Poems from Our Inspired Word Poets

Shannon Hardwick


8 Dreams and Nothing

Where’s the tender part,

baby-shell, bent light,
breaking through, guard it;
we might break our own
bodies, in fear of being stolen.


You asked

where I was going,
a basket of hearts,
ventricles, tied
to my side, broken?
I don’t own them.

I dreamed

you peeled from my thigh,
a zipper, with teeth.


Ant-lights against palm,

I gave you a map,
held out. What for?
Nothing, I said, stuck
lines inside my pocket--

I glow grids

at my thigh, whole cities
never discovered.

Daisies:

I gathered them
in my bed, (listen,
my heart will love
every one of you, but
whisper back to me).
They bowed their sides,
who am I? for them,
God provides.

After your letter,

bandaged-pain, I leant
on storm-walls, ready
for a barrage, waves
of anger. Finally, said:

let the water breathe;

I’ve missed you.

- Shannon Hardwick


David Lawton


Poetry


Everywhere I go
It’s poetry
Poetry
Is there for me
And if it’s there for me
It’s there for you
We are only
Different shades of blue

It’s John Ford’s Monument Valley
Or Miss O’Keefe’s red clay plateaus
The Giant Steps taken by Coltrane
And Debussy’s ringing glissandos

It’s Yastrzemski in left
Clemente in right
It’s MJ gliding into the paint
It’s number 4, Bobby Orr,
Suspended in air
With the winning score

The Chrysler Building’s silver flash
A lone figure in Tiananmen Square
The little Hispanic girl’s smile
In the Chinese restaurant
That album cover’s diamond raindrops
Sparkling Marvin Gaye’s hair

And Christ in the desert
To me the sweetest poesy
In the heat of that vast moment
A cooling ointment deeply burning into me

Wherever you go
They say that’s where you are
But poetry is what it does to you
Poetry is what you take away
Poetry is something to leave behind
When you reach your end of day.

- David Lawton


Jane Omerod


Shangri-ha

I look up I look down I look up I look down

Let’s have a picnic tomorrow
Leave before light Before the dreams
Of nurse and night maids
And the loot loot loot of the world

(feathers form)

I look up I look down I look up I look down
Thrice married One hundred times divorced
A public right of way
Inside and out
I have never been ravelled
Extra! Extra!

Landscape?
All flat or tall
Oceans?
So much the same
“Everything in sight is his,” they say
“Except the mountains”

(I own those too)

I could have been a racehorse
The close nose winner of the 4.30
I might have been a parcel A day gone by
Atlantic fantastical City

(and feathers fall)

Bengal tigers
Monkeys
One hundred thousand trees
Count Recount
Look up Look down
Look up Look down

Bedrooms are not the same as welcomes
You can pay a lot of money for a dame without a head
Elizabethan ceilings Hullabaloo
A quick word?
What about hasty? What about rapid?

(feathers cluster)

Principles are like flatulence
Promises like gentlemen in a toot toot marching band
The world’s largest diamond? The same size as a stuffed shirt

Feathers float my mouth
I look up I look down
Mantelpiece Picture hook Chiffonier
Hallucinations needed!
Noise! Damn colour! Bed vows! The ridiculous!

I cannot sleep with bread
I need to own To cut away To lack and lack lustre
Take it now
Own up Own down
A picnic One picnic A picnic from out of this world

- Jane Ormerod
First published in 11 Films (Modern Metrics, 2008)

Photos: Shannon Hardwick

Pics from The Inspired Word

MC/Host Marron Cox


Soraya Shalforoosh


Stephanie Sherman


Melissa Fadul


Patricia Spears Jones


Photo Credit: Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick




a

The Inspired Word in NYC - July 27!

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose

When: Monday, July 27

Location: Tierra Sana Restaurant
http://www.tierrasana.com/
100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road
Forest Hills, Queens
New York City

By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).

Time: 7:00-10 PM (though you're welcome to stay until closing time)

No cover charge! Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!

Performer Bios:

Seren Divine is a feminist, educator, performance & visual artist, producer, and award winning poet. She has toured and competed across the country, with over a decade of involvement in the National Poetry Slams, and makes a living as a Teaching Artist, leading Performance & Writing Workshops for youth from the Bronx to Brooklyn, for both Urban Arts Partnership & Urban Word NYC.

Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. His poetry and interviews have appeared in the Home Planet News, Boog City, Word Riot, Rattle, Main St. Rag, Poetry Motel, Boston Globe Magazine, and many others. His latest book of poetry is "The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel” (Cervena Barva Press 2008). It was a pick of the month in the Small Press Review. He holds an MA in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.

Laurel Kallen has just completed her MFA in creative writing at City College, where she teaches in the English Department. She is the recipient of the 2009 Stark Short Fiction Award and the Teacher/Writer Award. Her work has appeared in Promethean, Poetry in Performance, Global City Review, Legal Studies Forum, and The Best of Stain. Laurel was a speech writer for former New York City Mayor David Dinkins. She also holds an MA in French and is an attorney admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey. She has two daughters in college who are strongly opposed to their mother’s presence on Facebook.

