New Philadelphia Poets

“The declarations of independence have been submitted for...

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:17:00 -0400

“The declarations of independence

have been submitted

for editing”

~ Frank Sherlock, from Feast Day Gone & Coming

Please join many of the bright lights in the Philadelphia Poetry Cosmos on Saturday, July 24th, for a poetic celebration of Old Philadelphia / New Philadelphia, at one of America’s birthing spots — Elfreth’s Alley.

This event is one you DO NOT want to miss. History in the making. It all begins at 6pm. Once you get to the Alley, follow the magic signs of Philadelphia to find where the reading will occur.

This reading has been brainchilded by Debrah Morkun & Carlos Soto Roman. It will open with an Old American magic spell led by them, and will end with the burial of the New Philadelphia Poetic Time Capsule.

A new America will certainly be born.

For more information, go here.

Come celebrate the wonderful Tarpaulin Sky Press & Spork...

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:51:15 -0400

Come celebrate the wonderful Tarpaulin Sky Press & Spork Press, with a book raffle and readings by:

Jake Levine (Spork)
Gordon Massman (TSKY & Spork)
Andrew Zornoza (TSKY)
…Kim Gek Lin Short (TSKY)

JAKE LEVINE is a recipient of a 2010-2011 Fulbright Scholarship to Lithuania, the author of a chapbook The Threshold of Erasure (2010 Sporkpress), became an editor and is editor at Spork Press under Richard Siken, is on the board of directors at POG (poetry in action Tucson), is editor-in-chief at Sonora Review, has taught, teaches, and will teach poetry for The University of Arizona, Vilnius University, CHAX press, and has lectured and given talks to people in public spaces. He just recently started to eat meat again and generally likes to think of himself as somewhat of a magician or a unicorn when he is not doing poetry or is in a meeting. He also has a brother. He is working on several manuscripts at this time, all of which share the title Future History: The Rhyme and Retrobution. His work is heavily indebted to Fauvism, Abstract Expressionism, Literary Postmodernism, Hedonism, a slew of other isms, but also Leadbelly.

Gordon Massman attempts to reveal with relative objectivity his innermost urges, motivations, fantasies, and fears in hopes of touching upon something universal, to nail the unspeakable as graphically and realistically as he can. Given that beauty also resides in raw irreverent statement, perhaps, you as listener will hear a perverse unexpected beauty in his writing. Mr. Massman’s most recent book, “The Essential Numbers”, was published by Tarpaulin Sky Press. Spork Press will publish a chapbook of his work this month and next year The New York Quarterly Press will publish his next full-length collection.

Andrew Zornoza is the author of the novel Where I Stay. His short fiction and essays have appeared in magazines such as, Gastronomica, Sleepingfish, Confrontation, and CapGun, among many others. Born in Houston, Texas, he has taught at Gotham Writers’ Workshop and in Parsons Design & Technology MFA program. He is a contributing editor to the arts journal Helping Orphans Worldwide (H.O.W.). He currently lives in New York City.

Kim Gek Lin Short is the author of THE BUGGING WATCH & OTHER EXHIBITS and the chapbook RUN. Visit her website http://www.kimgeklinshort.com/

An event not to be missed!!

Photo

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:18:44 -0400

COME THIS FRIDAY, JULY 9th, to BOOKSPACE, 1113 Frankford Avenue,...

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:08:10 -0400

COME THIS FRIDAY, JULY 9th, to BOOKSPACE, 1113 Frankford Avenue, at 7pm for a CELEBRATION OF BLAZEVOX BOOKS!!!

Featured readers include:

Joseph Bienvenu

Michael Kelleher

Christophe Cassimassima

Barbara Henning

Geoffrey Gatza

There will be BlazeVox books available for purchase.

BYOB…. a small amount of wine will be available. This event is FREE as ever.

July 11th Jubilant Thicket: Winkler, Kowalski & Rushland Ridge poet Benjamin Winkler and ...

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:25:40 -0400

July 11th Jubilant Thicket: Winkler, Kowalski & Rushland Ridge

poet Benjamin Winkler
and
historian Matt Kowalski on Paris, May 1968
with local wines from Rushland Ridge Vineyard & Winery

Sunday, July 11th
7:00 pm
Molly’s Bookstore (1010 S. 9th St. Phila, PA 19147 in the Italian Market)
$5 (includes wine)
Open reading to follow

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BENJAMIN WINKLER was raised in the Philadelphia area and attends Temple University. The editor of Splitleaves Press, earlier this year he published a chapbook of his own, entitled Whereupon. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Monongahela Review, In Process, The Apiary, and Otoliths, among other journals.

