This month we focus on Daniel Borzutzky.  As a reminder, we will be meeting this month on the SECOND saturday of October, not the third.  I think that’s Oct. 10th.  Noon.  CUp of Hope Coffee shop.  Come to this.

This is what you need to know about Daniel Borzutzky: he’s hilarious, irreverent, has an amazing vocabulary, turs cliched sentiments into mechanized monsters of language, and can break a readers heart with his words.  He’s a phenomenal reader, too.  Daniel is not afraid to approach offensive territory.  Many of his poems deal in a superficially offensive currency, but they are always just using that to hide some more profound offense lurking beneath the surface.

Here’s some audio of Daniel reading

and here is his webstie homepage: http://www.danielborzutzky.com/

Really, that should be all you need to get totally pumped about the roundtable this month.

I love you all and will see you there,

Keaunu Reeves

and Joyelle McSweeney

for some reason, none of joyelle’s pictures or movies want to go on here.  What the hye?

Just wanted to let all know I will still be attempting to keep this up.  Daniel Borzutzky is in October and I will try to post something on him in like nano seconds.

Other than that, I hope you are well.  Poetry Roundtable rules.

Hey Roundtableoso’s,

Welcome to June!  This month we will be looking at the work of Rodrigo Toscano, a poet very unique among his contemporaries…Toscano’s work has largely been centered around the idea of “testing poetry” to take it beyond what is usually considered poetry.  His work is very hard to categorize (which is one of my favorite parts about it) and his readings/presentations are unlike any I’ve ever seen, that I can think of.  His most recent book, “Collabsible Poetics Theater,” won the National Poetry Award and was published by Fence Books.  “Collabsible Poetics Theater” is not only the name of his book but, also, the name of the sort of traveling, impromptu project he is the artistic director and writer for.  Whereas most poets give rather standard readings, he has been going from city to city performing theater pieces with whoever is at his performance.  It’s a pretty interesting, excellent idea.  I’ve never gotten to see it, but perhaps we can recreate something ourselves instead.

So, since all I do typically is google the poet’s name who we’re doing each month and offer you guys most of the hits I find first, I figure I will stop doing that now and just let you all do the exact same process.  I will, however, keep adding things that I think you are less likely to find or come across, that I think deserve attention.  Like this video.  Check it out:

Catch you all on June 20th for some mad Rodrigo Toscanoness.  Until then, happy hunting.

Howdy Roundtablers! 

It’s that time again.  And, this month, while we say a fond farewell to Java Vino, wistfully…we get to celebrate the fact that we now have a new home in the Cup of Hope fair trade coffee shop.  Since we’ve evolved into a sort of social justice discussion group anyways, this is really an excellent fit for us and we’re delighted to be part of the Hope Center’s fam.

So this month we’ll be looking at the work of Wanda Coleman.  Unfortunately, my books of hers still haven’t come in from when i ordered them, but i think i’ll have time before saturday to at least give things a once over.  I have a feeling our group will really get into her work.  She’s mad, which usually goes well with us, so I’ll say no more and let everyone jump into the mania that is her poetry.

bio and poems and more:

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/118

a wikipedia entry on her (that’s when you know you’ve hit the big time, right?):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanda_Coleman

more extended biography, that makes mention of the harsh reviews she’s given fellow black woman poets Maya Angelou and Lucille Clifton:

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2395/Coleman-Wanda.html

video:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=wanda%20coleman&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rls=com.microsoft%3A*%3AIE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7ACGW&tab=nv#

and, finally, a hilariously poor review of Coleman’s work:

http://www.cosmoetica.com/top16-des15.htm

(this last one i include just because it was so shockingly bad that it took on a sort of trainwreck quality where I couldn’t look away.  Not only is it basically just hardly-vieled discrimination (i can’t even just say racism because this guy discriminates on so many levels), but the argument is so unfounded that it was more like reading a child’s stream of consciousness poetry, which delighted me, I’m embarrassed to admit.  All of you should have to endure it too : )

Can’t wait to see you all on Saturday!  Cup of Hope will never be the same : )

later homies,

nicki-poo

By why should I be the judge?  Make your own assessments.  I highly recommend the videos.  I find them really enjoyable.

See you on Saturday, April 11th, 12 noon at Java Vino coffee shop, downtown Racine, Wisconsin, The United States, North America, Earth, The Milky Way, The Universe.  Blah.

