Sunday, June 26, 2011

I Heart Woodland Pattern!

Woodland Pattern Book Center was founded as a non-profit organization in Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Riverwest neighborhood by Anne Kingsbury and Karl Gartung in 1979. The center houses a bookstore with over 25,000 small press titles, in addition to an art gallery where they present exhibitions, artist talks, readings, experimental films, concerts, and writing workshops.

Due to the state budget cuts in Wisconsin, Woodland Pattern needs to raise an additional $48,500 in less than seven months. This means that NOW is an excellent time to visit, shop, and make a donation. Racine, Wisconsin poet Nick Demske has outlined some inspirational ideas here.

Tired of seeing arts funding getting cut in your state? Here are some talking points for your legislators:

The arts are central to healthy communities.
• Stimulate economic and community development.
• Educate our children to succeed in school and beyond.
• Beautify our neighborhoods.
• Attract tourists and out-of-town visitors.
• Make our cities and towns attractive and vibrant
places to live and work.

• Provide important social and creative outlets for all residents,
including seniors, those with disabilities,
children and adults.
• Bring people of diverse backgrounds together in productive
and cooperative ways.

• People who are involved in the arts are also more civically engaged, they volunteer and they vote.

The arts build and sustain prosperity.
• Cities thrive, grow, attract and retain businesses when
the arts are supported.

• Arts and creativity education is proven to keep students in school,
increase high school graduation rates
and prepare students for
college and for the careers of the 21st century.

• The new economy (insert your economic system here) requires a workforce that will be highly disciplined, collaborative, innovative, imaginative, creative and focused. These are the traits the arts teach.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

June 25: Writing from the Streets

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

June 24: Chicago Underground Library

It's Alive! A Benefit for the Rebirth of Chicago Underground Library!
Join us for a belated 5th anniversary benefit featuring some of Chicago's best DJs (and writers!), a photobooth to show off your party hats, and a chance to win one of a dozen homemade birthday cakes in our cakewalk!

Friday, June 24, 9:00pm - 2:00am
at Beauty Bar
1444 W. Chicago Ave
$10 suggested donation / $5 minimum at door
21+ / RSVP on Facebook

Featuring Chicago culture writers/DJs:
Chess (UR Chicago)
David Drake (Pitchfork, Chicago Tribune)
Chelsea & Lauren (Stic-of-the-Week)
Photography by Glitter Guts

Sponsored by Printers' Ball & Curbside Splendor

A week before Chicago Underground Library’s 5th anniversary, the February blizzard blew in one of our windows, forcing us to shelve our snow-damaged party hats (read more about it in New City and Chicagoist). In the meantime, we've gone mobile with Pop Up Libraries, but we need your support to establish a new home. Come celebrate our belated birthday and help us get back on our feet.

In honor of Printers' Ball and the survival power of print, we want to see your best PAPER PARTY HAT. Whether it's a classic folded newspaper style, a giant origami crane or just a plain old cardboard cone, there can never be too many hats on the dancefloor. Best one wins a top secret prize!

Purchase advance tickets for a minimum donation of $10.00 (all online tickets are will call) here. All proceeds from the event benefit Chicago Underground Library, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit . Donations will help support Structurally Sound Pop Up Libraries and our quest for a new space.

Monday, June 20, 2011

06.21 the Cafe poetry open mic & feature


June 21, 8:30PM

The Cafe open mic
5115 N. Lincoln Ave.
$2 & 2 drink minimum (any drink, even bottled water or soda)
plus donation for the feature


The Cafe (5115 N. Lincoln Ave.) hosts a weekly poetry/performance art open mic (hosted by Janet Kuypers). June 21st has
Jessica Helen Lopez, Zachary Kluckman and Katrina Guarascio (from New Mexico, in their U.S. Poetry Traveling Tour) as the feature, following an open mic.

For info about the open mic and the 2011 schedule (or getting the chance to sign up for your OWN feature, or even to check out the menu for the great food at the Cafe, because we have a collection of books to choose from for anyone who orders food at the Cafe during the poetry evening), you can always check out http://www.chaoticarts.org/thecafe/ for weekly podcasts, feature videos or future schedules.

Monday, June 13, 2011

W4tB presents Open Mic at the Bus Stop:BUDDHAPALOOZA


7:30pm - 10:00pm

Cafe Ballou

939 N Western Ave.

W4tB Open Mic Night

Featuring: Buddah309

Open mic at the Bus Stop is proud and pleased to present,

Buddhapalooza

featured poet is David (Buddha309) Hargarten

theme is Esteban says.