Yenny Love is a fresh voice burning up the New York poetry scene with her raw style, strong stage presence, good humor and originality. Love, 31, was born in the Dominican Republic, came to the United States when she was 11 years old, and was raised in the Poconos and New Jersey. In her 20s, Love was featured as a hip hop dancer in various music videos, but it was her love of spoken word poetry that drew her back to the limelight. She has performed at various venues, including the S.P.I.T. Open Mic Series and Urban Juke Joint. She has also attended Acentos poetry workshops at Hostos Community College.



Cindy AnaCaona Peralta, born and raised in the heart of mini- Quisqueya, aka Domincan Republic-ville, has been writing poetry since the age of 13 and never looked back. While in high school, her poems were published in the weekly paper on numerous occasions, and now, at 27, she is currently working towards her career as a writer, singer, musician, poet, and being a new mother. With a style of brutal honesty, she has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bar 13, Culture Shock at the Sutra lounge, Baltimore, Maryland, and the Latino Cultural Festival at Flushing Hall of Science.

Like many R&B/Soul artists, Stephanie Rogers knew her first love of reciting poetry at a young age. By way of a place of worship, it took a conveniently misplaced poem winding up in the hands of a church elder for her to embrace the gift of presenting written works of her own special scribblings. Since receiving her Bachelor’s from the College of Mount Saint Vincent, her scribblings have evolved into sometimes inspirational, slightly neurotic and comically erotic works. She’s been published in PLAYGIRL magazine, has been an URBANA Open Slam participant, twice a featured poet at STARK Open Mic, and 2-time First Runner up in the House of Xavier’s Glam Slam. Her newest published work, and 1st collaborative effort combining erotic art and poetry, makes its debut this summer.

Odilia Rivera Santos was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, but at the age of almost 6, her family moved from a quiet peaceful village to a crime-ridden, fire-ravaged South Bronx neighborhood. Ms. Santos draws her steadfastness and intellectual curiosity from the melding of her two beginnings. She has published fiction, nonfiction and poetry in Spanish and English in various journals and expects one of her novels to be published soon.

MC/Host: Marron Cox

All you need to bring is your love for the written word.

Inspired Word Poet: Patricia Spears Jones

Etta James sings “Somewhere” from West Side Story

When the blue heron stands as still as cattails
All seems possible: a good life,
Kind neighbors
The healthy cheeks of loved children.

We are not outside nature. We hold nature in our hands.
But even with this knowledge, we cannot stop feeling trashed.
As if we can see the best of whom we can be
Thrown out on the street:
Empty beer bottles, stale bread, fish gone bad.

And yet the heron flies.
The singer strums her decaying voice
Across these words meant for a young soprano

Weeping. Her lover dead. Her brother dead.
Her mother distraught.

How much sacrifice must be made
before that place is found.
The place where our palms open
Our breathing evens out.
Where the flag does not make us sad.
Where we can look to the sky

And see the sky
Just the sky.

- Patricia Spears Jones

Photo Credit: Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick

The Inspired Word in NYC - July 6!

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose

When: Monday, July 6

Location: Tierra Sana Restaurant
http://www.tierrasana.com/
100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road
Forest Hills, Queens
New York City

By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).

Time: 7:00-10 PM (though you're welcome to stay until closing time)

Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!

Performer Bios:

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir WHIP SMART, forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books in 2010. Her fiction and essays have been published in The Southeast Review, Redivider, The Rambler, Storyscape Journal, and Bitch Magazine among others. She co-curates and hosts the Mixer Reading and Music Series in Manhattan, and teaches at SUNY Purchase College and The Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. More information can be found at melissafebos.com.

Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick is a native Texan who is now discovering the excitement of New York City. Between riding the Metro North while listening to Brahms, writing blogs and recording her writing online, Shannon is working toward her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Shannon previously worked as a Title Agent, researching wills and various other legal documents in dusty courthouses across Texas before moving to New York. She found reading Warranty Deeds surprisingly inspiring material for her poetry. Now, she's finding inspiration while wandering NYC, shooting photography and writing strangers' conversations down in her notebook. Her Myspace page can be found at: www.myspace.com/shannonhardwickpoetry

Valerie Jupe originally hails from Texas and wrote her first poem around age 5. She has been featured in high school and college poetry journals as well as the book "Shattered Fragments of my Soul." Like many artists, Val's life is heavily influenced by her own depression and anxiety though her poetry also trends toward love, philosophy, and constant questioning. She has worked as a film and video editor for seven years and enjoys tirelessly (for her) though tiresomely (for her family) documenting her life through photos. Valerie recently returned from a two-month trip around Europe.

David Lawton is a performer and writer, originally from Woburn, Massachusetts. After graduating from the theatre program at Boston University, he was a Guest Artist in the graduate playwrighting classes taught there by Nobel Laureate (in poetry) Derek Walcott. He has appeared as an actor Off-Broadway, had his plays performed Off-Off Broadway, and spent ten years as a featured vocalist with the New York underground band Leisure Class. Mr. Lawton has a poem in the Americana anthology Appleseeds, currently available from Sacred Fools Press. In January 2009 he co-produced and served as a reader for Downtown Does Huncke for His Birthday, a program of stories by his friend and beat godfather Herbert Huncke.

