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!
! 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
Marisa Prietto- You’re mine you
February 6, 2012
SUDDEN SOUNDS by MARISA PRIETTO +V
for the text click here
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
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
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
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.
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
Join us LIVE at Conrad Wilde Gallery in Tucson Az Saturday September 18th at 6pm for readings by ! Karen Brennan ! Jane Miller ! Valyntina Grenier !
September 11, 2010
Conrad Wilde is located at 439 N. 6th Ave. #171 Tucson Az.
Life-long Press will be producing a limited number of handmade chapbooks featuring writing by each of the authors!
The writers, their writing, and voices will be posted here throughout the month. Scroll down to see whats up.
Also, 7PM
June 20, 2009
!
*******2009 BAY AREA POETRY MARATHON*******
“An ear and mind opener… this event delivers the real thing: edgy stuff, poetry with a real bite!” –SAN FRANCISCO MAGAZINE
Come hear poetry by: ME * SAMANTHA GILES * CAROLINE GOODWIN * OWEN HILL * SARA MUMULO * ERIC OLSON * STEPHEN VINCENT * DELLA WATSON * JESSICA WICKENS at THE LAB, 2948 16th Street (@ Capp), San Francisco *1 block from the Mission BART stop*
!
BACK ROOM LIVE! 