MATTHEW KOWALSKI received his BA in History from LaSalle University in 2005 and his MA in Modern European History from Villanova in 2007. He has been a member of the FYWP faculty at Temple since 2007 and also teaches courses in European/Global history at CCP and Villanova. His research interests center on Soviet-Russian social and labor history, but he has also taught and researched topics in Modern French history, Modern German history, Comparative Revolutions, & Comparative Imperialisms. He has published book reviews and articles in the Journal of World War One Studies, Russian Review, and the Journal of Cold War History.

RUSHLAND RIDGE VINEYARD & WINERY: The Ullman family began winegrowing in 1968. Ed and his father planted their first vines at Kings Oak Vineyards that same year. It was there, in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, that they started honing their winegrowing skills, a process continuing to this day. In 1986, Ed and his wife Lisa purchased Rushland Ridge Vineyards. That first year they started growing vines at Rushland Ridge. The first planting was one acre of French-American Hybrid, and Native American wine grapes. By 1991 their production enabled them to open their Pennsylvania limited winery. As of today, there are four acres of vineyards with Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, & Chambourcin in the latest planting.

Saturday, June 26th

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:14:00 -0400

June 16th, 7pm

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:00:54 -0400

Come tonight to see Sarah Heady, Tyler Doherty, John Landry & Andrew Schelling.

This will promise to be a night soaked in the tradition of the Eastern Ecstatic. You will love it. And like the sun in the day we will rise.

FERGIE’S PUB, 1214 Sansom Street, 7pm. Bring your bells & whistles.

Tuesday, June 15th, 7pm

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:43:00 -0400

Debrah Morkun & CAConrad will present their collaborative (Soma)tic exercise & poems —

#42: TRECARTIN ALLELUJIAH DEVIANT

at Moonstone Arts Center, 108 South 13th Street, Philadelphia PA

DEBRAH MORKUN & KIM GEK LIN SHORT READ IN CHICAGO!

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:22:17 -0400

Come to Myopic Books, Chicago, Illinois, to hear Debrah Morkun & Kim Gek Lin Short read their poems. 7pm. If you happen to be in Chicagoland, come, come!!!

Stargazing Landis and Fullerton Moths

Tue, 25 May 2010 16:57:00 -0400

JUBILANT THICKET
poetry + artways + local spirits
at Molly’s Bookstore on second Sundays

Matthew Landis Chapbook Release Party!

with lovely chanteuse Liz Fullerton

featuring 3 local wines:
Pinot Noir 2005 ::: Briar Patch ::: Solar Celebration
from Stargazers Vineyard

Sunday, June 13th
7:00 pm
Molly’s Bookstore (1010 S. 9th St. Phila, PA 19147 in the Italian Market)
$5 (includes local wine)
Open reading to follow

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MATTHEW LANDIS is a poet, musician, and songwriter from the Philadelphia area. He is a graduate of U Penn’s MLA program, where his capstone was a collection of poems and as well as an experimental essay on poetics and cultural theory. Matthew’s poems & essays have appeared or will be appearing online/in-print in places such as Critiphoria, Try, Literary Kicks, & EOGAH. He has been playing music locally as a jazz musician, classical musician, session musician, sideman and singer-songwriter for over a decade and has toured Europe and the Northeast extensively as a keyboardist for Brooklyn cabaret-circus-punk band The World/Inferno Friendship Society.
LIKE A MOTH FROM HIS DEAD MOUTH is Matthew Landis’ first, self-published chapbook and is comprised of the first three parts of two related serial poems, “Glossolalia” and “Aphasia” which are bookended three separate, individual pieces (“Our Fathers Were All Thieves”, “Modern Priapeia in Pseudo-Middle English” & “Cresting”). The chapbook also contains an addendum which features Matthew’s translations of Rimbaud and Celan. The poems in the book all explore different textual strategies, limitations, and conditions deploying strategies as varied as diastic reading, acrostics, cut ups, textual collage, pastiche, & neologisms. The pieces all attempt to explore concepts such as personal & institutional memory, as well as the complicated and tenuous relationship between language & identity (specifically the construct of the author and sexual identity) in a posthuman(ist) age.