Refusing to characterize her poetic style as either academic or performance, LisaAnn LoBasso considers herself most at home among artists. With over 20 years experience, she has produced countless readings and collaborative arts events, such as the Up Close, Let Loose Traveling Poets’ Reading Series, and Operation Soapbox, while still racking up her own credentials, including Poet Ambassador of Kern County in California, as well as appearances at venues and universities from West Coast to East. LisaAnn’s work has been lauded as both dynamic and boundary-breaking; dubbed a poetry minstrel by Las Vegas City Life Weekly, she has featured with diverse and noteworthy poets, such as Nicholas Roerich Prize winner Lee McCarthy, California Poet Laureate Al Young, and Paterson Award Winner Indran Amirthanayagam. Twice nominated for California Poet Laureate 2008, she has two poetry books in print: In the Swollen a poetry collection (2003), and Oleander Milkshake, (2008). In her spare time, LisaAnn develops creative writing programs, theatre scripts, arts-education programs, and public arts installations with artists as far as England. She travels worldwide and recently just returned from living in India for three months. LisaAnn has worked closely with Gluck Award winner Frances Mconnel, National Book Award finalist and critically acclaimed author Susan Straight, and Pulitzer Prize nominee Maurya Simon.

Terri Muuss is an actor, poet, teacher, director, and social worker. She is the writer and performer of the one-woman show Anatomy of a Doll, which she performed at the Abingdon Theatre, Pulse Ensemble Theatre, 14th Street Y, 63rd Street Y, Producer’s Club, Theatre for the New City, Cornelia Street Café, and St. Clement’s Theatre. She was also the co-producer and host of the monthly poetry series Poetry at the Pulse for two years, and has read her poetry throughout NYC, at the 14th Street Y, Blue Stockings, Makor Theatre, and Cornelia Street Café.

Jane Ormerod was born on the south coast of England and now lives in New York City. She is the author of the chapbook "11 Films" (Modern Metrics, 2008,) a spoken word CD "Nashville Invades Manhattan", and her work also appears in numerous print and online publications, most recently in Inscribed, O Sweet Flowery Roses, and BigCityLit. She is host of the reading series Emotional Rescue at The Cornelia Street Café, performs throughout the United States, and is a founding editor at Uphook Press. Her website is www.janeormerod.com.

Taína is the Founder/Producer of The Latino Poets' Society Spoken Word Tour, a national spoken word tour consisting of an all Latino cast, a TV producer/Independent filmmaker, writer, photographer, and performing poet in NYC. She is a consummate artist with an observant eye, a passion for her culture and an undying drive to showcase the social ills of a lopsided society, Always on a quest to reach individuals in less than fortunate circumstances, she draws from her own experiences and never runs out of hope or inspiration. Through her work, she intends on changing people’s lives with one piece of art at a time.

MC/Host: Marron Cox

All you need to bring is your love for the written word.

Best,

Mike

Our Awesome Inspired Word Host: Sherri "MC Sher" Eldin

Witty, spontaneous, and always fun. There's no better host of a poetry series anywhere!

The Inspired Word on Monday, June 1st!

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose

When: Monday, June 1

Time: 7-10 PM

Where: Tierra Sana Restaurant
http://www.tierrasana.com/
100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road
Forest Hills, Queens
New York City

By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).Time: 7:00-10 pm (though you're welcome to stay until closing time)

Free wine tasting and appetizers! Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!

Performer Bios:

Meghan Beresford is a New York-based writer, dancer and performance artist. She is a 2003-2004 US Fulbright Scholar in the area of Creative Writing (Fiction and Poetry). Her creative work has been granted by the University of Iowa, the State of Iowa, and the Newfoundland Arts Council. In her past lives, Meghan has been a columnist for Newfoundland alt publication CURRENT and co-founder/editor of the now-defunct Zeugma Literary Journal, a hand-bound small run lit magazine that published new talent alongside such literary luminaries as Mary Dalton, Monica Kidd and Alberto Manguel. Meghan’s newest project is Lookshelves: Bookshelves to Look At a website for literary voyeurs. You can check it out at www.lookshelves.com.

Patricia Carragon is a writer who also hosts and curates the Brooklyn-based Brownstone Poets Reading Series, as well as edits its annual anthology. Her pieces can be found on Poetz.com, Rogue Scholars, Mobius, CLWN WR, Chantarelle’s Notebook, Clockwise Cat, Luciole Press, Eviscerator Heaven 4, Flutter, Up the Staircase, Battered Suitcase, Kritya, Inscribed, Live Magazine, Tamarind, Riverfront, Soul Fountain, Stained Sheets and The Toronto Quarterly. Rogue Scholars Press published her book Journey to the Center of My Mind.

Comedian and writer Emily Epstein has been trapped in a self-cleaning toilet and has stitches from a treadmill accident. She performs all around New York City and the Northeast, (not to mention a boat in the middle of the Yangtze River in China). She has been a comedian in the New York Underground Comedy Festival and was on Good Morning America. Her writing has been featured in such publications as Travelistic.com, Gawker.com, and the Hartford Courant.

Jee Leong Koh is the author of "Payday Loans" and "Equal to the Earth" (both from Poets Wear Prada Press). His poetry has appeared in "Best New Poets 2007," and "Best Gay Poetry 2008," and has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Born in Singapore, he now lives in New York City, and blogs at Song of a Reformed Headhunter (http://jeeleong.blogspot.com).

