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Category: poetry
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W. Todd Kaneko Reads From The Dead Wrestler Elegies on 3/5
The elegies and illustrations in Asian American poet W. Todd Kaneko’s collection The Dead Wrestler Elegies (Curbside Splendor, November 2014) cover themes of loss, love, regret, redemption, and remorse. Kaneko’s poems and illustrations blend Charles Bukowski’s raw-boned verse and Randy “Macho Man” Savage’s devastating elbow drop to mine the history of professional wrestling and examine complex relationships between fathers and sons.
“Kaneko’s poems leap from the top turnbuckle and make the heart pirouette like the choreographed turn of the ropes. When the lights in the arenas go out, these poems, in conjunction with Kaneko’s stunning visual work, honor both these wrestlers and an era. Through Todd Kaneko’s fierce but tender elegies, we come to understand that the gods are mortal after all.”
—Oliver de la Paz, author of Post Subject: A Fable and Requiem for the OrchardW. Todd Kaneko’s poetry, fiction and non-fiction can be seen in Bellingham Review, Los Angeles Review, Southeast Review, Lantern Review, NANO Fiction, The Collagist, Blackbird, The Huffington Post, Song of the Owashtanong: Grand Rapids Poetry in the 21st Century, Bring the Noise: The Best Pop Culture Essays from Barrelhouse Magazineand elsewhere. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and has received fellowships from the Kenyon ReviewWriters Workshop and Kundiman. He is an associate editor for DMQ Review. Currently, he teaches in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with the writer Caitlin Horrocks.
For more info: Visit curbsidesplendor.com or email Catherine(at)curbsidesplendor(dot).com
Thursday, March 5th, 7pm – Free Event
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David Moscovich You Are Make Very Important Bathtime Release Event With Eckhard Gerdes 9/13
David Moscovich’s new book, You Are Make Very Important Bathtime (JEF Books Publishing), is about an expatriate in a foreign land and his failure to navigate the awkward seas of extreme culture clash. Set in Southern Japan, it is a celebration of the beauty of misunderstanding and the inadvertent poetry of bad grammar.
“A wild and enlivening collection of stories that capture the comedy, chaos and uncertainty of living as an alien in a place just beyond one’s understanding. Moscovich is a daring writer, and this book, both preposterous and beautiful, is an unusual demonstration of talent.”
-Michael Thomsen, author of Levitate The Primate
David Moscovich writes flash fiction and performs his texts both live and on the radio, fragmenting, ricocheting, and refurnishing language until it meets its own devolution. He lives with chronic insomnia in New York City and runs Louffa Press, a micro-press dedicated to printing innovative fiction.
Also reading: novelist Eckhard Gerdes read from his first published book of poetry, 23 Skidoo! 23 Form-Fitting Poems (Finishing Line Press) and from his short novella The Sylvia Plath Cookbook (published by Sugar Glider Press in Queensland, Australia). Eckhard Gerdes is the author of 14 published novels, including My Landlady the Lobotomist and Hugh Moore. He lives in Geneva, Illinois, and is the publisher of the Journal of Experimental Fiction and JEF Books.
For more info:
egerdes(at)experimentalfiction(dot)com
Friday, September 13, 7pm – Free Event
Light refreshments will be served
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Poet Carrie McGath Reads From Ohio Lonely 3/2
In Carrie McGath’s new book, Ohio Lonely, a self-published chapbook of poems and accompanying photo-collge works. “This book is my version of a genealogy including photographs I have collaged to express my memories and impressions of family members I have met or never got to meet.”
Poet Alexander Long, author of Still Life, writes of Ohio Lonely:
“Don’t mistake Carrie McGath’s project in Ohio Lonely as nostalgic in a pejoratively clichéd way, a naïve and dishonest looking back where every lost family member is steeped in sugary sepia. No. McGath doesn’t just understand what nostalgia, literally, means: the ache for that which is ours. Her nostalgia is marrow-deep. “I look for the woman inside of me through photos…”, she writes in one poem. Nothing more indelible than that manic stasis of the elegiac gaze. Yes, indeed. McGath’s poems fade not away. Thank God.”
