior double-majoring in Psychology and English and working at the Writers House, claims she will be writing poems about the primary visual cortex, phonological encoding, or different kinds of sofas. Expect quirky.

• March 17, John Yau and Lisa Sewell
  

  Buy the book • The Way Out

  John Yau writes poetry and art criticism. Villanova prof Lisa Sewell will read new poems and some from her first book The Way Out (Alice James Books, 1998).
  
  
• March 31, Toby Olson and Heather Ramsdell
• April 14, Marj Hahne (me!) and Albert Flynn de Silver
• April 28, TBA
• May 12, CA Conrad and Mariana Ruiz-Firmat
• May 26, TBA
• June 2, Kyle Conner and TBA

SITTING PRETTY: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE MARIANNE MOORE COLLECTION AT THE ROSENBACH
One would hardly notice The Rosenbach Museum & Library tucked in the middle of a residential block at 2010 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, 215.732.1600. Yet inside are wonderful artifacts of literary history, including hundreds of photographs and other archival material from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marianne Moore’s life. 45 of those photos -- some by Doris Ulmann, George Platt Lynes, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Avedon, Diane Arbus, and Jill Krementz -- were on display through February 11 in an exhibit that aimed, in part, to “constitute a history of photography in the 20th century.” I did not see the exhibit but did attend a December 7 lecture entitled “On Photography” by Susan Sontag in conjunction with the exhibit. Frankly, I found Sontag boring and unnecessarily esoteric as if she were contriving, for the sake of a lecture appearance and its fat honorarium, profound observations about portraits she had seen only a couple hours before. I bring attention to this event only to encourage folks to visit The Rosenbach Museum & Library, which is a true treasure in our Philadelphia backyard.

DANIEL ABDAL-HAYY MOORE SUMMONS THE ALL OF IT
Take your pick, poets: the Cosmos, the Universe, the Eternal, the Great Beyond -- it always shows up at Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore’s performances, lingers invisibly like a promise made and kept. On Thursday, January 24, at Borders, 80 East Wynnewood Road (Wynnewood Shopping Center), Wynnewood, PA, 610.642.0362, the remarkably prolific Moore read mostly new poems while accompanying himself on a spread of exotic instruments, from Moroccan gelba (a three-stringed ukelele) to Indonesian angklung (tuned bamboo tubes). Moore’s performance titles are befittingly wondrous, and Chants for the Beauty Feast invokes joy, lightness of being, a Rumiesque ecstasy of the divine. But Moore’s entrancing voice should not have to compete with the drone and squeal of cappuccino production. Who needs caffeine when Chants for the Beauty Feast feeds the senses, fills the boundless belly of the soul?

Born in 1940 in Oakland, California, Moore has published several books with Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books, as well as several titles with Running Press. His extensive travels through Europe and North Africa have given him a broad cultural sensibility that infuses his work. Having worked in theater writing, directing, and producing, Moore recently revived his own theatrical project, The Floating Lotus Magic Puppet Theater, and continues to present The Mystical Romance of Layla & Majnun with live-action and hand-puppets, three performances of which are coming up soon:

• Saturday, February 10, 7:30 pm
  Sunday, February 11, 3:00 pm
  Lotus Music and Dance, 109 W. 27th Street, 8th floor, New York, NY, 212.627.1076, $15/$12 students and seniors
• Tuesday, February 20, 8:00 pm
  Cabrini College, 610 King of Prussia Road, Radnor, PA, 610.902.8100 (general information), in the atrium of Grace Hall, free admission

AMERICAN WRITING CELEBRATES ITS 11th YEAR OF PUBLICATION
On Tuesday, January 30, at Borders, 1727 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, 215.568.7400, a contributors’ reading for issue No. 21 of American Writing: A Magazine marked its 11th year of continuous publication under founding editor Alexandra Grilikhes’ direction for an independent literary/arts journal with a non-mainstream stance and independence from institutions and styles and schools of writing. Sharing their prose and poetry with a packed room were Kelley Jean White, Gloria del Vecchio, Adam Fieled, Michele Belluomini, Anne Kaier, and Grilikhes.

