Series A: Speaker Project Reading

Series A
presents a special poetry reading in conjunction with
Juan Angel Chavez 's Speaker Project

Thursday, May 31, 7:00 p.m.
Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell

featuring

Tim Yu
Erika Mikkalo
Sarah Lang
Ray Bianchi
Joel Craig
Erica Bernheim

About the Speaker Project:
Chicago based artist Juan Angel Chavez will create a multi-directional, multi-layer sound experience at the Hyde Park Art Center from April 29 to July 8. Composed out of found material we see everyday, such as old billboard signs, wood panel siding and orange traffic cones, the large-scale speaker sculpture will turn the gallery into a laboratory for sound. Audience members are invited to hear how sculpture can change the sound and sight of music.

Byob.
For more information see http://www.moriapoetry.com/seriesa.html or call 312-342-7337.

What Makes a Poem Funny?

Originally uploaded by tympan.

Lessons learned at an evening of comedic poetry at Myopic:

1. Fixed forms are funny. The more elaborate, the better.
1a. Sestinas are especially funny (McSweeney's). Septinas are even funnier (Joyelle McSweeney).

2. Repetition is funny. Especially if you repeat the names of
2a. Animals (Aaron Belz).
2b. Body parts (Gabe Gudding).

3. Anaphora is funny.

4. Lists are funny.

Most Questionable Choice of Reading Material of the Day

A middle-aged man with frayed pant cuffs sitting in a comfortable armchair in a suburban Borders cafe leafing through the most recent issue of Autopistols.

Tim Yu & William Allegrezza @ Myopic Books

MYOPIC POETRY SERIES

presents

Tim Yu & William Allegrezza

Sunday, April 22, 7 pm
Myopic Books
1564 N. Milwaukee Ave, Wicker Park, Chicago

TIM YU won the Vincent Chin Chapbook Prize for his collection Journey to the West, which appears in the Winter 2006 issue of Barrow Street. His work appears in Seven Corners, 2nd Avenue Poetry, Chicago Review, and SHAMPOO, as well as in the forthcoming anthology The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab). He teaches at the University of Toronto.

Musician, sailor, poet, critic--WILLIAM ALLEGREZZA teaches and writes from his base in Chicago. His poems, articles, and reviews have been published in several countries, including the U.S., Holland, Italy, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Australia, and are available in many online journals. Also, he is the editor of moria, a journal dedicated to experimental poetry and poetics, and the editor-in-chief of Cracked Slab Books. His e-books and books include The Vicious Bunny Translations, Covering Over, Temporal Nomads, Ladders in July, and In the Weaver's Valley. He occasionally posts random thoughts on his blog p-ramblings.

The First Volume of Richardson's Clarissa, As Automatically Summarized by Microsoft Word

brother's address. Solmes. father. Solmes. brother. Solmes's favour.
father's power.
Lovelace? sister, if I married him.
Lovelace. family. father's hands.
Lovelace.
younger sister. man.
Solmes.
sister.
man's own. sister loves!
virtuous man.
mother.
father.
family.
that man!
family.
father?] Solmes? family.
If you can
family.
mother. other man's favour.
brother. family. Solmes.
man? mother's. Solmes!] heart, if any man living does. * Lovelace.
If it be
Solmes.
dearest friends! Dear, dear
Solmes. If
If your
heart.
mother.
father. that man.
letter.
man.
father.
letter. If I did
brother.
MY DEAR BROTHER,
If you please. love? family.
sister--
Lovelace!

Look Out, New York

I'll be in New York from Thursday to Sunday attending the Association for Asian American Studies conference. While I'm there, I'll be doing two readings: one on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Lolita for Paolo Javier's 2nd Avenue Poetry (with Emmy Catedral, Kevin Coval, Thom Donovan, Wanda Phipps, and Sukhdev Sandhu) and another on Sunday at 5 p.m. at Verlaine for Kundiman (with Marlon Unas Esguerra, Rona Luo, and Margaret Rhee). Hope to see some of you there.

My T-Shirt

I am thinking about the parallels between a T-shirt that says

It's a black thing. You wouldn't understand

and

It's a language thing. Let me explain.

There is a whole raft of things to say here about how the label "language poet" might or might not resemble the label "woman poet" or "black poet," but you'll just have to wait for the book on that one.

Meanwhile, I guess my T-shirt would have to say

It's an Asian thing. I would explain, but I don't speak English.