COME CELEBRATE ANOTHER SUNNY DAY this Saturday April 5th
April 2, 2014
Stop by Cafe Passé this Saturday between 6-8pm!
415 N 4th Ave. Tucson Arizona
COME CELEBRATE ANOTHER SUNNY DAY this SATURDAY April 5th
April 2, 2014
Stop by Cafe Passé this Saturday between 6-8pm!
415 N 4th Ave. Tucson Arizona
IN MEMORIAM for Denise Franco by Valyntina Grenier
April 30, 2013
GOODBYE SONG
Don’t plague the butterfly
blessing the lemon bush
it’s like pushing a ballerina off balance
or stealing a bushel-full of tangelos
working to be ripe.
As intent as breath
cancer takes us
from the ones we love.
Truth waits for us to discover
Justice has her eyes covered.
Chaos harbors the scales.
Hectares of ash move out with the waves.
Heart travels through Chaos,
from life to peace,
freedom from fight
from fear.
On the day you die a roadrunner steaks across the road. We rent a canoe and laugh too hard as we remember how to row. We set out for some place to say a prayer and a sandy shoal to rest and picnic. I think of Giovanni and Nicholo in matching life jackets and bucket hats on the empty bench between us. We discover a halcyon cove where the birds loll on marooned branches. I place my hands over my chest stare up into the sky and weep. Jane recites her poem
Blue Nude
Please take this shy Spanish girl
whom they say you resemble
and ride with her, here are the field poppies
damaged by night, here your blue slumber, your horse.
Take this prayer, which you must surrender
in order to understand, as in moments when you are reduced
to the truth. When you are ready,
the beasts will be there. Let silence go through your heart,
the mild horse your blue one
already stirring toward morning, where it will be white.
While she recites I think of you in your final hours. I hear Chris Cornell singing “all night thing.” A lone heron watches us row back to the dock.
I pledge to see you, dear one. I will repeat you, your brilliance, the mode of your brow. Countless gestures impart understanding. Like a child fighting sleep we move towards closure. I will shrink into a bawl then open as you flower through time, loving, ardent, with the capacity of your spirit to give.
Denise Marie Franco b. December 18th 1967 d. March 13th 2013. In Denise’s words,
“On this Thanksgiving 2012, I give thanks for the wonderful life I have lived and the wonderful life I continue to live. I am blessed to have two wonderful children, and a wonderful man who light my world and fill my life with love on a daily basis. I am blessed to have a wonderful supportive family, and amazing supportive friends. Friends I consider like family! Friends I’ve known most my life (you know who you are) , and ones I’ve met in recent years, all who add substance and peace and love to my world.
Thank You… because I feel very fortunate!”
The slideshow is composed of photographs taken by Denise. “Blue Nude” is from Jane Miller’s Many Junipers, Heartbeats. The image above is of a poem I wrote several years ago. Brian Watson found it among Denise’s papers and read it at her memorial celebration in Malibu California at the Nicholas Canyon Chumash Village.
GAIL EASTERLING’S Fear of Fear
November 19, 2012
LISTEN: from Collage […] Soul by JAKE LEVINE
BTW I’ll be taking requests- So, if there is some writing from here or published else where you would like to hear a recording of let me know by commenting on the piece you would like to hear or commenting here or if you are a contributor who would like to send me a breif recording of your contribution (3min or less) email me a voice file!
HAPPY SATURDAY+V
CHECK OUT SPIRAL ORB 5
September 18, 2012
SPIRAL ORB is an experiment in permaculture poetics, juxtaposition, interrelationships, and intertextuality—a cross-pollination. The opening poem composts fragments from each of the pieces in Spiral Orb. Standing also as the table of contents, each line is embedded with a hyperlink to its original piece. Once at each piece, you will find links to the other pieces. Spiral Orb Five is a special issue on A Poetic Inventory of Saguaro National Park.
Trickhouse Live September 18 at Casa Libre 7-9 p.m.