SPRING 2001 POETS AND WRITERS SERIES AT TEMPLE GALLERY
The Temple Gallery, at 45 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, 215.204.1796, is a nice space to listen to poetry, and this series always invites top-notch writers. Scheduled Thursdays at 8:00 pm for free (!) are the following folks:

• February 1, Susan Howe
• February 22, Alice Notley, Spring Semester Writer-in-Residence
• March 1, Michael Martone
• March 22, Mark Nowak
• April 5, Toby Olson

KELLY WRITERS HOUSE FELLOWS 2001
Every spring Al Filreis, Writers House Faculty Director and Class of 1942 Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, provides the undergraduates in his Writers House Fellows Seminar the rich experience of sustained contact -- informal discussion, conversation, debate even -- with eminent writers whose work they study. The Fellows Program will host these three writers this year:

• Tony Kushner, February 12, 6:30 pm
• David Sedaris, March 6, 6:30 pm
• June Jordan, April 24, 6:30 pm,
  co-sponsored by the Art Sanctuary and Temple University

Upcoming poetry events at the Kelly Writers House:

• Wednesday, February 14, 3:00-4:45 pm
  

  Buy the book • On Love

  “Loved Poems and Poems About Love,” a group reading and discussion of love poems admired, beloved, remembered. What is emerging about love poetry as a genre? Featuring UPenn profs Bob Perelman, Susan Stewart, and Greg Djanikian; poet/critic Ed Hirsch; Kathy Lou Schultz of Lipstick Eleven/Duck Press; John Timpane, Commentary Page Editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer; and Marty Moss Coane, host of WHYY’s “Radio Times.” Afterward, this crowd will likely head over to the Veranda, 3619 Locust Walk, for the 5:00 pm Penn Humanities Forum program featuring Ed Hirsch reading from his book, On Love, a collection of poems by him and other romantics, and Religious Studies Professor Ann Matter discussing how St. Valentine became associated with this most secular of holidays.
  
  
• Saturday, February 17, 4:00 pm
  The Laughing Hermit Reading Series presents Brenda McMillan and Molly Russakoff.
  
  
• Monday, February 19, 8:00 pm
  Live at the Writers House, a one-hour word-and-music radio show hosted by WXPN’s Michaela Majoun. This month’s program will honor African American writers and artists who have contributed to our shared literary heritage. Writers and performers who wish to read their original work and talk about the African-American writers and artists who have inspired their own writing should email a 4-minute sample of their work or 3-4 poems to wh@english.upenn.edu by Wednesday, February 7.
  
  
• Wednesday, February 21, 8:00 pm
  Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes, an open mic performance night.
  
  
• Wednesday, February 28, 6:00 pm
  “Alt Poetries, Alt Pedagogies,” a reading by poet Joan Retallack, followed by a collaborative exploration of the relationship between avant garde poetry and alternative pedagogies. Why is it more productive to teach experimental poetry in an experimental way? Ann Lauterbach wrote that “for readers interested in the best contemporary writing, Joan Retallack’s Afterrimages is a good place to begin, continue, or end.” Retallack also wrote How To Do Things With Words (1998) and Icarus FFFFFalling (1994). Her work is widely anthologized and collected, and she has published an extraordinary range of essays and interviews. Retallack is the co-director of Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking, and under the institute’s auspices, she hosted an important conference in 1999 on relations between alternative poetics and alternative pedagogies.
  
  
• Wednesday, March 7, 5:30 pm
  The Poets and Painters Series presents a reading and discussion with poet Geoffrey Young and painter John Moore.
  
  
• Wednesday, March 7, 8:00 pm
  Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes.
  
  
• Tuesday, March 20, 5:00-7:00 pm
  “Latin-American Connection,” readings in Spanish by Mexican poet Marco Antonio Campos and Peruvian poet Jose Antonio Mazzotti, with introductions/readings by graduate students and others of their poems in translation, followed by conversation and a reception. Marco Antonio Campos is one of Mexico’s most important critics, whose writing often focuses on events having major social impact in Mexico. He has had enormous influence supporting and communicating the work of other Mexican writers, and was the head of publishing for Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). Jose Antonio Mazzotti led a movement of Peruvian writers that brought their writing to the United States.
  
