Category Archives: Uncategorized
The day after May Day thank you Jacob Lawrence with event link!
If I could say that someone waved a magic wand around me, I would say it is because of Jacob Lawrence, an important artist whose work continues to refresh the imagination to this day. I first saw half of the Migrations Series in the 1970s at the Philllips Collection in D.C. I think because of Richard J. (Rick) Powell, who was then a artist/scholar/curator kind of guy. I was stunned. These little paintings told stories about the South and the very real reasons that Black people left-had to leave. The next time I saw the panels was at the Whitney I think along with other series, The Builders, etc. Again, the stories in colors vivid and bold lines–the generosity towards Black folks, the pride of Black folks, the folk of Black folks–his painting allowed the narrative to sing through.
So when Elizabeth Alexander (she’s the very tall imposing diva next to moi) asked me to create a poem in response to the Series, I was both excited and terrified. How to do justice to this work? How not imitate in words what he had already done in paint? How to add to the discourse on the Black Migration? How. Last August when I was the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, I re-looked at each of the panels and realized that Panel 57 was what I returned to. She’s the only single female figure in the entire series. She’s wearing white. There’s a cross in the picture. I thought of my cousin Hassie, who was head Usher at the Baptist church she attended. I thought of the aunts who came down from Chicago and Detroit looking fly. I thought of the harsh beauty of the south and the hard heartedness of southern white leadership. And then I realize that the best way into the poem was through scent. If you get the catalog you can read “Lave”. If you attend the exhibition, up till September 7, you can hear me and the other poems read our work in one of exhibition room. You can hear great music in other rooms (I am in a picture with the great opera singer, Kevin Maynard) On May 1, May Day, International Worker’s Day, we read at the Museum of Modern Art.
Hopefully, this link will take to what was one of my proudest moments as a poet and a Black woman who has lived long enough to know the harsh beauty remains in the South as does menace towards Black people, poor people–but I also know that the struggles have moved North, have taken a more complicated hard heartedness. But like our ancestors, we keep moving and when needed like the laundress, we find work, we do the work, we stand on whatever ground we can.
Again, I thank Elizabeth Alexander. Leah Dickerman, Sarah Kennedy, Jennifer Harris and a great crew at MOMA; the film studio guys, the really nice guards, the wait staff for any and all dinners, the whole sense of conviviality. Because ultimately, Lawrence shows how Black people embrace life in all of its complications from loving to loss; from brutality to struggles for justice. We really do keep on keeping on. And if you cannot embrace that simple thought you are starved of humanity. Praises to the Ancestors. Praises to the poets.
The reading was live streamed on youtube, here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdPZ5Wag9BM#action=share
Spring finally- Palm Sunday notes
Today is Palm Sunday. I go to St. John’s Episcopal church in Park Slope. I went to Episcopal mission school in Arkansas and I find the ritual and the thoughtfulness helpful to calm the many many noises that go on in my creative brain. I was raised in the Pentecostal Church, which is as ritualized as the Anglican churches, but with movement, great music and serious “testifying”. The noises in my my creative brain often felt amplified. But I miss the music. My mother before I was born was the Preacher’s singer–the woman (always a woman) who sang the most emotional hymn before the Preacher preached. She was in a harrowing car accident and she stopped singing. But she remain a devoted, dedicated Christian and in a few years joined a Christian Methodist Church, where over the years she became one of the matriarchs. I’ve been in NYC for along while and years ago when I told people I believed in God they seemed surprised. Often these were people who are now Buddhists, but mostly they had either been Roman Catholic or Jewish or had been raised with no spiritual tradition. None of the people who believed in African religions never said anything like that. Belief is a personal choice. It is something that you come to for many different reasons, but at it’s essence, it is also deeply emotional and filled with the necessary words of testimony–how the Lord got me over.
One of the reasons, I love Carolyn Rodgers “how I got ovah” was that she was able to connect her deep faith to our desires as Black people for freedom, safety, love. Today is Nina Simone’s birthday and my poem “The Perfect Lipstick” was one of the first to receive wide readership because it has Ms. Simone as a figure of great importance. When she sings spirituals, civil rights songs she reminds me of the sisters testifying: “I give my honor to God . . . ” She gave her honor to the people, Black people. I often wish I could attain that level of confession and purgation. But I think of The Passion of Christ and I think of the Passion of Black People in the United States and I think of redemption and transformation. For me it is the transformation of that suffering into something powerful-the Holy Spirit’s bright message that I find of deepest interest. I don’t know whether I want to go to “heaven” unless my mother and the many good people I have met in my life are there, but the idea of transformation of moving away from the bad habits, anger, mistrust to a place of freedom, beauty, community–I can feel that sometimes in church and yes in art.
Spring is here finally, the crocuses are sprouting, forsythia is on its way and when the white blossoms of the living bradford pears come, I may cry. I will assuredly smile and so will many many others. We have had a winter too frigid, too snowy, too gloomy and we need every blossom the Creator brings. 
