"SHE ATE HIS TESTICLES BETWEEN QUAFFS OF SWEET JEREZ"

Nice headline, yah? I wrote that in a poem "No Title Required"....which is absolutely beautified and beatified in this video by someone (I can't tell the name but if that's him speaking he's got a gawgeous voice) who apparently did it for a class in Skyline College:



I love it -- and THANK YOU TO WHOEVER.

And if you want to meet Moi-who-inspires and you are in New York City this Thursday, please come by the following and let me have you "quaff some sweet jerez"--I promise that if you do, we'll have a good time without me having to "eat your testicles":

MARSH HAWK PRESS SPRING BOOK LAUNCH!

You are all cordially invited to:

Spring Book Launch Party
May 13th, 2010
7:00 PM — 9:00 PM

Celebrating New Titles by Phillip Lopate, Eileen R. Tabios, Sandy McIntosh and Neil de la Flor

Ceres Gallery
547 West 27th, St Suite 201, New York, NY 10001
Phone and fax: 212-947-6100

Wonderful wine and food will be available!

FOR MORE INFORMATION, including directions, please go to the Marsh Hawk Press website HERE.

*****

Actually, the video above reminds me of another text-dance done on another poem, "The Secret Life of an Angel" (which in turn had been inspired by Jose Garcia Villa's poem, "Girl Singing"). This was created by Ernesto Priego--muchas gracias!




Off to New York soon and I hope to see you there!

THE HAY(NA)KU INFILTRATES THE MILITARY

I've finally managed to organize the manuscript for THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU PROJECT, curated by Ivy Alvarez, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Ernesto Priego and Moi. I continue to be amazed at the hay(na)ku's popularity: about 90 poets and artists will be represented in the print anthology which will be published in 2010 by Meritage Press. Woot!

But right now I'm chortling over how, okay, possibly eight of these 90 authors/artists may not be poets or artists per se. I do know they're editors -- one of the chained hay(na)ku collaborations was put together on the spur of the moment during an editorial staff get-together at Global Security & Engineering Solutions, A Division of L-3 Communications. Yep, that be a military contractor, y'all -- they specialize in, ahem, "...Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance". Well, monitor this: poetry has infiltrated them!

Moreover, their collaboration was actually published in their newsletter this July! How kewl is that?! Said newsletter mentions the anthology, Meritage Press, and describes the "21st century Filipino word-count form of poetry" called the hay(na)ku. I love it -- widening poetry's audience!

Meanwhile, yes, do look out for next year's THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU PROJECT anthology! It promises to be yet another unique offering from Moi's "small but mighty press" (thank you for the blurb, Kevin Killian!) Meanwhile, let's all try for this:

MAKE POETRY, NOT WAR!

World, I'll trade you poetry books for guns anytime you wanna lay 'em down! I'm a farmer after all; I can use some new ploughshares.

USING ART TO INCORPORATE THE FUTURE INTO THE PRESENT

I create abstract personal systems to investigate my own perception of time through the world around me. In my drawings, repetitive lines or marks create a visual build-up of time that has passed. "Memories of the Past at the Present" is an interpretation of the idea that the present is made up of both the past and the incipient future.
--Rebekah May

I enjoy including "About The Cover" sections in my books (e.g. The Secret Lives of Punctuations and Nota Bene Eiswein) -- it's another way to discuss poetry and/or its effects. So I was delighted to see that 1000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING includes such a section, and I loved it so much that I got permission to post the entire thing for your reading pleasure! The artist Rebekah May (whose website is worth checking out!) did a wonderfully inventive collaboration with ten other artists -- mirroring the collaborative approach of the book's poetry. Here is what Rebekah first presented to the participating artists -- I love the idea of riffing off of the Fibonacci sequence:

Having a selection of artists follow the directions allowed me to create a collaborative cover with unique variations on a theme, just like the interpretations of the poem “Girl Singing” in this anthology. These are the directions:

1) Draw a square that’s about a quarter of an inch

2) Draw another square the same size next to the 1st square

3) Draw a square the size of the first 2 squares combined on top of the first two squares

4) Draw a square the size of the first 3 squares combined to the right of the other squares

5) Draw a square the size of the first 4 squares combined below the first 4 squares

6) Draw a square the size of the first 5 squares combined to the left of the first 5 squares

7) Draw a square the size of the first 6 squares combined on top of the first 6 squares

8) Draw a square the same size as the first 7 squares combined to the right of the first 7 squares

9) Draw a line that connects the squares in the order that you drew them

Below is a drawing of the Fibonacci sequence.

Participating Artists were Zina Al-Shukri, Claire Belby, Pablo Cristi, Joshua Ferris, Patrick Hillman, Justin Hurty, Cameron Kelly, Hilary Pecis, Maya Ruznic, and Ashley Lauren Saks.