  
• Thursday, March 22, 5:00-7:00 pm
  “On Un-American Poetry,” a program with Benjamin Hollander, Ammiel Alcalay, and Murat Nemet-Nejat. RSVP required to wh@english.upenn.edu or 215.573.WRIT for dinner to follow. Benjamin Hollander was born in Israel, immigrated to New York City in 1958 at the age of six, and has lived in San Francisco since 1978. His books include The Book Of Who Are Was, How to Read, and Translating Tradition: Paul Celan in France (editor). His letterpress long poem “Levinas and the Police, Part 1” is forthcoming from Chax Books. Throughout the ‘80s, Hollander served as an associate editor of David Levi Strauss’ Acts: A Journal of New Writing. He currently teaches critical thinking, writing, and specialty courses at Chabot Community College in Hayward, California.
  
  
• Saturday, March 24, 4:00 pm
  The Laughing Hermit Reading Series presents Henry Braun and Leonard Kress.
  
  
• Tuesday, March 27, evening time TBA
  Yiddish Poetry and Prose Slam, hosted by the Jewish Studies Program and German Studies Department.
  
  
• Wednesday, March 28, 8:00 pm
  Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes.
  
  
• Thursday, March 29, 7:00 pm
  C.K. Williams reads his poetry.
  
  
• Saturday, April 14, 4:00 pm
  The Laughing Hermit Series presents JC Todd and Juliana Baggott.
  
  
• Saturday, May 5, 4:00 pm
  The Laughing Hermit Series presents Catherine Savage Brosman and Dzvinia Orlowsky.

JEFFREY LOO IS NO STRANGER TO PHILADELPHIA POETRY
“I have gathered scenes of some kinds of returnings home because the journeys that go back (and even backwards) gain the hardest knowledge,” says Jeffrey Loo in the beautifully written preface to his latest chapbook, strangers in a homeland, what Marcus Cafagña calls a “prosodic brew of erudition, street smarts, and slang.” “Why cling to any lost things, / … / Here our selves become so clear / we cannot want what could have been / because what is is enough,” the Philadelphia-born Loo resolves in the title poem about his first trip to “the stressless air” of Taiwan, “the home / of my parents and my people / that was deeper than bone.” In a poem written the day after Etheridge Knight died, Loo honors him for “how much hope and strength you lent me” on “this life-world” journey. David Moolten calls Loo’s nine poems “delicately lyrical meditations of great tensile strength,” poems that draw on his ethnic heritage but wear the collective human face of fear, struggle, and finally acceptance. “[O]ne would also err to not love this existence insofar as one can; it is inhuman to just transcend and/or deny it.” Loo’s chapbook will be available for $5 at his free Tuesday, March 20 performance in the Skyline Room of the Central Library, 1901 Vine Street, 215.751.8683, at 6:30 pm, as part of the Café for the Mind series jointly sponsored by The Free Library of Philadelphia and Community College of Philadelphia. Accompanying Loo in “The Poet and His Work: Poetry as Performance Art” will be percussionist Toshi Makahara and actress Lori-Nan Engler.

READING AND WORKSHOP WITH HARRYETTE MULLEN AT THE WALT WHITMAN CULTURAL ARTS CENTER
On Friday and Saturday, February 16-17, the Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center’s Notable Poets and Writers Series presents Harryette Mullen, 2nd and Cooper Streets, Camden, NJ, 856.964.8300.

• Friday, February 16, 7:00 pm
  Poetry reading, $6/$4 students & seniors/free to members.
• Saturday, February 17, 10:00 am-12:00 noon
  Master class, fee $15 members/$30 general (includes one-year WWCAC membership). The deadline for consideration was February 7, but contact WWCAC for guidelines and to check if there are available spots.