September 11, 2012
HI, I’ll be presenting for Trickhouse Live at Casa Libre W/ Deanne Stillman Tuesday, September 18 7-9 p.m. $5 Suggested Donation
Trick House Live is an integrative arts series that brings together people working with words, images, sounds, videos, and a variety of performances. The series serves as a venue for visiting artists to interact with local artists and for the borders between genres and mediums to be permeable. Trickhouse Live is a physical world extension of the online cross-genre arts journal, Trickhouse.org which is based in Tucson.
Deanne Stillman is the award-winning author of Mustang, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2008, and the cult classic Twentynine Palms, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001 which Hunter Thompson called “A strange and brilliant story by an important American writer.” Her latest book, Desert Reckoning, is based on her acclaimed Rolling Stone article, “The Great Mojave Manhunt.” She is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert Low Residency MFA Creative Writing Program and currently divides her time between Tucson, AZ and Los Angeles, CA.
I make poems and visual art. You can view a portfolio of my visual art at valyntinagrenier.com. I hosts Back Room Live, and blog at Harriet Homemaker and Life Long Press. The photo was taken by Richard Siken at LIVE @ LIV, thanks Richard!
Hi there! I’ll be reading, recording and posting contributions from BRL’s contributors. If you would like a portion of your contribution recorded please let me know and if you don’t want a reading of your writing posted let me know. Not sure- you may come across a recording of your work by surprise!
TODAY! Give a listen to:
MP3: YOU by Charles Bane Jr WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
! LISA ! LISA ! BOWDEN ! COLE !
March 24, 2012
IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT ! THANKS FOR THE GOOD TIMES ! HAMEL ! MORGAN ! MUMOLO ! DRAI !
February 25, 2012
THANKS FOR THE GOOD TIMES! LOVE, V
from MONEY ON IT by Sara Mumolo TEXT
from DARK AGE by Jenny Drai TEXT
GENTLENESS by Wendy Burk
February 19, 2012
A LITTLE MYTH FOR JANE
February 14, 2012
YOU have my heart.
HOLIDAY MONDAY
February 13, 2012
THANK YOU for your friendship and your poems… Love, V
mp3: The Disorientation of Sweet Violence by HARMONY HOLIDAY TEXT
MY HEART GOES OUT TO ! Drew Krewer ! Trevor Calvert ! Oscar Bermeo !
February 11, 2012
THANK YOU GENTLEMEN, FOR YOUR WRITING AND FOR GUEST EDITING!
YOU HAVE MY HEART +V
mp3 from ARS WARHOLICA by Drew Krewer TEXT & BIO
mp3 HOW THEY MAKE AND KEEP THEIR STATUES by Oscar Bermeo TEXT & BIO
NEW- YOU’RE MINE YOUS, MP3s of LOVE all month long…
February 6, 2012
I’ll be posting vocal Valentines all month long! The first one goes out to Marisa Prietto- be mine…
Happy Love Month +V
Marisa Prietto- You’re mine you
February 6, 2012
SUDDEN SOUNDS by MARISA PRIETTO +V
for the text click here
DESTROY
November 19, 2011
Text by: Nicole Wilson, Brandon Downing, Natasha Stagg, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Amaranth Borsuk, Chris Hosea, Tony Mancus, Whitney DeVos, Annie Guthrie, Brian Oliu
Art by: Yuko Fukuzumi, Nicholas Hay, Sarah Duncan, and Casey Wilson
Opinion Pieces by: Joe Hall, Steven M. Brown, Kim Largey-Soloway, and Lulu Antipyrene
And MORE.
Editors: Drew Krewer, Maureen McHugh
Managing Editor: Meagan Lehr
Art Editor: Andy Campbell
Web Designer: Jason Criscio
GONE FISHING!
June 25, 2011
BROADSIDES ! MASSEY ! HARJO ! KAHLO ! HASS !
May 28, 2011
click to hear: AT ONCE by Joseph Massey
click to hear: from FOR A GIRL BECOMING by Joy Harjo
click to hear: IN THE SALIVA by Frida Kahlo translated by Robert Hass
Happy Saturday and Happy Listening +V
! DUNCAN ! REYES ! TWO POEMS FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE
April 30, 2011
click to hear: [ASKING] by Barbara Jane Reyes from Poeta en San Francisco
click to hear: THE SONG OF THE BORDERGUARD by Robert Duncan
I’ll be back next month with more favorites- ANY REQUESTS…
Happy Saturday +V
I’ve been busy!