Susan Maurer is a poet, writer, and educator. Her poetry books include By the Blue Light of the Morning Glory (Linear Arts), in2 with Mark Sonnenfeld (Marymark Press), Dream Addict (Backwood Broadsides), Raptor Rhapsody (Poets Wear Prada) and Maerchen (Maverick Duck Press). Her poetry was nominated four times for Pushcart, published in 14 countries, and has appeared in over 400 magazines and anthologies, including Off the Cuffs (Softskull Press), Help Yourself! (Autonomedia), Virgina Quarterly Review, Literary Imagination, Cross Connect and Orbis.

Reina M. Miranda was born in Washington Heights to immigrant parents who came to the United States to provide a better life for their children. Reina is the eldest of four, who first found her love for poetry at the age of 18. Reina has been performing spoken word/poetry for almost two years. Reina is also a member of The United Confederation of Taino People in which she has been learning a lot more about her Taino ancestors. She has learned to fuse her passion for the people she meets and her poetry together so she can help others get “Tainocated." After 23 years, Reina has emerged into the poetry scene and has been appearing at open mics events ever since. She has read at such events as 5C Cultural Club, Capicu Poetry/Notice Lounge, The NuyoRican Poet’s Café/ Taino Poetry, Cemi Underground's Taino Poetry Night and Erotic Poetry, Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen 2, and Rebel Art Collective's S.P.I.T.

Vaimoana (Moana) Niumeitolu is a Painter, Poet, Actor, Activist, Educator and the founder of Mahina Movement, a phenomenal, international, all female, multi-media, multi-cultural, powerful trio that has performed all over the Nation at over 500 stages sharing mics with Dead Prez, Amina & Amira Baraka, Suheir Hammad, Sonia Sanchez and countless others. Moana was born in Nuku’alofa, Tonga; raised in Hawa’ii and Utah and now lives, creates and loves in Harlem, USA. She has traveled and shared her poetry, paintings, and performances all over the US and in Fiji, Ireland, Italy, and South Africa. She graduated from NYU in painting, earned the full-scholarship, Ellen Stokel Fellowship from Yale University and attended the Graduate Theater Program at Columbia University in Acting. She has been seen acting at the Metropolitan Opera and acting 13 characters in her one woman show, Tongue-in Paint, which had it’s world premier in the Summer 2008 at terraNOVa collective’s soloNOVA festival at Performance Space 122. She loves that she is growing older. Life has just begun.

Puma Perl is a poet and fiction writer who believes strongly in the transformative power of the creative arts. Her work has been published in cause & effect, MadSwirl, Trespass ,Red Fez, Gloom Cupboard, Toronto Quarterly, The Oak Bend Review, and many other print and on-line publications. Her work has been published in several anthologies, including The Mom Egg and In Love. Her first chapbook, Belinda and Her Friends, was recently published by Erbacce Press. She performs her work in many venues, in and out of New York City. Upcoming features include Stain Bar, Cornelia Café , and the Riverwood Poetry Festival, Middleton CT – Outlaw Night.

MCs/Hosts: Sherri Eldin, Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick, Laura Moisin.

All you need to bring is your love for the written word, but...PLEASE do your best to support the restaurant, your servers, and the performing writers.

Pics from May 25th's Inspired Word

Kelly Tsai, Crystal Hayward







Caitlin Meissner, John Survivor Blake

Pics thanks to Crystal Hayward

The Inspired Word/Monday, May 25!

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose

When: Monday, May 25
Time: 7-10 PM
Where: Tierra Sana Restaurant
http://www.tierrasana.com/
Click here
100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road
Forest Hills, Queens
New York City

By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).

Free wine tasting! Free appetizers! Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!

Performer Bios:

John Survivor Blake has been daydreaming since birth. He escaped the torment of his Heroin laden home by staring into the television so hard he couldn't hear the screams around him. Whenever there wasn't a TV; he simply stared at walls and drifted. He's been writing these images down and sharing them with the bravest of us all. After 25 years of addiction to narcotics, Survivor has found a new way out. He's been writing and performing poetry for the last 4 years and hasn't looked back to the streets. Sharing the stage with the likes of Saul Williams, Patricia Smith, Rachel McKibbens, Amiri Baracka, and Suheir Hamad, John has discovered there is a beauty on the other side of ugly, and they can be forced to live together on the page.Since burying his entire family from AIDS, overdoses, and Hep C, John's learned to live in the moment and stop apologizing!



Timothy Prolific Jones is a poet, publisher, activist, and ambassador of the Black Long Island experience. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of an independent book publishing company, André Maurice Press, LLC, and it's closely related performance poetry and hip-hop venture, Indelible. Timothy currently serves as the Co-chairman of the Board of Directors of Blackout Arts Collective, a national non-profit organization dedicated to utilizing art as a vehicle for social justice. Timothy Prolific Jones has performed across the country in open mics, slams, hip-hop showcases, and speaking engagements at venues including ranging from The Nuyorican Poets Cafe and Bar 13 to Rikers Island and Riverside Church. AMP|Indelible published a limited-edition self-titled book of his early work in 2005 to much success. His poetry has been recently featured in Gunplay, a graphic novel created by Jorge Vega, and published through Platinum Studios. Timothy is currently working on several books of poetry concurrently. His first full-length book, The Seventh Seal, which is scheduled for release Winter 2009. For more information, please visit andremauricepress.com.
Click here

Word to Rakim



Molly Kat is studying Creative Writing at Binghamton University. She has attended SUNY Purchase, WCC, and Cambridge University in England. She has had work published in "Ragazine" and college journals and newspapers. Currently a member of Binghamton University's slam team; Grey City Slam, she attended college Nationals for the first time, and last year went to the regionals on the Bowery Poetry Club's Intercollegiate Slam Team. Although slams have their place, she'd rather just sit around with good poets and listen... she's not big on scoring art with numbers...numbers ruin everything. Right now, all she wants to do is drop out of school and follow Sister Spit around until the tell her to get inside the van.