W4tb member Esteban Colon will request open mic performers to do certain poetic things-If you want to play, contact Esteban through Facebook or at exactchangepress@gmail.com

special guest host Kristen LaTour

Wednesday, June 8, 2011



POETRY READING: POETS EMBODYING ABSTRACTION
Sunday, June 19, 2011 / 2:00p.m.
Guest Curator: Lisa Fishman

Woman Made Gallery
685 N MILWAUKEE AVE
CHICAGO IL 60642

Featured Readers:
Benicia Blue
Judith Goldman
Kristin Ravel
Nicole Wilson
Lisa Fishman

Free & open to the public.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Red Rover Series / Experiment #47

Red Rover Series
{readings that play with reading}

Experiment #47:
The New Talkies

SATURDAY, JUNE 11th
8:30pm / doors lock 9pm
**please note change from usual time**

Featuring:
John Beer
Daniel Borzutzky
Krista Franklin
Judith Goldman
Carla Harryman
Konrad Steiner

Neo-benshi guest curated by Konrad Steiner
co-presented with the Chicago Poetry Project
and funded in part by Poets & Writers

at Outer Space Studio
1474 N. Milwaukee Ave
suggested donation $4

logistics --
near CTA Damen blue line
third floor walk up
not wheelchair accessible

JOHN BEER is the author of The Waste Land and Other Poems (Canarium, 2010), which won the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award. He lives in Chicago, where he writes about theater for Time Out.

DANIEL BORZUTZKY is the author of The Book of Interfering Bodies (Nightboat, 2011); The Ecstasy of Capitulation (BlazeVox, 2007) and Arbitrary Tales (Triple Press, 2005). He is the translator of Raúl Zurita's Song for his Disappeared Love (Action Books, 2010) and Jaime Luis Huenún's Port Trakl (Action Books, 2010). His work has been anthologized in, among others, A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years (Fence Books); Seriously Funny (University of Georgia Press, 2010); and Malditos Latinos Malditos Sudacas: Poesia Iberoamericana Made in USA (El billar de Lucrecia, 2010). Journal publications include Fence, Denver Quarterly, Conjunctions, Chicago Review, TriQuarterly, and many others. Chapbooks include Failure in the Imagination (Bronze Skull, 2007) and One Size Fits All (Scantily Class Press, 2009). He is a contributing editor to Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas. He lives in Chicago.

KRISTA FRANKLIN is a poet and visual artist from Dayton, OH who lives and works in Chicago. Her poetry and mixed medium collages have been published in lifestyle and literary journals such as Coon Bidness, Copper Nickel, RATTLE, Indiana Review, Ecotone, Clam and Callaloo, and in the anthologies Encyclopedia Vol. II, F-K and Gathering Ground. Her visual art has been featured on the covers of award-winning books, and exhibited nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Franklin is a Cave Canem Fellow, and a co-founder of 2nd Sun Salon, a community meeting space for writers, visual and performance artists, musicians and scholars.

JUDITH GOLDMAN is the author of Vocoder (Roof 2001), DeathStar/rico-chet (O Books 2006), "the dispossessions" (atticus/finch 2009), and l.b.; or, catenaries (Krupskaya 2011). She co-edited the annual journal War and Peace with Leslie Scalapino from 2005-2009 and currently edits a feature on contemporary innovative poetry for the e-journal Postmodern Culture. She is a Harper Schmidt Fellow and collegiate assistant professor at the University of Chicago, teaching in the arts humanities core and in creative writing. In fall 2011, she will be the Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry at University of California, Berkeley.

CARLA HARRYMAN is the author of fifteen books of poetry, plays, and prose. Her most recent works include a collection of conceptual and experimental essays Adorno’s Noise (Essay Press, 2008), the book length poem Open Box (Belladonna 2007), and a sequence of essays in The Grand Piano, a multi-authored serial work that locates its project in the San Francisco Bay Area writing scene between 1975-1980. The Wide Road, a novella in poetry and prose co-authored with Lyn Hejinian was just released from Belladonna Press. Recent performance works have emphasized polyvocal text, bilingualism, choral speaking voices, and music improvisation. She is co-editor of Lust for Life: On the Writings of Kathy Acker (Verso, 2006) and she is the special issue editor of “Non/Narrative” for the Journal of Narrative Theory (forthcoming, 2011). She serves on the creative writing faculty of the Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University and the MFA faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts.

KONRAD STEINER, filmmaker and independent curator, studied film at SAIC and Linguistics at Stanford University. Since 2003 he has produced events of live cinema collaborating with musicians and writers, as well as making single channel video and film.