March 28, 2011
Hi. I had hoped to get some MP3’s of a few of my favorite pieces of writing up… alas, I’ve been super busy with my visual art blog and getting ready for two shows in APRIL! Check out what I’ve been up to at HARRIET HOMEMAKER and please come back the last Saturday of April for more literary arts…
Happy Monday +V
[THIS GENRE OF LIPS] by Lisa Bowden
February 28, 2011
This genre of lips
Yeses with fingers‹-unblousing, undressing
Skin, her truss. No need
For flight here, except
Air wrapped in irridescent
Feathers. Or, a verb’s splendid long
Bone all lit up for
This new, unbuttoned birdology. Tiny
Chances, coins tossed: a
Firmament above, arousing
Power below. Let
It come.
m
THE BOAT by Lisa Cole
February 28, 2011
THE BOAT
M
The half-eaten pomegranate
is losing its color, turning brown on the plate.
This piece of fruit– of course–is only a metaphor
for the tired heart: the portal to a whole new underworld
full of ghosts dressed in rainbow colors.
I remember the crook of your arm,
an erotic place in which I longed to live forever.
Your skin is the water, I am the boat–
washed clean, finally.
m
from NATURAL FUSION by Bonnie Hudgins
February 27, 2011
EMPATHIC ATTUNEMENT by Valyntina Grenier
February 27, 2011
click to hear: EMPATHIC ATTUNEMENT by Valyntina Grenier
EMPATHIC ATTUNEMENT
I LOVE YOUR BRAIN
Here. Will you take this stone
and make a wish, then give it to the miller.
She’ll make you a page
while I sleep so the robot
can change me. I’ll wish for ice cream.
ICE CREAM
Surrounded by these columns, each heart-shaped capitol crowned w/ a brain,
I’d like to give you this tiny robot.
Hold it like a river stone,
here, in the palm of your hand, while I light the page.
Here’s to watching the sky change w/ my love, the miller!
“I’ll STAND BY YOU” SANG THE MILLER
waiting in line for a scoop of ice-cream.
She hid a love note on a page
of our notepad for me to find. Her brain
suits my heart like a precious stone
in its circle of rose. I hope she’ll forgive me this robot.
DEAR DA VINCI ROBOT
Thank you for helping the miller,
her Quern-stone
was blocking our path to the ice-cream
parlor. Origami brain-
I’m so glad you answered our page.
PAGE
Thank you for being brave enough to use a robot
to remove the endometriosis and organs that pained me, that seized my brain,
my spirit, the heart of the miller.
Now we can argue about ice-cream,
a simple scoop vs. blended w/ toppings on a cold stone.
DEAR DR STONE
Thank you for wondering. I feel as light as a page
descending in air. I feel hope. Eating ice-cream
can bring about joy. I stopped for some on my way to the miller.
It helped ease my brain.
“Ice-cream,” I sang at the cornerstone,
“Brain and Heart–” right here on the front page:
“Robot surgeon grants a wish,” for my love, Jane Miller!
m
m
WHAT IF I SAID by Priyesha K. Nair
February 26, 2011
m
WHAT IF I SAID
M
Stealing glances and trying to
look deep enough
Love speaks in its own
strange ways
Afraid that I might wake up
and break this dream
I tried drowning myself
into absence
but you – you are present all the time
And now I roam with a poem
stuck in my chest
it doesn’t let me breathe
but I can’t pen it down either
Three words that I need to say
and maybe you need to hear
m
m
PHOTOBOOTH, NORTHAMPTON by Donna Fleischer
February 25, 2011
PHOTOBOOTH, NORTHAMPTON
If some long unborn friend looks at photos in pity, we say, sure we were happy, but it was not in the wind. – Muriel Rukeyser, Tree of DaysM
every year
we come here
to picture
our existence,
as women, as lovers
M
back at home
adorn refrigerator
with the miniature
black-and-white prayer strips
goofball poses, kisses
M
and, my favorites –
the two of us
side by side, head to head
looking plainly out
at this world
without a mirror
M
M
SUDDEN SOUNDS by Marisa Prietto
February 23, 2011
SUDDEN SOUNDS
Shirked and non-plussed,
stalked and apprehended,
I suspended disbelief,
and identified abandon.
