dancing girl press @ Quimby's

Friday, January 15th
1854 W. North Avenue
7pm.

dancing girl press poets Cindy St. John (People in Love Will Read this Book Differently) and Julie Strand (The Mae West Defense) will read from their work.


Cindy St. John lives in Austin, TX. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Southern Review, Broadsidedpress.org and The Florida Review.









Julie Strand lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is the Education Coordinator at Woodland Pattern Book Center. Her poetry has appeared in Wicked Alice, Arsenic Lobster, WOMB Poetry, Rock Heals (A Narrow House Weekly) and others.





The dancing girl press chapbook series was founded in 2004 to publish and promote the work of women poets and artists through chapbooks, journals, book arts projects, and anthologies. Spawned by the online zine wicked alice, dgp seeks to publish work that bridges the gaps between schools and poetic techniques–work that’s fresh, innovative, and exciting. The press has published over 50 titles by emerging women poets in delectable handmade editions.

For more info: http://www.dancinggirlpress.com

First Friday Series

Friday, Jan 8
7:00pm - 9:30pm

St.Paul's Cultural Center
2215 W North Avenue

Sid Yiddish
Billy Tuggle
Jenene Ravesloot
and Luis Valadez


Hosted by the Waiting 4 the Bus Collective!

2+ blocks west of the Damen Blue Line stop
Street parking available

Beer, wine, soft drinks available @ cool-low prices

Free Admission

Donation Requested


Warning:

The First Friday Show may, occasionally, be on the second Friday.

Arsenic Lobster

Winter Issue Now Online!!

Wednesday, January 20th
7 pm.

Richardson Library at DePaul University
2350 N. Kenmore

Mark Turcotte & Miles Harvey


Mark Turcotte’s first major reading since moving back to Chicago.

He will be reading with another visiting faculty member, Miles Harvey. Below are bios for Mark and Miles.

Mark Turcotte (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) is the author of four collections of poetry, including Exploding Chippewas, and is the recipient of Literary Fellowships from the State of Wisconsin, the National Book Foundation’s American Voices Project, and the Lannan Foundation. His poetry or fiction have appeared in POETRY, Ploughshares, Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, and many other journals. He recently joined the faculty at DePaul as a Visiting Assistant Professor of English.

Miles Harvey is the author of Painter in a Savage Land: The Strange Saga of the First European Artist in North America, which received a 2008 Editors’ Choice award from Booklist and a best-books citation from The Chicago Tribune. His previous book, The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime, a national and international bestseller, was selected by USA Today as one of the top ten books of 2000. He recently joined the faculty at DePaul as an Assistant Professor of English.

It should be a great event.

Charles Bernstein at U of C

Renaissance Society
at the University of Chicago
Cobb Hall, 4th floor
5811 South Ellis Avenue
Chicago IL 60637
773-702-8670
www.renaissancesociety.org




The Renaissance Society presents Charles Bernstein
Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature
University of Pennsylvania

Sunday, February 14, 2010, 2 pm



Highly esteemed poet, professor, and literary scholar Charles Bernstein will do a reading dedicated to his daughter Emma. The reading coincides with the release of All the Whiskey in Heaven, a “best of” Bernstein’s work from the past thirty years. Bernstein explores how language both limits and liberates thought, modulating the comic and the dark structural invention with buoyant soundplay. These challenging works give way to poems of lyric excess and striking emotional range. In addition, the reading will celebrate the recent release of Radical Poetics and Secular Jewish Culture, a collection of essays in which poets and critics, Bernstein among them, address the question of what constitutes radical poetry written by Jews defined as 'secular', and whether or not there is a Jewish component or dimension to radical and modernist poetic practice in general. Their responses reflect a rich sense of how being Jewish influences their aesthetics and practices, and how the tradition of the avant-garde informs their identities as Jews. The reading will be followed by a discussion and reception.