Saturday, March 2nd, 7pm – Free Event
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CCLaP Performs "Podcast Dreadful"
Join the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (CCLaP) on Friday, September 21st, as it presents a live-audience episode of its new “Podcast Dreadful” serial literary anthology, at the popular Quimby’s Bookstore in Wicker Park. Known for its annual themed compilation of local short work every fall, this year CCLaP is presenting this work as a free 12-part audiobook at its website cclapcenter.com/dreadful, every Monday in September, October and November; featuring a variety of celebrated authors both locally and across the US, each story in this collection has been written in the style of an old Victorian “penny dreadful,” featuring cliffhangers each week and a dark, strange tone throughout. Episode number 4 will be performed in front of a live audience at the famed indie-lit venue Quimby’s, and will feature not only readings from local authors Davis Schneiderman, Jacob Knabb, Jason Fisk and CCLaP owner Jason Pettus, but also real-time radio-style sound effects by a specially assembled stage crew. Free refreshments will also be served that night, and with other CCLaP merchandise available for purchase.
For more info: cclapcenter.com/dreadful or write Jason Pettus at cclapcenter@gmail.com
Fri, Sept 21st, 7pm
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Vittorio Carli Reads A Passion For Apathy, with Friends 2/11
Vittorio Carli Reads A Passion For Apathy,
with Vince Bruckert, Dave Gecic, Lynn Fitzgerald, Bradley Lastname, and other special guestsIn A Passion For Apathy, (published by Press of the Third Mind), Vittorio Carli experiments with many types of genres, and his poems were primarily influenced and informed by beat writings, dada, children’s literature, formalist verse, absurdism, fluxus, and surrealism.
“I need to make it clear that this relatively small (68 pages) collection is in no way narrow or repetitious, either stylistically or thematically. Far from it; There is free verse, rhyming verse (where Carli shows the least originality and strength), language poetry, story-poems, repetitive poems, and even a bit of vispo, and the ending poem of the book: “Theological Parody” is something else again, and well worth a few careful reads. Poet–publisher Bradley Lastname and Press of the 3rd Mind continue to be at the forefront of the small and independent press…” -Joey Madia in New Mystic Reviews
“A book by Vito Carli is long overdue. He is an ever changing fixture on the Chicago poetry scene, and seeing his work on the page, (mostly for the first time) does not pin him down in any one genre. He is a constant experimenter, and seeing his poetry in print gives the reader a far greater appreciation for the nuances in his work.” -Dave Gecic (publisher of Pudd’nhead Books)
Vittorio Carli’s poems have been published in Best of Chicago Poetry, Online! the Chicago Poetry Renaissance, Café Review, Rambunctious Review, Polvo, The American Dissident, Dissent, Struggle: The Journal of Revolutionary Literature, Mind in Motion, Alphabeat Press, Alternative Press, Poems of the World, Religious Humanism, The World Salad Anthology, and The Anti Mensch. Vittorio has done music, art and film reviews for The Star newspapers, The Southtown Star, Chicago Artists News, the Daily Herald, “Letter eX,” “Dialogue,” and reelmoviecritic.com. He currently does film commentary on WZRD (88.3 FM) on Sundays at 3:30, and he writes a poetry blog at www.examiner.com.
For more info: carlivit@gmail.com artinterviews.com bradleylastname.com bankley.org.uk/Artist-Carolyn-Curtis-Magri
Sat, February 11th, 7pm
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Poetry by Mitchell L.H. Douglas, Jessica Farquhar, Laura A. Lionello, Al Maginnes, and Brett Eugene Ralph 3/3
Escaping the comfortable confines of the Associated Writing Programs’ annual meeting, five American poets go rogue to read their work in the more sharply stimulating environs of Quimby’s. Collectively, these writers represent a truly American mosaic of sensibility and sentiment perfectly suited to the tough streets of Chicago.