We have run
hot and cold
and underground
in conversation
to elegant frequencies of the supermind.
In one fragile second,
of a stupid barbequeue
a crack in my flimsy patria
opens up a
soft, crushing tear
you fit into, with such momentary abandon,
While I wait, for
some witless fury to engage
late silence over fall, over winter,
on an unmanned planet,
populated with my lesser instincts.
Frigid and untapped,
destroyed and then rescued,
I am trying to avoid the garbage
barely contained within these decent homes, these fields and flowers and debris and human waste and denims and ghettos and endless streets without names upon names upon names i am
calling, later, out to you:
Just stay, and stare!
as two different countries come by, playing two different musics
the sudden sounds tear up the streetside silence between us,
by erroneous and irrational response.
m
m
ARCHITECT by Lisa Bowden
February 21, 2011
ARCHITECT,
boatwind your cloud
to my ear
so I can hear
your breath
move
grass-like
across
the field
of my palm,
constellate
your blindingly
invisible
self
inside
my throat
so remembering
is breathing
the sky unbuilt‹
M
YOU by Charles Bane Jr
February 21, 2011
YOU
I came upon you
when I was a child
and kept the memory
close, through every
feverish year. My hair
was silk from corn; yours,
black as the birds upon the snow
I fed the winter long. I opened books
at night and looked at barest
trees and wished for Spring. I watched
for leaves birthing like the stars. I made
poems, and saved the lights I found
waiting in my marrow. One day I would tell
you of the music I heard between its honey-
combs and followed til words rested
on a page. You would understand. You
would hold the glass and pour my amber
work until it filled you to a brim.
You would say, this flames the trees
and you are the harvester of my soul.
m
FELT by Richard Cruwys Brown translation by Anne Styron Leonard
February 19, 2011
FELT
It’s all in the hand,
mmmthe touch,
light fingers
along Merino fibers.
Feel a way into hair,
a caress,
not more, not less,
before the motion begins
mmmmmthe gentle meeting.
Hand to wool,
mmmfinger to fleece,
until a skin begins.
It can’t,
mmmit won’t be hurried.
Notice the moment
mmmwhen tension begins.
Apply with love.
Luxury enters
mmmthe slow wool of time.
Tangling scales of hair
mmmhave their way.
Bond, bond the fibers
until agitation begins to meld,
stroking
mmmbut not insistent.
Then deep pressure
of knowing hands
fulls into fabric.
Rubbing firms up the bond:
tightens together,
shrinks to integrity,
mmmtoughens,
locks into permanence.
m
m
FIELTRO
Está todo en la mano,
vmmmmmmm el tacto,
los dedos ligeros
a lo largo de las fibras de Merino.
Siente de una manera en el pelo,
una caricia,
no más no menos,
antes de que el movimento comienzé
mmmmmla reunion apacible.
Mano en las lanas,
mmmdedo a velión,
hast que la piel comienze.
No puede,
mmmno será apresurado.
Note el momento
mmmcuando la tensión comienze.
Apliqúese con amor.
El lujo entra
mmmlas lanas lentas del tiempo.
Enredando escalas de pelo
mmmtienen su manera.
Enlaza, enlaza las fibras,
hasta que la agitación comience pegar,
el frotar ligeramente
mmmpero no insistente.
Entonces presión profunda
de las manos sabias
espesa en tela.
frotando pone firme el enlace:
mmmaprieta junto,
contrae a la integridad,
mmmendurece,
asegura en permanencia.
LUMINARIA by Jan Steckel
February 19, 2011
LUMINARIA
Trick-or-treaters trailed down Gourmet Ghetto,
begging till restaurants ran out of candy
and gave them napoleons and brioches instead.
You were sweeter than Snickers,
more delicious than Milky Ways.
Your love was better than Tootsie Rolls.
Angelica, dressed like Tinkerbell, smiled shyly
when asked what she was. I heard her soft voice
for the first time: “A Princess.”