For more information, please contact:

Mia Ruyter

Director of Marketing, The Renaissance Society

mruyter@uchicago.edu
The Renaissance Society
Current exhibition:
Allan Sekula: Polonia and Other Fables
through December 13, 2009

Please join our email list at
http://tinyurl.com/RSmailinglist

Myopic Poetry Series, January 2010

1564 N. Milwaukee Ave.
7pm.



Saturday, January 23 : Roger Bonaire-Agard & Kevin Coval


Sunday, January 24 : Nick Demske & Michael Bernstein


Saturday, January 30 : Christian Hawkey, Uljana Wolf, & Monika Rinck (IN CONJUNCTION WITH The Chicago Review)


Sunday, January 31 : Robert Fernandez & Anthony Madrid

12th Day: Kenning Editions

KENNING EDITIONS was founded in 1998 to publish KENNING: A NEWSLETTER OF CONTEMPORARY POETRY, POETICS, AND NONFICTION WRITING (ISSN 1526-3428). The newsletter sought to represent non-hierarchically three generations of writers working under radical modernist impulses; to challenge them to publish under the rubric of “progressive social discourse,” in exploration of Williams’ statement regarding finding (or not) “the news” in poems, “men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there”; and to transgress geographic and linguistic boundaries. In thirteen issues, the newsletter featured work by authors such as Amiri Baraka, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Barbara Guest, Lyn Hejinian, Jackson Mac Low, Nathaniel Mackey, K. Silem Mohammad, Sawako Nakayasu, Leslie Scalapino, Juliana Spahr, and Brian Kim Stefans. It also published symposia, chapbook editions, and more than one broadside insert.

In 2006, KENNING EDITIONS devoted itself exclusively to publishing high-quality trade paperback volumes of new and archival writing by authors whose work reflects the diversity and innovation for which the newsletter came to stand.


For more info: http://www.kenningeditions.com

1.12 the Cafe open mic & Feature

January 12, 8:30PM

The Cafe open mic
5115 N. Lincoln Ave.
$2 (plus donation for the feature)

The Cafe (5115 N. Lincoln Ave.) hosts a weekly poetry/performance art open mic (hosted by Janet Kuypers). January 12th has Vito (Vittorio Carli, host of Regina’s Place) as a feature, as well as an open mic. For info about the open mic and the 2010 schedule, you can always check out. http://www.chaoticarts.org/thecafe/.

11th Day: Orange Alert Press

For more info: http://oapress.blogspot.com/

Broadsides for Poets

Broadsides for Poets
with Sarah Vogel
Wednesdays, January 6 – January 27
7:00 – 10:00 p.m.
$180 + $25.00


If you’ve been yearning to transform your poetry into posters, we have the class for you! In Broadsides for Poets, you will create a two-color 11 x 17 inch broadside featuring a poem of your choosing (or writing) paired with images from the studio’s collection of old-fashioned cuts and linoleum blocks. In addition to exploring the basics of broadside layout, you will be setting metal & wood type, using photopolymer plates, mixing ink and printing on the studio’s Vandercook proof presses. No previous experience is necessary.




Evanston Print & Paper
1125 Florence
Evanston, Illinois 60202
http://www.evanstonprintandpaper.com/

847.475.7674

10th Day: Rose Metal Press

Rose Metal Press, Inc. is an independent, not-for-profit publisher of hybrid genres specializing in the publication of short short, flash, and micro-fiction; prose poetry; novels-in-verse or book-length linked narrative poems; and other literary works that move beyond the traditional genres of poetry, fiction, and essay to find new forms of expression.

In observing the literary community, we have seen that many writers are doing fruitful and exciting work in these hybrid genres, but they have limited opportunities to publish that work because few commercial publishers accept such submissions due to concerns with classification and marketability. Our mission is to focus on supporting these transgressive and unusual works, thereby helping to expand the field of publishing, as well as the range of opportunities open to authors.

