Maggie
A photographer from the Willimantic Chronicle was there, and we made the paper with pictures and a blurb.
To bring motion and momentum to the student voice through the vehicle of the arts.
Pollock wouldn't have known that fractals were out there, and he certainly wasn't a mathematician. He must have tuned into some natural process to create these.Taylor also inferred that his exploration into Pollock's fractal-like working method could help scientists to authenticate works of art.
Rational order is not a prominent feature in Celtic myth. Heroes and seers who deliberately sought out other worlds in quest of power, inspiration or both, inevitably found the strange and unpredictable. Those who returned told tales of beautiful people who never aged, but also of sheep that changed from black to white and back again by jumping over a fence, shouting birds, giant ants and wondrous beasts that twisted their bones within their skins and their skins over their bones. Among Celtic people today, the doorway to the between ordinary reality and these other lands are still ajar. At any time, ordinary people can find themselves, suddenly and without warning, in the presence of magic.She goes on to say:
Edges are rich environments...setting the stage for interactions and exchanges that happen nowhere else. In Celtic legend, the opening between this world and another is always an edge. These include the meeting of water and land, but also the hilltops (where earth and sky meet) or openings in the earth like caves (the boundary between above and below).There is in painting another stunning example of the magic of edges in the work of Johannes Vermeer. In his paintings Vermeer created each of the edges, or meetings between objects, surfaces, materials and people in a way which also taps into all of the comments above. He made an edge, not by drawing a boundary, but by approaching that meeting place from each side, in turn, with its own touch, its own sensations, its own level of focus, truly "setting the stage for interactions and exchanges that happen nowhere else."
AFRO-SURREAL Sadly, the mythology of poet Bob Kaufman almost rivals all we have left of his poetry. However, to place Kaufman within a mere "cult of personality" (along the lines of some of his contemporaries) undermines the innovation of his process and what it brings to the tapestry of American poetics and the complicated and surreal orality of his poems.
Called "the American Rimbaud" by the French, Kaufman lived as a poetic assassin. A frequently arrested union organizer, like Stagger Lee wielding a .44 of devil's poetry, Kaufman assaulted the willing and unwilling (even white police officers) with verse. If you were cool, you knew his assault was meant as a cipher, a juxtaposition of rhythm, image, and sound meant to invite the listener into a dialectical examination of identity, even the identity obtained from syntax: "I went to a masquerade/ Disguised as myself/ Not one of my friends recognized."
Kaufman's poetics were Kerouac's spontaneous prose without the notebook, taken literally.
Think an un-choreographed version of "Amethyst Rocks," the prison yard scene in Slam (1998) where Saul Williams stops a would-be beatdown with poetry. Except for Kaufman the beatdown was always real, inevitable, and though sometimes provoked, never for the camera.Kaufman was the spirit of true North Beach bohemia: the street poet who stood "on yardbird corners of embryonic hopes drowned in a heroin tear," panhandling "with moist prophet eyes" free styles of surrealism, the blues and duende, meant to disturb, disrupt, and ultimately liberate.
Kaufman's "crackling blueness" is distinctly Californian. In poems like "Carl Chaessman Interviews the PTA," Kaufman filters the "west of the west" through absurdist reflections that juxtapose outlaw figures such as Chessman (a 1960s serial killer on San Quentin's Death Row) with figures from California's mythology, all to the rhythms of a radio announcer calling a ballgame: Carl Chessman is in sickly California writing death threats to the Wizard of Oz, his trial is being held in the stomach of Junipero Serra, at last the game starts, Chessman steals all the bases & returns to his tomb to receive the last sacraments from Shirley Temple.
Ultimately, according to poet and scholar Nathaniel Mackey, what Kaufman creates is a cross-cultural poetics difficult to categorize. Though he lived in North Beach and is credited with coining the phrase "beatnik" — and infused his poetry with jazz and Eastern religious influence — Kaufman transcends the singular categorization of "Beat poet." By aligning himself with the pain of "all losers, brown, red, black, and white; the colors from the Master Palette," Kaufman creates a new American poetics — a hybrid poetics of projective California duende blues, an examination of the exhaustion that comes from the persistence of breath.
