Peacock Online Review vol. II

I have a little fascicle of poems in the new Peacock Online Review, edited by Sophie Sills who reviews John Sakkis's Rude Girl in the latest issue. Also check out poems by Brandon Brown, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Sarah Veglahn, and many others.

"The poem is throughout a commentary on itself, on culture as revolutionary praxis, on the transcendence still lurking in poetics which attribute to specific poems (or to themselves) the power to illuminate or obscure. But I hope that Wildfire's position is not ironic. I don't want to fabricate a critique which spares me, in whose light I glow with ethical priority."--Andrea Brady

5 Questions With Nato Thompson (@ Art21)

Check out the latest 5 Questions (for Contemporary Practice) with Creative Time curator Nato Thompson:

"Coming up, we have a major exhibition called Living As Form, which I can only say tries to come to terms with the manner in which many art forms are merging art and life to the point where they are almost indistinguishable. It is this effort that plagued my mind of late. On that note, I am also working with Tania Bruguera on a project on immigration and it hails from her statement that it is finally time to put Duchamp’s urinal back in the restroom. She is super smart and understands that art must move into the world if it is to hold any sway at all at this historic moment."
--Nato Thompson

Introduction for Anne Waldman (at SEGUE)

This past weekend Anne Waldman gave a brilliant reading with cello accompaniment at SEGUE series. The following is the introduction that I gave for her.

Poet’s poet. Poet-scholar. Poet-activist. Poet-healer. Poet-anthologist. Poet-administrator. Poet-journalist. Poet-administrator…. It takes many hyphens, more than I have space for here, to encapsulate the multi-faceted, polymath, multiple-hat-wearing career of Anne Waldman, who perhaps needs no introduction, especially in a space which among others in NYC may be considered her stomping ground and native habitat.

Among the hyphens that attract me to Waldman’s work—which call me back to it—it is that indicating the poet-teacher which I find perhaps most alluring during a time when poets indeed need to occupy the role of educator again in order to ensure the counter-inscription of various social histories, and to transmit knowledge which may be useful to preserving public discourse in our present.

Seeing Waldman read a few years ago at the Whitney, I was immediately struck by this function of her work as she framed her reading through the use of a “teaching stick” which had been helping her to learn Arabic. Likewise, seeing her read at the Louis Zukofsky centennial gathering at Columbia University in 2004, I was struck not only by how Waldman drew-out the prophetic synergy of Zukofsky’s “A-8”—a poem which she reflected on at some length—but also the formal powers of the poem to evoke historical recognition.

How to teach through the poem? How to teach through the performance (and not just the recitation) of a poem or poetics? Waldman’s practice as a poet-teacher recalls other great artist-teachers such as Joseph Beuys, Charles Olson, and Waldman’s friend and colleague, Allen Ginsberg. Teaching, via the platform of reading, becomes energetic; it conveys energy, it motivates and incites.

While some might read Waldman’s latest book, Manatee / Humanity as one long prayer or invocation towards both the manatee and grey wolf, both of which are endangered by our intensifying climate crisis, the book also has a wealth of knowledge and insight to convey about the status of the creatures as they reflect the current conditions and values of human species.

Please welcome one of our great poet-teachers and poets period to the SEGUE series, accompanied by composer Ha-Yang Kim on cello.

37th Annual Poetry Marathon at St. Mark's Church

Come out for one of NYC's longest standing poetry traditions, the 37th annual Poetry Project marathon on News Year's day. Listen to a deluge of poetry and live music, and browse among a great selection of new and vintage poetry books for sale.