Founded in January 2006 by Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney, Rose Metal Press plans to put out three beautifully produced titles per year. We also sponsor readings and events to promote our books, hybrid genres, and the independent literary community.


for more info: http://www.rosemetalpress.com/

Sappho's Solstice Salon

Sat, 12/19/2009 - 7:30pm
$7-$10 sliding scale includes
food and wine.

Join us for our second annual Sappho's Solstice Salon for lesbians and their friends. This year we are delighted to present the outstanding spoken word and performance talents of C.C. Carter and the POW-WOW Finer Figure Performance Ensemble, who will be performing "A Sultry, Sexy Season," a provocative blend of dance and poetry garnished with a sprig of mistletoe. DJ SpinNikki will play an eclectic blend of multi-traditional and non-denominational holiday music before and after the performance. We'll be serving mulled wine and other seasonal goodies and collecting donations of cash; hats, socks, mittens, and children's underwear; towels, sheets, and blankets; toiletries such as unused/unopened soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, and feminine hygiene products to benefit Clara's House, a 22-year-old shelter for homeless and battered women in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood that has recently lost its funding and is struggling to stay open. One hundred percent of tonight's proceeds will benefit Clara's House.

Location:
Women & Children First
5233 N. Clark St.
Chicago, Illinois 60640

9th Day: Switchback Books

The way to get where you need to go isn't always straight ahead.
Switchback Books is a nonprofit feminist press publishing poetry by women. Our definition of "women" is broad and includes transsexual, transgender, genderqueer, and female-identified individuals. Founded in 2006 by a group of students at Columbia College Chicago, Switchback Books publishes two books a year, one of which is the winner of the Gatewood Prize for a first book of poetry by a woman. Switchback Books welcomes women writers who aren't afraid to look for answers in all directions.

For more information, visit: http://switchbackbooks.com/

Revolving Door Reading Series! Tonight!

Revolving Door Contniues with the poet, John-Franklin Dandridge and guitarist, Vo Era.

Join us for a night of music and poetry at Red Kiva, 1108 W. Randolph. We have two amazing features lined up for his month's reading. We hope you can come out for what promises to be a great night!

Open Mic @ 7:30
Features @ 8:00


John-Franklin Dandridge lives and writes in Chicago, Illinois. He received his M.F.A. in poetry from Columbia College Chicago. His poems have been published in several literary journals and online zines, the latest of which are the Smoking Poet, Spirit’s Journal and Fast Geek Reader.

Vo Era is a professional independent recording artist that hit Chicago's soul music scene in 2003 with a song in his heart and a guitar in his hand. His first performances were received by the wide and receptive audience known affectionately to him as "the subway commuters." With the love and support of his eclectic audience, Vo has since performed at such venues as The Wild Hare, The Cotton Club, Winestyles/South Loop, and many others. Vo Era's unique sound fuses poignantly simple lyrics with funky soulful guitar rhythms. Vo knows how to musically take a common phrase and paint the most colorful and extraordinary picture of life's most relatable occurrences making it easy to identify his acute skill and life experience within his music.

8th Day: Virtual Artists Collective

Virtual Artists Collective began as the idea of a composer (Clarice Assad) passionate about connecting audiences with music of quality. It grew in a collaboration between Clarice and a poet (Steven Schroeder) in which a poem turned into a song. We began to think about how we could make such miracles happen more often, and this led us to the idea of a virtual collective--virtual because we are widely separated geographically, though the internet makes it possible for us to be in touch at the speed of light. Why not use that, we thought, to facilitate the miraculous things that can happen when people connect around the arts we love? This takes us back to some of the things the internet did best in its earliest days, before it became a commercial venture--increasing access, exchanging ideas, bypassing the Market. And it reconnects us with the much older tradition of guilds through which artists and craftspersons provided mutual support and made themselves visible to communities that appreciated and supported art. We hope, too, that it revives and transforms a tradition of patronage that makes it possible for artists to devote attention to art. Patronage has been associated with wealth and, sometimes, elitism--as well as consumption. But we envision a patronage that is more widely distributed, in which small is beautiful, local connections are facilitated, and communities are cultivated through celebration and mutual support. And we do put our hope and our hearts in community. Twenty-first century technology that threatens communities can also be put to work weaving them together; we hope you'll join us and explore the site for other possibilities.


