Dear Poets and
Poetesses,
APAL Poets Guide:
1. Tuesday, June 16 -
Ruta Maya Coffee House, 4th & Lavaca. APAL open mic hosted by
Sara Sutterfield Winn and Mark Maslow. Sign up at 6:30 pm.
2. Tuesday, June 16 -
Fadó Irish Pub, 214 W. 4th Street (next door to Ruta Maya).
Bloomsday, A Literary
Matinee, JOIN US FOR AN EVENING OF IRISH LITERATURE, LAUGHTER, AND
FUN as we celebrate one of the most influential novels of the 20th
century. Ulysses, is the epic reconstruction of a single day in
Dublin - 6 to 8:30 pm. For more information see announcements
section.
3. Tuesday, June 16 -
Electric Lounge Slam, sign up as early as 8 pm. $50 cash to winner.
305 Bowie. 476-FUSE
4. Wednesday, June 17-
Movements Gallery at 211 E. 6th St. BYOB (Blast Your Own Breath)
Hosted by Tammy Gomez. 9 to 10:30 pm. tejana.tongue_at_mail.utexas.edu
5. Thursday, June 18 -
Ebony Sun Java House, 1209 E. 11th. Come here the profound spoken
word of Edward "Chippy" Powell as he celebrates life, love
and the pursuit of good music. Being enhanced by the sounds of John
Coltrane, pure entertainment!!!!! Other featured poets: Rick Green,
Harve' Franks. Door fee $3.00 help feed the starving poets. 472-8875
for more info
6. Saturday, June 20 -
Quackenbush's Coffee House, 2120 Guadalupe, APAL open mic, sign up at
3 pm, hosted by Diane Fleming. For more info, e mail
buddydog_at_texas.net
7. Monday, June 22 -
Southside Poetic Action Series, Jovita's Restaurant y Cantina at 1619
South First, from 7-9 p.m
8. Tuesday, June 23 -
Ruta Maya Coffee House, 4th and Lavaca. APAL open mic, sign up at
6:30 pm, co-hosted by Sara Sutterfield Winn and Mark Maslow. For more
info, maslow_at_flash.net
9. Tuesday, June 16 -
Electric Lounge Slam, sign up as early as 8 pm. $50 cash to winner.
305 Bowie. 476-FUSE
10. Wednesday, June 24
- Movements Gallery at 211 E. 6th St. BYOB (Blast Your Own Breath)
Hosted by Tammy Gomez. 9 to 10:30 pm. tejana.tongue_at_mail.utexas.edu
11. Thursday, June 25 -
Ebony Sun Java House, 1209 E. 11th Street, Suite C. East Side Black &
White, APAL open mic, sign up at 7:30 pm. Featured poet Ivan Miller
& friends of Austin Ebony Poets. Guest host Krysten Tyner. For
more info call 472-8875
12. Saturday, June 27 -
Windsor Village Branch Library, 5851 Berkman Drive. Past Poetry
Project begins its third season! We will open with a reading of
"Pablo Neruda" (in Spanish with English translations). 2
pm, admission free. for more info, contact gemartt_at_mail.utexas.edu
13. Saturday, June 27 -
Quackenbush's Coffee House, 2120 Guadalupe. Saturday Night Live
Poetry in the afternoon. APAL open mic, sign up at 3 pm, hosted by
Diane Fleming. buddydog_at_texas.net
Featured Poetry - This
week's theme: State of Mankind
Next week's theme will
be FATHERS.
The following
selections are kinda heavy reading, I arranged them so that the last
ends with a note of hope. My heartfelt thanks and appreciation to
each of the contributing poets.
1.Brett Axel,
playwright/poet/editor of Outlet poetry mag, will read in Austin on
August 16. Visit Brett's web page at http://www.mhv.net/~axels/ for
this poem and more.
Viet Nam War Story
In third grade,
The other kids
In my class
Wanted
to know
Why
my father
Wasn't with
Their fathers
In Viet Nam.
I didn't know
What
it meant
But
I told them
My dad
Was a Con
scientious
objector.
They
beat me up.
2. Kaleel fled Liberia
during civil war a decade ago. He now lives in the southwest US with
his wife and son.
Christopolis, 1986
Going out the
University gate,
a whistle commands them
to stand in state
as the tri-colored
sovereign banner
(with brash brass band
accompaniment)
commences its slow
evening descent.
Most of them regard it
in a manner
of detached, impatient
irreverence,
as they do soldier and
government.
The air is thick with
the onerous loom
of rank repression:the
intercurrence
of ignorance,
apathy,greed and gloom.
