Kinda late to be posting “Best of” lists but the fact that NPR has not one but two lists of “Best Graphic Novels” is da bomb.
• NPR’s Best Superhero Graphic Novels Of 2008
• NPR’s Best Graphic Novels Of 2008
I’ll be having these lists in mind the next time Barb and I hit our favorite graphic novel comic book store– Berkeley’s Comic Relief.
Shout out to Flashlight Worthy for pointing the lists out and putting up their own comment stream.
I’m already revving up for National Poetry Writing Month’s challenge of writing 30 poems in 30 days. Last year’s attempt resulted in 21 poems over the course of the month and most of those poems ended up becoming Palimpsest. In fact, there is only one poem in that chapbook that doesn’t have its roots in NaPoWriMo ’08 and that’s “Fire Escape.”
“Fire Escape” was written while looking over black and white photos of old fire escapes, most especially this incredible image from Stanley Forman, and after having read Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “Hidden Door,” a poem that really didn’t thrill me on first and subsequent reads. So why write a poem after it? Well, the idea of a hidden door, especially one on Anywhere Avenue, just wouldn’t let me go and the idea for it kept passing through my head which for me is like a poetry alarm clock that is yelling, “Write the poem!”
So to bridge last year’s NaPoWriMo with this year’s attempt to get out 30 poems in 30 days, all the poems this year will be some form of refacimento: poems written after or (as I recently saw somewhere) against a previously written poem. They may also take the form of collage text or centos (Peep last year’s “The Ice Worker Lives”) or some kind of found text. The trick will be to find some kind of thread that will bind them all together and then to be able to incorporate them into my current ms.
I know that this challenge is still 6 weeks away but poems, chapbook, and themes have a way of living in my head for a while before they actually become first drafts. Kinda like the way a freestyle rapper or other improvisational artist has a list of scenarios planned before the actual freestyle moment hits and creates the illusion of spontaneity or, as Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka would say, “Improvisation is a parlor trick.”
Big ups should go to Mary Oliver and her very excellent A Poetry Handbook for putting it in my head that poets should go through the process of step-by-step learning like any other artist–think how an apprentice painter, no matter what style they wish to pursue, has to draw a nude or a bowl of fruit in class. In this same way I’ve tried to figure out the rhythms and tones of writers before me by going over their work step-by-step.
I already have some text to help me get through this and look forward to finishing up DJ Spooky’s Sound Unbound, which happens to contain Jonathan Lethem’s very excellent “The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism”, a must read if you are interested in mosaic text; revisiting Javier Huerta’s thoughts on the Advertisement and his use of it in ; try to learn some more from the man who first introduced me to cut-up and collage, the innovator of the scratch, Grandmaster Flash; and listening to more Fania era breakbeats, basslines, and bugalús.
In keeping with the spirit of the remix, here is where I picked up the term refacimento:
On Language: Rifacimento
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Published: February 15, 2009
In re: repurpose, rebrand, remix, remash.Other old citations prefer refacimento, pronounced re-FATCH-i-men-toe, from the Italian word taken up in English that means, in the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary, “a new-modelling or recasting of a literary work.†Such recreativity is accelerating today, especially in music, suggesting to me an updating to “the radical refashioning of a work of art, often by computer.†It has spawned a new set of synonyms beginning with re, Latin for “again.â€
Full article can be found here.
On The Road with Bob Holman from Ram Devineni on Vimeo.
[Barb and I will be here on Saturday as competing lucha poetas. I seriously have no idea what poems I will be reading that night. In fact, the main reason I’m doing it is so I can get me a lucha mask. Ok, that and Poor Magazine is a great org to support but it is all about the lucha mask.
If I had my way, I’d also brush up on some wrestling moves to really put on a show. I’m thinking I’d love to bust out a Shining Wizard, Emerald Fusion, or Kryptonite Krunch but that would be a bit too much. Given the chance, I will bust out a Stone Cold Stunner, Von Erich Claw or a Cobra Clutch.
If you have even half an inkling of what I’m talking about or very curious to find out, you should come check it out this Saturday.]
The 2nd Annual Poetry (Luchadores!) Battle of ALL of the Sexes on Valentines Day
Where: Sub-mission (formerly Balazo) 2183 Mission street @18th st/SF
When: 7:00 pm February 14th ( after party with DJ begins at 11:00)
To sign up as a contender call: 415-863-6306
(en espanol) 323-304-9084
Or email: deeandtiny@poormagazine.org
Valentines Day Poetry Luchadores/Wrestling Battle of ALL of the Sexes!
Your favorite revolutionary poets, media-makers, poverty scholars and cultural workers at POOR Magazine Mash-up Poetry, Gender and Wrestling for The 2nd Annual Poetry (Luchadores!) Battle of ALL of the Sexes.
The 2009 Poetry Luchadores Battle will feature famoso luchador/wrestling poetry battles such as The Poverty Pimp vs. the welfareQUEEN, The Black Cripple vs The Govenator and The Poverty Skolah vs The Akademik!
Emcee/Referree: Javier Reyes from Colored Ink aka The Ref
Featuring undefeated champ and co-founder of POOR Magazine, Tiny Gray-Garcia aka The welfareQUEEN (author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, one of the SF Chronicles picks for Top Memoirs of 2007), Tony Robles, aka the Revolutionary Worker Scholar, co-editor of POOR Magazine and author of Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel,(Childrens Book Press). Also Featuring 1st prize winner of 2009: Queennandi aka SuperbabyMama (author of Life, Struggle and Reflection on POOR Press) 2nd prize winner of 2008: Leroy Moore aka The Black Kripple, founder of KRIP HOP and columnist of Illn n Chillin on POOR Magazine, James Tracy from Civil Defense Poetry, Poet, Mama Scholar and welfareQUEEN, Jewnbug, and other members of The Po’Poets Projekt and many more..
Judges: AL Robles, Three time Golden Gloves Boxing Champion Paris Alexander, and Ananda Esteva-and more TBA
On a day normally equated with cutesy hallmark cards, flowers and candy, challenge your partner (or future partner) to a Wrestling battle of spoken word, hip hop, poetry and/or flowetry in the ring! Singles welcome. If you dont have a partner, we will hook you up. Come with a Luchador/Wrestling Persona ( and mask) or we will create one for you!
The first, second, and third place poems will be published in The San Francisco Bay Guardian, THe SF Bayview and POOR/PNN Magazine online. Entrance fee to fight in the ring is$20; spectator fee is $10 (no one turned away for lack of funds).
All proceeds go to support POOR Magazine, a non-profit, grassroots, arts organization dedicated to providing revolutionary media access, arts education and advocacy to communities struggling with poverty and racism locally and globally.
When do you start calling yourself “a poet?”, as in, “Sister, I’m a poet.”
• When you write your first poem?
• When you first read a poem out loud?
• When you first submit a poem for publication?
• When your poem is first accepted for publication?
• When you first get asked to do a reading?
• When you win a slam?
• When you get accepted into a writing program?
• When you earn a spot on a slam team?
• When you finish a manuscript?
• When you spend a certain amount of time doing it?
• When you decide it’s what you want to do?
• When you get paid for a feature?
• Upon publication of your first collection?
• Upon release of your first CD?
• And what about “author” and/or “spoken word artist?”
[Riffed off of Nathan Bransford’s You Tell Me: When Does One Become a “Writer?”]