LIZ FULLERTON says: Acoustic music doesn’t mean much unless you’ve got a reason to listen. Liz Fullerton’s voice, intoxicating and sedate as it is without words, will force you to stop everything you’re doing to hear tales of slow journeys toward the center — the place where our hearts are filled, our minds put to ease, and our spirits brim with wholeness. She will grab your attention like a baby wolf,
and it will be impossible to watch her leave when the songs are through. But you will be better for it.

STARGAZERS VINEYARD & WINERY are owned and operated by Alice and John Weygandt. The Vineyard was first planted in 1979; the winery was established in 1996. The Vineyard overlooks the Brandywine Creek from its south facing slopes just north of Unionville, PA in Southern Chester County. Terroir, individuality and character represent traditional values which we at Stargazers cherish and which result in wine with elegance, complexity and depth of flavor, an intense mineral quality from our schisty Chester County soils, and a lingering finish.

5/8 - Poetry Double Header

Fri, 07 May 2010 12:54:52 -0400

NPP PRESENTS:

Eric Ekstrand, Hannah Gamble & Sean Bishop

Poems @ Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom St) @ 6 pm

Chapter & Verse Presents:

Eugene Ostashevsky, Carolina Maugeri & Kyle Conner

Poems @ Chapterhouse Cafe (620 S 9th St) @ 8 pm

Sean Bishop graduates this May with his MFA from the University of Houston, where he is the managing editor of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. His poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, The Minnesota Review, Ninth Letter, Poetry, and elsewhere. In 2007 he was the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, awarded by the Poetry Foundation. He leaves Texas for Madison, Wisconsin this August, where he will be the 2010-‘11 Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.

Hannah Gamble: A postcard hanging in Hannah’s dining room reads “Hanna is mean.” Upon finding it in a box of old photos, Hannah hung the postcard, though she doesn’t know who wrote it. Hannah studies poetry at the University of Houston, where she teaches Intro. to Short Fiction and serves as the Reviews/ Interviews Editor for Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Cimarron Review, Third Coast, Mid-American Review and others.

Eric Ekstrand is an MFA candidate at the University of Houston where he holds an Inprint/Brown Foundation Fellowship and teaches writing. He is a poetry editor at Gulf Coast. In 2009 he was the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, awarded by the Poetry Foundation.

——

Eugene Ostashevsky is a Russian-born American poet from New York City. His poetry books include Iterature and The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza, which employs characters such as MC Squared, Peepeesaurus, the Begriffon and, of course, DJ Spinoza, to explore the shortcomings of axiomatic systems with the insouciance and energy of Saturday-morning cartoons. He has edited an English-language anthology of Russian absurdist writings of the 1930s by such authors as Alexander Vvedensky and Daniil Kharms. His PhD dissertation was on the history of zero. He teaches at New York University.

Carolina Maugeri: Transcription, auto-correction, revision, & improvisation, & the personal-to-cultural tensions & histrionics that arise from such activities, make up her main poetic preoccupations. In addition to writing, she likes to make music, surveys, sketches, & explores sound & textures through vocal phonic utterances, typewriter taps, multi-instrumental manipulations within interrupted songscapes. She lives in Philadelphia, where she teaches writing & literature to visual artists at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Kyle Conner is a poet who works and lives in Philadelphia with his keeshond Sam. His chapbooks are: Songs for South St. Bridge (1996), The Pulverized Thing of Doubt (2002), Toward Belief (2005) and breaths for f l e s h (2008). He has been involved with the Philadelphia literary scene for over 15 years and has given numerous readings in various venues. He co-curated the Highwire Reading Series from 1998-2000 and is the nominal spokesman for the theory of “Oughtism” (because you Ought to know), which makes the obvious explicit: that art is never more or less than an extension of the way one chooses to live one’s life.