A grievous battle rages
in the mind
of the half- learned
common-man- on-the-streets
who believes in, yet
fails flatly to find
good faith in Freedoms
written on Stately Sheets
in the face of carnate
contradictions
of Life, Liberty and
the aesthetic
human quest for
Happiness. Dialectic
thoughts of change
retreat in cold, mortal awe
of the ruthless
soldiers of this Un-law.
This Un-law guns what
peace and progress require
with children caught
and lost in the crossfire.
Selected readings will
doubtless disclose
that the present state
of affairs arose
is historical
materiality
of a nation's
fallacious naivity.
Our Founding Fathers,
eager to impress,
draped the infant state
in immigrant dress.
Could they have known
the future distress?
Could they have known,
then, when they did it choose,
that, unadjusted,
Laisez Faire 's cravat
of silk would turn, for
an illterate,
communal mass, into a
leash or noose?
Here, now, so, despots
have ruled and have wrought
their will upon a
nation never taught
Freedom's the meaning
of its very name.
Further, now, so, those
souls that once exclaimed
"Revolution"
find no differing note
here, between poison
and this antidote.
Still, here, now, who
speaks pragmatists' reason
chances the punishment
of high treason.
Justice is sighted, her
scale is tilted
here, now, so, in this
oppressive season
the germ of the
Greatest Good is wilted.
The poet's pouch of
imagery, spent
decrying this day of
dire discontent
and angst is dwarfed
against the eloquence
of the yellowed eyes of
the children of indigence:
vacantly auguring a
violent
civil implosion,
imminent and near.
But eyes, veiled by
power and greed, and ears
congested by obsequious
praises
don't see, won't hear
the perilous presages:
"There shall be
blood, of children, sacrificed,
to edify the fallen
City of Christ."
3. David Potter and I
have only known each other for 22 years. He and my hub have been buds
for about twice that long. This is an excerpt from his rant,
"America, The Great?"
I often think of our
brothers and sisters
In Central and South
America,
In Africa and in Asia
and elsewhere,
Where our Uncle Sam's'
CIA
Has spent our tax
billions,
"Aiding", yes
training allied governments
How to kill, torture,
imprison and betray
Their most able,
thoughtful people and
Keep their peons,
peons.
What might have
happened, I ask you,
Had those tax billions
gone To teach their reading, writing and arithmetic,
To teach their
philosophy and their history
To help those people
help themselves?
But we don't do that,
we don't know that answer,
Cause we are "The
Greatest Nation on Earth".
So also, once were
Egypt, Greece, Persia and Rome.
They didn't get it,
they missed the boat.
They didn't survive,
will we?
A Commentary by D.
Potter 9March98
4. Kathy Jackson lives
in Dunedin, Florida. Her poem St. Petersburg or Leningrad was written
"after my 1994 visit to Russia, hosted by the St. Petersburg,
Russian Writer's Union, where I met and learned about some of the
artists and writers that have kept the heart of Russia strong
throughout the long period of cultural and spiritual suppression that
marked the Communist era. St. Petersburg or Leningrad is about that
unconquerable city and the poets and artists who make up its beating
heart." From her chap book We Stand Naked Here, copyright 1997.
St. Petersburg or
Leningrad...
It's not that one is
good and one is bad.
You can take the names
And give them back.
It doesn't mend the
wall that's cracked.
Nor warm the heart
that's tired and sore,
The silent hall,
The empty door.
It doesn't bring the
husbands home
Nor cheer the one who's
left alone.
It doesn't feed the
hungry child.
Nor calm the inner
storm, run wild.
You can take the names
And give them back.
It doesn't change one
single fact:
A city's heart is
buried deep
Inside the people that
it keeps.
Babies born into that
trust
Have felt those arms
hold back the thrust
Of jealous swords and
hunger's whip,
Of exile's cold
relentless grip.
And despite the pain
and anger there,
The heart is true.
There's no despair.
You can take the names
and give them back.
It doesn't fix what's
gone off track.
You can censor to the
outer eye
But you cannot quell
the inner cry.
Yu cannot chain a
people's heart.
You lose, the instant
that you start
To command with force:
What Must Be Seen,
What Must Be Thought,
What Must Be Dreamed,,,
When you tell the poets
what to say
You cannot know the
price you pay.
You can take the names.
You can give them back.
It doesn't stop the
final act.
When all the soldiers
have been killed,
And the politician's
voices stilled.
When the worker does
not have the strength
To rise again and walk
the length
When one more mile
would set him free,
To whom does he turn
with his dying plea?
With whom does he trust
his secret fire,
His inner pride, his
heart's desire?
He lays his dreams on
the poet's heart.
And soars to the beat
of this "fragile" art.
Announcements:
1. The APAL free poetry
workshop every Sunday at Quackenbush's Coffee House, 2120 Guadalupe,
beginning at 2 pm. Bring 10 copies of an original poem.