Why Things Burn



Albany, New York raised, Brooklyn based Caitlin Meissner is a poet, performer, educator and graphic designer with a BFA from Pratt Institute. Using her background in visual art, anti-racism work, disability advocacy and youth empowerment, her poems are visually rich testaments to the complexities of the human spirit. As a performer, she has featured for the progressive literary collective louderArts; Opened for the acclaimed Page Meets Stage series (with Thomas Lux); Shared sets with musicians such as Immortal Technique, Grandmaster Caz, Boot Camp Clik and many others; And has performed on countless stages- from street corners to Columbia University, The Nuyorican Poets Café to Rikers Island, including a tour throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in September of 2008. Ms. Meissner's poems have been published in the independently released HIS RIB and GOT POETRY 2007 anthologies, as well as in various literary journals. For two years Caitlin served as Project Coordinator of the successful all-woman Saturday Performance Series at The Lower Eastside Girls Club and currently holds residency teaching poetry to middle school students in New York City public schools through Urban Ats Partnership. Recently honored as the winner of the OneWorld Poetry Contest, Caitlin attended the 2008 inaugural Pan-African Literary Forum in Accra, Ghana, studying under Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa and other luminaries from the literary African diaspora.

The World Is Yours



Sonia Mukherji was born in Calcutta, raised in Maryland, and lives in New York. She is a Kundiman fellow, and her poetry has been published in the US and internationally in literary journals including Shampoo Poetry, Stylus, and Calcutta’s The Little Magazine. She has featured in venues in New York, Maryland, Austin, and Michigan, and was given an international poetry feature performance in Calcutta, India, which was held at the prestigious cultural institute Nandan, hosted and reviewed by the literary journal Bhashanagar, and televised.



Bonafide Rojas is a poet, musician and author of pelo bueno: a day in the life of a Nuyorican poet (dark souls press, 2006). he is the vocalist/guitarist for the band The Mona Passage, a poetic rock and roll art experiment. He's also the 2002 slam this! champion and has been on two national poetry slam teams, NYC/Union Square 2002 & wicker park 2003. he has appeared in Russell Simmon's "Def Poetry Jam" season 4 and he has been published in the anthologies: bum rush the page: a def poetry jam, rolecall: "a generational anthology of social and political black literature and art, the centro journal, the acentos review, calabash journal and is the father of a beautiful five year old named John Pablo.

In Front Of The Class



Howard Treadwell is a New York native hailing from Mastic and Buffalo, New York. He believes in the beauty of razorblades and roses. A coping Manic-Depressant and survivor of multiple suicide attempts, he finds his reasons for living within the first breath of morning. Howard earned a spot on the Buffalo national slam team for two consecutive years (2006 & 2007), and became the city's Grand Slam Champion in 2006. He also coached the 2008 team. Howard is AMP|Indelible's Co-Editor-in-Chief, and its resident performance coach. He was recently a member of the Spoken Word/Hip-hop group 21poetz. Current literary projects include a chapbook entitled Dreams of Loisaida, and a poetic/prose autobiography entitled Native Blood, Barrio Soul.

Gravity



Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based, Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word artist who has given over 300 performances worldwide in notable venues like the Nuyorican Poets Café, House of Blues, Apollo Theater in Harlem, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and three seasons on HBO's "Def Poetry." A frequent collaborator with filmmakers, choreographers, musicians, and theater artists, Tsai has released three chapbooks: Inside Outside Outside Inside (2004), Thought Crimes (2005), No Sugar Please (2008), and the CD Infinity Breaks (2006). She has shared stages with Mos Def, KRS-One, Sonia Sanchez, Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Amiri Baraka, and many more. (www.yellowgurl.com)Click here

Grey Matter




MCs: Sherri Eldin, Laura Moisin, Jessica Elizabeth Nadler.

All you need to bring is your love for the written word.

Best,

Mike

Pics from Last Monday's Inspired Word

Pics from last Monday's Inspired Word Poetry & Prose Readings at Tierra Sana Restaurant in Forest Hills, NYC

A special thanks to thanks to Kelly Powell!

MC/Host Marron Cox (who pulled double duty by performing as a singer as well)



Actress/Writer Diana Arnold



Poet Shanna Compton



Poet Babette Albin



Poet Christine Timm



Writer Josh Medsker

The Inspired Word's Awesome Host Marron Cox

Writings from Monday's Inspired Word Performers

Big Pink Trees



It's too bad about your short season,
but we'll take what we can get--
a few unusually warm weeks in April
under pale blue cloudless sky.
The buffed-up tributaries off the canal
laugh to see you primping there,
in their gawkward mirrors,
readying yourselves like parade floats.
If only Dr. Seuss could see you now,
buoyant and bouffant,
perfumed up the wazoo,
and saying things like "Darling,
I'm aching to fruit for you."