Poets and Performers include: John Giorno, Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Philip Glass, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Mead, Eric Bogosian, Anne Waldman & Ambrose Bye, Foamola, Anselm Berrigan, Ariana Reines, Peter Gizzi, Liz Willis, Ted Greenwald, The Church of Betty, Thom Donovan, Tim Griffin, Todd Colby, Tom Savage, David Shapiro, Jonas Mekas, Josef Kaplan, Judith Malina, Albert Mobilio, Alex Abelson, Bill Kushner, David Freeman, David Kirschenbaum, Diana Rickard, Don Yorty, Dorothea Lasky, Douglas Dunn, Alan Gilbert, Alan Licht w/ Angela Jaeger, Charles Bernstein, Christopher Stackhouse, Citizen Reno, Cliff Fyman, Corina Copp, Aaron Kiely, Adeena Karasick, Bill Zavatsky, Bob Holman, Robert Fitterman, Rodrigo Toscano, Brenda Iijima, Brendan Lorber, Brett Price, Corrine Fitzpatrick, Curtis Jensen, Dael Orlandersmith, David Vogen, Derek Kroessler, Diana Hamilton, ARTHUR’S LANDING, CAConrad, Akilah Oliver, Douglas Piccinnini, John S. Hall, Samita Sinha, Sara Wintz, Secret Orchestra with special guest Joanna Penn Cooper, Shonni Enelow, Bob Rosenthal, Brenda Coultas, John Yau, Julian T. Brolaski, Evelyn Reilly, Filip Marinovich, Douglas Rothschild, Drew Gardner, Eleni Stecopoulos, Elinor Nauen, Eve Packer, Jo Ann Wasserman, Joanna Fuhrman, Dustin Williamson, E. Tracy Grinnell, Ed Friedman, Edwin Torres, Eileen Myles, Elliott Sharp, Emily XYZ, Erica Hunt, Erica Kaufman, Evan Kennedy, Joe Elliot, Joel Lewis, Frank Sherlock, Gillian McCain, Greg Fuchs, Janet Hamill, Jeremy Hoevenaar, Jeremy Sigler, Jessica Fiorini, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Jim Behrle, Julianna Barwick, Julie Patton, Michael Lydon, Lisa Jarnot, Maggie Dubris, Marcella Durand, Marty Ehrlich, Merry Fortune, Michael Cirelli, Kristen Kosmas, Laura Elrick, Lauren Russell, Leopoldine Core, Nina Freeman, Paolo Javier, Patricia Spears Jones, Paul Mills (Poez), Michael Scharf, Mike Doughty, Karen Weiser, Lewis Warsh, Linda Russo, Penny Arcade, Peter Bushyeager, Rebecca Moore, Mónica de la Torre, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Nathaniel Siegel, Nick Hallett, Nicole Peyrafitte, Pierre Joris & Miles Joris-Peyrefitte, Kathleen Miller, Katie Degentesh, Kelly Ginger, Ken Chen, Kim Lyons, Kim Rosenfield, India Radfar, Tonya Foster, Stephanie Gray, Susan Landers, Tony Towle, Tracie Morris, Valery Oisteanu, John Coletti, Rachel Levitsky, Edmund Berrigan, Macgregor Card, Wayne Koestenbaum, Will Edmiston, Yoshiko Chuma, Nicole Wallace, Arlo Quint, Stacy Szymaszek and more T.B.A

This Is Not a Performance

--for Adrian Piper

Gives me the back
The backside this dance
Does the butt but does it
Suffice to be an object

In this dance motherfucker
Reduced to steps, reduced
To hips, a kind of scream-
like script I am hinting at

Like shade light passes through
Light, like there was no
Beyond but what is social
What is a social material

Leaving me what’s left-
over from the armor
Love makes up the difference
Motherfucker my only friend

Nice up this substance
Come shadow come on
Open up a window
Pull this ladder up into skin

Songs the object and songs
The subject refused to sing
Ring thought balloons
Make the black still truer

No equal signs, no commons
In this index of who you is
In the present
The archive betrayed us

Blindfolds around entire bodies
Like a pair of eyes all over
Your body, a dance that was both
A fusion and a wreck

The eyes remain the windows
Of the soul, but who looks in and
Who looks out’s a question
Your body posed.