Miraculous sound, no more beautiful
than the flutelike tone of your voice in my ear,
or the burnt golden orange of your hair
when you stood in the slanting sun,
talking happily of the weed you didn?t pull
that grew into a pumpkin.
Later that night, your wraithlike body
moon-bathed pale,
naked in your own back yard.
m
Read the rest of this entry »
WITHOUT A BED by Katherine Chatel
February 15, 2011
WITHOUT A BED
For Ryan who was Dana
One night we slept side by side
on a cat pissed floor
in an apartment with no windows
and a bathroom down the hall
with no toilet paper.
We shared a sweater as a blanket
slept close for warmth
on our island surrounded
by urine-soaked newspapers
and stacks of orange crusted dishes.
Even in that room
I fell asleep
to the question
what would happen
if I leaned over to kiss you?
When we woke up
I went downstairs
to the Chinese-donut shop
to see what time it was
whether it was light enough for morning.
m
Valentine
February 15, 2011
FORECLOSED MINDS by Hal Bogotch
February 14, 2011
FORECLOSED MINDS
Press words out
through cardiac tissue
dip into the well of compassion
wine stain plume
spreading indifference
almost as if
a hand crank
could be attached
to virtual electronic wanderlust
bank on it
know the truth
in the negative balance
ply the Pennsylvania Dutch
for secrets
of mixing mechanical metaphors
I tried to learn the steps
before I forgot myself
and danced.
EVERYBODY KNOWS a love song by G.P. Skratz
February 14, 2011
click to hear: EVERYBODY KNOWS by G.P. Skratz An original: just me on vocal & ukelele, aimed at my dear, dear bride–hope ya dig!– G.P.
O, my love,
who I adore,
who I serve
with all my heart,
who kind of likes me
on merry occasion…
EVERYBODY KNOWS
she’s a vision wrapped in silver,
shinin like a star.
she’s a flyin saucer voyage to the center of my heart
& i’m roaring to the rooftops,
ain’t no lie.
everybody knows that i love my bride.
ain’t nobody,
ain’t nobody
cook a frozen dinner like my lovin bride.
she lifts me up,
sets me down.
leads me off to glory from the lost & found.
& i’m roaring to the rooftops,
ain’t no lie.
everybody knows that i love my bride.
Sunday Love Songs ! feat. SMOOTH TOAD !
February 13, 2011
click to hear: ASK THE RIVER by Smooth Toad recorded a few days ago in G. P. Skratz’s living room by SMOOTH TOAD: Hal Hughes, vocal & guitar; Bob Ernst, country harp; G. P. Skratz, guitar.
ASK THE RIVER
(words & music by Hal Hughes)
If you don’t know
Why the moon hides its glow Behind the clouds
It’s just because
It’s up there all alone
If you don’t know
Why the willow weeps all day It’s just because
There’s no one there
To wipe its tears away
Bridge:
If you should ask the river
Why it flows unto the sea
You’d understand why I keep
Running back to you
Now don’t you see
When I’m alone
There is only one way home My love, it’s true
That winding road
That calls me back to you
click to hear: LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI by Smooth Toad This SMOOTH TOAD performance features G. P. Skratz on vocal & guitar, Hal Hughes on fiddle, & Bob Ernst on percussion.
This is my setting of John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” I made a few edits here & there & tweaked a few lines: eg he has, “And there she lulled me asleep, / And there I dreamed, Ah Woe Betide! / The latest dream I ever dreamt / On the cold hill side.” Really, Johnny? “The latest dream I ever dreamt”? Happily, I’m able to cover for him here in the 21st century… G.P. Skratz
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
SATURDAY READING ! Pablo Neruda’s POETRY !
February 12, 2011
click to hear: Pablo Neruda’s POETRY English translation
The text is from poemhunter.com.
Happy Saturday +V.
IN PRISON THEY CALLED HIM OJOS DE LEON by Cassandra Dallett
February 12, 2011
In Prison
they called him Ojos de Leon.
He is beautiful
even in a dead drunk snore.
His skin velutinous, never needs lotion.