For more info: http://vacpoetry.org/index.html

Waiting 4 the Bus

Monday, Dec 21

7:30pm - 10:00pm

Jaks Tap (the back room)

901 W Jackson

Feature...Robert Lawrence/ Allan Stevo

Hosted by Buddah309 & a whole slew a jamokes

Green Zone Baby, Yeah
Donation requested for feature enhancement

7th Day: StepSister Press

StepSister Press, LLC is an independent publishing company founded by artist Annie Heckman in 2007 to promote discourse on emerging interdisciplinary art, literature, and critical theory projects. Based in Chicago, the press coordinates projects and collaborations with artists and writers around the world. It is committed to progressive inquiry through printed material and online projects. Each book contains the work of at least one contemporary artist.


For more info: http://stepsisterpress.com/

New Monthly 3rd Friday Show

Friday Dec 18th
7:00-9:30

Regina’s Place
3608 W. Wrightwood

Vito Carli presents...
Don Byrum (spoken word/music)
Bridget Clymore (stand up comedy)
Ned Haggard (poetry)
Sid Yiddish (spoken word/throat singing)

Bring your fave Christman and Hanukah poems if you’d like.

This is the 1st of a new monthly 3rd Friday show!

6th Day: Cracked Slab Books

Cracked Slab Books was started to provide an outlet to experimental poetry and poetics in its various forms. With the aim of publishing two works per year, Cracked Slab Books is dedicated to promoting the best new American poets and to introducing English-speaking audiences to interesting international poetry.

For more info and to order:
http://crackedslabbooks.com/crackednew.html

Future Perfect Poetry + New Media Series

Thursday, Jan 7th
7:30 PM
Katerina's
Street of Dreams

http://www.katerinas.com
1920 W. Irving Park Rd.
773-348-7592

Future Perfect Poetry + New Media Series
presents poets
Miriam Ben-Yoseph
Deborah Nodler Rosen
Dina Elenbogen
Lisa Comforty
Helen Degen Cohen

reading from

Where We Find Ourselves: Jewish Women Around the World Write About Home

Richard Fammerée with Saint Cloud

featuring poet-singer Carrie Ingrisano (bass, piano) w/ Christopher Greene (violin, electronica), Meg Thomas (exotic percussion) and Meg Lauterbach (cello, piano) will share new songs/poem-songs/contemporary (fusion/infusion lit rock) art songs

Future Perfect Poetry + New Media Series will be recorded live for

Chicago Public Radio/Chicago Amplified & UniVerse of Poetry

Open to the public, $7 at the door.


Please share this invitation.

Richard Fammerée
http://fammeree.com/

Saint Cloud
http://www.saintcloud.co.uk/

5th Day : Projective Industries

Visit here for info, ordering, and submissions guidelines:
http://projectiveindustries.com/

Bookslut Series

Wednesday, Dec 16
7:30pm - 10:30pm
Hopleaf, Second Floor

5148 N. Clark Street

Join Daniel Nester as he reads from HOW TO BE INAPPROPRIATE, his debut collection of humorous nonfiction that glorifies all things inappropriate and TMI, and


Kathleen Rooney as she reads from FOR YOU, FOR YOU I AM TRILLING THESE SONGS, an essay collection forthcoming in January 2010--sneak preview!

4th Day: Black Ocean

From early silent films to early punk rock, Black Ocean brings together a spectrum of influences and combines them with a radical social perspective on the nature of art and humanity. We manifest our aesthetic in the books we print, the shows we produce, and the work we promote.

Based out of Boston, New York and Chicago, our intent is to saturate the public with skillful and passionate forms of expression through a wide variety of mediums.