La vida de la poet
One of the things about writing poems is to take risk or to use unlikely sources. On my birthday I share this poem selected by The AshberyHomeSchool organized by Adam Fitzgerald and Emily Skillings. Many years ago, I took Thulani Davis to see Belle Du Jour for her birthday. We felt oh so sophisticated. That seems like a century ago and indeed it was in the last century of the last millennium. Years later I thought about the film, but also more about what is marriage since it has been on everyone’s mind-gay marriage; divorce rates; why get married; why men are happier married, etc. etc. etc. I am not married, but probably would have made an interesting wife had I been married. But who knows. I do not. But the film gave a look at how marriage represses women. And the ways in which she “liberates” or does not “liberate” herself is at the heart of the film. Of course it’s a film by the great Spanish director Bunel and given his misogyny, the liberation focuses on her use of sex. Of course women liberate ourselves in a range of ways and that is a good thing. We need more liberty. We need to think about what marriage or not marriage is. We need to find language that allows our full selves to be claimed by our full selves. As a poet who is living her life as best she can, I know that it is not easy to live one’s full life. But I urged each of us to do so as best we can.
At MOMA, with Jacob Lawrence catalog, January 2015
http://ashberyhomeschool.org/gallery/patricia-spears-jones/
the thrill of departure
I taught a poetry workshop for Poets House using “departure” as a way to allow writers to take a different direction; try new things. Everyone has certain ways of seeing, feeling–I know that I do. And any time I am asked to try something different, called to create from another vantage, I embrace the process. But I know it may not work. There is always risk in not making good or hopefully great work. Of having your writing in the company of others who have been deemed valuable. I know that my work is well-regarded and for some deeply admirable. But I am not a prize receiving poet. The New York Times does not know my name. My last book, Painkiller, of which I very proud received like 3 reviews. And yet, I am completing A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems for White Pine Press. I would love to get prizes and the monies attached. I would love to get the praise. But my work as a poet has been to keep going despite neglect or rejection–it is not about giving up hope. It is about thinking that maybe in the language I choose to work with, I bring something new, different, engaged to the discourse. I am not glib. I cannot reduce my work to a sound bite–that does not interest me. What does is that thrill of departure-the step towards something possibility familiar, but often completely unknown.
When Elizabeth Alexander asked me to write a poem in response to Jacob Lawrence Migrations series, I was deeply touched. This was not expected and I was not sure of what I’d do; how I’d do it. I had written a poem in response to Lawrence’s “Builders” series-a gorgeous, hopeful group of paintings. That poem was published in Black Renaissance Noire, thanks Quincy Troupe. But this was different and when I was at VCCA this past August, I was able to pull together the strands of thinking about Lawrence’s work and a panel in that celebrated series and make a poem. I will always be grateful to my fellow VCCA residents who heard the poem read aloud for the first time and my good friend Deborah Wood Holton for her insightful first reading. I will read the final version, May 1 at MOMA with Elizabeth, Yusef Komunyakaa, Rita Dove, Tyehimba Jess, Crystal Williams, Nathasa Tretheway, Terrence Hayes, and Kevin Young.
A few days ago I stood in the recording studio at MOMA holding the catalog and marveling at the hard work done to bring Lawrence’s work to a new generation; a large audience. From what I have heard from everyone who worked with him, he was a deeply kind, generous and hard working man. An artist whose gifts are giving with love and great honor to the ancestors. I am grateful to him for showing what vision and work whether quickly seen or gained over a lifetime means. It means that the thrills keep coming year after year after year. The show opens April 3. I hope you go see it and see the work of artists living and gone–depart from your own vision. See where the colors, lines, figures take you–the journey may be long or short, but it will be different.
At MOMA, with Jacob Lawrence catalog, January 2015
Patricia Spears Jones Events Schedule 2018-2015
Cover art by Sandra Payne
JANUARY 2018
January 1 The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
Annual New Year’s Day Benefit
co-hosting
131 E. Tenth Street or 2nd Ave & 10th Street
3 p.m. to midnight, plus
$25.00 donation
Manhattan
January 6, Mile-High MFA Program
Reading in Denver
Organized by Andrea Rexilus
Regis University
6:30 p.m.
Denver, Colorado
MARCH 2018
March 8-10 2018 AWP
March 8, A Tribute to June Jordan
Moderator: Carey Salerno, Alice James Books
Noon-1:15 p.m.
Ballroom D, Convention Center, First Foor
Off Site Reading sponsored by Black Earth Institute
Reading features fellows and contributors to About Place Journal
The Attic Cafe
500 E. Kennedy Blvd, Ste. 400
leaving AWP
March 9 Reading & Conversation sponsored by Poets House
w/ Rick Barot and Latasha Natasha Nevada Diggs
moderator Paolo Javier
4:30-5:45
Ballroom B Convention Center, First Floor
Tampa
March 24, THE GATHERING
Organized by Jacar Press
Two workshops starting 9 a.m.
Winston-Salem, NC
Info at https://www.artsforart.org/vf23.html
Poet meets Dr. Ruth & she’s delightful
APRIL 2018
April 5 Plenary Speaker
College English Association Conference
Organized by Juliet Emanuel
5 p.m.
Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront
St. Petersburg, Florida
April 25, Adelphi University
Annual Poetry Day, Keynote Speaker
Organized by Igor Webb, et al
Adelphi University
9 a.m to 1 p.m.
Garden City, NY
April 26, The Poetry Foundation
(Harriet Series)
w/ Kimberly Lyons
Curated by Michael Slosek
61 West Superior Street
7 p.m.
