WHAT A WEEK OF POETRY UPCOMING!

I couldn’t possibly keep up with all the incredible things going on in the world of poetry, even inside what I consider my own domain, so what I offer here is quite limited in scope and touches on the few things that are relevant to me and a thing or two that might be relevant to you. Chronological order seems to be the way to go with this post. Gotta hustle cause there are few things happening tonight, so please pardon typos and such!

MONDAY 10/10

8pm (EDT) (That’s today!)- QuintessentialListening: Poetry Online Radio (QLPOR) with host Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram presents Mark Wayne Shifflet. I took a little gem away from the last broadcast I heard with Sarah Gallardo, who, when asked what poetry was, answered “Poetry is a safe space to express my truth…a way to connect with people on an emotional level that writing down words in a typical way doesn’t achieve.” The wide range of poets and work presented on QLPOR make this a go to program for those who love the written and spoken word. You can listen live here.

8pm (MDT)-The Barbed Wire Open Mic Series (BWOMS) out of El Paso, Texas with host Richie David Marrufo (Instagram) is as wide open as it gets. It happens every Monday at the same time. Bring your poetry, prose, music, etc. Sign up for a performance spot here or catch the show live streaming on YouTube.

TUESDAY10/11

2pm (EDT)- I have the privilege of joining several accomplished poets, as well as Dr. Hiram Larew, founder of Poetry X Hunger; Dr. Kristin Reynolds, chairperson and assistant professor of Food Studies at The New School(TNS) in New York City; and Thomas Forster, a decades-long food security activist and part-time assistant professor at TNS, for the Power through Poetry: Voices to End Hunger event. The event is designed to showcase the role that poetry plays and can play in “speaking back to hunger.” Poets reading their work in person or via video include:

Sylvia Dianne Beverlyaka Ladi Di
Tony Treanor (Cathal Mac Thréinfhir)
T. A. Niles
Linda Wolfe
Willeena Booker
Taku Chikepe
Janet Cannon
Henry Crawford

6pm (PDT)- Coastside Poetry (CoPo) will feature poartist Diane Moomey (see visual art here), who usually co-hosts with Steve Long every 2^nd Tuesday. The scheduled feature had to pull out at the last moment, so this popular Half Moon Bay, California venue will be blessed with a reading from the co-host and a bevy of open mic-ers. Catch the event live and watch recorded readings here.

6pm (PDT)-Time to Arrive Open Mic hosted by Dane Ince of eyepublishewe.com is hosting Bay Area poet Bianca “BeeYonka” Panaligan. I’ve been here once and plan to return. 

7:30pm (PDT)- Cobalt Poets with host Rick Lupert presents featured poet Briana Muñoz along with the usual (and likely some new) poetic voices in the open mic. If you plan to read in the open mic, sign up begins at 7:15 (PDT) so if you’re on the east coast, you probably want to get there as close to 7:15 as possible. There’s usually a full house at Cobalt. Join on Zoom here.

 WEDNESDAY 10/12

7:30pm (EDT)- Moore Poetry hosted by Christopher Moore is featuring Black Glitter (aka Black Silver 47). I don’t know the feature artist, but according to Christopher, “I first heard Black Silver's (aka Black Glitter) poetry when I subbed for my friend Nick P's open mic workshops a few months back and his work spoke to my very soul. So, poetry people, this Wednesday night, 7:30, you don't want to miss this guy!” 

FRIDAY 10/14

5pm (PDT)- TESORO, hosted by Stacy Ardis Dyson and Co., presents Teresa E. Gallion as a part of THE APERITIF CONCERTS: INNER VIEWS. Teresa is another of my favorite poets and for those who treasure “safe spaces for women word-warriors,” as well as those who merely want to hear terrific poetry delivered poetically, this will be one to put on your calendar!

SUNDAY 10/16

8am (MDT)- Inspired Poetry Corner hosted by Rawle Iam James will host Marianne Tefft. Marianne’s poetry is at least as infectious as her smile. She’ll be reading from her recent release FULL MOON FIRE, and I imagine an assortment of other poems. Find out more about Marianne in this interview with Peter Okonkwo. There’s no open mic at this event, but there’s usually a stellar lineup of poets and lively discussion.

12pm (PDT)- Cultivating Voices Live Poetry hosted by Sandy Yannone, Kim Ports Parsons and Don Krieger doesn’t need any promotion and is topnotch every Sunday. This day is WILD CARD Open Mic, which means it’s wide open. Of course, CVLP keeps it real but respectful sooooo. You can catch recorded sessions here and Don Krieger does a painstaking job of ensuring that if there’s someone specific you want to see/hear, you can see them at the time they appear on the video.