Get messed up on local wine at Molly's

Wed, 05 May 2010 12:27:00 -0400

JUBILANT THICKET
poetry + artways + local spirits

at Molly’s Bookstore on second Sundays
INAUGURAL READING
Sunday, May 9th
7:00-9:00 pm
Molly’s Bookstore (1010 S. 9th St. Phila, PA 19147 in the Italian Market)
$4 suggested donation (includes wine)

A gritty Philadelphian lineup featuring

the poetry of Ryan Eckes

Jeffrey Stockbridge and Liz Moore’s collaborative photo essay on Kensington: While photographing abandoned houses in various neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Jeffrey Stockbridge began to meet and photograph residents of Kensington. His initial focus was on a group of women who struggle with addiction and support their habits through prostitution; since then he has broadened his interest to include other people, places, and features of the neighborhood. In the fall of 2009 he invited writer Liz Moore to accompany him on his visits to Kensington. She is working on a related, long-form piece of creative nonfiction.

….and two lovely springlike wines from Penns Woods Winery in Chadds Ford, PA: their 2008 Traminette and 2006 White Merlot

NPP Presents: Sueyeun Juliette Lee and Erica Kaufman

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:03:19 -0400

Saturday May 1st from 7-10 - Fergies Pub (upstairs), 1214 Sansom St. Philadelphia, PA

Sueyeun Juliette Lee grew up 3 miles from the CIA. She edits Corollary Press (www.corollarypress.org), a chapbook series devoted to multi-ethnic experimental writing. Her books include That Gorgeous Feeling(Coconut Press) and the recently released Underground National (Factory School). She is completing her doctoral dissertation at Temple, and is writing about the social geographies of Asian American avant garde literature.

Erica Kaufman is the author of the book-length poem censory impulse (Factory School), as well as several chapbooks. Kaufman’s poems can be found in LIT, Aufgabe, Jacket Magazine, The Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. Her creative work has been translated into Spanish and Portuguese. Essays and reviews can be found in The Poetry Project Newsletter, Rain Taxi, Jacket Magazine, among other places. Kaufman is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Composition and Rhetoric at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research interests include exploring the interstices between composing practices and non-linear poetics. Kaufman currently teaches at Baruch College, New York City College of Technology, and is a faculty member of both Bard College’s Institute for Writing & Thinking and Institute for Language & Thinking.

More details and other events at: www.newphiladelphiapoets.com

NPP Presents Fletcher & Schomburg

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:46:44 -0400

This Friday, April 23

6:30 - 9:00 pm @ FERGIE’S PUB (1214 Sansom St)

Sasha Fletcher’s novella WHEN ALL OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED MARCHING BANDS WILL FILL THE STREETS & WE WILL NOT HEAR THEM BECAUSE WE WILL BE UPSTAIRS IN THE CLOUDS is due out from ml press this June. In October the Greying Ghost will release his chapbook I AIN’T ASKED ANY PARDON FOR ANYTHING I DONE. His poetry manuscript EVERYTHING HERE IS OK was a finalist for Octopus Books. He is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Columbia University in the city of New York.

Zachary Schomburg is the author of Scary, No Scary (Black Ocean Press, 2009), The Man Suit (Black Ocean Press, 2007), and several chapbooks, including, most recently, collaborations with Emily Kendal Frey called Team Sad (Cinemathique Press 2010), Feelings Using Wolves (Small Fires Press, forthcoming), and Ok, Goodnight (Future Tense Books, forthcoming). His translations from the Russian of the poems of Andrei Sen-Senkov have been published in Circumference, Jacket, Harp & Altar, and Aufgabe among others. A DVD of his poem-films, Little Blind Things, is now available from Poor Claudia. He and Mathias Svalina co-edit Octopus Magazine and Octopus Books. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

April 15th Poetry Party in a Warehouse Full of Books

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:18:00 -0400

So, I think this is going to be good. I think you should come to this poetry party! Poets in a warehouse on Frankford Avenue. Some of these poets live in New York City and are in a group called the Corresponding Society. Some of these poets live in Philadelphia and are in a group called the New Philadelphia Poets. Some of these amazing poets reside in Philadelphia, but claim no category. Let’s explore the possibility of correspondence. Between cities. Between people who live in cities and write things down.

Thursday, April 15, 7:00 pm -Readers feature: members of the Corresponding Society: Robert Snyderman, Christopher Sweeney, Lonely Christopher, members of The New Philadelphia Poets: Debrah Morkun, Patrick Lucy, Jamie Townsend, Gregory Bem, Carlos Soto Roman, Sarah Heady, Matthew Landis AND Brandon Holmquest, Hailey Higdon, Jeff Brennan, and Ryan Eckes. Hosted by Marion Bell & Debrah Morkun. Come to BookSpace (formerly Philadelphia Book Company), 1113 Frankford Avenue in Fishtown! Just a block from the Girard El Stop on the Market-Frankford Line. Starts at 7pm and goes until 11.