Chicago, IL
Green Room, Poetry Foundation, Chicago
April 29 Poets House
Reading & Reception by American Poets Congress
Organized by Patricia Spears Jones, Vincent Katz & James Sherry
w/ Tai Allen, Amanda Deutch, Erica Hunt, Purvi Shah, Edwin Torres, Anne Waldman, et al
4-6 p.m
Ten River Terrace
Manhattan
free
MAY 2018
May 3, The Poetry Project Opening Event Group Reading
St. Mark’s Church, 131 E. 10th Street
An Allen Ginsburg Symposium: Out of Place
Organized by Jameson Fitzpatrick, et al
8 p.m.
Manhattan
May 18, CUNY Grad Center, Prohansky Auditorium
Tribute to June Jordan Reading
W/ Jen Benka, Erica Hunt, Tyehimba Jess, Christopher Soto, et al
Organized by Cave Canem and Center for Humanities
6:30 p.m.
365 Fifth Avenue
Manhattan
June Jordan Tribute Reading CUNY Grad Center
May 26, The Vision Festival (May 23-28) at Roulette
Performing with Jason Kao Hwang, violinist & improvisor
9 p.m.
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue
Contact: https://www.artsforart.org/vf23.html
JUNE 2018
June 26 Bryant Park Reading Room
Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon, curated by Juliet P. Howard
w/ Pamela Sneed, Sherese Francis and Anastacia Renee
7 p.m.
Bryant Park, 6th Avenue & 42nd Street
Manhattan
FREE
JULY 2018
July 4, Fine Arts Work Center
Organized by Kelle Groom
With Linda Bond and Reif Larsen
24 Pearl Street
Provincetown, MA
Jeff G. Peters, proprietor, East End Books, P-Town
SEPTEMBER 2018
September 18 The Schomburg Center,for Research in Black Culture
The Startling Life of Pauli Murray
Organized by Novella Ford
With Brittney Cooper, Patricia Bell-Scott and Kevin Young
Langston Hughes Auditoriam
515 Malcolm X Boulevard
6:30 p.m.
NewYork New York
https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/schomburg
September 29, 100,000 Poets Reading for Change
All Star Women Poets’ Reading to benefit the Democratic Party
Organized by Larissa Shmailo
With Lee Ann Browne, Elaine Equi, Rachel Hadas
And Trace Petersen
Cornelia Street Café
29 Cornelia Street
$20.00 cover
6 p.m.
leaving AWP
OCTOBER 2018
October 1-2, 2018 Facing Pages Statewide Literary Arts CONVENING
LIT TAP: New York State Literary Technical Assistance Program
Debora Ott, Organizer with Just Buffalo Literary Center
Keynote: Poetry Privilege Power
Hotel Henry Urban Resort Conference Center
444 Forest Avenue,
Buffalo NY
Information: https://www.arts.ny.gov/resources/nysca-resources
www.hotelhenry.com
October 10, The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
Reading from Wake Me When Its Over by Bill Kushner
Organized by Peter Bushyeager
With Don Yorty, Lydia Cortes, Anselm Berrigan, et al
131 E. 10th Street
8 p.m.
New York, NY
October 11 Belladonna Series
Guest Curators Program
With Serena Fox et al
Spoonbill and Sugartown Book Store
99 Montrose Ave
7 p.m.
Brooklyn, NY
October 18, Poets House
Tribute to Life and Poetry of Fay Chiang
Organized by Paolo Javier
With Jessica Hagedorn and Bob Holman
10 River Terrace
New York, NY
October 21, Federal Hall
Freedom Forums: Theme of Conflict of Home
Organized by Ama Codjoe and Debora Ott
With Kyle Dacuyan and Youth Poets
Federal Hall National Memorial
26 Wall Street
2-6 p.m
Free
New York, New York
October 24, The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
Readings from The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas
Organized by Aldon Nielsen
With Charles Bernstein, Erica Hunt, William J Harris, et al
131 E. 10th Street
8 p.m.
New York, NY
traveling travelig
JANUARY 2017
January 1 The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
Annual New Year’s Day Benefit
131 E. Tenth Street or 2nd Ave & 10th Street
3 p.m. to midnight, plus
$25.00 donation
Manhattan
January 14 Arts for Art
Evolving Festival, Justice is Compassion/Not a Police State
curated by Patricia Nicholson, co-founder
6:30 pm.
131 Suffolk Street Abrazo at The Clemente
Manhattan
info at www.artsforart.org
January 20 Day One: A Poetry Reading and Open Mic
Organized by Ted Degnan and Jen Fitzgerald
Poets House
10 River Terrace
5 – 7 p.m.
Manhattan
February, 2017
February 2 Women Poets at Barnard
w/ Lynn Emanuel
Barnard College
Sulzberger Parlor, 3rd floor, Barnard Hall
7 p.m.
Manhattan
February 11, AWP Conference, Washington DC
Panelist: Writing Capitalism: Chicken Shack to Cloud Corporation; Barmaid to Bureaucrat
Organized by Julie Sheehan
w/ J. Sheehan, Timothy Donelley, Sarah Vap and Sarah Briante
Marquis Salon 7& 8 Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two
10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Washington, DC
March 2017
March 11 Second Saturdays @CYRUS
organized by Terri Muss & Matt Pasca
w/ Terri Muss
1 Railroad Plz
7-9:30 p.m.