Mitchell L. H. Douglas is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. His poems have appeared in Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter and the anthologies The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South and Zoland Poetry No. 2 among others. A Cave Canem fellow and cofounder of the Affrilachian Poets, his debut collection, Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem (Red Hen Press, 2009) was nominated for a 2010 NAACP Image Award in the Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry category and a 2010 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. His second poetry collection \blak\ \al-f? bet\, winner of the 2011 Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award, is forthcoming from Persea Books.
Jessica Farquhar is the Assistant Director of Creative Writing at Purdue, where she teaches and learns. Recently, her poems have appeared in The Lumberyard, New Madrid, and ABZ.
Laura A. Lionello was born and raised in the Chicagoland area. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature from DePaul University. From 1999 to 2005, she lived in various cities in Colorado and California, working, not working, writing poetry, and talking about writing more poetry. While in Santa Monica, she co-hosted the weekly open mic Really Big Show (2003-2005). She and her co-host published two anthologies to feature works by the talented artists in the area. Laura’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications, both in print and online. Her poem “All Empty” earned first prize for poetry in the Tallahassee Writers Association 2008 Penumbra Poetry & Haiku contest. Her first collection of poems, Panic Kit, was published by Weak Creature Press in 2011. Laura lives in Chicago with her husband, Wayne.
Al Maginnes is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Ghost Alphabet (White Pine Press 2008) which won the 2007 White Pine Poetry Prize, Dry Glass Blues (Pudding House Press 2007), a single long poem published as a chapbook, and Film History (Word Tech Editions 2005). A former recipient of a fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council, his poems appear widely. He lives with his family in Raleigh, North Carolina and teaches composition, literature and creative writing at Wake Technical Community College.
Brett Eugene Ralph spent the better part of his youth in Louisville, Kentucky, playing football and singing in punk rock bands. His work has appeared in publications such as Field, Conduit, Willow Springs, and The American Poetry Review, and his poems have been anthologized in The McSweeney’s Book of Poets Picking Poets and The Stiffest of the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader. Black Sabbatical, his first full-length collection, was published in 2009 by Sarabande Books. The debut album by Brett Eugene Ralph’s Kentucky Chrome Revue, a revolving country rock ensemble, is available from Noise Pollution. Filmmaker Harmony Korine calls Ralph “a true beast of a man with insight and beauty to spare” while musician Will Oldham has described Ralph’s work as “sustaining, inspiring, even rescuing.”
Saturday, March 3, 7:00 p.m.
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Joyland Magazine and Dzanc Books present The Fiction Feed: AWP Edition 3/1
Joyland Magazine and Dzanc Books present
The Fiction Feed: AWP EditionJoyland Magazine and Dzanc Books are two innovative publishers pushing fiction with great writing and new means of print and digital distribution. Join us for an evening with four writers, hailing from Chicago, New York and Vancouver. Hosted by Joyland co-founder Brian Joseph Davis and Dzanc co-publisher Dan Wickett.
READERS
Eugene Cross has published work in Narrative Magazine, American Short Fiction, Story Quarterly and Callaloo, among other journals. He is the recipient of scholarships from the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He currently lives in Chicago. Fires of Our Choosing (Dzanc) is his first book.
Kevin Chong is the author of four books, including his acclaimed debut Baroque-a-Nova (Penguin) and the travelogue Neil Young Nation (Douglas & McIntyre). His new novel from Arsenal Pulp is titled Beauty Plus Pity. He lives in Vancouver and is a section editor for Joyland.
Jeff Parker is the author of the novel Ovenman (Tin House) and the story collection The Taste of Penny (Dzanc). He co-edited the anthologies Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States and Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia. His nonfiction book Igor in Crisis: A Russian Journal is forthcoming from HarperCollins.
