Please help a poet in need

1 December 2007

“we interact as presence within presence
as spirit twice its equal in spirit
so that a range of beasts burns between us”
--Will Alexander, Exobiology as Goddess

Dear Poetry Community,

Will Alexander, one of our most original and energetic lights, is ill with cancer.

http://www.greeninteger.com/pipbios_detail.cfm?PIPAuthorID=7

The last few months have seen Will in and out of County USC, and otherwise unable to maintain his teaching and reading schedule. Will was freelancing, so his resources to financially cope with this situation are exhausted.

We are collectively asking you to help fund Will's living expenses while he is in treatment and working on recovery. Sheila Scott-Wilkinson, Will's long-term partner, is acting as Will’s primary caregiver and financial manager. She and Will have opened a special joint checking account to receive these monies. Checks can be addressed to 'Sheila Scott-Wilkinson', and mailed to the following address:

Sheila Scott-Wilkinson
400 South Lafayette Park Place, #307
Los Angeles, CA 90057

Love and Peace,

Thérèse Bachand
Jen Hofer
Andrew Joron
Harryette Mullen
Diane Ward

SPD's Holiday Open House! Books! Readings! Food!

Small Press Distribution's

Holiday Open House & Book Sale

1341 7TH St at Gilman in Berkeley

Saturday, December 1, 2007, 12-4PM

(Readings at 2PM)

13,000 titles, 20-50% off

Featuring free snacks, free readings and selected free books (in
trade for your own poetry)!!!

C. S. Giscombe just began teaching at UC Berkeley this fall. He is
the author of several books of poetry and a memoir Into and Out of
Dislocation. He received a prestigious Walt Whitman Award for his
first book Giscombe Road.

Susan Gevirtz's book Thrall is just out from Post-Apollo Press. She
teaches in the Visual Criticism Program at California School of the
Arts.

Brian Awehali is an award-winning journalist and author of Tipping
the

Sacred Cow: The Best of LiP: Informal Revolt, 1996-2007.

Catherine Meng's poems have appeared in Fence, Crowd, Fulcrum and The
Boston Review. Her first book Tonight s the Night is just out from
Apostrophe Press.

PLUS: TURN YOUR POETRY INTO FREE BOOKS

at the Poetry Trading Post

Small Press Distribution connects readers with writers by providing
access to independently published literature. SPD allows essential
but underrepresented literary communities to participate fully in the
marketplace and in the culture at large through book distribution,
information services, and public advocacy programs. SPD nurtures an
environment in which the literary arts are valued and sustained.

Artifact notes...

hello all,

Writing here from the midst of hiatus to "update" the blogosphere on what's up with Artifact.

So what is up with Artifact? Well, the reading series is on hiatus for a few more months and hopefully will be making a comeback in the winter of 2008. As most of you know, I had baby Mina Natalia Benham-Cunningham in May & so have been slightly pre-occupied with that undertaking. But there have been other changes as well. Chana Morgenstern, who co-founded Artifact with me & has continued to host Artifact in her apartment after I moved to Oakland last fall, and has moved to Providence, RI to begin her Ph.D at Brown. Renee Evans, who has been such an incredible asset to Artifact, has also moved there, so we have lost 2 major players over here and miss them both dearly. Chana had been working as our fund-raising director and spearheading our public writing projects arm of Artifact. Now that she is leaving, I believe it's best to dismantle this part of Artifact. In the meantime, I will be accepting any help offered in the way of fund-raising, mainly in grant-writing.

Chana & Renee's departure means a new space for Artifact, and likely that space will be public. I'm currently on the lookout for a suitable spot, so if anyone has any suggestions or connections, please contact me at artifactsf at gmail dot com. I am looking for a space in SF, close to transport, that will house 50+, and will allow booze & won't make demands on our programming. A tall order, but I'm keeping my fingers x-ed. If nothing in SF turns up, I may move it over here to the East Bay...so we'll just have to see.

In publishing news, Digital Artifact, led by Amanda Davidson, has made it online debut & looking towards a second issue. Their site looks amazing, thanks to the artwork of Renee Evans and the web developing of Jay Thomas. In print, I am working with Brent Cunningham and Neil Alger to bring Artifact Press and Hooke Press together which has been something we've been talking about for a long time.

So that's the news. Be well & I hope to see you all at an Artifact reading soon(ish).

xoxo,
Melissa Benham

New Yipes: 9/16 : Meng : Berrigan : Goodman

7 pm
Sunday
Sept. 16
at 21 GRAND
416 Twenty-Fifth Street
Oakland, California
5 dollars

CATHERINE MENG was born in New Jersey & raised in Massachusetts.
She spent time in New Mexico, Montana, and cooking school before moving
to the Bay Area in 2000. She lives in a shack and works at a restaurant.
Her first collection of poems, Tonight's the Night, was published in
March 2007 by Apostrophe Books.