Bayshore, LI, NY
March 21, School of Visual Arts
Voices of Resistance org. by David Pemberton
w/ Lydia Cortes, Sheila Maldonado & Bakar Wilson
SVA Library
380 Second Ave.
Manhattan
7 p.m.
FREE
March 26, Bowery Poetry Club
The Golden Shovel Book Launch
Organized by Peter Kahn & Ravi Shankar,
w/ Latasha N. Diggs, Greg Pardlo, Jean Valentine, Elizabeth Macklin, Patricia Smith. et al
308 Bowery
Manhattan
3-5 p.m.
Free
Anthology honoring Gwendolyn Brooks-so glad to be in this.
April 2017
April 1 Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College
Paterson Poetry Prize Winner & Finalists Reading
Organized by Maria M. Gillan
w/ Mark Doty, et al
Hamilton Club Building
Paterson, New Jersey
1 p.m.
FREE
April 1, Howl Happening
WORD: An Anthology from A Gathering of Tribes
Emceed by Bob Holman
w/ Sheila Maldonado, Eileen Myles and Edwin Torres
6 E. First Street
Manhattan
7-9 p.m
FREE
April 7 Walking with Whitman Poetry in Performance
The Walt Whitman Birthplace Association
Curated by Cynthia Shor
6:00-9:30 p.m.
246 Old Walt Whitman Road
Huntington Station, LI, NY
April 20 Brooklyn Poets Anthology Reading
Organized by Jason Koo
w/ Timothy Donnelly, D. Nurske, Candace Williams, et al
Smack Mellon
92 Plymouth Street
7 p.m.
$20-$35 at the door
Brooklyn
May 2017
May 12, Pete’s Candy Store
w/Sharon Mesmer and Elaine Sexton
curated by Michael Broder
709 Lorimer Street
7 p.m.
Brooklyn NY
http://www.petescandystore.com/
Paterson Poetry Prize Event, April 1, 2017
JULY, 2017
July 22, GEMINI Ink
Writers Conference, July 21-23
Reading with Octavio Quintinanilla, Helana Maria Viramontes, Brian Turner
Curated by Alexandra Vanderkamp
1111 Navarro Street
7 p.m.
San Antonio, TX
Information: www.geminiink.org
July 26, Cambridge Public Library
The Golden Shovel Book Launch/Mass Poetry
Organized by Maura Snell and Ravi Shankar
6:30-8:30 p.m.
Cambridge, MA
AUGUST, 2017
August 5, Lincoln Center
La Casita Lincoln Center Out of Doors
Organized by Claudia Norman. LaTasha N. Diggs, C. Daniel Dawson, et al
Hearst Plaza
Noon-3 p.m.
Manhattan
FREE
August 6, Lincoln Center Out-Doors
La Casita at Teatro Pregones
571 Walton Avenue
2 p.m.
Bronx NY
FREE
SEPTEMBER , 2017
September 13, KGB
Inkwell Readings
w/ Richard Hoffman
85 E. 4th Street
7 p.m.
Manhattan
medallion Walt Whitman Birthplace, Long Island
October, 2017
October 21, Poetry Center
University of Arizona
Thinking in Presence Conference
8 p.m.
https://www.thinkingitspresenceconference.com/
October 30, KGB (again)
curated by Jason Schneiderman
85 E. 4th Street
7 p.m.
Manhattan
JANUARY 2016
January 12 Poets Settlement
Organized/hosted by Terence Degnan, et al
Breucklyn Colony
274 4th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
8 p.m.
FEBRUARY
February 12, Brooklyn Poets Reading Series
Organized by Jason Koo
w/ Rosebud Ben-Oni & Lonely Christopher
BRIC MEDIA ARTS
674 Fulton Street
7 p.m.
Brooklyn
F
February 17, Book Launch at BookCourt
Organized by the Poetry Society of America
w/ Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon
163 Court Street
Free
Brooklyn
February 23, NYU Book Center
Organized by Scott R. Hightower
w/ Barbara Fischer, Terese Svoboda & Jonathan Wells
6 p.m.
726 Broadway
Free
Manhattan
February 25, University of Pacific
Organized by Zhou Xiaojing, Ph.D.
English Department
Free
6:30 p.m.
Stockton, CA
February 29 University of California, Berkeley
Anniversary Celebration of Robert Hass’ Lunch Poems
w/ Cecil Giscombe, Brenda Hillman, Maxine Hong Kingston, Lynn Hejinian, et al
Morrison Library inside the Doe Library north entrance
5:30 to 7:30 PM
Wine reception
Berkeley, CA
MARCH
Moes Books, Berkeley CA
March 2, Moe’s Books
w/ Dennis Maloney
2476 Telegraph Avenue
7:30 p.m.
Berkeley, CA
March 3, The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University
Organized by Steve Dickinson
w/ Clarence Major
1600 Holloway Avenue
4:30 p.m.
San Francisco, CA
March 30-April 2 AWP : readings, signings, panel
March 31 Black Earth Institute Fellows’ Reading
AWP Off site Reading: Stories Books and Cafe
T. Broby, M. Durand, A. Hedge Coke, L. Camp, A. Finch
& A. Fisher-Wirth
1716 W. Sunset Blvd
6-8 p.m.
Free
APRIL
April 1, Book Signing
Organized by Pam Ushuk
Best of Cutthroat
1 p.m.