In conjunction with our book releases, we stage parties, concerts, exhibitions and other celebrations around the country. We are committed to promoting artists we firmly believe in, and sharing our enthusiasm for their work with a global audience.

For information and to order, visit: http://www.blackocean.org.

3rd Day: Mayapple Press

Mayapple Press is a small press established in 1978 by poet and editor Judith Kerman. We specialize in contemporary literature, especially poetry and works that straddle conventional categories: Great Lakes, women, Caribbean, translations, science fiction poetry, recent immigrant experience, Judaica. Publications are in both chapbook and trade paperback formats.

For more info and to order, visit: http://www.mayapplepress.com/

Molly Malones

Monday, December 14th


7 pm -- open mic sign-up
7:30 -- open mic
9:00 --featured reader
7652 Madison Street, Forest Park
$5 if you can, $3 if you can't

Ralph Hamilton is an editor of RHINO and has an MFA in poetry from Bennington. In Flannery O’Connor’s story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the Misfit says, “She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”—and Ralph looks for the same quality in poems: something to slice the world open, to reawaken perception, make it stranger, less certain, make living in this moment keener, more desperate, more delicate, its bruised beauty more manifest. Ralph’s recent publications include A Writer’s Congress: Chicago Poets on the Inauguration of Barak Obama, Talisman: A Journal of Poetry & Poetics, and the upcoming Court Green.

2nd Day: Swan Isle Press

The Mission of Swan Isle Press:

Swan Isle Press is an independent, not-for-profit, literary publisher dedicated to publishing works of poetry, fiction and nonfiction that inspire and educate while advancing the knowledge and appreciation of literature, art, and culture.

Since its inception in 1999, a special interest of the Press is publishing books related to Spanish and Latin American literature, art, and culture. When possible and editorially appropriate, the Press issues these works in bilingual editions, in the original Spanish with English translations. The imprints for literature with Spanish language or Hispanic cultural content are La Isla del Cisne Ediciones (and El Cisne Negro Ediciones).

The Press' bilingual editions and single-language English translations make contemporary and classic texts more accessible to a variety of readers. Our bilingual editions recognize the still largely unmet publication needs of the important and growing Spanish-speaking population within the United States.

Learn more and order titles at : http://www.swanislepress.com/intro.html

Orange Alert Series

Dec 20th @ 6:00pm
The Whistler
Logan Square 2421 N. Milwaukee


Jeff Phillips
Golda Goldboom
Jamie Calder
Tim Jones-Yelvington

Sunday at WomanMade Gallery

Family Album
WomanMade Gallery
685 N Milwaukee Ave

Sunday, December 13, 2009 / 2-4 p.m

Co-Curator: Toni-Asanti Lightfoot (with readers from Young Chicago Authors) and Shelly Nation-Watson, co-host of Loyola Radio's poetry show, Wordslingers. Other readers include Alice George, Carol Kanter, Gregg Shapiro, and Donna Vorreyer.

1st Day: Cinematheque Press

2009 releases by Philip Jenks & Simone Muench, Adam Clay, Joshua Marie Wilkinson,Ada Limon & more...


Cinematheque is an independent literary imprint in Chicago devoted to the spaces where text, art, & film converge. New & forthcoming projects include limited-edition hardcover books, chapbooks, vinyl records & EPs, essays about film, comics, & other textual & visual ephemera.

Visit: http://www.cinemathequepress.com/index.html to order.

12 Days of Chicago Presses

Since regular poetry reading listings are dwindling somewhat for December as we get closer to the weeks around the holidays, I thought we might do a little something else here on the blog for the next couple of weeks and spotlight some of the amazing presses that the Chicago area has to offer and their titles, all of which are highly giftable for your favorite poetry fan (or even better, YOU!) Starting on the 8th and leading up til the day before Christmas Eve, we will spotlight one Chicago area independent press each week day for your your perusal and enjoyment.

-Kristy

ROCKBOX POETRY JAM

ROCKBOX POETRY JAM
Poetry's Once Monthly Late Night Home


Featured Readers include: John-Franklin Dandridge, Matt Anderson, and a mystery third!