Check it:

his blog, which is a resource for all things mohammad (you can find links to his poetry here):

http://lime-tree.blogspot.com/
one more place to read his poetry, a local arts magazine that is run here in Racine, Wisconsin (you’ll have to scroll down a bit…I quite like these poems):

http://bathroommagazine.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/bathroom4.pdf

reviews:

http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2003winter/deerhead.shtml

http://www.fascicle.com/issue01/Poets/mohammadessay.htm

videos:

http://ululate.blogspot.com/2009/03/k-silem-mohammad-reads-sonnagram.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBReRyEojNY&feature=channel_page

ok.  eat that.  i’ll galavant with you all this saturday.  til then, don’t be dumb.

love,

poo

So how do we celebrate such a momentous occasion?  The Poetry Roundtable this month will be checking out the work of a Fence author, Prageeta Sharma, thus marking our introduction to the press (though we actually did a Roundtable on the Founding Editor of Fence, Rebecca Wolff, but that was probably before any of the current Roundtable members were here).

So let’s get started.  Here’s a few links to Prageeta’s work:

http://bostonreview.net/BR24.5/sharma.html

http://www.lapetitezine.org/PrageetaSharma.htm

reviews:

http://versemag.blogspot.com/2004/10/new-review-of-prageeta-sharma.html

Audio:

http://twc.podbean.com/2008/01/10/prageeta-sharma-51007/

and that, I’m sure, will keep ya’ll busy for now.  This month’s Roundtable date is Saturday, March 21st.  If you come, you will be brilliant, beautiful and rich.  If you don’t come, you will be smelly, stinky and rank.  Yes.  And other synonyms meaning bad smelling.

Can’t wait to hang out and chat it up over some poetry.

Love,

Nicki-poo

Hi Roundtablers!

First and foremost, if anyone hasn’t heard, it has been decided that the Poetry Roundtable will now be meeting on the third SATURDAY of every month, at 12:00 pm, at Java Vino Wine and Coffee shop, as always.  Thus, the event this month will be this Saturday, February 21st, at noon.  Be there or you will turn into a pumpkin or something. 

There.  Now that that’s established…

This month we’re considering the work of Milwaukee based poet Roberto Harrison!  Wisconsin is very lucky to be able to lay claim as this poet’s current home.  Roberto’s career is rather overwhelming; he’s been a prolific writer for years, has published two books and many chapbooks, has run a small chapbook press, edited a few literary journals, works also as a visual artist and has designed the covers of other poet’s books, and he has also run a reading series for some time now called “Enemy Rumor.”  I found through personal experience that, when browsing through the UW Milwaukee library’s poetry section, it is nearly impossible to go 5 books without hitting something with the name Roberto Harrison on it, whether he designed the book, published it or wrote it himself.  The specifics of all this stuff can be found in the links below but, for now, let’s just say Roberto has been incredibly dedicated to poetry for a long, long time now.

Roberto Harrison’s work is rich in countless and unexpeted ways.  Concise, sonicly stunning, at times difficult, at other’s decietfully simple.  His work is the perfect poetry for we roundtablers because it tends to leave different readers with often different things.  Hooray for Java Vino and the RPL for giving us a place to come together and share all those different things with each other.  No doubt our collaborative efforts will assist greatly when we look at Roberto’s work together.

As promised, some links for ya’lls perusal:

Short bio and audio of Roberto reading:

http://voices.e-poets.net/HarrisonR/

work:

http://www.litmuspress.org/pages/harrison_excerpt.htm

http://www.cordite.org.au/poetry/241-candylands/roberto-harrison-introduction-to-counter-daemons

(the link above goes to a really interesting  introductory note to one of Roberto’s books.  From there, there’s a link in the upperright hand corner to work from the book)

http://culturalsociety.org/smilecrisis.html

http://culturalsociety.org/ghostanimals.html

http://chax.org/eoagh/issuetwo/Mani(RobertoHarrison).pdf

http://www.woodlandpattern.org/poems/roberto_harrison01.shtml

review:

http://chax.org/eoagh/issuefour/daviesharrison.html

interview (I enjoyed this a lot);

http://kickingwind.com/082907.html

I had an excellent time at the ROundtable last month…one of my favorite ones to date!  I can’t wait to see you all on our new bat date and time and I hope you all are feeling peachy in the meantime.

Until Saturday.

love,

Nicki-poo for the RPL

This is an early e-mail coming out because we’ve got some changes in the schedule this month. I’ve already mentioned the new Java Vino baby was on its way…well, congratulations are in order to the family because they just recently brought a beautiful, bouncy Java Vino baby into the world! Don’t forget to pass your congrats on to the proprietor’s of Java Vino and maybe we’ll even get to meet baby one of the next few times we reconvene!

