Monday, March 12, 2007

Friday, February 23, 2007

flarf tour | spring 2007



photos by rod smith and mel nichols >>>
photos by nada gordon >>>
photos by kaplan harris >>>
gary sullivan's blog report >>>
gary sullivan's blog report from philly >>>





DC/BALTIMORE, FEBRUARY 17 & 18, 2007

An Evening of Flarf

i.e. reading series presents
The Flarf Collective
Sat. Feb. 17th- 7 pm til? @!
Dionysus Restaurant & Lounge
8 E. Preston Street, Baltimore, MD
410-244-1020

followd bye

An Afternoon of Flarf

IN Y O U R E A R R E A D I N G S E R I E S
@ District of Columbia Arts Center
2438 18th Street NW, Washington DC
Sun. Feb. 18th, 3 - 6 pm

Performers will include:

Katie Degentesh, author of The Anger Scale
Drew Gardner, author of Petroleum Hat & Sugar Pill
Benjamin Friedlander, author of A Knot is Not a Tangle & Simulcast
Nada Gordon, auhor of V. Imp & Foriegnn Bodie
Rodney Koeneke, author of Musee Mechanique & Rouge State
Michael Magee, author of Mainstream & My Angie Dickinson
Sharon Mesmer, author of In Ordinary Time & The Empty Quarter
Mel Nichols, author of Day Poems
Rod Smith, author of Music or Honesty & The Good House
Gary Sullivan, author of How to Proceed in the Arts & Elsewhere

+ Film by Brandon Downing, author of Dark Brandon

+ FlarfOrchestra conducted by Drew Gardner
featuring Flarf Collective members &

The Brain Wave Chick
Jason Hamrick, trumpet
Buck Downs & Ryan Walker, guitars
Jamie Gaughran-Perez, guitar etc.
Adam Good, bass
Gary Sullivan, ocarina


The District of Columbia Arts Center is located between the Dupont Circle and Woodley Park metro stations. For directions, see the DCAC web site.

A large sample of what has come be known as flarf can be found at.


PHILLY FLARF
Thursday, 2/8 6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: The MACHINE series presents a Flarf Poetry Festival, co-sponsored by Combo Arts. Note that this program was recorded for the PENNsound archive, and is now available as a downloadable mp3 file.

Inappropriate, odd, disturbing and hilarious, Flarf Poetry is an avant garde poetry movement of the late 20th and the early 21st centuries. The program will feature several prominent Flarf practitioners, including Nada Gordon, Mike Magee, Mel Nichols, Rod Smith, Sharon Mesmer, Gary Sullivan, and a film by Brandon Downing.


Thursday, February 22, 2007

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Rod Smith & Dana Ward @ Pyramid 2/10 8 PM

RUTHLESS GRIP POETRY SERIES
@ Pyramid Atlantic Art Center

Saturday, February 10, 2007, 8:00PM

Rod Smith is the author of In Memory of My Theories (O Books), Protective Immediacy (Roof), New Mannerist Tricycle with Lisa Jarnot and Bill Luoma (Beautiful Swimmer), Music or Honesty (Roof), The Good House (Spectacular Books), Fear the Sky (Narrow House Recordings), and Deed (forthcoming from the University of Iowa Press). He is also editing, with Peter Baker and Kaplan Harris, The Selected Letters of Robert Creeley, for the University of California Press.

Dana Ward is the author of New Couriers (Dusie 2006), I Didn't Build This Machine (Boog Literature, 2004) & The Imaginary Lives of My Neighbors (Duration, 2003). Recent poems have appeared in Mirage #4/Periodical, string of small machines, Small Town, & other places. He lives in Cincinnati & edits Cy Press.

We hope you can join us for the reading and the festivities afterwards.

Pyramid Atlantic Art Center is located at 8230 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, MD, three blocks from the Metro red line. For directions: http://www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org/about/contact.htm

Letterpress Broadsides of the poets (made in collaboration with printmaker Val Lucas of Pyramid Atlantic) will be available at the reading.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Sunday, January 14, 2007

feng shui tip for today

If a pet upsets a romance, move photos of the animal out of the boudoir. Keep two fresh flowers in the far right corner.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

better living through chemistry

Albert Hofmann turns 101 today.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

he fed so many of us

Momofuku Ando, Inventor of Instant Ramen Noodles

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

because it's all about meme

Got tagged by Rodney Koeneke to state five little-known facts:

1. Had a very brief career as a busker in Rouen, France.
2. Also had a very brief career as a karaoke star in Rouen, France.
3. Supported myself through college, in part (not briefly), as a rock-n-roll caterer ("rock" broadly defined to also include the likes of Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, and Milli Vanilli)(and of course bands like White Snake).
4. In high school I was in Show Choir. We had to wear these horribly designed red dresses.
5. Fred (my pop) developed the VideoDisc with RCA (remember those?)--not to be confused with LaserDisc, which came later--VideoDisc had a stylus. One of my early childhood memories is watching King Kong on VideoDisc.