Open Mic to follow

Monday, December 7th, 2009
2624 N Lincoln Avenue
9:30 PM - 4 AM
$3 Drafts, $4 Jameson shots



The Rockbox Poetry Jam is the brainchild of Subterranean's Narciso Lobo and Columbia College's Joe Bly. This reading series and open mic were designed to incorporate the poetry of past and present in an informal conversational setting. We ask our features and open mic poets to indulge us in their own work along with the works that give them inspiration. This "return to sender" style of reading keeps us grounded in the resounding enjoyment of all poetry and enlightens us with the forthcoming work of our peers. Please join us for drinks, music, and convivial discussion!



Love,
Joe and The Rockbox

Poetry Center Holiday Sale!

NOW until Thursday, 5:00pm, Dec 31

Like many non-profit organizations the Poetry Center of Chicago is trying to weather these difficult economic times. One of the ways we raise funds is through our online store. If you love poetry and support the work we do you can help by visiting our store and giving the gift of poetry this holiday season.

20% off Poetry Center Broadsides, Books, CDs, T-shirts, and Hats
Now through December 31st, 2009

Just enter coupon XMAS09 at checkout

Visit the store at: http://www.poetrycenter.org/store

Treat the poetry lover in your life to one of our beautifully crafted, limited edition, poetry broadsides or choose from any of our quality products. The Poetry Center store carries a variety of goods, including superbly mastered digital CD recordings of compiled and individual Poetry Center readings, past and current editions of the Hands on Stanzas anthology, and unique poetry t-shirts and caps. Visit our gallery to browse our collection of broadsides and for a complete catalog of all our products.

Make a Gift of Poetry Today!

This Weekend at Myopic Books

THE MYOPIC POETRY SERIES — a weekly series of readings and occasional poets' talks
Myopic Books in Chicago — Sundays (and occasional Saturdays) at 7:00 / 1564 N. Milwaukee Avenue, 2nd Floor
http://www.myopicbookstore.com/poetry.html
773.862.4882

Contact curator Larry Sawyer for booking information and requests.
E-mail: larrysawyerpoet@yahoo.com



SATURDAY, December 5 – Lina ramona Vitkauskas & Kristina Marie Darling

Lina ramona VITKAUSKAS is the author of Shooting Dead Films with Poets (Fractal Edge Press), Failed Star Spawns Planet/Star (dancing girl press), and THE RANGE OF YOUR AMAZING NOTHING (Ravenna Press). She is the 2009 recipient of The Poetry Center of Chicago’s 15th Annual Juried Reading award, judged by Brenda Hillman. Her short fiction was also recently featured on Chicago Public Radio’s Vocolo.org. Her work has appeared in The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab Books, 2007), The Prague Literary Review, Van Gogh's Ear, The Chicago Review, Aufgabe, Drunken Boat, MiPoesias, Paper Tiger, and elsewhere.

Kristina Marie DARLING is the author of several chapbooks, most recently Night Music (BlazeVox Books, 2008) and Strange Machine (Gold Wake Press, 2009). A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her writing appears or is forthcoming in The Gettysburg Review, The Colorado Review, Shenandoah, New Letters, and other periodicals. Awards include residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Prairie Center of the Arts, as well as a scholarship to attend the Squaw Valley Community of Writers' annual poetry conference.





Sunday, December 6 – Jacob S. Knabb, Luis Valadez & Charlie Newman


Jacob S. KNABB’s double-life as Fiction editor of Another Chicago Magazine and lecturer of composition at UIC has led him to cast his demons into a herd of swine he saw by a ravine. He is still waiting to hear them hit bottom and if they ever do he will blog about it at jacobsknabb.tumblr.com.

Luis VALADEZ is from Chicago Heights, Illinois. He's written plays and writes poetry and has written a book called "what i'm on" from the University of Arizona Press and has released a CD called "wat ahm on (ep)" on Cerda/Last Minute Records. He received an MFA in Poetry from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He loves reading here and he's glad to see you.