6:30pm (EDT)- Peripatetic Poets hosted by James Borders brings you Jason Ryberg. An open mic will be sandwiched between two sets by Jason. I’m betting that Rick Christiansen, of SpoFest fame, knows this poet/author since Jason hails from Kansas City and has at least nine books to his credit.

MONDAY 10/17

8pm (MDT)-The Barbed Wire Open Mic Series (BWOMS) out of El Paso, Texas with host Richie David Marrufo (Instagram) is as wide open as it gets. It happens every Monday at the same time. Bring your poetry, prose, music, etc. Sign up for a performance spot here or catch the show live streaming on YouTube.

TUESDAY 10/18

6pm (CDT)- SpoFest Poetry and Prose hosted by James Bryant and OIC Studios will co-feature cheryl latif, Jessica Weyer-Bentley, and T. A. Niles with guest author Tara Campbell. If you haven’t been to SpoFest, this venue is my regular Tuesday stop, with a program unlike any other online venue I’ve been to. And cheryl is one of the very few poets I’ve written a piece about, and I intend to read that piece at this event. Sign up to participate or be in the Zoom audience here and watch the event live on Facebook here.

6pm (PDT)- Time to Arrive Open Mic hosted by Dane Ince of eyepublishewe.com will host feature Nicko Kim, who according to the event listing, is a poet, singer, rapper, and lyricist out of Wonder Lake, Illinois, where he works as a pharmacy tech in the area.

7:30 (PDT)- Cobalt Poets and VCP SoCal Poets present Carla Sameth. As usual, you want to get there as close to 7:15 as you can if you want to be relatively early on the open mic list.

Enjoy a terrific week of poetry!

PE: A LESSON LEARNED FROM SYLVIA ANG

 Note: Please see video reading at the end of the post and click on photos to enlarge for better viewing

A Lesson Learned from Sylvia Ang

Sylvia and her mom, 

now dearly departed,
piqued my puzzlement with a picture.
They pried my ignorance
from its barely concealed hiding place
in the shadows of my delusion.

Bold, so prominent
the symbol I've hitched
to the post of atrocity
shining from a breast bereft of beat
but which once suckled a special one.

Swastika-

a symbol usurped from the annals
of Sanskrit meaning so far removed
from "conducive to well-being"
or a mother's journey in Buddha's footsteps
needing no eyes to see the light
or find the way to peace

I imagine Mdm. Lim Ah Liang
teaching her daughter to prepare
the tantalizing meals she oft displays.
I imagine a smile reminiscent of sun rays
like in symbol's reversal
like mother's love considered universal

Did she bestow Sylvia's ocean heart 

and mountain spirit?

Did she paint that arms-open smile
upon her face? 

Did she place magic hands
on her swollen belly
blessing the being within it
with Middlemist reverence
and a forest of uncommon grace?

I will likely never know

Photo courtesy of
Lotphey on
pexels.com

but I've learned to avoid climbing
the biblical tree
accepting the ignorance
that's more than shadow of me
And though Mdm. Lim Ah Liang
walks no longer in day or night
she and Sylvia have shrunk my shadow
with a sliver of light

CONTEXT:
Prior to yesterday, my only experiences and associations with the Swastika symbol have been what I believe is the common one in the United States and perhaps the western world in general. Swastika equaled Nazi party = genocide = symbol of people who believe they are better than other people and have no compunction about wiping out those they consider inferior.

Perhaps you can imagine my disorientation when I logged onto Facebook/Meta and saw a photo of Sylvia Ang, a dear Facebook friend with the most generous of spirits, standing next to an open casket containing her recently departed mom, with a bold, red swastika adorning her shroud. The disorientation lasted a few moments before I reached for my phone and Google.

I’m 62 years old, and despite more than 20 years of “education,” this was the first time I had any idea that the swastika was anything but a Nazi symbol. I can’t testify to the veracity of what I read on Wikipedia, and I don’t trust everything I read, but according to Wikipedia, among other things, the swastika is a “symbol of divinity and spirituality in Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.”

I also read that it originated in Sanskrit and, depending on which way the symbol faces, represents “conducive to well-being,” “prosperity and good luck,” “the auspicious footprints of the Buddha,” and the sun. I have no intentions of exploring all that I read here (you can do that here if you like), but I did want to provide some context for the poetic expression I wrote shortly after being stunned by the photo and reading.