What I adore about the artists' approach was how they created something new based on poetry, rather than the more common book cover method of finding an "illustration" to use as a cover image. I thank these artists for their openness and their work which resulted in this book cover:



There is a further & helpful discussion of the background to (and larger-size book cover image at) 1000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING over at Zeitgeist Spam. Editor John Bloomberg-Rissman is soon to be off to Europe to release the book at the London Small Publishers Fair. Do check out the Leafe Press table for this release!

LISSEN TO MOI MUTATED SIGNATURE!

Are you listening to me yet? No? Okay. What about if I tell you about the way Nick Carbo and I transmuted shit into gold? Which is to say, QUARRTSILUNI's Special Issue on Collaborations now features an excerpt from a collaboration Nick and I began in 2005 involving sculptures transforming themselves into poems. It began with a found toilet regulator and ended with a couple of moi brassieres.

Intrigued? THEN GO HERE. YOU WILL HEAR MOI VOICE!!! Moi voice (scroll down to MP3 reading)?! I might even exist!

THANKS of course to Beth Adams and Dave Bonta, Managing Editors of qarrtsiluni, for the invitation...and then a most welcoming space.

"WHAT IF I DIED?"

That's the title of a new performance project that I was going to begin this week.

But I killed it.

Because I didn't feel like freaking out certain folks...

A TOILET BROKE SO WE *MUTATED THE SIGNATURE*

I've done a number of collaborations with Nick Carbo in the past. In 2005, we began one where our process involved sending each other a poetry-sculpture -- a sculpture with an accompanying poem -- by snailmail and the other responding to such with another poetry-sculpture and poem. It was a good way to get rid of some old bras, let me tell you -- said brassieres then lending themselves to the line of uniting the convex with the concave (grin).

The series began with Nick finding a broken-down toilet regulator and spray painting it with the text of a poem it inspired. My response-poem addressed how to regulate desire (or not).

Well, 'twas good fun and we never really know what would happen to collaborations. With this one, Nick and I had some vague hope that the series would end up in a gallery. But, candidly, while we have retained the texts of the generated poems, some of the poetry-sculptures may no longer exist -- the vicissitudes of life, if you will. So I was delighted to be solicited for a collaboration by Quarrtsiluni, an online literary/artistic magazine which takes its name from an Iñupiaq word that means "sitting together in the darkness, waiting for something to burst."

Nice title. Specifically, I was solicited by Dana Guthrie and Nathan Moore who are guest-editing an issue focused on collaborations entitled Mutating The Signature. Yay-dom to the news that they took the first four poems from Nick and my poetry-sculpture series.

All this because a toilet stopped regulating itself...! Poetry: it's all around you--you just gotta be sufficiently tipsy to see ...

MERCI ET MERCY!, SOPHIE

I'm really honored by the attention visual artist Cecilia Sophia Ibardaloza has been paying to my poem "The Secret Life of an Angel." Recent ekphrasis HERE.

Merci bow-coooooo, Sophie!

CHEERS TO MUSES

A poem-homage I wrote for Gura Michelle Bautista in her capacity as my kali (martial arts) teacher is part of this new anthology, CHEERS TO MUSES. If you check the MUSE-ing link, there are samples from this unique anthology (paying homage to a diverse group of spirits -- from Yoko Ono to...Michelle!), as well as information on art exhibits and literary readings open to the public. (And surely you wanna check out Michelle's Kali's Blade to see the connection between martial arts and poetry...!)

So: Cheers! the Chatty One cheerfully notes as she goes offline towards...the wine cellar.

MUY NIFTY! A CALL OUT FROM -- AND NOW TO -- FLAMENCO ARTISTS!

Hay naku! And what's nifty about Moi's offer for free flamenco chaps is that, now, I'm getting requests not just from poetry lovers but from flamenco artists! I feel really honored by such...And that's what I like to see! Poems getting disseminated beyond the "poetry world" out to, uh, the world-world!

Remember that you have until the end of April to request a copy. Details in moi archives HERE and HERE.

This also encourages me to ask -- would any flamenco dancer/artist out there like to collaborate per a combined poetry reading/flamenco performance? Attention flamenco artists in New York and Bay Area! If interested, email me at GalateaTen@aol.com. I'm envisioning very brief performances -- maybe your interpretation of one or two of my flamenco poems. We can do it during some gigs already lined up for me, to wit:

New York: Sept. 20

Berkeley, CA: Oct. 21

I've done collaborations with modern dancers/movement artists (including martial artist) before. These are typically unrehearsed. We discuss it by email, then show up at performance and just go. I like 'em unrehearsed because, ya know, (my) Poetry can't be rehearsed. So, that's a dancing idea...!