2. Poetry and Jazz,
what a concept!! Well done to John Hawk and the Austin Poets at
Large who performed at the 10th Annual Austin Jazz and Arts Festival
on Saturday, June 13th at Waterloo Park.
3. B L O O M S D A Y A
LITERARY MATINEE
JOIN US FOR AN EVENING
OF IRISH LITERATURE, LAUGHTER, AND FUN
as we celebrate one of
the most influential novels of the 20th century.
Ulysses, is the epic
reconstruction of a single day in Dublin - June 16, 1904.
Place: Fadó
Irish Pub Time : 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Date : June
16 Emcee: THOM THE WORLD POET
Contact # for
Booking 416-7435
Be sure and read up on
your Limericks, Rhymes, Poems, & Short
Readings for our open
mike reading. All participants will receive an award
of some kind so lets
get creative! Afterwards we will have music provided by
Andra Mitrovich at 9:00
PM.
Fadó Irish Pub
214 W. 4th St. 512.457.0172
4. A new series of
interviews with poets begins June 14 in The Poetry Kit
Magazine at
http://www.poetrykit.org. Check it out.
5. Letter from Howard
Frost
"hi Stazja
I keep getting your
E-Mails and having a good read.There certainly seems to be plenty
going on in your neck of the woods.
I'm gradually getting
hooked back in to what my friends stateside are
doing and you're a
little busier than us.
Please put my love to
all my Austin friends out on your address list if
you have time, I
haven't as yet logged everyone's E-Mail address down in
my address book.
I met with Dr Mike
Olendzenski from Cape Cod last Thursday in London and caught up a
little on what's going on up there in MA and I've spoken to Julian
[Wade] in Bristol over the weekend to bring those guys up to date
with what we're doing in West Yorks.
It's slow going, but
we're getting there
Love Howard"
6. From Brinsley
Sheridan in London:
"hi Stazja thanks
for your newsletters - they give me an idea of whats going on with
you guys. Please pass on congrats to all on the Austin Slam team,
especially Karyna and Genevieve. Brinsley Sheridan"
7. From Ross Clark in
Brisbane:
"Stazja,
just a note to say
gidday & thanks, & I've been enjoying the poems in APAL,,,
Anyway, thanks for your
kindness in Texas, & (when I get there again) I'll
send you a postcard
from our Texas.
Ross Clark (the Blunder
from Down Under)"
8. Congrats to Richard,
the guy who left the Electric Lounge slam last week $50 richer.
Anyone wanting off the
mailing list, please e me.
Have a great week, and
don't forget your daddies.
Much love,
Stazja
Subj: Re: Austin Poets
at Large #32
Date: 98-06-15 10:51:33
EDT
From: buddydog_at_texas.net
(Diane Fleming)
To: Stazja_at_aol.com
Stazja,
You have the wrong
email address for me in the Quack's announcement.
This has changed to
buddydog_at_texas.net.
The weekend poetry
events were ok- Quacks was attended by
Hawk, me, Thom, Chris,
and Dave. We read to each other and
then to a few people
who straggled in mid-way.
The APAL thing at
waterloo went well (did I tell you this
already? I'm senile) -
hawk and thom did dueling poetry.
Krysten, me, and Dave
read. It seemed to go well.
Hope all is well with
you,
DianeSubj: Re: Austin
Poets at Large #32
Date: 98-06-15 11:57:35
EDT
From: AARD1VARK
To: Stazja
Dear Stazja,
following is a poem for
your "Fathers" theme:
Off the Beaten Path by
David L. Alvey
My Dad gave me an
invaluable legacy;
An appreciation for
Life off the beaten path.
Traveling backroads and
two-lane blacktops,
I learned the
difference between mass appeal and individuality,
Rather than hurtling
down the Interstate,
I found that slow and
steady can be much more rewarding.
“Look out your
window,” Dad would call out over his shoulder,
Pointing out the local
wildlife or a breathtaking landscape:
An armadillo poking
around in the bar ditch,
A majestic doe, peering
out from the cover of the woods,
The difference between
a buzzard and a hawk inflight,
Forever opening my eyes
to God’s little surprises.
Life off the beaten
path is not for everyone,
Sometimes it’s like
salmon swimming upstream,
But, for better or
worse, I pass this legacy on to my kids,
Though I know it can be
a rough path to travel,
I hope one day they’ll
look back, as I do, and say,
“Thanks, Dad... for
showing me Life off the beaten path.”
© 1998 Aardvark
Studios, P.O. Box 542913, Dallas, TX 75354
it is being published
this Sunday in the <Richardson News> for their special Fathers'
Day section. Feel free to use it for your newsletter if u like.