Megan Stielstra is a writer, storyteller and the literary director for 2nd Story, Chicago’s urban storytelling series. She has performed for the Goodman Theatre, the Chicago Poetry Center and National Public Radio. She teaches in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College. Her debut collection of stories, Everyone Remain Calm, is now available from Joyland/ECW Press.
For more info: joylandmagazine.com and dzancbooks.org
Thursday, March 1, 7PM
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Kevin Coval Performs Poetry From L-Vis Lives!: Racemusic Poems
Spoken-word poet Kevin Coval, co-founder and Artistic Director of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, will perform at Quimby’s in support of his third collection of poetry L-vis Lives! Racemusic Poems (Haymarket Books, September).
Coval, who has been hailed as “a new glowing voice in the world of literature” by Studs Terkel, explores the dynamic intersection of race and culture in America today with “L-vis,” an imagined persona and pastiche of artists who have used and misused Black music. In Coval’s poetic novella, L-vis’s story is equal parts autobiography and forgotten and re-imagined history. We see shades of Elvis Presley, the Beastie Boys, and Eminem, and meet some of history’s more obscure “whiteboy” heroes and antiheroes. A free audio preview of L-vis Lives!, with poems read by Coval and beats by Coolout Chris, can be heard here: http://bit.ly/oXSIxZ
“This book is bold, brave and morally messy – twelve rounds of knock-down, drag-out shadowboxing against a shapeshifter. The dark humor, intellectual fervor, and emotional rigor Coval brings to bear animates these pieces, turns caricatures to characters…”
—Adam Mansbach, author, Go the F**k to SleepFor performance, interview, and review requests, contact: Jon Kurinsky, Haymarket Books, jon@haymarketbooks.org
Wed, Oct 12th, 7pm
from hero to most
i am a hero
to most. the great hope
of something other.
a complex back-story.
something other than
the business of my father.
bland’s antonym.
jim crow’s black sheep.
the forgotten son
left to rise in the darkness
among the dis
carded in the wild
of working class, single
mother hoods. -
Carrie McGath Reads From So Sorry to See You Go
Carrie McGath’s first collection of poems, Small Murders, was released in 2006 from New Issues Poetry and Prose. Ward-Eighty-One and The Chase are her self-published, limited-edition collections released in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Her newest self-published chapbook, So Sorry to See You Go is in a limited 50-edition run with the cover design by Bailey Romaine. The poems are inspired by Carrie’s thesis research at the Newberry Library about the presence of the circus in the Midwest. Carrie grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. Youngstown’s strange persona remains with Carrie, along with her dark Irish ancestral roots seeped in secrets, illness, and superstition. Carrie currently lives in Chicago where she is a poet, visual artist and art writer for Chicago Art Magazine She also contributes to Art:21 Blog’s “Open Enrollment” column. Her blog dollwork.org is devoted to film, literature, art, and other nooks of culture where dolls appear. She lives with her sweet and spoiled cats, Seamus and Hortense.“Juxtaposing imagery of fractured delicacy, birds’ wings, eggshells and doll’s heads, with uncompromising hardness of gun barrels and wooden chests, she captures an uncanny world where a semblance of normality veils overripe fantasies and violence.” ~~ Aisha Motiani, Milwaukee’s Shepherd Express
For more info: carriemcgath.com
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Off-Site Event: The Return of the Geek @ Words That Kill 6/16
Every year Words That Kill celebrates everything nerdy and geeky through literary, visual and performance arts. In the past, this meant love letters to Mr. Spock, comedy sketches about surviving zombie apocalypse, and poetry about inner Jedi and addiction to video games, amongst others.This month the Geek is back once again and he has planned an even more mind-boggling extravaganza with features by The Former Fat Boys (Mixtape release party), The Great Luke Ski and art installation by Rotofugi, John Campbell (Pictures For Sad Children), and many more artists and performers.
Lethal Poetry Presents W O R D S T H A T K I L L – a comedy / poetry series & omni-slam featuring local, national touring, and award winning comedians and poets.
