Working Over “Language’s Sly Do-Overs” In New Haven

• This evening's open mic guest at The Poetry Institute—New Haven has penned several volumes, most recently the prose poetry collection Jargon (Quale Press, 2010), following 2009’s And How to End It (Quale Press). Brian Clements is founding editor both of Firewheel Editions (small press publisher of the 2009 anthology An Introduction to the Prose Poem, which Brian co-edited with Jamey Dunham) and the journal Sentence: a journal of prose poetics, whose ninth issue, featuring contributions by Jeff Allessandrelli, Alexios Antypas, Kerry Banazek and Eric Burger, contains reviews, themed poetry, translations.
• Brian’s writing is credited with reveling in the places where we all settle into “language’s sly do-overs”—those cultural forms of rhetoric and narrative argument that make the world familiar, yet tend to abandon us when we need them
  
  most, such as in times of war/economic collapse, or during more personal trials, like the onset of age, even as we persevere to emerge from the dark places to see sunlight, once more.
• A Professor of Writing, Linguistics, and Creative Process, Brian also coordinates the MFA in Creative and Professional Writing at Western Connecticut State University.

Find out more about Brian and his work in the following interview by Cheryl Pallant at the UK site The Argotist here. The Weekly Rader posts his expansive piece "Basketball Benediction" here.

An eclectic celebration of the form, The Poetry Institute’s Open Mic Poetry program meets the third Thursday of each month in the warm setting of the New Haven-based Young Men’s Institute Library reading room on the second floor, beginning at 7:00 pm (please arrive early to sign up to read). Refreshments are served. 

For more information, contact The pi-New Haven at:

The Institute Library
847 Chapel Street
New Haven, CT

Email: PoetryInstitute@gmail.com

Homepage: http://thepoetryinstitute.com

"...A Poet Out Of A Man": An Evening With Andrew Calhoun At Curley's

 

As tonight’s guest writer/performer, New Haven-born folk singer Andrew Calhoun will share poetry, music, as well as selections from his new humor book, The Trilogy Trilogy (Waterbug, 2012).

Andrew’s formative roots with poetry go back to age seven, when he received a nickel from his mother after successfully memorizing Yeats’ “Song of Wandering Aengus.”

Five years later in 1969 saw him writing his first songs for guitar and subsequently becoming a fixture of the folk scene in Chicago, where he still resides. A few years later, he was well-rewarded for the considerable effort it took to see Martin Carthy live at the Cambridge Folk Festival in the UK, as Andrew still counts him and Leonard Cohen as profound influences on his own career. Andrew has gone on to tour internationally, from entertaining audiences in the intimate settings of pubs and folk clubs, to participating in house concerts and large-scale festivals.

Like his mother, he has passed on his love of words, voice and music to his daughter, Casey, with whom he founded (along with Victor Sanders and Gary Cleland) Zozo, an acoustic/electric folk quartet that started performing in 2010. Below is the Calhouns’ version of 1908's "Shine On Harvest Moon" by Jack Norworth & Nora Bayes:

While he has recorded to date more than ten albums, many through the Hogeye and Flying Fish recording companies, Andrew created Waterbug Records in 1992 as an artist-run alternative folk label. The Waterbug cooperative has since amassed 100 titles in its catalog, extending the brightest singer-songwriters and folk musicians to an international audience.

Enjoy this haunting interpretation of "A Musical Instrument," Elizabeth Barrett Browning's last poem, one of the 14 songs on his latest CD, LivingRoom (Waterbug Records, 2013):

Among his literary releases are Twenty-Four Poems (Psychological Bagpipes Press, 1989) and Hay (The Paper Airplane Press, 2005). The following whimsical piece of prehistoric empathy and the sometimes- ossifying nature of modern relations comes from Andrew’s homepage:

The Brontosaurus

© Andrew Calhoun

The brontosaurus slinks through the jungle,
Afraid to be seen;
A difficult proposition, when you weigh up to 35 tons,
But perhaps that makes it easier;
No one expects to see a brontosaurus.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't seen her
Consigned to a loneliness relative to hers,
I cannot have a prehistoric lizard in my house
No matter how sweet she is
Huge and hugely dear to me

I know! She pummels with her front legs,
Dispatching her foes with a blow of her mighty tail.
Understand this:
I would rather the brontosaurus tear me limb from limb from limb
Than have brunch with you again on Sunday.
I'd as soon she knock me screaming off a mountain
As sit through tomorrow's meeting.

No bravery.
The truth is,
I believe in the kindness of the brontosaurus.
Compelled to trust her,
Not knowing if I lead or follow
In her search for water;
Perhaps I am a dinosaur also.