He looks through golden eyes half blind
intoxicating with their creeping greenness
and it’s contrast on black lashes.
He claims to tire of compliments but mentions all of them.
He resents love it’s conditions and it’s shortcomings.
It can’t change
his un-lovable-ness.
So he numbs it
with powder and booze.
He knows he will disappoint.
He knows that in the beginning
we will see him as we want
rippling muscle and tattoo
voluptuous lips
waist a tight v, ass round.
At first meeting he looks you dead in the eye.
Holds you.
His stare a dare
to see him through his blunts and bottles
his three kids and counting.
He is still settling to his own murky bottom.
There is intercourse in his look.
He’s sizing up the strength of your backbone
and like the lioness you will have to work for this.
But all you can do is wonder
if he’ll look at you like that
when you are underneath him
sturdy paws around you
You imagine the moment his smooth chest
becomes ruddy
the tiniest goose bumps rising.
Motherless eyes say
you don’t know
the river
of pretty-broken-things
that runs beneath
this lion’s exterior.
M
MIDNIGHT SNACK by Vida Felsenfeld
February 12, 2011
MIDNIGHT SNACK
A slice of silver moon
sitting on a Desert Rose dessert
dish,
waits for you
on the kitchen
table.
(There are some stars
in the cookie jar
to sprinkle on
top).
Use the gold-plated
fancy fork
I stole
from King Solomon’s
dinnerware
drawer.
Dab your lips
on the lily-white
linen napkin
imported
from some snowy
peak
in the Himalayas.
Run your fingers
over the placemat
I found
in the back alley
of the Musee d’Orsay–
a Van Gogh canvass,
blank and blessed.
Caress your hands
around the rocket-red
tea cup
I borrowed
from the Tang
Dynasty,
and pour
a shot
of sugar
into the Earl Grey Tea,
scored from
the Queen Mother’s
medicine cabinet.
Now look out your window.
The rest of the moon
will be your candle
to eat by.
I love you.
Enjoy.
AFTER E.E. CUMMINGS by Lisa Cole
February 11, 2011
after e.e. cummings
the small hands of the rain
compose a love song in the key of C:
it is the same thing—again, again—
roses, the body, & other red-colored things
mmmm(my heart, your heart)
i know i cannot have you
as the moon has the sea
but perhaps I will hold you
like ghosts & wind—
an all new song
CACTUS by G.P. Skratz
February 11, 2011
IT’S LOVE MONTH ! Send us something !
February 10, 2011
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE WHAT WE’VE ALREADY POSTED ! And we’ll be posting all month long ! Send us a page, paragraph, chapter, scene, essay, article or poem, about LOVE along w/ your photo JPEG, bio and/or an MP3 of you reading the piece to backroomlive@gmail.com !
MICHAEL PALMER
February 10, 2011
Internet Dating
O vast endless field of
World Wide Loneliness.
You reveal the mystery of your soul
with a list of your hobbies
and favorite TV shows.
Enhancing this
with a photograph of yourself
mmmencased in a billowy parka
on top of a snow covered peak.
Or sitting on a couch
your shirt unbuttoned
a hole or two
mmmyour feet resting on a fluffy carpet.
You smile on cue.
Last but not least:
you give
the income you desire in the Other.
Bravely, you put it all “out there”
for the world to view.
You hope someone will notice.
Someone
anyone, anyone
but you.
m
m
ZAC SAWDEY
February 8, 2011
ReMix
So I hit this ride,
right on the street.
It’s the Music.
Music right in your face.
And I can’t stop moving.
I can’t stop feeling.
And I am up.
I am high.
And I ache with life.
And I am not taking notice of the autocracy
And it’s coming hard and it’s going hard.
I don’t have to be someone else,
not these days,
so watch yourself,
because it’s time for more time,
and this is your town.
m
DEBBY ROSENFELD
February 7, 2011
Loving People
Loving people means sometimes messing up.
We try to tailor our words to lead to joy.
Like the game of telephone,
sometimes the message is changed en-route,
devastating instead of lifting up.
Loving children means trying to keep things smooth.
Bumpy life is in-between,
challenging our outcomes in real time.