April 1 Book Signing A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems
Organized by Dennis Maloney, Publisher
White Pine Press, Table 743
2-3 p.m.
BOOKFAIR: LA Convention Center/JW Marriott
w/ Matthew Dickman, AWP Los Angeles, 2016
April 2, Out of LA: A Tribute to Jayne Cortez (1936-2012)
Organized by Laura Hinton. Panelists: Aldon Lynn Nielson,
Jennifer Ryan and Pam Ward
Room 410 LA Convention Center, Meeting Floor Level
3-4:15 p.m.
Los Angeles
https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/schedule_overview
April 21, The Kelly Writers House
University of Pennsylvania
broadside Kelly Writers House
Organized by Charles Bernstein, Al Fireis & Jessica Lowenthal
7 p.m.
3805 Locust Walk
7 p.m.
Philadelphia, PA
MAY 2016
Reading at Berl’s Poetry Shop
May 26, EARSHOT
Organized by Emily Skillings
w/Larry Kaplun, Nicole Sealy and Christian Smith
8 p.m.
Over the Eight, Union & Richardson
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
*******
JUNE
June 17, Benefit Reading for Community of Writers
Dedicated to C. D. Wright, organized by Alison DeLauer
W/ Kazim Ali, Bob Hass, Brenda Hillman, Cathy Park Hong
Sharon Olds & Kevin Simmonds
7 p.m.
First Congregational Church (Berkeley)
2345 Channing Way
Berkeley, CA
June 23, Staff Reading for Community of Writers
w/ Kazim Ali, Bob Hass, Cathy Park Hong and Sharon Olds
7 p.m.
Cathy Park Hong & Nikia Chaey at Squaw Valley, June 2016
Olympic Valley, CA
JULY
July 14, 24th Annual Poetry Showcase Reading
Organized by Stephen Motika
w/ Alicia Jo Rabins, Camille Rankine, Stacy Szymaszek
7 p.m.
Poets House
10 River Terrace
Manhattan
AUGUST
August 8, Local 61 Brooklyn YAWP
organized by Jason Koo
7 p.m.
61 Bergen Street
Brooklyn NY
www.brooklynpoets.org
SEPTEMBER
September 11 Group Reading
Jefferson Market Library
organized by Scott Hightower. Sally Davidowff, et al
2-4 p.m.
10th Street & Sixth Avenue
Manhattan
September 16, The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
Ted Greenwald Memorial–Group reading
organized by Poetry Project
8 p.m.
131 E. 10th Street
Manhattan
Ted Greenwald Memorial Reading at St. Mark’s Poetry Project
September 25 Arts for Art/In the Garden Series
organized by Steve Dalanchinsky
w/ Yuko Otomo,
3-5 p.m.
6 BC Garden-E. 6th Street between B&C
Manhattan
OCTOBER
October 11, Reading/PSU, Altoona
Organized by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
Noon
Free
Titelman Study of the Misciangna Family Center for the Performing Arts
Altoona, PA
October 17, BOOKCOURT/Reading from RESISTING ARREST Anthology
w/ Tony Medina, Marilyn Nelson, Quincy Scott Miller, et al
7 p.m.
163 Court Street
Free
Brooklyn, NY
NOVEMBER
November 1, Dia/Chelsea Contemporary Poetry Series
organized by Vincent Katz
w/ Christopher Stackhouse
535 W. 22nd Street, 5th Floor
$10.00 gen admission/$6.00 seniors & students
6:30 p.m.
212-989-5566
Manhattan
November 2, An Openings Roundtable
organized by Sabra Moore
w/ Janet Goldner, Marina Gutierrez, Cecilia Vicuna, Mimi Smith & K. Miyamota
Rizzoli
6:30 p.m.
November 18 The Writers Studio presents
2017 PUSHCART PRIZE ANTHOLOGY Reading
with Charles Baxter, et al & Bill Henderson, Publisher
The Strand Book Store (Rare Books Room)
12th and Broadway
7 p.m.
$15.00 ticket at the desk
Manhattan
post reading at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, Dec. 2015 w/ Lydia Cortes
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DECEMBER 2015
December 9, The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
Organized by Simone White
w/ Susie Timmons
8 p.m.
Kimberly Lyons, Laynie Brown, et al,March 2015
131 E. 10th Street
Manhattan
Donation
NOVEMBER
November 22, The Poetry Brothel
Organized by Stephanie Berger, et al
w/ Nick Flynn
New York City
November 14, Poets Network & Exchange
Organized by Lorraine Currelley
w/E.J. Antonio, Jacqueline Johnson, Tyehimba Jess
Countee Cullen Branch, NYPL
1 p.m.
Free
http://poetsnetworkandexchange.wordpress.com/
OCTOBER
October 19, Tribute to the Poet Ai
Organized by The Poetry Society of America, Academy of American Poets, Cave Canem, et al
w/ Yusef Komunyakaa, Joy Harjo, Sapphire, Timothy Lieu, Susan Wheeler, et al
Prohansky Auditorium, CUNY Graduate Center
Fifth Avenue & 34th Street
7 p.m.
Manhattan
SEPTEMBER
September 25, Glitter Pomegranate Series
Bedford Avenue YMCA
Curated by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
w/ Gregory Pardlo, Eugenia Lee and Lynne Procope
1121 Bedford Avenue
6:30 p.m.
