TONIGHT! Oct. 29! Jen Jay Besemer reads from, signs and talks about TELEPHONE at City Lit Books!

Telephone by Jen Besemer Tuesday, October 29th 6:30 PM City Lit Books 2523 N. Kedzie Blvd. www.citylitbooks.com 773-235-2523 Meet Chicago artist and author Jen Besemer to discuss Jen's new collection of poems! The Book: "Telephone is the kind of poetry I'm most attracted to...Besemer knows how to set the conditions for the best kinds of discoveries about the world and language simultaneously, and she leaves room for you to make your own. You won't want to put this telephone down. You'll want to become the receiver."- Laura Goldstein The Author: Jen Besemer is an artist and the author of four poetry chapbooks, most recently Object with Man's Face. Jen's work has appeared in Artifice, Aufgabe, BlazeVOX,Drunkenboat, e-ratio, Otoliths, and Pank, and is anthologized inTroubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics. Jen teaches art and poetry workshops in and around Chicago.

Buddha 309 is...Waiting 4 the Bus (guest host Charlie Newman)

When was the last time you saw Buddha 309 feature?
When was the last time you saw Buddha 309?
Have you met Buddha 309?
Who the Hell is Buddha 309?
come and find out
Nov. 4th at Jaks Tap Restaurant Bar901 W Jackson
sign up 7:30
showtime 8-10pm
suggested theme, Ego, Narcissism, self love, and whatever happened to Echo?
Special Guest Host-Charlie Newman
great food
40 beers on Tap
No Cover (donations requested for the feature)

Molly Malone's All Stars

W4tB presents in conjunction with Molly Malone's Reading Series and Open Mic the 3rd annual Molly Malone's all star reading. We have a super line up for you all this year
come on out to
Powell's Bookstore in University Village(1218 S Halsted St)
for this amazing show
Friday Nov 1
7-9 pm

Ralph Hamilton is editor of RHINO. He has an MFA in Poetry from Bennington. His poems have appeared in Court Green, CutBank, Blackbird, and other journals. His first book of poems, Subtle Knot, will be published in 2015. He serves on the board of the Ragdale Foundation and is the 2013 judge for Fifth Wednesday’s prize in poetry.

Steven Schroeder is a poet and visual artist who has spent many years moonlighting as a philosophy professor. His most recent collections are Turn and (with David Breeden) Raging for the Exit. More at stevenschroeder.org.

Kristin LaTour’s most recent chapbook is Agoraphobia, from Dancing Girl Press (2013), as well as two others: Blood and Town Limits. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Fifth Wednesday, Cider Press, After Hours, dirtcakes, , and The Adroit Journal. Recently she became a staff writer at Luna Luna Magazine, and had an essay published in TAB about writing and teaching. She teaches at Joliet Jr. College and lives in Aurora, IL with her writer husband, a lovebird, and two dogitos.

Albert DeGenova is the co-host of the Molly Malone's Reading Series and has published two full-length poetry collections and two poetry chapbooks. In 2000, he launched After Hours, a journal of Chicago writing and art; he continues as publisher and editor. He is a blues saxophonist and one-time contributing editor to Down Beat magazine. He received his MFA from Spalding University, Louisville.

Red Rover Series / Experiment #68

Red Rover Series
{readings that play with reading}

Experiment #68:
Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19th
7pm / doors lock 7:30pm

Featuring:
Oliver Bendorf
Ching-In Chen
Meg Day
TT Jax
Stacey Waite
& guest curated by Jen (Jay) Besemer

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

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

About the new anthology published by Nightboat Books:
The first of its kind, Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics edited by TC Tolbert and Tim Trace Peterson, gathers together a diverse range of 55 poets with varying aesthetics and backgrounds. In addition to generous samples of poetry by each trans writer, the book also includes “poetics statements”—reflections by each poet that provide context for their work covering a range of issues from identification and embodiment to language and activism.

OLIVER BENDORF's book, The Spectral Wilderness, was chosen by Mark Doty for the 2013 Wick Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Kent State University Press. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he recently earned his MFA and now teaches creativity, comics, and composition.