Charlie NEWMAN has had 4 books and a chapbook published and 3 CDs released. His poetry has appeared in: honeydu, After Hours, Ink & Ashes, milk, Poetry Bay, Locuspoint, exsanguinate, and Saw, among others. He has performed at venues in Chicago, NYC and London, in such events as Insomniacathons, the Viking Hillbilly Apocalypse Jam, the Big Sur 40th Anniversary Read, the London International Poetry & Song Festival, the New York Underground Music & Poetry Festival, the U.N. Dialogue Through Poetry, Around The Coyote, WLUW David Amram 75th Birthday Celebration, and many ChicagoPoetry.com events including several Chicago Poetry Fests, Poets Against The War, the 22nd Annual Chicago Blues Festival, and the 21st Annual Printers Row Book Fair. He hosts The Café Tuesday night open mic.




Stay tuned for more, as yet unannounced, readings that are in the works. All best wishes,

—Larry




http://www.myopicbookstore.com/poetry.html


Myopic Books — 18 years of innovative poetry in Chicago



(THANK YOU for all of your support in 2009. Here’s wishing you the best for 2010!)

Danny's Reading Series

Danny's Reading Series
Wed., Dec. 9, 7:30 p.m.
Danny's Tavern
1951 W. Dickens


Born and raised in New York City, Alan Bernheimer graduated in 1970 from Yale University, where he studied with New York poets Ted Berrigan, Peter Schjeldahl, and Bill Berkson. In 1976 he moved to San Francisco and spent time with other young writers such as Rae Armantrout, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Kit Robinson, Ron Silliman, and Barrett Watten—a group who would soon become known as the San Francisco Language poets. Bernheimer also wrote and performed for Poets Theater and produced and hosted In the American Tree, a radio program of new writing by poets on KPFA. This collection includes recent work; brief selections from his first two books; the entirety of Billionesque (The Figures, 1999); and the play Particle Arms, which was produced by the San Francisco Poets Theater in the early '80s.


Karyna McGlynn grew up in Austin, TX. She studied at Seattle University and received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where she was awarded the Zell Postgraduate Fellowship in Poetry and a Hopwood Award. Her first book, I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl, won the 2008 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry and is forthcoming from Sarabande Books. Karyna’s recent chapbooks include Scorpionica (New Michigan Press, 2007) and Alabama Steve (Destructible Heart Press, 2008). Her poems have appeared in Fence, Gulf Coast, Willow Springs, Indiana Review, Denver Quarterly, Verse Daily, Octopus, CutBank, and Ninth Letter.

Elbowing off the Stage

Monday, Dec 14
7:00 pm
Monday, December 14, 7:00 p.m.

Manhattan's
415 S. Dearborn St.
312-957-0460

Elbowing Off the Stage community reading series presents poets

Brandi Homan (Switchback Books)
Liz Hildreth (Switchback Books)
Sarah Carson (RHINO magazine)

for a night of purty poiesis.

Come have a drink and hear some poems.

The Encyclopedia Show

Wednesday Dec 2nd
7:30pm - 9:00pm
Chopin Theatre
1543 W Division

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA SHOW PRESENTS!

SERIES 2, VOLUME 4: HOCKEY

Chicago Slam Works brings to you The Encyclopedia Show – Hockey, at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W Division, on Wednesday, December 2 at 7:30 pm. Tickets $6 at the door. All ages. www.encyclopediashow.com

With music, poetry, visual art and spoken word on the topic: Hockey. Featuring (Contributor – Topic):

Javon Johnson (National Poetry Slam Champion) – Black Hockey Player

Mary Hamilton (Quickies) – Billy Coutu

Death From Below (Tim Stafford and Dan Sullivan, HBO Def Poets) – The Philadelphia Quakers

Aris Theotokatos (Louder Than A Bomb Teen Slam Champion) – Chicago Blackhawks’ Cup Draught

Ian Chillag (writer for NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me) and Justin White (Visual Artist) – Lord Frederick Stanley

Music by Shanny Jean Maney (Encyclopedia Show Host) – 1980 US/USSR Olympic Semifinal

Art by Claire Niederberger (Young Chicago Authors' Saturday Writing Program Student) – The Original 6 NHL Teams.