The WWCAC’s Spring 2001 Writing Workshop is “Poetry as Body Art” taught by poet/performance artist Akilah Oliver, on Saturdays, March 3, 10, 17, and 24, from 12:30-2:30 pm. To register, send five pages of your writing and payment ($100/$80 members) by February 17 to: Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center, 2nd and Cooper Streets, Camden, NJ 08102. Class size will be limited to 10 participants, who will easily build community as they explore the embodied personal and cultural myths/truths that live in the individual body -- constructions so multi-layered that they reveal themselves in new and surprising ways when language is prompted through creative movement exercises.

WWCAC memberships, for as little as $20, include free admission to all upcoming Center events and discounts on workshops and classes. Call Tara Renault at 856.964.8300 for more information. Other upcoming poetry events at the WWCAC (call for prices):

• Friday, March 9, 7:30 pm
  C.D. Wright and Prageeta Sharma with New Jersey State Council on the Arts (NJSCA) fellow Dahlia Elsayed
• Saturday, March 10, 10:30 am-12:30 pm
  Master class with C.D. Wright
• Friday, April 6, 7:30 pm
  Literary Showcase Celebration of New Jersey Poets featuring NJSCA fellows David Livewell and Winifred Hughes Spar reading with Therese Halshied and Jackie Morfesis, plus an open reading
• Friday, April 20, 7:30 pm
  2nd Annual Camden Poetry Slam!ber Party, hosted by Kevin O’Neill
• Friday, April 27, 7:30 pm
  Edwin Torres and NJSCA fellow Robert Carnevale
• Saturday, May 5, 2:00 pm
  The Annual Gay and Lesbian Reading with Timothy Liu and NJSCA fellow Kathleen Anderson

VERSE ON THE VERGE
Two local po-women on the verge, Stephanie Renee and Tonya Marie Evans, have partnered on a new performance venue, the SHINE! Performance Series, “that’s cooled out on the neo-soul tip!” Formerly held at Brave New World, Renee’s monthly-themed Verge series moves to Pagliacci, 1420 Locust Street (in the Academy House), Philadelphia, 215.545.1845, and will alternate biweekly Thursdays at 9:00 pm with the Outspoken Slam Series. Spoken-word artist Charles Pernell kicked off Verge on January 25, and for the February 8 slam, poets are invited “to bring their illest pieces that deal with history and culture” to honor Black History Month and for the opportunity to win cash prizes and appear on an upcoming live CD produced by CCP Ink. Admission is $5 (dinner guests are free), and an open mic follows the featured performer.

Upcoming poetry events at Pagliacci:

• February 22, Verge
  Red Hott
• March 8, Outspoken!
  Featuring Chinua Hawk
• March 22, Verge
  Marj Hahne (me again) for Women’s History Month

JAYNE CORTEZ AND THE FIRESPITTERS WILL IGNITE THE PAINTED BRIDE
On Saturday, February 17 at 8:00 pm, as part of the Living Word Series at the Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine Street, Philadelphia, 215.925.9914, Jayne Cortez and The Firespitters can be counted on to burn down the house with their fusillade of poetry, music, and technology. “To have control over your own life, you need something, you need muti/power. If you have poetry to create, if you have music to make, you have something. It’s up to you to take what you have to a higher level,” Cortez says in the liner notes of her eighth recording, Taking the Blues Back Home (Harmolodic Inc., 1996). For this performance, “Poetry like Jazz,” she and her band will illuminate and elevate the themes of racism and sexism while celebrating the history of jazz.

Other upcoming poetry events at the Painted Bride:

• Sunday, March 4, 3:00 pm
  The 4th Onda Latina festival presents “Women in Front of the Sun,” Judith Ortiz Cofer and Catalina Rios. International poet, writer, and scholar Judith Ortiz Cofer, who grew up in both Puerto Rico and New Jersey, explores how one cultural connection often confuses the other, fragmenting identity and cultural allegiance. Philly’s own Catalina Rios, whose work appears in several anthologies of Latino poetry, deals primarily with the significance of silence, family, community, Latina identity, and survival.
  