RED ROVER SERIES is curated by Laura Goldstein and Jennifer Karmin. Each event is designed as a reading experiment with participation by local, national, and international writers, artists, and performers. The series was founded in 2005 by Amina Cain and Jennifer Karmin.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

06.28 the Cafe poetry open mic & feature


June 28, 8:30PM

The Cafe open mic
5115 N. Lincoln Ave.
$2 & 2 drink minimum (any drink, even bottled water or soda)
plus donation for the feature


The Cafe (5115 N. Lincoln Ave.) hosts a weekly poetry/performance art open mic (hosted by Janet Kuypers). June 28th has
Lucia Blinn as the feature, following an open mic.

For info about the open mic and the 2011 schedule (or getting the chance to sign up for your OWN feature, or even to check out the menu for the great food at the Cafe, because we have a collection of books to choose from for anyone who orders food at the Cafe during the poetry evening), you can always check out http://www.chaoticarts.org/thecafe/ for weekly podcasts, feature videos or future schedules.

06/14 mini feature night at the Cafe in Chicago!


June 14, 8:30PM

The Cafe open mic
5115 N. Lincoln Ave.
$2 & 2 drink minimum (any drink, even bottled water or soda)

The Cafe (5115 N. Lincoln Ave.) hosts a weekly poetry/performance art open mic (hosted by Janet Kuypers). June 14th has a
mini-feature night, where throughout the open mic people can read up to 10 minutes of material. The last mini feature night was such a success (and so loved by the audience) that we are thrilled to do it again... Everyone who came down to the Cafe for mini-feature night got to strut your stuff with youtube video links!

Poets featured at the mini-feature night (all with video links at
http://www.chaoticarts.org/thecafe/the-cafe/2011/06-14-11/06-14-11minis.htm) include Bob Rashkow, Tom Roby, Charlie Newman, Jenene Ravesloo, Bob Lawrence, Maureen Flannery, New York poet Ice Gayle, and Janet Kuypers.

For info about the open mic and the 2011 schedule (or getting the chance to sign up for your OWN feature, or even to check out the menu for the great food at the Cafe, because we have a collection of books to choose from for anyone who orders food at the Cafe during the poetry evening), you can always check out http://www.chaoticarts.org/thecafe/ for weekly podcasts, feature videos or future schedules.

June 4 & 5: Printers Row Lit Fest

"Reading Experiment in Progress"
an interactive performance
by Jennifer Karmin with collaborator Nick Demske

Saturday, June 4th
from 1-3pm
at the Printers Row Lit Fest
Chicago Publishers Gallery tent
location CC on the fest map

This weekend is the annual Printers Row Lit Fest, and Publishing Industry Programs is going to be there! We’re hosting the Chicago Publishers Gallery tent, which will showcase: 5th Wednesday Journal, ACM, Allium Press, Blacksmith Books, CityFiles Press, Contratiempo, Dancing Girl Press, Dream Chocolate, Haymarket Books, Lake Forest College &NOW Books, Light Quarterly, Loyola Press, NTI Upstream, OV Books, Polyphony HS, Socialist Worker, Switchback Books, Zeus Magazine, Red Rover Series, and more!

The Chicago Publishers Gallery tent that we are hosting will be at location CC, which is three booths in from the western Fest entrance on Polk. There will be lots of information about our programs as well as information about our 18 different publishers and books and chapbooks for sale.

Friday, June 3, 2011

June 3: The Dollhouse Reading Series

The Dollhouse Reading Series presents

Daniel Borzutzky
Sarah Carson
Nick Demske
Sarah Fox

FRIDAY, JUNE 3rd
Doors 8pm / Reading 9pm
1850 W. Belle Plaine Ave, #3

Curated by Dolly Lemke
Bring 2-3 books to swap!

W4tB presents Open Mic at the Bus Stop:FEATURING NINA CORWIN



Mon, Jun 6

7:30pm - 10:00pm

Cafe Ballou

939 N Western Ave.

W4tB Open Mic Night

Cafe Ballou

939 N Western

7:30-10pm

Featuring: Nina Corwin

SUGGESTED THEME-MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA NITE

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Flesh Wounds Now Available From Zombie Logic Press

We have published a new book by poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg. It's available now at Zombie Logic Press

June 2: Jena Osman

Thursday, June 2nd
5 PM
University of Chicago
1050 East 59th Street
Wieboldt Hall, room 408

Jena Osman, author of The Network (Fence Books, 2009 National Poetry Series Winner), will give a reading sponsored by the Chicago Review and the Committee on Creative Writing & Program in Poetry and Poetics. There will be a reception afterwards.


"Like an archeologist of the American idiom, The Network brilliantly excavates the material remains and missing histories of our collective semantic strata. From the annual Philadelphia Mummers Parade and the Wall Street Financial District to the tragic 1845 Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, Osman's poetic assemblages teach us 'how to map a changing thing' with grace, acumen, and a relentless documentary drive."

-- Mark Nowak