“A true voice of poetry and lore” according to Jon Hogan, Andrew Calhoun posts information on his music, poetry and upcoming engagements at www.andrewcalhoun.com (don’t forget to check out the CDs of other folk artists in the Waterbug collection here). Get to know more about his career and social--as well as musical--passions in this festival interview:

A Dalliance That Transforms God

Who we are, where we are going and how love, pain and the weight of experience determine why these questions matter to us are some of the themes constellated in the compact, yet uncommonly forthright work of Duane Esposito, tonight’s Barnes & Noble Open Mic featured poet.

A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee (2003 and 2009), Duane will read selections from Declaration of Your Bones, his latest collection (Yuganta Press, 2012), following up on Cadillac Battleship, published by Broken Tribe Press in 2005. Duane released his first poetry collection, Book of Bubba, through Brown Dog Press in 1998.

Along with PoemAlley facilitator, Ralph Nazareth, Duane teaches at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, where he is an Associate Professor of English. He holds an MA from SUNY Brockport and received an MFA from the University of Arizona. His writing was also selected by Diane Glancy for an Academy of American Poets Award in 1994.

For more information—and to get a feel for his sonorous reading style, click BlogTalkRadio for a 2009 interview with Marcia McNair, or check out the entry covering his previous area appearance at PoemAlley just over a year ago.

The following piece evokes the commonplace with the cosmogonic to pit mortality, regret and other undeniable realities against the still-more-undeniable need to confront, adapt, or move on. 

The Loons
by Duane Esposito

1
The rain falls steadily inside your head.
You will die quite cloistered by autistic music.

The leaves these days
drift toward home.

If you fail to fly, 
they will murder your psyche.

Do you know dalliance
transforms God into a spook? 

2
To close the distance between vast shores, 
I cease being tired of memory.

To no longer chew the bruises of history, 
I speak for the constancy of love.

To no longer wonder 
what it means to be alive,

I refuse to be dragged 
through infantile desires.

Here’s the terror I’ve had to bury: 
you left me with a paralyzed, half-body.

I announce my obsession with rain.
I’m sorry for the stardust that led to creation. 

3
Sometimes, when clouds 
touch water, you’ll soon arrive.

I reach for you-- my gone father-- 
for the blank you left behind.

But loons, once in the whitecaps of pain, 
have left these lakes for winter.

In dream they sleep near my head
& twitch against my neck.

Keep up with Duane online at www.duaneesposito.com.

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble's Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Down Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

Moving Art In The Morning, Spoken Art In The Afternoon

Two complementary programs infuse tomorrow with visual and spoken delight, personal and social depth beginning at 11 AM with CiCi Artist’s “Moving Pictures, animated art shorts”, a free presentation of the Avon Theatre Film Centre, Stamford’s non-profit, member-supported movie house on Bedford Street.

CiCi Artist

As the 30-second exercise below from www.ciciartist.com generously affirms, CiCi has a particular fascination with melding graphic art with video and the animation format, distilled into a one-hour collection of assorted subjects, including Spreading Mom, a collaboration with PoemAlley’s Bill Buschel (who wrote the screenplay), inspired by the artist and her family’s unforgettable four-year effort to fulfill their mother’s final wish to have her ashes spread in Florence, Italy. The visuals are enhanced by an original score by Linda Allen and Mick Leonard (you can access their music at www.DBUproductions.com.

When:

Sunday, April 7, 11 AM

Where:

Avon Theatre Film Centre 

272 Bedford Street

Stamford, CT

Contact:

(203) 967-3660

Avon Theatre Film Centre

www.avontheatre.org

Lisa C. Taylor

In the afternoon, head to The Shelton Playhouse to enjoy readings delivered by Lisa C. Taylor, Ralph Nazareth, Marianela Medrano, Elizabeth Thomas and others at Voices of Poetry, organized by Pushcart Award-nominee Neil Silberblatt (guest speaker at Curley’s last Tuesday).

Committed to using poetry as a tool to slow down the pace of modern life, Lisa C. Taylor shares her thoughts, information on creativity workshops and her work, such as material from her new Syracuse University Press compilation, Necessary Silence, at www.lisactaylor.com. Lisa reveals “What Slugs Have to Teach Us” below:

Read poet and arts educator Elizabeth Thomas’ touching musings on family elder care at “Elizabeth’s Blog” at http://hereisakiss.wordpress.com. Below is a live reading from her collection From the Front of the Classroom (Antrim House, 2008):

Accompanying the poetry will be live music courtesy of guitarist Mike Latini. His homepage (www.reverbnation.com/mikelatini) features audio files of several of his solo compositions. Below is a 2012 live performance by Latini and Nowan of “Only a Dream” at The Towne Crier Cafe in Pawling, NY; Mike, who wrote the lyrics and music, is on the right:  

When:

Sunday, April 7, 2-4 PM

Where:

The Sherman Playhouse

5 Route 39 North

Sherman, CT

Contact:

(860) 354-3622

The Sherman Playhouse

www.shermanplayers.org