  
• Sunday, April 22, 3:00 pm
  

  Buy the books • The Bird Catcher • Following Fred Astaire

  Living Word Series presents Marie Ponsot and Nathalie Anderson. Writing and publishing for more than half a century, Marie Ponsot has written three books of poetry, including the National Book Critics Circle Award winner, The Bird Catcher. A 1993 Pew Fellow and Swarthmore prof, Nathalie Anderson won the Washington Prize in 1998 with her first book, Following Fred Astaire.

VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY'S THIRD ANNUAL LITERARY FESTIVAL
On Thursdays at 7:30 pm, in the De Leon Room (#300) in the St. Augustine Center at Villanova University, the following poets will read as part of the Third Annual Literary Festival:

• February 22, Dorianne Laux
• March 15, Lyn Hejinian
• March 22, Mark Doty
• April 19, Twin Poets

THE UNITED NATIONS DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS THROUGH POETRY
The United Nations declared 2001 The Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations to address the “self-evident need for all to learn how to manage diversity better” in a world of increasing interaction among peoples due to information technology, economic globalization, and the “voluntary and involuntary movement of individuals across groups across borders of all kinds, and indeed the transmission of ideas.” What better way than poetry to honor all voices. Ram Devineni of Rattapallax has spearheaded the UN Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry during the last week of March, with more than 100 readings in 200+ cities across the globe, including several readings on international ground: Mount Everest, Antarctica, the West Philippine Sea, and the United Nations building in New York City. In keeping with the dialogue’s spirit, a free anthology e-book of poetry and prose, containing one piece each by all organizers and readers, will be released this summer by Fictionopolis.com. The City of Brotherly Love will host the following reading:

• Thursday, March 29, 7:30 pm
  Main Line Art Center, Old Buck Lane and Lancaster Ave., Haverford, PA, 610.525.0272, hosted by Eileen D’Angelo of Mad Poets Society, 610.585.9318, madpoets@voicenet.com, and featuring poets Lili Bita, Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, Aaren Yeatts Perry, and Robert Zaller; free admission.

Other upcoming Mad Poets Society events at MLAC:

• Thursday, April 12, Louis McKee and Ray Greenblatt
• Thursday, May 10, Elaine Terranova and Jeanne Murray Walker

MAD POETS SOCIETY READING SCHEDULE FOR SPRING 2001
Poet Samplers at Hedgerow Theater, Manchester Road, Rose Valley, PA, 610.565.4211, free admission:

• Wednesday, March 7, 7:00 pm
  Peter Baroth, Missy Grotz, Maggie Kraus, and Ed Krizek
• Wednesday, April 4, 7:00 pm
  Sandra Barnes, Kim DeAngelo, Cathy Celley, George Fleck, Ruth Rouff, and Dave Steel

• February 22, Mincy Branch
• March 22, Henry Braun
• April 26, Dan Maguire

• February 13, Nathaniel Smith and Bill VanBuskirk
• March 13, Gary Fincke
• April 3, Kate Northrop and Gerald Barrax
• May 8, Barbara Crooker and TBA

• February 15, In the Company of Poets
• March 15, Charles Younger and Bill Hetznecker
• April 19, Motif, Sun Valley High School’s lit mag, hosted by Krystle Marcellus
• May 17, Poets of the Wallace Stevens Chapter of the PA Poetry Society

A WALK THROUGH THE EXPERIMENTAL FOREST LEADS TO THE HARRISBURG POETRY SCENE
It seems that husband-wife team Kevyn Knox and Jeanette Trout are very dedicated to seeing poetry grow in Harrisburg. Their bimonthly magazine Experimental Forest has subscribers from 34 states and 10 foreign countries, and as program director of The (almost) Uptown Poetry Cartel, Kevyn organized last fall’s The Dozen Daze of Poetry Festival and this season’s The Slam! On Tuesday, March 13 at 8:00 pm, at The Vault, a 21+ club on Third Street in Harrisburg, PA, poets can spin their original poems in three minutes or less, in up to four rounds, to compete for the $200 grand prize and gift certificates from local stores and restaurants. The $20 entry fee, payable by check to Kevyn Knox and/or Jeanne Trout, is due by midnight on March 11, and tickets for spectators are $5 in advance, $7 at the door. For more information, email xxforest@yahoo.com. If you prefer the page to the stage, subscriptions to Experimental Forest are $21 for six issues and a sample copy is $5 (postage included), checks again made out to Knox and/or Trout. You may also submit poetry of any style, short fiction, short plays or excerpts, essays, reviews, novel excerpts, political cartoons, “rants, raves, or anything else you can conjure up…”