The moment was like a tiny star appearing in the vast darkness of my ignorance, and despite the sober occasion, I was grateful to Sylvia for posting that photo and sparking that tiny light. And to think that I took a class on East-West philosophy as an undergrad. There’s a good reason I am leery of what I “learn.” This was one instance of confirmation.

For any interested in a deeper understanding the piece, “Middlemist” refers to “...perhaps the rarest flowering plant in the world…” (https://www.clareflorist.co.uk/blog/2012-05-weird-and-wonderful-flowers-the-worlds-rarest-flower-middlemist-red/), another tidbit I had no clue about before yesterday.

Again according to Wikipedia, Sanskrit “is a classical language of South Asia that belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages…It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age…Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit).

To reiterate, I have not tried to verify any of the information I’ve quoted from Wikipedia, so please keep that in mind.

POETRY X HUNGER & THE NEW SCHOOL TEAM UP AGAINST HUNGER

 

There are venues that I frequent because I know the offered fare will be more than palatable, or because the people who also share the room are just plain cool. And then there are events and activities that I’m compelled to be a part of and to share with others because of the potential impact they can have in people's lives. The following fits the latter category.

Poetry X Hunger (PXH), the only online site I know dedicated to poetry about hunger, is partnering with the Food Studies Program of New York City’s The New School (TNS) to cohost Power through Poetry: Voices to End Hunger, yet another prong of the fork that PXH is sticking in the eye of hunger. I write, “yet another,” because in addition to the fundraising online event

PXH cohosted with Fizza Abbas this past August, there will be a fundraising Poartry Auction beginning on December 3, 2022. I’m really excited to be assisting Hiram Larew and JC Wayne, founder of The Poartry Project, with this initiative. But more on that soon.

Right now, I’d like to focus on the Power through Poetry: Voices to End Hunger event, which will be happening on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, 2pm eastern. In case you haven’t heard of The New School, if ever there was a progressive institution of higher learning, I think it would be TNS. Don’t take my word for it, check them out here. As for the event itself, I can’t say it any better than the event coordinators, so according to TNS:

“This event will showcase powerful poems by 5-10 poets from New York City and beyond as they demonstrate the role that poetry is playing in speaking back to hunger. We’ll also hear from several food systems and social justice leaders who will briefly share insights about the heart-grabbing and mind-changing difference that poetry plays – or could play – in their efforts. The poems and commentaries will be followed by Q&A among the audience and panelists. Attendees will leave the event having heard, seen and felt – having learned – how poetry can contribute to strategies to fight hunger and food insecurity.”

Also from the TNS website: “The event will be moderated by Food Studies Program Chair Kristin Reynolds, Food Studies faculty member Thomas Forster, and Poetry X Hunger founder and poet Hiram Larew.” Those scheduled to read at the event include:

Sylvia Dianne Beverly aka Ladi Di
Tony Treanor (Cathal Mac Thréinfhir)
T. A. Niles
Linda Wolfe
Willeena Booker
Taku Chikepe
Janet Cannon
Henry Crawford

If you have the inclination and time, your presence would welcomed and appreciated.

RESPONSE TO NAYMA CHAMCHOUN'S "COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN"

Note: Please click on photos to enlarge for better viewing.

Exposition: So, I have this thing for “philosopher poets” in all their various styles and guises. What constitutes a philosopher poet in my mind? A depth of eye that spans life’s breadth, whose way with words fashion chain-linked mosaics of ideas that demand a second look and further thought to balance the individual and universal on a platinum scale. When I come across an artist who displays range, depth, breadth, excellence at every stage, that sure leaves me grinning as a tall, bald dear one might say.

I’ve run across a few such poets over the past 18 months, and I’m fortunately ecstatic or ecstatically fortunate to have crossed paths with Nayma Chamchoun’s work. I’m specifically pleased to have had the opportunity to read COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN, Mica Press, 2022. If you’re in London, you can attend Morocco Bound Bookshop’s hosting of the official launch of Nayma’s debut poetry collection on Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 7pm London time.

My challenge: In response to the final product of many hours of creative energy expenditure, and of course the attendant minutiae that accompanies such a production, my task is to distill and yet to still expound upon the expansive ground laid down by an artist whose creations stimulate sensations whose naming would only belittle their immensity, trample and mash their intensity into symbols on a page. In this, and most instances, unforgivable. But is it avoidable? Let’s see.

But goodness gracious! Where to begin? I suppose cliché will help me find my way because I’d be hopelessly lost in the beguiling forest of Nayma Chamchoun’s words, images, metaphors, ideas sensations, juxtapositions and so much more otherwise. Oh, the cliché? Begin at the beginning of course.