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Monday, December 25, 2006

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Lucky Street Pencil (The Poetics of Re-use)

Adam Good gave sheets of stickers to everyone in the audience when he introduced the reading at DCAC.

"...the pychosis of influence..."
Lucky street pencils and found notebooks lead to poems. Buck Downs talks about re-use, reads from the Ted Berrigan's Sonnets as well as his own work, "A Fresh 24." Use non-functioning objects [words] and bring them them to life.

Brian Howe with Audrey after the reading @ Angles in Adams Morgan.
Brian discussed/read from F7, a project that utilizes Word's spellcheck feature. Cage-influenced, Brian tried various ways of typing in a non-reglar manner for the project, turning the keyboard backwards, etc. Reminded me of Derek Bailey's non-idiomatic guitar playing. Before his reading Brian performed a sampled/improvised sound-piece.


from the notebooks of brian & audrey


Wednesday, December 13, 2006

post-dickinson, part 2

videos of the flarf readings at http://mainstreampoetry.blogspot.com/

aleatory printmaking


my letterpress experiment at the book arts fair at pyramid atlantic art center (november 17, 18, 19). there are wonderful people affiliated with pyramid atlantic who salvage old wooden and metal type (like you see in the first photo above) before it is destroyed or melted down.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

maureen thorson & dan gutstein
@ pyramid atlantic


silver spring, maryland


maureen reads from her new PSA chapbook


dan reads from a work that includes
a dish called "cowboy hotplate"

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

"First and foremost, I am an entertainer, but all I need is the Federal credentials."



alexandra's homework last night was to write a paper from the perspective of elvis--here's an excerpt from the the letter elvis wrote to richard nixon on the way to DC:

Sir, I am staying at the Washington Hotel, Room 505-506-507.... I am registered under the name of Jon Burrows. I will be here for as long as it takes to get the credentials of a Federal Agent. I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good.




Saturday, December 02, 2006

Friday, December 01, 2006

joe



recently read ron padgett's memoir of joe brainard. the piece above i found in the poets of the new york school, published in 1969 by falcon press in philly & distributed by the gotham book mart and gallery in nyc.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

anthology of baltimore poets


sandra miller reads jamie gaughran-perez's anthology of baltimore poets it was real close and squishy. DCAC, 18 november 2006.

inside: rupert wondolowski, miriam stewart, justin sirois, lauren bender, marianne amoss, chris toll.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

charles bernstein @ bridge street books



charles bernstein read from the libretto he wrote for shadowtime, an opera
by brian ferneyhough based on the life and work of walter benjamin.

[sitting in front: sandra miller, ben doyle, tony tost, ryan walker]

Monday, November 20, 2006

i like this boat ride i'm being taken for


tony tost & miriam stewart reading, DCAC, 19 november.



tony read a 1001 sentence poem that began: "i have 1000 more sentences to write."
miriam gave us fragments to read as a group--included one of my favorite ted berrigan poems, "crystal."

PHOTOS >>>>>

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Saturday, November 11, 2006

leslie scalapino panel


brenda ijima organized the panel on leslie scalapino at st. marks
i read with rod his work on leslie, Essay: A Play

The Work of Leslie Scalapino on Saturday, November 11th, 1:00 pm
The Poetry Project, St. Marks Church, 131 East 10th Street, NYC


A celebration and inquiry into the work of prominent contemporary experimental Bay Area writer and publisher (of O Books) Leslie Scalapino. Leslie Scalapino's over 20 books challenge the boundaries of poetry, prose and visual art. Her most recent titles are Orchid Jetsam, Dahlia's Iris and Zither & Autobiography. Six poets will each present a short talk on aspects of Scalapino's work, followed by a question/answer session. Poets will include Brenda Iijima, who will host the discussion, Rod Smith, Laura Elrick, Alan Davies, Jennifer Scappettone & Rodrigo Toscano.

some bloggers:
thom donovan
tim peterson

PHOTOS >>>>>