A WEEKEND OF WORLDWIDE WORDS: THE 2nd PEOPLE'S POETRY GATHERING IN NEW YORK CITY
Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz calls the People’s Poetry Gathering “a populist poetry bacchanal,” two wonderFULL days and an evening of poetry and music -- readings, performances, workshops, slams, open mics, conversations, tributes. The brainchild of City Lore founder, Steve Zeitlin, and cosponsored by Poets House, the People’s Poetry Gathering “gathers together 40 cultural groups committed to the resurgence of poetry” and poetry lovers from around the country. It brings together literary and folk poets, troubadours and balladeers -- this year including Kunitz, John Ashbery, Marie Howe, Galway Kinnell, Yusef Komunyakaa, Jerome Rothenberg, Anne Waldman, Victor Hernández Cruz, Jean Valentine, Brenda Hillman, Jayne Cortez, Nuala ni Dhomhnail, dub (reggae) poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, old-time calypso poet/singers, Eritrean poets, Rom (Gypsy) poets and musicians, and poet/rock star Patti Smith, “to explore the many ways that poetry moves through culture… as sacred chant and magic spell, as song and text in books, as performed text -- and electric light.” Two years ago at the first Gathering, I participated in a renga workshop, saw Ani DiFranco read with her poetry mentor, Sekou Sundiata, and heard Sherman Alexie spin an impromptu five-minute poem from the word “vibrato.” For information about this year’s gathering, check out their Web site or call 800.333.5982 ext. 5.

Marj Hahne

From Erminia Passannanti:
Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry
(organized by Rattapallax Press & UNSRC Society of Writers)
Oxford event
(part of the International Poetry Dialogue at the UN and in 100 cities)

Italian poet and literary critic, Erminia Passannanti, will be hosting a remarkable group of European poets and translators in the occasion of the United Nations celebration of The Year of Dialogue. Part 1: Borders Books & Music Cafe, March 21, 3:30 - 5:30 pm, admission free. Peter Dale and Brian Cole will read their translations from Dante, Laforgue, Corbière, Neruda, Ungaretti, followed by other translators reading their versions from Cornish, Finnish, Russian and German.

Part 2: La Maison Francaise, Norham Gardens, Oxford, 7:30 - 9:30 pm, admission free. Speaker: Brian R. Clack. Poets reading: Tom Paulin, Bernard O'Donoghue, Erminia Passannanti, Lucile Desligneres, Andrew MacNeillie and Peter Dale.

From MLVS Hopson:
Salon Poetry Workshop conducted by Michael Carey (M.F.A., U. of Iowa Writers' Workshop) who is a farmer and author of The Noise the Earth Makes, Honest Effort. The workshop will be held on April 22, 2001 in Clive, Iowa. Email for details: pinderpoe@aol.com. Workshop fee $45.

From Tomas Gayton:
Yazoo City Blues
Come and celebrate the spoken word and jazz at the book signing & reading of Yazoo City Blues by Tomas Gayton with jazz by Joey Carano, Tim Maglione & Paul Hormick. Sun March 4, 3-5 pm, $5 cover, at Dizzy's (where the music matters most), 344 Seventh Avenue between J & K on the edge of downtown in San Diego's East Village. This is Tomas' fifth volume of poetry and prose and includes many of his most popular poems including “My Blood Runs Deep,” “Havana” and “Miles.” Refreshments will be served. Come as you are or want to be. Contact: Tomas Gayton, 619.687.3880.

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