Perhaps I had no choice but to be enchanted by Nayma’s work. I mean she ticked pretty much all my boxes. Relationships, rawthentic self-exploration through the prism of these relationships, navigating culture and social identity, aging, avenues of social commentary…and those merely the tilled soil of the garden of Nayma. The seeds are the words which she has watered with rhyme, wordplay, stark and subtle imagery, a torrent of emotion one could easily misidentify as drizzle.

COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN houses writing so bold as to belie the very words of self-doubt the author has penned. Nayma roped me with her opening lariat, NO FILTER, an expository poem that tells you who the poet is, with no-holds-barred expression. She isn’t afraid to tell you that she isn’t a great big fan of social media in this piece.

“Twits twittering on Twitter.” Yes, alliteration and rhyme pepper this opening poem as it does much of the book. “Wearing my wrinkles as a sackcloth and ashes.” "Perfecting personas on FB,” begin the telling of Nayma’s rebelling against current tides. From the beginning she is dealing with social conditions as well as her discomforting place in this social reality.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for fearless social critique and self-examination all wrapped up in a bundle, tidy or otherwise.

MAMA’S WELCOME (p.4) foreshadows much of the relational theme that threads and treads through WORDY WILDS. I suppose I’m guilty of seeking me in others’ expressions and like my reading of Darrell Parry’s TWISTS, I was not disappointed. Nayma weaves family relationships, friendship, and culture into the fabric of MAMA’S WELCOME and writes words I wish I had:

My friend in my home.
Another part of me,
Friends have no secrets.

Among the number of relational pieces that slip past sense protection are GRADUATION (p.6), MOTHER AND SON (p.12), LI’L BIG MAN (p.17), FATHER (p.24), RECONCILIATION (p.40), SISTER (p.54), and the perfect ending to the book, CLOCKING OUT MUM (p.58). In these pieces you feel a mother’s pride, a mother’s loss, a daughter’s debilitation, and just the everyday universalities of familial relationships. 

As you would expect from the title, Nayma pens pieces that harken back to the title. The first of these appears on p.7 in PANIC, which depicts the early Covid mania that was evidenced in supermarkets. RESURFACING (p.48) touches on the apparent COVID aftermath, and one COVID offering that is too delicious to ignore is BREAKING (p.8), one of several pieces that I can call “favorites.” 

As head on as Nayma tackles myriad subjects, she allows for plenty of wondering, as she does in ODE TO A BICYCLE (p.14). As happens so frequently throughout the collection, multiple ideas and relationships intertwine and climb a trestle of words in this ode, and the last two lines left me wondering.

I contemplate that maybe
it is not the bike.

Is it not the bike that she really wanted, but a certain freedom that was beyond her grasp? That’s for you, the reader, to decide.

Nayma sprinkles pieces about aging throughout and although our body parts are different, I find similarity in our contemplation of decline. BREASTS (p.15), TIRED (p.21), MELANCHOLY (p.22) are all poems that echo the ache of aging that many might feel but aren’t likely to reveal except in poems, stories, perhaps memoirs. 

VENUS DE LA MENOPAUSA (p.53) is another gem on aging. No, Nayma Chamchoun does not console herself with pretense, but stands squarely in front of her mirror with eyes wide open and pen at the ready.

As much I would love to stay with personal poems that speak Nayma’s name, it is clear in her work that social identity and cultural commentary are integrally important to her as a poet and person. Pieces like THE UNMOORED MOOR (p.20), LIMBO (p.28), THE BAT AND THE BALL (p.27) and DILUTED (p.36) make this crystal. The first stanza of LIMBO, an epic poem in my book, gives you a hint of the soul-searing in this lament of longing:

Africa calling.
A convoy in the shadows.
Constant and ever-present.
A home but not a home.

And in DILUTED you start out thinking that the piece is another lament for lost culture until you careen into:

The little traditions and customs
we cling to, are nothing more
than taught belonging.
Ancestral peer pressure
For my identity to be yours
when all the things that make us
are as fleeting as we.

See what I mean by "philosopher poet? Nayma Chamchoun fits that bill quite snugly with all curves on display. 

Ok folks, I’ve probably said/written too much already and still I have to curtail my desire to keep voicing the virtues of Nayma Chamchoun’s COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN. Maybe that tells you something and maybe it doesn’t. 

My bottom line is that this was an enjoyable read from multiple perspectives and the only trouble I had writing this response was the feeling that I couldn’t do Nayma’s work justice. Now I am just waiting for her novel to come out! I hope you enjoy Nayma Chamchoun’s COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN as much as I did!