Infusing positive energy doesn’t always fix things.
We ruminate.
There is a lesson in the bumps, if
we can sift through the rocks to find it.
Sometimes we learn about forgiveness,
acceptance, moving on, or alternate routes.
Sometimes we hunker down in the dark,
waiting for moods to pass, fearing they never will.
But loving people also means sometimes getting it right.
Floating on a cloud of euphoria when we see them smile,
hugging them and feeling safe from every angle.
Loving children means laughing when they laugh.
Playing with their hair while reading funny stories.
Creating moments that linger on their minds
when we think they’re sleeping.
There is a lesson in the happiness too, if we can
catch our reflection for a moment and look inside.
At those moments we see our capacity for fullness,
our innate abilities to give and to receive—
fill and be filled.
Loving people means sometimes messing up,
sometimes getting it right. Most of all,
it means journeying through life with a reason…
…a reason to care enough to keep on trying.
m
IT’S LOVE MONTH!
February 6, 2011
Hi, we’ll be posting about LOVE all month long, SCROLL DOWN FOR OUR FIRST INSTALLMENT!
Send us a page, paragraph, chapter, scene, essay, article or poem along w/ your photo JPEG, bio and/or MP3 file of you reading the piece. Send us some LOVE to backroomlive@gmail.com
G.P. SKRATZ
February 6, 2011
TO ANNA BLUME
O mistress of my 27 senses, I love you!
–Thou thee thy thine, I you, you me–We?
That belongs (by the way) somewhere else.
Who are you, room of countless women? You are–aren’t you?–
People say you’re–let them talk, the bastards, they don’t know
how the church tower stands.
You put your hat on your feet & wander off on your
hands, on your hands you wander off.
Hello, your red dress with white folds. Red
I love Anna Blume, red I love you!–Thou thee thy
thine, I you, you me–
We?
That belongs (by the way) in the cold fire.
Red bloom, red Anna Blume, how do they say it?
Readers: answer this question & win a prize:
1. Anna Blume has a bird.
2. Anna Blume is red.
3. What color is the bird?
Blue is the color of your golden hair.
Red is the call of your green birds.
You plain maid in your everyday dress, you lovely green
beast, I love you! Thou thee thy thine, I you, you me–
We?
That belongs (by the way) in the coal chest.
Anna Blume! Anna, a-n-n-a, I trickle your name.
Your name drips like soft cattle droppings.
Do you know it, Anna, do you know it already?
One can read you backward, & you, you most magnificent
of all, you are the same from back or front: “a-n-n-a.”
Cattle-droppings trickle stroking my back.
Anna Blume, you dripping beast, I love you!
–translated from the German of Kurt Schwitters
IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT ! WE HAVE POEMS TO LISTEN TO ! FOUST ! JENSEN ! MILLER ! HASS !
January 30, 2011
In the tradition of the real live Back Room Live, formerly held at Mc Nally’s Irish Pub in Oakland Ca. the last Saturday of the month at 7pm, I’ve chosen four poems to read to you. Hope you like hearing them as much as I love reading them +V.
click to hear: BREACH AND ORISON I. TERROR OF BEGINNINGS by Robert Hass from Time and Materialsm
click to hear: BAD BOATS by Laura Jensen from Bad Boatsm
click to hear: VOW by Graham Foust from Leaving the Room to Itselfm
click to hear: CODA from A Palace of Pearls by Jane Miller
DON’T FORGET TO SEND US YOUR WRITING ON LOVE!!! We’ll be posting writing and voice files about LOVE all February long. Send us a page, paragraph, chapter, scene, essay, article or poem along w/ your photo JPEG, bio, and if you have one or can make one, an mp3 file of you reading the piece. We’re reading Now – February 14th 2011. So, send us some LOVE to backroomlive@gmail.com
TO THE NEW YEAR by W.S. MERWIN
January 13, 2011
To the New Year
With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning
so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible
http://poetry.arizona.edu/promotion/2011/01/poetry-times-tragedy
It’s SATURDAY NIGHT!!!