"Robin is one of the most varied of the poets on the Pitt list in her style and subject matter -- and the foremost feminist poet of her generation. If the word 'feminist' scares you, or calls up some cliché like ‘no sense of humor,’ you should become acquainted with her work. And grow up." —Ed Ochester
THE BATH
I like to watch
your breasts float like two birds
drifting downstream; you like a book,
a glass of wine on the lip
of the porcelain tub,
your music. It is your way of dissolving
the day, merging the elements of your body
with this body. The room fills with steam
like mist off a river—
as intimate to imagine you
pleasuring yourself: watery fingers, slow
movement into fantasy.
You call me in and take my hand
in your wet hand. I have to shield my eyes
from the great light
coming off your body.
When you ask me to touch you
kneel by the water like a blind woman
guided into the river by a friend.
from American Poetry Now $27.95 • 408 pp. © 2007 University of Pittsburgh Press
Also by Robin Becker from the Pitt Poetry Series:
All-American Girl $14.00
The Horse Fair $12.95
Domain of Perfect Affection $14.00
American Poetry Now (ed. Ed Ochester) features poems by Robin Becker and many others from the Pitt Poetry Series.
PEN Slovakia has criticised the publication of a poem by Radovan Karadzic but the line between myth-making and lying is a fine one
It's tempting to use the news that PEN Slovakia condemned the publication of a poem by Radovan Karadzic to criticise PEN for failing to stick to its principles on freedom of expression: International PEN's statement that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression" doesn't sit easily with a PEN centre arguing that a 'poet' shouldn't be published. But to reduce it to a simple censorship versus freedom-of-expression debate does a disservice to PEN's extensive work, and also evades larger questions of what to do about Karadzic's work, and the appeal it still holds to those who see him as a hero.
Although it's worth noting that national PEN Centres are semi-autonomous within the organisation, the action raised uncomfortable questions that are presumably the subject of much internal debate. The last time many saw PEN's name in the news was when Margaret Atwood, vice president of International PEN, pulled out of Dubai's literary festival in February, expressing her dismay at news that a novel with a gay protagonist had been debarred, although she later appeared via videolink to participate in a discussion about censorship.
Do Atwood's actions contradict PEN Slovakia's position on Karadzic's poems? Or, if PEN stands for "the freedom to express ideas without fear of attack or…persecution", does this mean that writers whose work incites persecution of others shouldn't be protected? Perhaps it's not PEN's failure, so much as a larger, collective one, that we're yet to figure out a clear position on hate speech in 'literary' works. Even if we don't agree with PEN Slovakia's decision - and I'm not sure I do - it provides PEN with the chance to further public debate about free speech specifically in relation to hate speech, building on recent discussions in Dubai.
Which leaves the more fundamental question of what to do with Karadzic's poetry. Although few would argue poetry can be used as evidence at The Hague, Karadzic's poetry was part of a larger project of myth-making, like glorifying the 1389 Battle of Kosovo to legitimise claims of Serbian superiority. His poetry is also considered an affront by some because it was still published (or merely republished, the debate goes) even when the Serbian government vowed it was searching for Karadzic: one poem published in 2005 references a remote Montenegrin monastery where Karadzic was rumoured to be hiding. In his poems, Karadzic both rewrites nationalist myths and stitches himself into a mythologised modern history.
One of many sad ironies is how Karadzic's name echoes the 19th century philologist Vuk Karadzic. Vuk's compilation of the first Serbian dictionary and documentation of Balkan stories means he is often hailed as the grandfather of modern Serbian identity, a Balkan Goethe mixed with the brothers Grimm. But his singular life, from his youth in the Serb revolt against the Ottomans, to his involvement in the Illyrian movement, and pan-Slav affinities against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, contains the multitudes of regional identities that Radovan, and other extreme nationalists on all sides, tried to destroy.
