Come To Day 1

Come to day 1 of the illustrious Boston Poetry Massachre.

Highlights include: EVERYONE.

7:00 Sean Cole
7:12 Sara Veglahn
7:24 David Kirschenbaum
7:36 Chad Parenteau
7:48 Shin Yu Pai
break
8:12 Guillermo Juan Parra
8:24 Jim Dunn
8:36 Gina Myers
8:48 John Mulrooney
9:00 Shanna Compton
break
9:24 Christopher Rizzo
9:36 Dana Ward
9:48 Cole Heinowitz

Info for August 5 Geof Huth reading posted to the Maudite Productions blog.

Will my mug bring people to the Massacre? Perhaps some extra folks with torches and pitchforks... I need to stop terrorizing the poor townsfolk in the remote hours of the night with my glowering visage and hideous laugh. If they would just keep the bars open past 1AM...

Thanks to Jimmy for representing in the Improper Bostonian and elsewhere. I should point out that Rachel took this ubiquitous photo of me (in the body I occupy after the dawn has come...).

It's interesting to note that The New Yorker can make even Gary Snyder suck (as evinced by his poen "No Shadow" in the current issue).

What do people say to themselves? "I'm famous, and this poem really sucks. I think I'll send it to the New Yorker..."

Shanna is like one of those yellow smiley faces, except not annoying.

If ever one is in need of cheering up, Brand New Insects is a good place to start!...

My father and other critics are gonna love this. Neocon anti-intellectuals are going to have a field day.

But the important question (before we drag out the pit-bulls and cattle-prods) is: "Is it formal verse or post-avant?" BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

In case you're wondering, that was said with a good deal of bilious irony. Pardon me, I am ornery today. Weary of conflicts of all sorts. (I realize that life and art cannot exist without conflicts, but they can also exist without dogma...)

I should stop yammering about this stuff and write some goddamn poems.

It's about 10:15 AM. I got sick of the DNC about a half an hour ago. So that means, about 45 minutes in, I'm sick of it. The reality of it and the subject of it.

Is rote rejection also the rhetoric of violence? Just a harmless question. It is a snake with two heads. They argue which will swallow the tail.

I am sick of the war, the land war and the culture war. Ask the Venezuelans about the terror of the binary. My thoughts are with Guillermo in Florida, writing and reading, reading and writing (see post of about a week ago), and with Aaron soon to depart from this city.

Saw Lorca's "House of Bernarda Alba" last night on the Chelsea waterfront last night with Rachel, James and Amanda. More on that later. I think Lorca would have approved of the very pregnant Amanda squatting on the ground and knitting during the performance.

Women in black and white, Othello (the old kids' game and not the play) pieces nauseously flipping. Straw in her hair, the prettiest daughter dangles in her room. That is the object lesson of the binary. The poet as Adela Alba's green dress...

On the subject of outdoor stuff:

TheatreZone presents
Lorca in the Park
Free! in English & the Spanish original.

The House of Bernarda Alba/
La Casa de Bernarda Alba
by Federico Garcia Lorca

Lorca creates an explosion of desire, jealousy, despair,
and passion.

July 21-August 1, 7:30, FREE!
Mary O'Malley Park, Commandant's Way, on the Chelsea
Waterfront
(Admiral's Hill)
Bring your blankets or lawn chairs and join us on the pier!
Rain location: Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet
St., Chelsea Square (decision made by 6:00)

English performances are Thurs. July 22, Fri. July 23,
Sun. July 25, Sat. July 31

Spanish performances are Wed. July 21, Sat. July 24, Fri.
July 30, Sun. Aug. 1

Directions and Information: www.theatrezone.org or
617/887-2336

TheatreZone presents our 2nd annual Lorca in the Park,
free performances of The House of Bernarda Alba /La Casa de
Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca in Mary O'Malley Park, alternating
between performances in English and the Spanish original.

This powerful drama of seduction and betrayal, set in rural Spain, is a study in family relationships under the strain of culturally and socially imposed sexual taboos. When Bernarda Alba's husband dies, she strives to contain the passions of her five unmarried daughters, but desire prevails in a dramatic culmination of madness and violence.

R and I went to see the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's "Much Ado About Nothing" on the Common last night. They seemed to do a fairly good job of it. I'm not terribly familiar with this play, so I don't know if the slapstick elements were a reinterpretation or not, but they seemed to work. Oddly enough, I have always preferred the comedies to the tragedies, which is strange given my tragic temprament. Shakespeare himself seems to have a more comic mind, however. The play was certainly appropriate for a summer night under a honey-colored crescent moon. I could imagine the same set there in the dead of winter for a tragedy, but that would be expensive and ludicrous. Which would also be appropriate.

Anyway, it's around for a couple more weeks and I recommend checking it out. It is, after all, free...

After Jenny H

Check out this rad image Chris Rizzo made in reference to my poem "From Jenny Haniver" at the surf poetry collaborative. (This poem would go on to become Cheeseburger #17 of 29 Cheeseburgers, so you folks watching at home can follow along...) The Jenny Haniver project itself is not defunct, however, although its pretty far from existing presently.