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Saturday, November 27, 2010

Local Poets, Local Inspiration!

The Santa Cruz Weekly chose my poem, Sparkle in this week's Local Poets, Local Inspiration section, check out the link below. Here's the poem:


Sparkle

At the edge--
            spotted stones
                        and roiling kelp.
The day facets me in its diamond.
            Wind-chimes are silent,
Buddha’s stone head bows.

A gap in the fence could tell--
                                       mouth opens,
               closes on a dahlia,
on a rosebush stripped to thorns.

A beheaded sunflower stem
holds a hummingbird’s silhouette.
Bees comb and primp the blonde sky.

            Waves fall down--
spotted stones
and roiling kelp.
        Shadows slink and slip
with the earth’s music.
                    With a mouth full of stones, I sing.




Local Poets, Local Inspiration

Friday, November 19, 2010

Chronicles on Violence

The following series of poems is for publication in an anthology of 18 word poems. Each of the eighteen poets is submitting 18 poems. My poems are a series based on gender-based violence--a cheerful topic I know, but one which needs much, much more discussion. Here is a sample. Mark Cobley of Red Ceilings Press in the UK was kind enough to ask me to submit, check him out: The Red Ceilings



Chronicles on Violence I


Grandpa’s daddy raped his mother.
        
Here’s an X for him.

No peonies.
                                           El nopal.      
                                                         Whiskers burn.

Never speaks.




Chronicles on Violence II

Never speaks again,
tongues a torture of words.

He sutures her lips
with black thread
a silver needle


Chronicles on Violence III

Uses a silver needle
to cross-stitch his name.

Cross beams
cannot support

what he plants
with his fist.




Chronicles on Violence IV

With his fist
Vato loco

tightens a red bandana
around your throat.

A tattoo of
your name bleeds.


Chronicles on Violence V

Bleeding
she unties
the goat of the past.

A rat’s skeleton
crunches underfoot.
His dark shadow
rustles black.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Ping-Pong Magazine at the Beat Museum tonight! November 12th



WEST COAST PING-PONG Release party!!!! in conjunction with Parthenon West

The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California is hosting the West Coast Release party for Ping•Pong, a international journal of the arts and literature at the Beat Museum. 

The Ping•Pong West Coast Launch Party will take place at the Beat Museum on Friday, November 12th, with featured reader Kim Addonizio. There will also be readings by the editors: Christine Hamm, Jessica Breheny, James Maughn and Maria Garcia Teutsch, as well as contributors, Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts and Judy Halebsky. Readings will begin at 7:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

Ping•Pong’s release party is in conjunction with Parthenon West magazine. Parthenon West’s readers include the fabulous Erica Lewis and outstanding Russell Dillon.

Come by and have a glass of wine with us and marvel at the wonder of the Beat Museum,
and swing your hips to the music of DJs Krystal Simpson and Aaron Gonzalez. Paintings on exhibit by Paris-based artist Jean-Noel Chazelle. 


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Book information:

Ping•Pong
A Literary Journal of the Henry Miller Library
2010
ISSN #1083-0944
Paperback, 161 pages, $12.00

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Contact Information:

Christine Hamm, Poetry Editor
inktastesbitter@yahoo.com

Maria Garcia Teutsch, Editor-in-Chief
maria@henrymiller.org
831-755.6943 (office)

Magnus Toren 667-2574 (Executive Director, Henry Miller Library)
Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920
www.henrymiller.org/ping_pong.html

Reader Bios:

Kim Addonizio is the author of five collections of poetry including Tell Me, a 2000 National Book Award Finalist. Her work has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA Fellowships, the John Ciardi Lifetime Achievement Award, and other honors. She has published two instructional books: Ordinary Genius, A Guide for the Poet Within; and The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (with Dorianne Laux). She has a word/music CD with Susan Browne, “Swearing, Smoking, Drinking & Kissing,” available from CDBaby.

Russell Dillon was born in New York during the mid 70s and hasn't been able to get over it. However, in an effort to put the past behind him, he's attended a number of schools in various places, learned things at each one of them, and received degrees from Emerson College and the Bennington Writing Seminars. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Alligator Juniper, Big Bell, Forklift, Ohio, and Tight, among others. He currently lives in San Francisco, where he does almost everything life asks of him.

Erica Lewis is a full-time fine arts publicist in San Francisco. She received her MFA from Mills College and received the 2008 Mary Merritt Henry Writing Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in P-Queue, Ur Vox, alice blue, Work, The Walrus, and Outside Voices 2008 Anthology of Younger Poets

Christine Hamm, one of the Ping Pong poetry editors, is a PhD candidate in English Literature and an MFA candidate in poetry. She won the MiPoesias First Annual Chapbook Competition with her manuscript, Children Having Trouble with Meat.  She teaches English at CUNY, and has performed all over the country. She has two books, The Transparent Dinner and Saints & Cannibals, and her third book is forthcoming from Blazevox.  Christine was a runner-up to the Poet Laureate of Queens. 

Maria Garcia Teutsch is Editor in Chief of Ping-Pong magazine. She also serves as president of the board of directors of the Henry Miller library in Big Sur, Ca. She is widely published, and has three poetry chapbooks, Surrender Dorothy, Fractured Fortunes and there are no cars on this highway.


Jessica Breheny is the author of a chapbook of short
stories, Some Mythology. (Naissance Press, 2010) She
teaches writing at San Jose City College and serves as the
fiction editor of Ping Pong : The Literary Arts Journal of
the Henry Miller Library. Her work has appeared in elimae,
580 Split, Fugue, LIT, Other Voices, and Santa Monica
Review and is forthcoming from Avery. She is the author of
a collection of short stories and a young adult novel.


JAMES MAUGHN lives in Santa Cruz, CA, where he a poetry
co-editor for the literary arts journal Ping Pong,
published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library. He also
coordinates A New Cadence Poetry Series out of the Felix
Kulpa Gallery in Santa Cruz.  His first book, Kata, was
 published by BlazeVOX Books in 2009. Work has appeared in
Otoliths, Lungfull, Parthenon West Review, TinFish, Big
Bell, Sentence, Moria, Poetry Salzburg Review, Dusie,
MiPoesias, and Horse Less Review.  He is a member of the
Black Radish Collective, and his second book, Arakaki
Permutations, will be published by Black Radish Books in
2010.  Another book, These Peripheries, will be published
by Ahadada Press.


Judy Halebsky the author of Sky = Empty, the 2009 winner of
the New Issues Poetry Prize, judged by Marvin Bell.  She is
a contributing editor and translator for the bilingual
poetry journal Eki Mae. Residencies at the MacDowell Colony
and the Millay Colony have supported her work. Originally
from Halifax, Nova Scotia, she spent five years in Japan
studying art and literature on fellowships from the
Japanese Ministry of Education. She teaches writing and
world literature at Dominican University of California and
is artist-in-residence at Theatre of Yugen.



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Monday, July 12, 2010

Interview by Jean Vengua



Jean Vengua interviewed me for her blog: Local Nomad. It took me about a month to complete, check it out: here

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Ping-Pong Magazine on KUSP Poetry Show


Tonight I will be on the KUSP poetry show at 9:00 pm. Will talk about Ping-Pong magazine's unique aesthetic. Joining me tonight is poetry editor, James Maughn and host Dennis Morton.
Podcasts of past shows are available.