 

JEN JAY BESEMER is the author of several poetry books and chapbooks, including Telephone, Object with Man’s Face, Quiet Vertical Movements, Ten Word Problems,  and What Is Born. A new chapbook, Aster to Daylily, is forthcoming in 2014 from Damask Press. Jay’s recombinant poetry projects are also found in Monsters & Dust, Aufgabe, Drunken Boat, BlazeVOX, e-ratio, Sentence and other delicious publications. Jay also writes feature essays and reviews, and teaches art and poetry workshops in and beyond Chicago. To find out more, visit www.jenbesemer.com. 

 

CHING-IN CHEN is author of The Heart's Traffic (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press) and co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press). They are a Kundiman, Lambda and Norman Mailer Poetry Fellow and a member of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation and Macondo writing communities. A community organizer, they have worked in the Asian American communities of San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside and Boston. In Milwaukee, they are cream city review's editor-in-chief.  See www.chinginchen.com.

MEG DAY, recently selected for Best New Poets of 2013, is a 2013 recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Poetry and the author of When All You Have Is a Hammer (winner of the 2012 Gertrude Press Chapbook Contest) and We Can’t Read This (winner of the 2013 Gazing Grain Chapbook Contest). A 2012 AWP Intro Journals Award Winner, Meg has also received awards and fellowships from the Lambda Literary Foundation, Hedgebrook, Squaw Valley Writers, and the International Queer Arts Festival. Meg is currently a PhD fellow in Poetry & Disability Poetics at the University of Utah.

 

TT JAX is a parent, poet, mixed media artist, and writer living in the Pacific Northwest by way of 28 years in the Deep South.

 

STACEY WAITE is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln and has published four collections of poems: Choke (winner of the 2004 Frank O'Hara Prize), Love Poem to Androgyny, the lake has no saint (winner of the 2008 Snowbound Prize from Tupelo Press), and Butch Geography (also from Tupelo Press in 2013).  Waite is the co-host of Prairie Schooner's podcast "Air Schooner" and has individual poems appearing most recently in Bloom, The Indiana Review, and Heart Quarterly.  One of Waite's poems from Troubling the Line was selected by Denise Duhamel and David Lehman for Best American Poetry 2013.  

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.  Founded  in 2005 by Amina Cain and Jennifer Karmin, the over sixty events have  featured a diversity of renowned creative minds.

Jennifer Dotson is Waiting 4 the Bus (with Open Mic)

Monday Oct. 21st
7:30 sign up
8-10pm showtime
jaks tap
901 w Jackson
Chicago IL

come on out for one of the most relaxed and fun open mics in the city. This being our "Close to Halloween" show it's time to beat the devil and follow our suggested theme "Scary Monsters and Super Creeps" All poems with monsters mayhem, blood loss, body parts, and body counts are acceptable.

Our feature for the evening is Poetry Pentathlon 2013 champion Jennifer Dotson there is sure to be a splendid time for one and all

Jaks tap has great food and a wide and varied beer selection, you should partake of the amenities while you listen to poetry.

No Cover (we do pass the hat for the feature performer

Elizabeth’s Crazy Little Thing Featuring Chicago Calling

Wednesday, October 9 (10 p.m.)

Phyllis’ Musical Inn

1800 W. Division Ave.
Chicago, IL  60622

This Eighth Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival event includes these artistic collaborations --

• Janina Ciezadlo (art criticism, Chicago) & Bambang Asrini Widjanarko (Jakarta Art Movement, Indonesia)
• Mario Andrea Rigoni (poetry, Italy), Vittorio Carli (poetry, Chicago), & Dom Carli (translation, Chicago)
• Bob Rashkow (poetry, Chicago) & Tony Renner (visual art, Chicago)
• & other surprise guests

free & open to the public 

Oct 6: Furniture Press Tour

Furniture Press Books is celebrating 10 years of innovative publishing 

with a 12 city American tour 

The Chicago readings will feature:

Martine Bellen
Magus Magnus
Joshua Ware
Iris Cushing
Alicia Puglionesi
Toby Altman
 

October 6th, 7pm

at Spudnik Press Cooperative Annex

1821 W. Hubbard, Suite 302
 

The mission of the tour is very simple: introduce a wider audience to the diversity of the press’ poetics while collaborating with local poets to create an ever-expanding community of emergent presses, curators and creative human beings. Because our writers are spread out all over the country, it is only fitting for us to bring our world to theirs.

For more information about Furniture Press Books visit their website: 

http://furniturepressbooks.com