--Shanna Compton

A Valentine's Day Poem



This is my I can never quite bring myself to write when I'm happy poem.

My I kind of think I'm not that good at being happy poem,

But my I'd really like to say that you make me happy poem.

And it could start with something sexy. About how I always want your hands about me or something sweet about how I've a new relationship with sleep and that I'm convinced there really is no night we just take turns opening and closing, getting warm and waking up inside.

Or it could start with you understanding my current disdain for Dylan and after a moment of serious thought, nodding in agreement that we'll get through it.

I could mention lower east side street corners, but then I’d want to attempt to describe what it feels like to recognize the back of your head in a crowded dark bar after work, so let’s just say that I walk in and I’m floored. With you nothing is work - only a working-toward.

And if there was a verbal equivalent to pinching this would be it. I am not imagining this. You really do exist.

And I would probably want to talk about my calm. My wintry solidarity with the entirety of this city. How it confuses me, my awe. My awareness that this all feels very different than I thought it would. That love has turned out to be something very very different than I spent so many years convincing myself it was. How naturally, there has been zero thinking. No, I know it’s not even spring, and I'm flowering. Opening and bending in directions that are something beyond obvious; they are relentless. With no questions, for there is only one way to do this. I wrap my rattlesnakes for legs around you in public emulating bed. We depart soon thereafter. Because going home is a gift: a reward for a day well lived. And time doesn’t really exist, because we suddenly realize that we have so much of it.
And then I would speak to the ease and the ease and the ease and the whiskeys and the kitchen floor dancing and the cutest morning commuter train rides where we definitely are the loudest and don't mean at all to make others jealous or i could talk all about the fear.

But I'd rather begin and end with the laughter.

Specific, with the moment after you said don't move.

(and I didn't)

But would you look at this view? Look at what I get to look at.

It was a sunny Monday green flannel from my belly down and there were three windows in Brooklyn, each showing a bridge, falling snow, respectively and the avenue.

And I get to look at you, he said.

And I turned my head: it was one of those moments when you recognize that it is the first time you're looking at something that you will look at many many many times again.

Baby, you are like the first time I rode the N train over the bridge to Brooklyn.

--Diana Arnold

Diana's YouTube video from her brilliantly touching performance in Monologues



Song: Prodigal Son
By Marron Cox



Prodigal Son, you been making a wreck of my home
I bring you back in
from those places you been
and you desecrate all that I own
A feckless endeavor
I promised I'd never
forsake you or leave you alone
everyone else is all gone
see who stands with you

Prodigal Son, you been making a curse of my name
but I'll bear the disgrace
of aligning my face
with your record of permanent shame
I knew what I'd be in for
long before me and your
crimes became one in the same
not only taking the blame
but paying the cost

And what has been lost
is just what I gave
to ask me for more...
you've got to be brave

What are you going to do when your summertime ends?
the sun never grew you
no money, no time
and it burned you and all of your friends
and that sound that you heard
the discouraging word
that the winter was coming again
stir up your fire, my friend
it's already here

And all you held dear
is frozen forever
drifting in circles
somewhere in the sky
And all that you loathed
is frozen together
with all that you loved
entwining on high

Well, good morning Sunshine I thirst and my body is sore
I woke up late praising the damned and I crawled to your door
I rolled out on top
but I let it all drop
now I'm lying here broke on the floor
Come on, remind me some more
the fool that I've been

And where to begin?
Oh where to begin...
If this was a righteousness contest, you never could win
But my anger is farther behind me than all of your sins

Home



I am muktuk and Taco Bell,
Fur-lined parkas and Polar Fleece.

I am gas-guzzling SUV’s and Bio-Fuel Hybrids,
Mini hippie communes and suburban sprawl.

I am a Maverick, Joe Six-Pack.
I am Sarah Palin.
I am 20 years of unknown blue governors.

I am true wilderness.
I am the middle of nowhere.

I am grizzly bears,
Dall sheep,
mountain lions,
Roaming the edge of the city,
In the Chugach Foothills,
In the place the Aleuts call The Great Land,
Alyeska.

--Josh Medsker

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose/May 4!

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose

When: Monday, May 4
Time: 7:00-10 PM (though you're welcome to stay until closing time!)
Location: Tierra Sana Restaurant
100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road
Forest Hills, Queens
New York City

By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).

Free wine tasting! Free appetizers! Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!

Performer Bios:

Babette Albin is a poet and enterpreneur who hosts The Back Fence poetry readings in downtown Manhattan. She sums herself up with this poem:

How is this poet different from all other poets?
Sunny disposition. Married w. children.
Not teaching English (anymore). Drives a Hybrid.
Home renovation is her passion.

How is she similar?
Is in love with the sound of her own voice.
Calls on the Muse frequently.
Enjoys a good argument.
Reads with ferocity. Writers with veracity.

Diana Arnold moved to NYC (from Los Angeles...please dont tell anyone) when she was 17 and never looked back. But she has been looking around, a lot, since she arrived. With acting training from NYU Tisch, and writing training from The New School she's been steadily performing original solo work throughout the city for the past seven years. She is working on a full length one woman show for the fall that blends poetry and monologue for a rhytmical narrative, and can currently be seen in Monologues at The Triad Theatre.