Brooklyn, NY
September 20, Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon
Organized by Juliet P. Howard
Invitation Only: Reading/Workshop
TBA
https://www.facebook.com/WomenWritersinBloom.PoetrySalon
September 2, The Brooklyn Commons
Music Now! At Poetry/Jazz
w/Spiritchild XspiritMental, Ras Moshe Burnett, et al & open mic
The Brooklyn Commons
388 Atlantic Ave. btwn Hoyt St. & Bond St.
Brooklyn.
A,C to Hoyt-Schemerhorn/Any train to Atlantic Ave.
6 p.m. -9 p.m.
$11 contribution
AUGUST
August 9, Boog City Festival
David Kirschbaum, et al
Unnameable Bookstore
Vanderbilt Avenue
1:45 p.m.
Brooklyn, NY
JULY, 2015
July 25
Merryall Center
Voices of Poetry organized by Neil Silberblatt
w/ Patrick Donnelly, Michael Klein, and musicians
8 p.m.
New Milford, Connecticut
For directions, call (860) 354-7264 or visit www.merryallcenter.org.
JULY 26
Fifth Annual The New York Poetry Festival
Organized by Stephanie Berger
w/ Nick Flynn David Matlin and Fran Quinn
3 p.m.
Algonquin Stage, Colonels Row Park
Governors Island
Free
MAY, 2015
with Metta Sama and Meera Nair at Salem College, North Carolina
May 1, Museum of Modern Art
Debut Reading: Poetry Suite for Migration Series, One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence
Migrations Series and Other Works organized/curated Elizabeth Alexander
w/ Rita Dove, Nikky Finney, Terence Hayes, Tyehimba Jess,
Crystal Williams, et al
6:30 p.m.
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1
Manhattan
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/events/23538
May 10, hosting WORDS SUNDAY
Janet Kaplan and Jacqueline Jones LaMon
Calabar Imports
4 p.m.
351 Tompkins Avenue
Brooklyn
May 15, Center for Book Arts
The Broadside Series hosted by Sharon Dolin
w/ Ada Limon, Jen Bervin and Genine Lentine
7 p.m.
28 W. 27
Manhattan
APRIL 2015
April 2, Hell Yes, Readings from The Inferno by Dante Alghieri
Cathedral of St. John Divine
Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street
9 p.m.
Manhattan
Open to the Public
April 12, hosting WORDS SUNDAY
w/ LaToya Jordan and Ras Moshe Burnett
Calabar Imports Bed-Stuy
351 Tompkins
Brooklyn
info@calabar-imports.com
MARCH 2015
March 3, Borough of Manhattan Community College
Women’s Herstory Conference
w/ Lee Briccetti, Elaine Sexton, Nita Noveno, et al
7-9 p.m.
Manhattan
Free
March 8 McNally Jackson Books
Curated by Belladonna Collaborative
w/ Laynie Browne and Kimberly Lyons
7 p.m.
52 Prince Street
Manhattan
Free
March 18 The Center for Women Writers
Curated by Metta Sama, Director
w/ Meera Nair
Salem College
7 p.m.
601 S Church Street
Reading at Berl’s Poetry Shop
Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27101
http://www.salem.edu/community/cww/
FEBRUARY 2015
February 5 RESPOND at Smack Mellon
DUMBO FIRST THURSDAY
“Don’t shoot” curated by Samuel Jablom
w/ Anomalous who, Steve Dalachinsky, Joyce LeeAnn Joseph,
Yuko Otomo, and Peter Rugh
7:30 p.m.
SMACK MELLON
92 Plymouth Street @ Washington
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Free
JANUARY 2015
January 1, The Poetry Project New Year’s Day Benefit
Organized by The Poetry Project
w/ a cast of hundreds
2 p.m. to midnight
St. Mark’s Church on the Bouwerie
131 E. 10th Street
Manhattan
Donation: $20
January 3, First Saturday at Brooklyn Museum
Poetry Popup in Crossing Brooklyn
Organized by Alan Felsenthal
w/ Corinna Copp, Ricky Laurentis, and Charles North
Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn
Free w/ Museum Admission
DECEMBER
December 1, KGB Monday Night Poetry Series
Organized by John Deming
w/ Shanna Compton
7:30 p.m.
E. 4th Street
Manhattan
NOVEMBER POETRY EVENTS
November 11, Poets@Pace
w/ Monica de la Torre
Organized by Charles North
Pace University
Once Pace Plaza
Manhattan
6-7:30 p.m.
FREE
OCTOBER POETRY EVENTS
October 12, AiPO POETRY SCULPTURE
w/Christine Malvasi, Sophie Malleret,Najee Omar, &Nikhil Melnechuk
Organized by Samuel Jablon
1-2 p.m. UNION SQUARE
Manhattan
FREE
SEPTEMBER POETRY EVENTS
September 13, Greenpoint Branch
Brooklyn Public Library
Organized by Melanie Nielsen
w/ Kristen Gallagher
107 Norman Ave @Leonard Street
Brooklyn, NY
718-349-8504
September 24-27, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future
Of African-American Poetry
James Madison University
Furious Flower Poetry Center
Organized by Dr. Joanne V. Gabbin
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
www.jmu.edu/furiousflower
JUNE POETRY EVENTS
June 19, Lunch Poems, Word for Word Series
Organized by Paul Romero
w/ Lydica Cortes, Jessica Greenbay, Jocelyn Lieu & Sharan Strange
12:30 p.m.