Free dinner, free friends, just $10

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:27:00 -0500

Sunday, March 28, 7:00-11:00 pm

* BYOB DINNER PARTY * POETRY READING * OPEN MIC *
to benefit the legendary MOLLY’S BOOKSTORE

featuring
JOE ROARTY & LUIS HUMBERTO VALADEZ

PLUS: Free Body Painting by Stephanie Stoner!

“There is no canvas more magnificent than that of living human flesh.” Images and text from beyond the imagination, custom for anyone.

WHEN: Sunday, March 28th, 7:00-11:00 pm (reading begins at 8:00, open mic to follow)
WHERE: Molly’s Bookstore, 1010 S. 9th St. (between Carpenter and Washington, in the Italian Market)
WHY: You love poetry and people! You want to support local, independent bookstores and build strong communities around them!
COST: $10 gets you a delicious vegetarian/vegan dinner cooked by Molly herself! Proceeds go to support renovations of Molly’s Bookstore.

This is a casual event—please remember to BYOB!
(The most convenient Wine & Spirits is on South Street between 7th and 8th).

JOE ROARTY, by way of bio:
born on a mountain
raisd n a cave

fukkn & fiten
is all i crave

LUIS HUMBERTO VALADEZ writes poetry and plays music and is from Chicago Heights, IL. He received his B.A. from Columbia College Chicago, where he studied Sound Recording and Poetry, and an MFA in Writing and Poetics from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. His influences range from Frank O’Hara, Anne Sexton, Harryette Mullen, Sonia Sanchez, and Amiri Baraka, to Chino XL, Saul Williams, Anne Waldman, Federico Garcia Lorca, Alice Notley and Ted Berrigan. His first collection of poems, “what i’m on,” was published by the University of Arizona Press in March of 2009. His first CD “wat ahm on (ep)” was released in conjunction with the book by Last Minute Records. He currently works as AmeriCorps VISTA Leader for Chicago Public School Students in Temporary Living Situations Program, leading the management of their homeless shelter based after-school tutoring program Chicago HOPES.

Haiti Benefit This Sunday

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:08:00 -0500

Sunday, February 28th

5 pm, $10.00 donation (to OIC International)

@ The LAFF House (221 South Street)

BLEND, NPP & Light of Unity Association team up to host a benefit show @ The LAFF House. All proceeds go to OIC International.

Featuring readings and musical performances by:

Allegra Fletcher, Angel Hogan, Asttarte Deva, Jaz, Ish Klein, Peter Baroth, Elliott Levin, Alla Vilnyanskaya, Greg Bem, Sarah Heady, Courtney Bambrick, Debrah Morkun, Francesca Costanzo, Iain Pollock, Tamara Oakman, & Nate Graham

Thanks!

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:12:29 -0500

Thanks to everyone who made it to the Magic Gardens yesterday for NPP’s poem and chapbook making event.

Together we added bunches of poems & nearly thirty chapbooks to the world. Be proud.

They were weird & wonderful &, more often than not, about cats.

Special thanks to the Garden’s staff for making the afternoon happen!

Jan 16: NPP to NYC

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:16:00 -0500

REDEMPTIVE STRIKE: RECKONING THE DECADE

At the beginning of the century, we found ourselves in a dark wood. The past ten years saw the collapse of the Twin Towers, the marriage of religious fundamentalism and global politics, and the rise of digital communities. With this in mind, The New Philadelphia Poets launch a redemptive strike on the past decade. Join us for a reconsideration of this yet unnamed era.

Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery)

Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010

6:00 pm, $6.00

Featuring: Gregory Bem, Sarah Heady, Debrah Morkun, Patrick Lucy, Angel Hogan, Matthew Landis, Carlos Soto Román, and Jamie Townsend.

Audio: 12/8 Highwire Gallery

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:51:10 -0500

Audio from the 12/8/09 reading at the Highwire Gallery is up. The night includes music by Josh Carrigan, two sets by Cuddle Magic, and readings by Greg Bem, Patrick Lucy, Sarah Heady, Debrah Morkun, Matthew Landis, Carlos Soto Román, and Jamie Townsend.

The recording is available for download at Greg Bem’s blog »