Trading Secrets: Art Poetry Practice

Today is the culmination of over 6 months of planning.  

A reception, a reading (order and bios follow), a panel with the addition of Nori Hara and Paula Crawford (two amazing artists), a networking session and book signings. 

1. Raina (I'm going to intro me)
2. Alexandra Mattraw is a fifth generation native of Northern California. A former resident of Vermont Studio Center, she received her MFA in poetry from University of San Francisco. Alexandra’s two new chapbooks, in the way of harbors and these threads a sound, are now available from Dancing Girl Press and Beard of Bees.  Her recent chapbook, Projection, can be found at Achiote Press. Alexandra’s poems and reviews have appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Denver Quarterly, 1913 Journal of Forms, alice blue, Seneca Review, Word For/Word, RealPoetik, Thethepoetry, Cultural Society, among others.
3. Sara Mumolo is the Program Manager for the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of CA. She co-edits CALAVERAS, an irregular chapbook series, with Alisa Heinzman. Her first collection of poems, Mortar, will be published by Omnidawn in fall 2013 and her chapbook March was published by Cannibal Books in 2011. She created and curated the Studio One Reading Series from 2008-2012. Some poems appear in Action Yes, 1913: a journal of forms, Coconut, Lana Turner Volta, and Volt, among others. She is the author of Mortar.
4. Jai Arun Ravine is the author of  AND THEN ENTWINE: LESSON PLANS, POEMS, KNOTS (TinFish Press); IS THIS JANUARY (Corollary Press); THE SPIDERBOI FILES; and the creator of the short film TOM/TRANS/THAI, which has screened at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (Thailand) and CAAMFest 2013 (San Francisco) among others. They are a recipient of fellowships from ComPeung, Djerassi and Kundiman and have worked as a staff writer for Lantern Review.
5. KEVIN SIMMONDS is a writer and musician originally from New orleans. His books include Bend to it and Mad for Meat, both from Salmon Poetry, and the edited works Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality (Sibling Rivalry Press) and Ota Benga Under my Mother’s Roof (University of South Carolina). He has composed numerous musical works including the Japanese noh play Emmett Till, a river and the Emmy Award-winning documentary HOPE: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica. A recipient of fellowships and commissions from Cave Canem, Creative Work Fund, Fulbright, the Pulitzer Center, San Francisco Arts Commission and the Edward Stanley Award from Prairie Schooner, he divides his time between Japan and San Francisco.
6. Brenda Hillman has published chapbooks with Penumbra Press, a+bend press, and EmPress; she is the author of nine full-length collections from Wesleyan University Press, the most recent of which are Practical Water (2009) and Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire (2013). Hillman teaches at St. Mary’s College of California where she is the Olivia C. Filippi Professor of Poetry; she is an activist for social and environmental justice.

Tonight I will be reading from Boogeyman Dawn with some newer work. 


I'll be singing as a frame the chorus from "Spiritual" as sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock and written by the incredible arranger, composer, singer, musician Ysaye Barnwell.  


Spiritual


Maybe this order?
An owl questions with a human face (88, 2:03.91)
The mouths of babes (55, 1:38.26 - PROBABLY NOT) 
Lately I've grown accustomed (60, 00:39.82)
 #Notamartyr (new work, 1:19.36)
Philomela teaches a child to sew (79, 1:28.59 - PROBABLY NOT)
Pillow letter (57, 1:14.17)
Zephyr (new poem, 1:38.96 - PROBABLY NOT) 
Ex-smoker lament (How to live forever, 1:23.72)

But it will probably be this one:  
"Spiritual"
         
An owl questions with a human face (88, 2:03.91)
The disappearance of fireflies (22, 1:01)
On the football field (23, about 2.5)
All around, he's there (about 1:5)
 #Notamartyr (new work, 1:19.36)
Lately I've grown accustomed (60, 00:39.82)
Quotilla:  Closing the bar (How to live forever, about 2)
The widow's web above the water (How to live forever, about :40, MAYBE NOT)

More on planning later.  I'm REALLY excited about today's reading.