So there’s that, of course. Then, however, because of a last minute school conflict of my own, I now am reuqired to be in Milwaukee every Thursday night until the end of May (insert boos here). What does this mean? WE NEED TO DECIDE ON A NEW ROUNDTABLE MEETING TIME! I wanted to ask all the members of the Roundtable what works with them, before I arbitrarily decided a new time for the events. What I will do is have people go to rplpoetryroundtable.wordpress.com where I will post this e-mail immediately after sending it and then, through the comments section, we can all discuss what works best and be able to see what others are saying. Hopeully, through a democratic process like that, we’ll come to the best conclusion.

The folks at Java Vino have already mentioned that Saturday mornings or afternoons would work best for them. I could do that and I think some of you have already expressed interest in that time frame, so keep that in mind in the discussions. Other than that, I hope to hear from you all and see what we can work out.

Thanks, Nicki-poo

ps-There is, also, always the option of still doing it on thursday nights without me. I don’t know how people would feel about that…I would miss the sessions an awful lot…but I want you to keep it in mind, if it’s the only way to resolve this.

Hey Roundtable Homies!

This month’s event is almost already upon us and so I’ll get right to the meat of what’s on the,  menu.  Wow.  Was that a pun or something?

This month we’ll be looking at the work of the young, Asian-American poet Cathy Park Hong. Here’s the bio taken from her homepage: “Cathy Park Hong’s first book, Translating Mo’um was published in 2002 by Hanging Loose Press. Her second collection, Dance Dance Revolution, was chosen for the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was published in 2007 by WW Norton. Hong is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Village Voice Fellowship for Minority Reporters. Her poems have been published in American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Verse, Chain, Jubilat, and other journals, and she has reported for the Village Voice, The Guardian, and Salon. She now lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.”

I had been wanting to check this poet out for some time now, just because it intrigued me that she named a manuscript of hers after a popular video game.  But the more I read of and about this poet and her work, the more I like it.  So let’s check this stuff out together and here’s a few links to help you out and get you started:

Her home page, which includes her blog, bio, links to reviews of her first book and links to the Amazon sites where you can buy and get more info on her books:

http://cathyparkhong.com/

and her sort of homepage for the poetry foundation, including poems, an article and some audio:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=82439

poems:

http://www.nortonpoets.com/ex/hongcdance.htm

http://www.versedaily.org/2007/aboutcathyparkhongj.shtml

some audio:

http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/hong/

a review of her most recent book:

http://galatearesurrection9.blogspot.com/2008/03/dance-dance-revolution-by-cathy-park.html

some “dispatches” of Hong’s from the poetry foundation:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/dispatches/journals/2006.07.31.html

an interview:

http://www.pw.org/content/interview_poet_cathy_park_hong

and an interesting, short take on her first book:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-07-16/books/twin-set/

That’s all I’ll leave you with for now (since the Roundtable’s a whopping three days away), but I’m sure we’ll all have more to say this Thursday! Until then, I hope you dance. Dance. You know…Revolution.

Hooray for little Java Vino babies!!!

Later gators,

Nicki-poo

We’re supposed to be looking at John Giorno this month…I just got one of his books, finally, through an interlibrary loan, which I thought would come a long time ago, but apparently there were some problems and it sounds like I’m lucky I even got it (a different interlibrary loan wasn’t able to go through for some reason).  I chose Giorno from articles and interviews and blah blah blah that I had read, but I hadn’t checked out his poetry yet.  I just knew he was very influential on the poetry that’s being produced today.  Since I’ve been reading his work, though, I’m not so sure he’s appropriate for our group.  This group has analyzed some really challenging, experimatnal poetry and, I’m not sure, but we might find Giorno’s work too simple to discuss for too long.  I don’t know though…that’s at least just my first, superficial impression.

I won’t put any info on him here.   I’ll just offer these few links, in case anyone’s interested in learning more about him in the next two days    : )

three poems:

http://www.barcelonareview.com/16/e_jg.htm

videos (that I haven’t gotten to watch because my computer’s sound is broken :

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=john+giorno&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=9&ct=title#

bio and more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Giorno

and that should be enough to sate ye til Thursday.  Regardless of how the poetry goes, I’m really mostly just looking forward to hanging out with my Roundtable buddies  and perhaps this will be a perfect opportunity to catch up on each others’ lives.

Don’t forget about BONK! this Staurday, December 20th, at 6pm and I can’t wait to see you all at the Roundtable before then,

Nicki-poo