Return Of the Geek on Thursday, June 16th and W O R D S T H A T K I L L every 3rd Thursday
@ creative lounge CHICAGO (1564 N. Damen Ave 3rd Fl., Wicker Park)
Doors / Sign-up 7 PM
7:00 – Open Mic (geeks only please this month)
8:00 – Show
ALL AGES
Admission: $5 or FREE with canned goods donation.Featured Performers:
The Former Fat Boys: are the creators of YouTube sensation “I’m a Dinosaurus” and “Nerdapalooza.” Their sound resembles that totally pumped up noise you make when you’re watching the original Power Rangers and Tommy the Green Ranger blows his knife flute and the Dragonzord comes up and you just know there’s some ass that is about to be kicked, so you jump out of your seat and punch the wall and scream! Since they understand that they are continually awesome and timeless they call their genre: Shatnercore. The group will be releasing a mixtape called, “Wanna Buy Beats” – the idea spawned from all of the spam on MySpace, Twitter and Facebook to buy beats. So they bought a bunch and created an album.
The Great Luke Ski: is the 21st century Weird Al Yankovich, but with better hair and no mustache! At Dragon*Con 2004, Dr. Demento declared “the great Luke Ski” to be his program’s “Most Requested Artist of the 21st Century”. Since then, he’s held that title by having songs on “Dr. Demento Show’s” annual year-end “Funny 25” countdown of his most requested songs for nine years running, two of which ranked #1 (“Peter Parker” 2002, “Stealing Like A Hobbit” 2003), & two ranked #2 (“You Don’t Know Jack” 2006, “Too Much Stuff” 2009). His song parodies, originals, and sketches about pop culture make him a popular act at sci-fi and geek conventions nationwide. In his 9 albums and 1 DVD release he’s covered: Lord of The Rings, Star Wars Star Trek, Battlestar Gelactica, Anime, Marvel, Spider-Man, and much much more!
John Campbell: is best known for a popular web comic Pictures For Sad Children, but he is no stranger to gallery art. His work is satirical by nature and his humor has been described as “…mostly dark, incorporating elements of magic realism…” Campbell, began his work in 2007 while he lived in Zacatecas, Mexico, but has since moved to Chicago, released a book of the first 200 comics and continues to exhibit his gallery work with great success.
Rotofugi Artists: Rotofugi is a fantastically geeky store notable for carrying a culture of toys whose origins trace back to China and Japan. Established in 2004 by husband and wife Kirby and Whitney Kerr, the store is a staple destination for geeks and nerds of Chicago. The store runs a gallery that will be exhibiting work from various artists that they represent (including Shawnimals and Squibbles Ink)
That Juggling Guy aka Brad French: will make his second appearance at Words That Kill. A juggler and comedian, Brad is known to wonder off into ontological and existential discourses while trying to keep several objects in the air.
Corey Arcangel is a digital artist from Brooklyn, NY. His work is concerned with the relationship between technology and culture, and media appropriation. He uses many different media including drawing, sculpture, video, and photographs but is best known for his video game ROM hacks.
DJ Limbs: Nerdcore and Top Geek 40’s all night!
Additional visual artists include: Seamus P Burke (of web comic Oh Goodie!) and Sara Brumlick (of Dikkers Animation)
Hosted by Lethal Poetry’s President Mojdeh Stoakley as William Shatner!
__________________________________________________________Words That Kill has been repeatedly selected for Metromix’s “Best Bets” column, written about in Sun-Times, and reviewed in NewCity. Our past performers include such distinguished comedians and poets as Marc Kelly Smith, Javon Johnson, Cameron Esposito, Marty McConnell, Michael Lebovitz, Chad Briggs, Robbie Q. Telfer, Brian Babylon, Shannon Matesky, Avery R. Young and others!
Lethal Poetry is an arts/entertainment company and label built to support non-profits through the arts. LP produces interdisciplinary art exhibitions, music, comedy & poetry events, and seeks to utilize arts & entertainment as means to provide public service.