Free
BRYANT PARK Reading Room
Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street
Manhattan
June 29, Voices of Poetry
Organized by Neil Silberblatt
w/ Chivas Sandage, Vivian Shipley, Mark Statman & Bianca Stone
4 p.m.
$15/$10 students
26 Bedford Road
Katonah, NY.
Life Lessons from Living in the Love Economy
Life Lessons
There are many lessons learned in life
But few come from tragedy—I know, I know
What makes you stronger and all that. Rot
I say
You learn more from what makes you laugh
How much pleasure the tongue can bring and where it was placed
The sweet look on your lover’s face. Or how loud P FUNK
Could be on stage and off NOT JUST KNEEDEEP
The towers falling; a man shot in the back
All terrible, but: What can you do about that?
What can you make of a world so wedded to injustice?
How dare you name the oppressor and demand his head,
His badge, his ranch or those secret accounts in the Maldives?
It is not as if the struggle is useless, it is that it continues.
But joy, where is it? What does it look like, smell like—bergamot
Lemons, honey, roses, musk?
To find it, is to explore a path where the stumbles are many
The curses frequent, but the rewards
forthcoming in A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems (White Pine Press)
2014 LIVING IN THE LOVE ECONOMY/THE FUTURE IS IN OUR HANDS
This is a year when airplanes dropped out the sky and just disappeared. Where Russian troops in Crimea pretended to not be Russian troops in Crimea. Where ACA almost died under the weight of lousy internet interface. It is a year with news of horrific rape, murder and abduction and it ends with rape allegations against an aging comedian. It is a year when
a generation of poets, activists and actors in their 70s, 80s and 90s left us and where younger ones died by their own hand or via drugs. It was a year that seem to to be like a over heated dressage-many obstacles to leap over; many traps to gallop through. This is the year I learned to be used to be an orphan, a position I so do not like being.
All of those awful, terrible, scary things were backdrop to what may be one of my most productive and accomplished year:
I have a new chapbook, Living in the Love Economy from Overpass Books, young people who are graduates of Long Island University–they studied with Lewis Warsh, who was on of my first poetry instructors when I came to NYC in 1974! The book launch at Berl’s was well attended and I was able to get Anselm Berrigan and Erica Hunt to share the spotlight. I thank them all.
Chapbook from Overpass Books.
Poems were published in The Cataramaran Literary Reader, The Recluse from The Poetry Project and The Mas Tequila Review.
Serious literary interviews were made with me by Lewis Warsh for The Otter and Rochelle Spencer for Mosaic and The Brooklyn Poets interviewed and featured me for the Brooklyn Poet of the Week (that was fun). The most interesting interview was actually a dialogue with Afaa Michael Weaver for the Furious Flower Poetry Center’s archive. And after harrassing, well gently needling Metta Sama, she pulled together this extraordinary convo that Monica Hand, Tracy Chiles McGhee, Raquel Goodison and Ruth Ellen Kocher on women’s creativity, artistic production and well read it at http://theconversant.org/staging/?cat=782.
Rich Blint of Columbia University asked me to participate in a panel for the The Year of Baldwin portion of The Harlem Bookfair. Aimee Meredith Cox moderated the panel and I have to say again that she may have been the best panel moderator I have ever encountered. It was a lively and fresh conversation between me, Christopher Winks and Kiese Laymon. And earlier in the year I participated in the National Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College–that was fascinating esp. seeing Derek Walcott up close.
I blogged for the “Harriet” blog for the National Poetry Foundation in September. What did I know that in September the #Ferguson protests would start up; that I would have some impact on supporting the work of activists or that I’d write up Maya Angelou’s Riverside Church Memorial or that I’d talk about Sonia Sanchez’ 80th birthday or have the chance to report on the Furious Flower Poetry Conference with a focus on what happened after the public events took place! Reading and participating at Furious Flower was important for me as a poet, esp. as a Black poet. I also wrote literary reviews for books by Tony Medina and Yuko Otomo and arts reviews on Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems.
In August I had the great gift of 10 days at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts where I put together a next to final draft of my New and Selected Poems with the great help of the VCCA staff–thank you again. I got to know Kelle Groom, Nichole Parcher, Joelle Wallach and other poets/composers, visual artists. And in October, I was able to fulfil my duties as a Senior Fellow for the Black Earth Institute and share in the wonderful hospitality of Michael McDermott and Charlotte Taymor in Wisconsin. The BEI gave its first ever award to Joy Harjo who was skyped in for the event–ah technology.
And also at VCCA I completed a commission–a new poem for a literary supplement to the forthcoming re-installment of The Migrations Series, Jacob Lawrence’s groundbreaking work that will be shown at the Museum of Modern Art. I thank Elizabeth Alexander for placing me in this august group. I had written about Lawrence’s work in an earlier poem which Quincy Troupe published in Black Renaissance Noir. It was a great opportunity and pretty scary-like will I pull this off? I did.
And I also worked with Atim Oton who is bringing her CALABAR brand to my hood, Bed-Stuy and so for the popup I developed a reading series, WORDS SUNDAY and it was really successful, But special shoutout to Janice Lowe who was in the first one, I want you back for a larger audience come Spring 2015.