December 25, 2010
SCROLL DOWN FOR ! POETRY ! PROSE ! PLAYWRITING ! by ! LISA SCHLESINGER ! KATE GREENSTREET ! TREVOR CALVERT ! ANDREW RUSH ! YAY US !
KATE GREENSTREET
December 25, 2010
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Something’s wrong. He hasn’t arrived, he’s always leaving.
I pitied her for loving him.
TREVOR CALVERT
December 25, 2010
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With rain, asphalt’s scent punches hard. Out there, isolated, one crawls toward earthen clutch, swaying high grass too sharp for language. When I say “one” fold in to me. When you read “is” I mean “to leap.” Wind, implacable metaphor, insists against all, love, so we must keep close. O where may the untouchable rest? What place hope in this palace of the real? We’ve grown so swift even thrice-great Hermes cannot slip our velocity. Light peels image from thing, demands pixels from trees.
Our old magic is condensed to avarice,
bondage and longing, to a slavish gaze.
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ANDREW RUSH
December 25, 2010
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The Conversation We Call Art
As a young artist studying in Florence, Italy in 1958, I happened one day into a gallery that was showing some small modest paintings of bottles and other little table objects by an artist from Bologna. As I contemplated each work, something seemed clearer in my personal search for my own art path. Not long after, I found a newspaper photo of the artist that I pinned to my studio wall, where it lived for years as a kind of private talisman that reoriented me whenever I lost heart or direction.
LISA SCHLESINGER
December 25, 2010
“Welcome to the Theatre of Things Are Not What They Seem. If you are willing to suspend your disbelief, please allow us the pleasure of disrupting the narrative. This is the story of Galileo Galilei. Or not. The telescope. Or not. Turn it around and look through it the wrong way. Or not. Please consider your perspective. But don’t forget what year this is, which lens you look through, whose trial this is, and who rules. The playwright calls this the Visitation. Because we are. Just visiting. And now we are off.”– Ghost of Leonardo, Visitation 1
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Celestial Bodies
A Tragicomedy in Three Acts
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The body is a device to calculate
The astronomy of the spirit.
MMMMMMRumi
MMMMMMMMMMThe Fragile Vial
And calculate the stars: model heaven how wield
The mighty frame; how built; unbuild, contrive
To save appearances; how gird the sphere
With centric and eccentric scribbled o’er
Cycle, epicycle, orb in orb.
MMMMMMMMilton
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmParadise Lost viii 79-84
“It has often been maintained that Galileo became the father of modern science by replacing the speculative, deductive method with the empirical, experimental method. I believe, however, that this interpretation would not stand close scrutiny. There is no empirical method with speculative concepts and systems; and there is no speculative thinking whose concepts do not reveal on closer investigation, the empirical material from which they stem.”
Albert Einstein on Galileo in his introduction to Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning Two Chief World Systems
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NEXT SATURDAY ! TREVOR CALVERT ! KATE GREENSTREET ! LISA SCHLESINGER ! ANDREW RUSH !
December 18, 2010
CHECK BACK IN NEXT SATURDAY AT 7PM !
ALSO, we’ll be posting writing and voice files about LOVE all February long. Send us a page, paragraph, chapter, scene, essay, article or poem along w/ your photo JPEG, bio, and if you have one or can make one, an mp3 file of you reading the piece. We’ll be reading December 26th 2010 – February 14th 2011. So, send us some LOVE to backroomlive@gmail.com
Join our group on Facebook and read more about this months authors on our events page!
! ANN ROBINSON ! JOSEPH ZACCARDI ! RICHARD CRUWYS BROWN ! brought to us by this month’s guest curator MELANIE STOFF MAIER !
November 27, 2010
Curator’s note: Carl Sandburg said, “a poem is like an echo asking a shadow to dance.” I think this is a such a wonderful description of what I do as a poet: listen to the echoes, see the shadows in everyday life and from the past, then fuse these to make what I hope is poetic music. It’s that process that makes hours spent writing melt away. I love the fact that I’m so often surprised as to where my poems take me.
JOSEPH ZACCARDI
November 27, 2010
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DEFIANCE
When writing about the wants of the heart
and the defects of the mind, words often confuse
the end of one day with the beginning of another.
BACK ROOM LIVE! 