Featuring Hosts

Robbie Q Telfer (Author of Spiking the Sucker Punch)

Shanny Jean Maney (Author of Our Brave Faces Were Just Smiles)

with cast regulars:

Kurt Heintz (E-Poets.net) – Fact Checker;

Aaron Enskat (Former Normal Slammaster) – The Fact Checker's Fact Checker;

Tim Stafford (HBO Def Poet);

Joel Chmara (HBO Def Poet);

Mike Slefinger (Actor);

Evan Chung (Musician) - House Band Leader "The Encartagans";

Emily Rose (Poetry Vet and House Manager) - as Jilted Emily Rose.

Tuesday Funk tonight at Hopleaf

Tonight, Tuesday December 1st at Hopleaf we have two fabulous poets in the mix for our December edition of Tuesday Funk. They are both very different and equally amazing. They are Nicolas Michael Ravnikar and Jennifer Scappettone. Their bios are below.

Reading starts at 7pm, upstairs opens at 6:30pm. (The cash-only bar upstairs will be open throughout the reading.)

Hopleaf is located at 5148 N. Clark Street in Andersonville at the southwest corner of Clark and Foster. Hope to see you tonight!

The Tuesday Funk Organizers

(P.S. If you are interested in reading at our future events please shoot me an email at halliepalladino [at] gmail.com with a short bio and a poem or two. Currently we book two to three months in advance and our readings are always on the first Tuesday.)


December Poets Bios:
NICHOLAS MICHAEL RAVNIKAR (BA, University of Wisconsin; MFA, Naropa University) lives in Racine, WI, where he edits the irregularly published webzine, The Bathroom and is organizing with Nick Demske the first annual Racquetball Chapbook Tournament. His writing has appeared in most recently in Otoliths and Boo: A Journal of Terrific Things and is forthcoming in BlazeVOX and unarmed. His first feature-length documentary, Quilts on Barns: The Beauty of Rural Art, wrapped post-production in August 2009 and will be available for free viewing online soon. He's currently working on a documentary titled SMALL PRESS, MIDWEST. Midwest-affiliated writers, publishers, readers and scholars interested in letting him interview them for that project can send an email to nicholasmichaelravnikar@gmail.com. He has facilitated workshops in poetry, video, installation art and journalism in a variety of settings, most recently in conjunction with the Racine Arts Council and Woodland Pattern.

JENNIFER SCAPPETTONE, a translator, poet, and purveyor of visual stills and prose, is the author of From Dame Quickly (Litmus Press, 2009), and of several chapbooks. She is now at work on Exit 43 — an archaeology of the landfill and opera of pop-ups—for the cross-genre publishing project Atelos Press. Excerpts of that book appear in Belladonna Elders Series #5: Poetry, Landscape, Apocalypse featuring pop-ups and prose by Scappettone, a lyric sequence by Etel Adnan, and an essay by Lyn Hejinian (Belladonna, 2009); pop-up scores are now being adapted for performance in collaboration with choreographer Kathy Westwater as LAND. She was guest editor of the feature section of Aufgabe 7, devoted to contemporary Italian experimental poetry, and is at work on a range of translations from Italian, with a focus on the "Babeling deeply felt" of the postwar polyglot author Amelia Rosselli. A selection of Neosuprematist Webtexts, filmed stills, was installed at Infusoria, an exhibit of visual poetry curated by Helen White for the Festival Le Off in Brussels and Het Zilverhof in Ghent in 2009. A range of readings, a talk on poetry and landscape, and a podcast dialogue with Al Filreis are available for download at her PennSound author page. She is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.