And finally, I did readings for Paul Romero’s Bryant Park Series, most notably a “Lunch Poem” one with Jocelyn Lieu, Lydia Cortes, Jessica Greenbaum and Sharan Strange. And with Mark Statman for Neil Silbrerblatt’s Voices in Poetry series in Katonah. Rowan Ricardo Phillips brought me to SUNY Stony Brook, where June Jordan and Cornelius Eady advanced contemporary poetry. Getting to know Rowan and his work has been a boon. Also read “The Day Lady Died” for the Frank O’Hara Lunch Poem Publication Anniversary event at the Poetry Project. And at the end of the year I read at KBG with Shanna Compton–it was a night rich with verbal fireworks and deep emotions. There was more, but it’s cold. It’s December 31. It’s time to sum stuff up.
I know that much of this year has been about violence, danger, death and protest. I am sad about the danger, death and violence, but I am so pleased that protests are underway and not just here from Mumbai to Santiago Chile to Hong Kong to St. Louis, Missouri young people are awake and demanding their future–not one of fewer economic prospects, more debt; tyrannical police, environmental degradation; expensive consumerism and shoddy services–but one that may be more equitable, caring and creative. The world has always been violent and dangerous, but cynicism simply keeps whoever is in power in power. I thank young people for starting to say nada mas, no more. Yes #blacklivesmatter, Yes #afutureisinourhands. 2015 HERE WE COME.
Year’s ending-horses still galloping
I know that the Year of the Horse will go into late January, so the galloping is not over. We have been on a very wild ride. The news of day has often been mysterious, horrific, terrifying or utterly silly. Sometimes the same item can be described with all those words. I know that it has been a wild ride for me and one that I treasure because I am breathing and too many people I love no longer breathe.
Florence Tate whom I only met in “real life” recently passed. I knew her son Greg Tate for what seems like forever. But his famous Mama I met via social media–she was a great presence on Facebook and intensely encouraging to me and many other writers, artists, singers, organizers, activisits and bon vivants. The last time I saw her breathing was at the Funeral for Amiri Baraka–the kind of affair that brought his friends, enemies, former lovers, their children and just about anyone who was a who in the downtown/Black Arts Movement/literary scene to Symphony Hall in Newark. I will also miss Galway Kinnell whose readings at Brooklyn’s Ferry Landings at the end of the Poets House Bridge Walks were so very very special. His passion for life, for poetry for oatmeal LOL never left him. Like Baraka, Kinnell was a fighter for justice; a great teacher–they were poets who created communities and they both lived long enough to modify earlier excesses and mend some fences.
I can’t breathe #Ican’tbreathe has become a chant; an indictment; a statement of anguish and demand. Eric Garner’s utterly unnecessary death at the hands of the NYPD and others who are here to serve people galvanized and continues to galvanize young people on top of those marching/organizing/agitating in Ferguson MO. The parade of dead Black, Brown and occasionally White bodies at the hands of Law Enforcement (LE) has made a significant number of people who had otherwised kept their heads in the sand. look up and see that the police are more soldiers than peace officers and that much of policing has become occupation–the lastest military incursions by the Israel into Gaza serves as a kind of template, it seems to me. These are ugly times. Ugly times.
And yet I am writing on a chilly rainy day in Brooklyn, a piano solo-some minor league European composer’s work makes perfect background noise. Today I went to the Museum of Modern Art to read “Lave” a poem commissioned for the catalog for One Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence Migrations Series which will open in early April at MOMA. Elizabeth Alexander has done a great job of bringing Black poets with very different poetics together to honor and respond to Lawrence’s seminal work. I know that this was a great opportunity; a great challenge. I hope people will respond to our response. I also saw the Robert Gober Retrospective. Gober is White. He’s Gay and he’s Young and very definitely breathing and I am glad. His sculptures defy standards of beauty; his bodies are never complete; his anguish not extinguished; his fears what should be feared–bullies, killers of the mind as well as body–the title of the exhibition is The Heart Is Not a Metaphor and you know what it is not Pulsating, pumping, a muscle whose only job is to keep the body upright and moving, the heart is beyond compare. And yet even Gober allows the heart, the hearth to become symbols for the ways we attempt to stunt pulsation; to destroy intimacy, charity, erotic impulse.
At the end of this Year of Baldwin; this Year of Losses, public and private; this year of Protests and Counter Protests. The fighting t-shirts: I can’t breathe/I can breathe the year when too many White People found themselves in a racial quagmire of their own making with no understanding of how to get out–I for one listen to the young people who started #blacklivesmatter; who demanded to be heard in at unneeded Al Sharpton organized march; who march and chant and tweet and demand to be able to BREATHE and to have a future. Saludos to you. May we all get off that horse when the Year of the Horse ends, saddle sore, yes, but ready to walk on this altered/altared earth. May we find a way to breathe together in justice, in peace.
Crech, Bed-Stuy, photo by Patricia Spears Jones
Holiday poem 2014
Feast
(in the back ground Otis Redding sings “Merry Christmas Baby”)
Oh the twinkling
Oh the twinkling lights
Each a color of delight
Morsels of sparkle, tasty fire
Feast.
Bed-Stuy Lights, Dec. 2014