Shanna Compton's books and chapbooks include Down Spooky, For Girls (& Others),Big Confetti (with Shafer Hall), Scurrilous Toy, and others. Her poems and essays have appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry 2005, McSweeney's, Verse, No Tell Motel, Coconut, Abraham Lincoln, and the Poetry Foundation website. For more info, see shannacompton.com, bloofbooks.com, or diypublishing.blogspot.com.

Marron Cox is a singer/songwriter who's also the MC/Host of The Inspired Word and a notorious pool hustler. Originally from North Carolina, she's been heard in New York City subways--from Union Square to Times Square--and many Greyhound stations across the country.

Josh Medsker is a teacher and writer from Alaska. Josh began his writing career as a journalist, and wrote for magazines and newspapers in Alaska, California and Texas. He began writing prose and poetry roughly ten years ago, and is in what he and Larry Brown like to call "The Apprentice Period". He has enjoyed extremely modest success, having published work in FrictionMagazine.com, GeekAmerica.com and AK Verve. He currently lives in Astoria, Queens, and can be reached at joshmedsker@gmail.com

Terri Muuss is an actor, poet, teacher, director, and social worker. She is the writer and performer of the one-woman show Anatomy of a Doll, which she performed at the Abingdon Theatre, Pulse Ensemble Theatre, 14th Street Y, 63rd Street Y, Producer’s Club, Theatre for the New City, Cornelia Street Café, and St. Clement’s Theatre. She was also the co-producer and host of the monthly poetry series Poetry at the Pulse for two years, and has read her poetry throughout NYC, at the 14th Street Y, Blue Stockings, Makor Theatre, and Cornelia Street Café.

Christine Timm is a NYC performance poet who produces and co-hosts the NYC College Slam, the annual international Love Poetry Hate Racism event, and Bowery Kids - all at the Bowery Poetry Club. She also co-produces and co-hosts the Smalls Jazz Club Lit Series. She has a Ph.D. in English Lit with dissertation on the Beats and spoken word and teaches poetry, creative writing, and composition at Westchester Community College. Christine’s “Sleeping with . . .” series book is forthcoming on Smalls Book Press.

Lauren Willig is the author of the New York Times bestselling Pink Carnation series, which follows the antics of spies during the Napoleonic Wars. The recipient of a degree in English history from Harvard and a JD from Harvard law, she lives in New York City.

MC/Host: Marron Cox.
Assistant MCs/Hosts: Laura Moisin, Aaron Wimmer, Sacia Bodden.

Work from Our Inspired Word Poets

no matter

is this right then we put

all our ducks in a row all

our ducks of the under-word all made

of quarks which are or are

not matter but certainly are not

meaning though the ducks

mean as we line

the ducks up they make

a surface a surface of

water surface and water that

are not do not matter but

do mean the matter then

cannot mean the meaning is

nothing but we keep

on lining up the ducks beneath

the surface of water

is depth the more ducks the more

depth and dark and

murk all of which is no

matter no matter not matter but is

dark murk and deep story

layered upon story stories without

matter but with meaning how

is it possible to live like

this to make stories that

mean but are no matter

—Joel Chace
____
Previously published in Ducky

New Life 2
Variation on a theme by Joseph Brodsky et. al.

Imagine that the war is over, that peace has reigned,
That you can look at your face in the mirror again.
That magpies, not bombs, whistle down upon your head
That outside the city, homes are not destroyed-instead
A baroque burst of laurels, palms, magnolia, pine;
Instead of hot gun fire a white hot Venus shines.
That war’s cast-iron swamp iscold and then
The boredom is over: Life has to start again.

Imagine that all of this is true. Imagine, that you speak
Of yourself, speaking of others, that now you can seek
The irrelevant, the unneeded, the luxuries, the toys.
Life begins anew exactly thus: with noise
With erupting volcanos. and such catastrophes
A sloop lost below, friends lost beneath the seas .
Look straight at the tragedies, with the feeling these engender
That you alone can see them .With the small and tender
Feeling that, any minute now, you’ll turn away
To home, to the moment, to ask it to stay.

Imagine that the epoch ends in an idyl. The words that came
In monologues are rain dialogues now. And the flame,
That consumed others better than you, greedily, like logs;
In you it saw little use or warmth, and, like the dogs,
That’s why you were spared, why shrapnel gave you only fear.
Imagine that the more honest the voice, the less it has tears.
And when any Polyphemus asks you who it is that speaks.
“Say, Who, me? No one” like Odysseus the Greek.

--Larissa Shmailo

Hunter

Blue atmosphere dazzles
somewhere above the green-crushed swelter
of the canopy. Soundlessly I pursue you
through the heat,
the wet snaps and shadow crackles.
Expertly I stalk you, smell the saline in your blood
through your slick black hide
and covert tread. You climb, you lope,
floating and furtive,
but cannot resist
mapping your existence, leaving the ragged autographs
of your claws. Those primal signatures lead me farther
into stillness.
All the signs are here, close now, I hear
the dangerous rhythm of your breath
hissing between the spear points of your jaw.
So close now
I taste the metal in your sweat

but never recognized the subtle curve to your path, never
knew you were right behind me
all this time
sighting in,
my glistening pelt already slung over your
deliberate shoulders.