And yet, Vuk Karadzic, Radovan Karadzic and many PEN writers do engage in the same ancient act: rewriting myths. A few years ago, aongside writers such as Jeanette Winterson, Margaret Atwood contributed a novel, The Penelopiad, to a publication series on the subject of "myth". Atwood's sensitive reworking of the Odyssey from Penelope's viewpoint was a testament to the vitality of rewriting myth, and particularly its power to reclaim the 'lost' voices of traditional history: wives, handmaidens, servants. Though often dark and haunting, the fiction in the Myth series celebrated myth as a means of resisting life's reduction to (patriarchal? Western?) history-book 'facts'.
Radovan Karadzic's myth-making doesn't contradict this position, but explodes any cosiness there may have been in occupying it, opening the uncomfortable idea that another word for "myth" may be "lie". While Atwood rewrites myths to give voice to the voiceless, other writers hold the power to rewrite myths to silence those weaker than them. Perhaps the point PEN Slovakia raises is to what extent we can distinguish between the two. Recent Balkan history, perhaps more than anywhere, shows the damage myth-making can do, and Radovan Karadzic drew power from his ability to spin poetry, of various sorts, from historical half-truths. Can we celebrate the co-existence of different 'versions' of truth, as the Myth series did, if some writers' versions entail denying other histories, denying other nations, and afterwards denying that systematic persecution took place?
Said the 4 year old,
upon disembarking
into
a completely different place
after his first
cognizant ride
in an elevator.
(cross-posted from http://www.raveneye.org/?p=167 )
When her father, Josef Sarreal, died in a traffic accident last year, Jennifer Tehani Sarreal looked for a fitting tribute for him.
Josef was a stock photographer who also did art photography, so part of tonight's program at Awakenings Coffee House in Lomita is devoted to an exhibit of his work.
But there's a lot more than that, because there's a lot more to Jennifer Tehani Sarreal, 25, a Long Beach performer and educator.
She began dancing at age 8 and in 2008 won the fusion category of the Belly Dancer of the Universe Competition. Her other dancing specialties include ballroom, Latin, hip-hop, salsa, Polynesian (including fire poi), West African and Filipino.
Sarreal does educational programs in public schools, libraries and museums that center on dance anthropology (she has a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Cal State Long Beach), incorporating sociology, history, arts, spirituality and social activism.
Tonight, after a warm-up performance by champion juggler David Cousin, a friend of hers, Surreal will do her first one-woman show, titled "Tradition and Fusion." It begins with a spoken-word piece on the theme "Why Art Matters." Sarreal (pronounced surreal) is also a freelance writer about art.
"It's the most powerful way to connect people," Sarreal, whose heritage includes Spanish, Filipino, Portuguese, Irish and French, said in a phone interview this week. "It builds bridges between gaps such as culture, language, gender and religion."
Sarreal described what she does as "artivism," a combination of art and activism.
After the spoken piece comes a traditional Middle Eastern belly dance, part of which involves her balancing a scimitar on her head. Then there are a couple of Polynesian fusion dances, an original speak-song performed with ukulele that takes a funny look at her first visit to the Philippines, in 2007.
Afterward, she'll dance an auna hula, "Wanting Memory," by Kealii Reichel, which talks about using memories of a loved one to move forward.
Awakenings, which is an event space on the site of a former coffee house, doesn't allow pyrotechnics, so Sarreal's fire poi Maori dance from New Zealand will feature silk strips emblematic of flame coming out of the sacks at the end of the long strings she uses, rather than fire.
The show concludes with a fusion dance that mixes Latin, hip-hop, belly dancing and Polynesian dance.
Admission is $15, with funds benefiting the Josef Sarreal Foundation that Sarreal is in the process of setting up. She wants to provide free visual and performance art workshops for children and teenagers in select cities around the world "with the goal of empowering youth through creative expression."
Funds also will go toward humanitarian and environmental aid in areas near her art projects.
Sarrealism 2009
What: Exhibit of photos by Josef Sarreal and a one-woman performance by Jennifer Tehani Sarreal.
When: Tonight; photo exhibit opens at 7, with juggling by David Cousin at 7:45 and the dance performance at 8.
Where: Awakenings Coffee House, 24100 Narbonne Ave., Lomita.
Cost: $15 donation to the Josef Sarreal Foundation.
Information:
(562) 230-9194, www.dancingtehani.com.
Al Rudis (562) 499-1255 al.rudis@presstelegram.com