Also, we have 2 new
chapbooks available:
<Aard Labor:
Motherhood from a Father's Perspective> by David L. Alvey 32-pg
chapbook tracking pregnancy from the <Positive> test result
thru labor and delivery.
<Kids Talk>
features winning poems by kids 5-to-18 from Aardvark Studios/Parent
Talk 1st annual Kids Poetry Contest
Available for $5 ea,
plus $1 shipping/handling from:
Aardvark Studios, PO
Box 542913, Dallas, TX 75354-2913
thanks!
David
Subj: poetry for
newsletter
Date: 98-06-15 13:11:08
EDT
From: vavlach_at_mail.utexas.edu
(Vicky A. Vlach)
To: Stazja_at_aol.com
Stazja,
I keep promising you
poetry for your APAL newsletter -- well, here it is.
I'm sending a few, so
you'll have something to choose from.
Peace,
Victoria
3-11-98
You brushed by me on
your way out
and the wake of your
passing
spilled over into my
life.
It echoes still in the
oddest ways,
like bumping into magic
when I follow an
impulse,
The sweet taste of love
so painful
in its absence
and wishing you were
here
and not just in the
music.
(C) 1998, Vicky A.
Vlach
3-21-98
I am holding your hand.
I see it quite
clearly,
even in my mind.
I want to see this hand
for years and years
and feel it in mine
when I am happy or sad
or
loving or lonely.
I want to feel it on my
face
in all those moments
in between.
-- This hand, so
securely attached
to your heart.
-- your heart reaching
out
in your hand.
I want this hand with
me always.
I want this heart in my
life.
(c) 1998, Vicky A.
Vlach
3-26-98
It's the most amazing
thing --
loving you is like
air.
I breathe, and you are
there.
The wind whispers your
touch to my skin
and lifts me soaring on
a breeze called you.
Loving you is like air
--
I breathe --
and you are there.
(c) 1998, Vicky A.
Vlach
Subj: RE: Austin Poets
at Large #32
Date: 98-06-15 10:11:57
EDT
From: hung_at_the401k.com
(Hung Nguyen)
To: Stazja_at_aol.com
('Stazja_at_aol.com')
forgot to tell
you...tuesday fado seems interesting ...hint.
Subj: Re: Austin Poets
at Large #32
Date: 98-06-15 12:24:12
EDT
From: jacksabbath_at_yahoo.com
(Mike Henry)
To: Stazja_at_aol.com
Subj: Re: thankyou...
Date: 98-06-15 17:14:05
EDT
From: Janhouston
To: Stazja
CC: larry_at_lgjaffe.com
In a message dated
98-06-15 08:54:26 EDT, you write:
<<
here's my first comm
cycle with that arcanum cafe house poet i told you about. i'd like
to see him on the bridge... >>
dear zan,
:-) does sound like a
cool guy, you could dissem to him, yes?
******
yes. i'll work him,
and tag you guys as needed. i started with the closing note in my
first note to him:
Loads of admiration,
(now there's an
oxymoron, as "admiration is the finest particle"
to quote my favorite
philosopher, L.Ron Hubbard)
on his webpage at
insanepoets.net, he describes himself in his autobio simply as
"observer of life, seeker of truth."
*******
I've added you to my
newsletter mailing list. section for featured poems will feature
"fathers" as a theme next week. send a poem if you have
one.
*******
i'm inspired...will try
to make the deadline. you might nudge me if you get the chance.
ml,
zan
Stazja,
Could Phil and I meet
with APAL this Saturday re: Nats?
Needin' help,
Mh
Subj: Re: Austin Poets
at Large #32
Date: 98-06-17 11:12:34
EDT
From: cemgilbert_at_earthlink.net
(Christine Gilbert)
Reply-to: cemgilbert_at_earthlink.net
To: Stazja_at_aol.com
Hi,
Hi,
Thanks for the
addresses.
Yes, sorry, you're
right, April not May.
I can't recall all of
them, but May 3 has Albert Huffstickler, Graffiti,
Carolyn Strickland,
Vinnie Holmgren, Clebo Rainey, Ken Hunt, the sexy
slam poet in the black
dress--Karyna--and maybe another one but I can't
remember. I used about
three of Clebo's because he was very energetic
and entertaining. I had
to cut it to slightly less than an hour and had
over 2 hours of
footage. I cut the British poets Jamuna and Rupert
Hopkins because I'm
going to use them in the English show... I had to
cut a few others that
we will use later because it was good stuff.
The second show isn't
finished yet. So far it has hosts Tim Gibbard and
Larry Jaffee with: Ross
Clark, Don Deedon, Howard Frost, Megaha, Mim
Scharlack, Sarah Winn,
Larry Jaffee... and about 15 minutes to go and I
don't know who I'll
use.