--Kathryn Lorraine Rees


Please check out this Tiny Book link:
Click here

Another Awesome Night at The Inspired Word!

I couldn't be happier with last night's Inspired Word event.

What great writing!

Thanks so much to our wonderful performers, Janice Brabaw, Alissa Heyman, Boris Zilberman, Mary Saliba, Amy Ouzoonian, Sarah Reilly, Michael Northrop, our spirited host, Marron Cox, and the gracious owners of Tierra Sana Restaurant, Vic and Stephanie Fiallo.

Below are three past YouTube videos of Monday night's readers:

Boris Zilberman



Amy Ouzoonian



Janice Brabaw



Our next event is April 27th!

Here are the bios of those performing that night:

Joel Chace has published poetry and prose poetry in print and electronic magazines such as 6ix, Tomorrow, Lost and Found Times, Coracle, xStream, Three Candles, 2River View, Joey & the Black Boots, Recursive Angel, and Veer. He has published more than a dozen print and electronic collections. Just out from BlazeVox Books is CLEANING THE MIRROR: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, and
from Paper Kite Press is MATTER NO MATTER, another
full-length collection. Just out from Country Valley Press is SCAFFOLD, the first part of an ongoing poetic sequence, and "(b)its," from Meritage
Press. For many years, Chace has been Poetry Editor for the experimental electronic magazine 5_Trope.

Becky Froman is a wayward performer and a graduate student at The New School for Media Studies and Film. She obtained her Bachelors Degree from the University of Maryland, College Park in Women’s Studies and Afro-American Studies, with a minor in Music Performance. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and hopes to one day have assets. She loves her tattoo and hates anything in bulk.

Sinje Ollen is a writer, knitwear designer, sculptor, and former actress. She has acted on Broadway, performed in the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival , appeared in experimental theater productions in New York and Europe, and starred in "The Tourist", a docudrama which aired at Lincoln Center, at MoMA, and on PBS. Sinje’s knitwear designs have been featured in the Fashioning Brooklyn show at the Brooklyn Library, and on the cover of the New York Sun. Her blog http://www.knityoursocksoff.blogspot.com features an ongoing series of Sinje’s reviews of New York yarn shops. She is also rewriting (hopefully for the last time) a memoir about her German family’s Nazi past.

An 82nd Airborne Paratrooper (98-01), Naropa alumni (02-06) and Long Island University M.F.A.(06) candidate, Gary Parrish co-edited with Leann Bifoss, Poems From Penny Lane (farfalla press 03) an all inclusive anthology featuring over 70 poets chronicling 20 years of poetry in and around Naropa University. He co-curated the year long Bowery Broadside Reading Series 07 featuring original artwork by George Schneeman at the BPC in New York City. He is the 2006 Pedro Pietri Memorial Prize recipient, awarded by The Bowery Arts and Sciences, LTD and The Ester Hynamen Award winner for poetry given by Long Island University (08). Gary's poetry and commentary can be found in Pinstripe Fedora, Big Bridge, Trans-Mountain Poetry, The American Drivel Review, Downtown Brooklyn, Four-Quarter Review, Puppy Flowers and Bombay Gin among others. The Meek, a long poem was published in the Italian Journal, Ludwig (Torino Poesia Press 08). Gary is a co-founder and editor for Farfalla Press, McMillan, and Parrish located in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn where he lives.

Aja Mujinga Sherrard is a multi-cultural, multi-racial wanderer, daughter, artist and student who fell into spoken word by the inspiration of her peers and influence of artists like Saul Williams and Ella Fitzgerald.

For the last six years, Lorraine Rees lived in the rolling mountains of central Virginia where she trained horses and worked as a consultant for fine dining restaurants. She published her first book, Contents Under Pressure, in September of 2007. Lorraine currently resides in Manhattan and looks forward to publishing her second book, The Goodbye Zoo, in 2009.

Larissa Shmailo translated the Russian Futurist opera Victory over the Sun by A. Kruchenych; a DVD of the original English-language production is part of the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Hirschhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institute, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art. She also contributed translations to the recent anthology Contemporary Russian Poetry published by Dalkey Archive Press. Her poetry CDs, The No-Net World (SongCrew 2006) and Exorcism (2008) with music by Bobby Perfect are frequently heard on radio and Internet broadcasts. Her latest chapbook is A Cure for Suicide (Cervena Barva Press 2008). Larissa’s full-length collection of poetry, In Paran, will be published by BlazeVox Books in May, 2009. Larissa lives happily on the upper West Side of Manhattan.

Carrie VanDenburg has been writing poetry since the 8th grade. She has been an editor of and been published in two college creative writing journals: Revisions and She's Aloud and was involved in creative writing groups in her undergraduate colleges. Currently, she spends most of her energy in graduate school studying social work but hopes to someday combine her love of creative writing with her love of helping people. Carrie lives in Flatbush Brooklyn with her roommate and two cats.

MC/Host: Marron Cox

Location: Tierra Sana Restaurant
http://www.tierrasana.com/
100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road
Forest Hills, Queens
New York City
Time: 7-10 PM

By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).

All you need to bring is your love for the written word.

Best,

Mike