ANSELM BERRIGAN's books of poems include Some Notes on My
Programming, Zero Star Hotel, and Integrity & Dramatic Life, all published by
Edge Books. From 2003 to 2007 he was the Artistic Director of the Poetry
Project at St. Mark's Church-in -the-Bowery. He's working on writing a
couple hundred poems all called "Have A Good One," and is a little
more than halfway there.

CRAIG GOODMAN lives in San Francisco, where he has made videos
based on popular genres such as commercials, music videos, and
made-for-TV movies. He was also a member of the sit-down keyboard
ensemble "The Helen Lundy Trio," with Karla Milosevich and Kota Ezawa.
Craig has also been fortunate to enjoy the work of others by acting as
curator for numerous video screenings, including "Visual Urban Legends,"
"The There There," and "Alone," at New Langton Arts in San Francisco.

* * * *
Oct. 21: Demosthenes Agrafiotis, Dolores Dorantes and video by Katie Edmonds

http://newyipes.blogspot.com

Sailers, Cunningham, & Luoma at Moe's, Monday 9/10

MONDAYS AT MOE’S
September 10th, 2007, 7:30pm

Cynthia Sailers, Brent Cunningham & Bill Luoma

CYNTHIA SAILERS is the author of Lake Systems (Tougher Disguises, 2004). She is currently writing a dissertation on narcissism and perversion in pathological group organization for the Wright Institute in Berkeley. She is a board member of Small Press Traffic and previously co-curated the New Yipes Reading Series (formerly New Brutalism). Currently she lives in Alameda.

BRENT CUNNINGHAM is the author of Bird & Forest (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2005). He lives in Oakland, works for Small Press Distribution (SPD) in Berkeley and serves on the board of Small Press Traffic in San Francisco. He and Neil Alger also run Hooke Press (hookepress.com), a local chapbook press dedicated to publishing short runs of poetry, criticism, theory, writing and ephemera. They've published four titles so far, with two more on the way.

BILL LUOMA is the author of Dear Dad (Tinfish, 2004), Works & Days (Hard Press, 1998), Swoon Rocket (Figures, 1996), and other works. He lives in Berkeley. He did not write or approve this biographical note, but he is a terrific writer.

Naropaens Unite!

Here is the latest missive from my Naropa alum, Jim Goar, who publishes Catfish Press. He has published 2 books by other Naropa alums, Richard Froude and Matthew Langley, both very talented writers.

Buy their books! Now! Thank you!

Dear Friends,

Know you have been waiting and waiting. Well, the
waiting is over. Catfish Press has made two books, The
Margaret Thatcher Trilogy by Richard Froude & Letters
Toward Jim by Matthew Langley. Stacy Dacheux & Allan
McLeod provided the lovely art for the books. Both
books can be purchased from the Catfish Press website
(http://www.pastsimple.org/catfishfront.html) with
PayPal. Both books are better than a cold Budweiser…
even better than drinking a cold Bud while floating in
a lake in one of those floaty chairs. Trust me. Also
on the site is our new Catfish jingle. It was written
by Pirooz Kalayeh and Jim Goar and performed by Pirooz
Kalayeh and The Slipshod Swingers. All in all, just
dig.

SUNDAY | Stephen Beachy | Lara Durback | Martha XIV | 8/26

This Sunday August 26
at 21 GRAND
416 25th Street
Oakland, California
6 blocks from the 19th St BART station
7 pm | $5 or fewer

STEPHEN BEACHY is the author of the novels The Whistling Song and Distortion.
His latest book consists of two novellas, Some Phantom and No Time Flat,
just out from Suspect Thoughts. He is currently finishing up a book
of essays entitled Dreams of Terror and Abuse and working on another
novel, Now That I'm Dead by Kathy Acker, among various other ephemeral
projects.

LARA DURBACK is an artist/poet working with text, letterpress printing, sound
(analog synthesizers and field recording), as well as the book form
and any other medium that can be combined and smashed together.
Currently contemplating humans awash in electromagnetic fields: both
those from the earth and those emitted by powerlines and electronic
devices, and how difficult it is to match a field to a source. Vectors
and concentric circles constantly going in and out...

MARTHAXIV grew out of mud and creeks and still feels very tied to them
despite her current urban existance. at present she is working on the
video and sound for a puppet show she is developing in collaboration with
her brother and a friend entitled, "between dog and wolf." marthaxiv
hopes to adopt a dog/wolf of her own in the near future.

* * * *

Sept. 16: Anselm Berrigan & Catherine Meng, w/ video by Craig Goodman

Oct. 21: Dolores Dorantes & Demosthenes Agrafiotis, w/ video by Katie Edmonds

As foretold at http://newyipes.blogspot.com

"The Persians" in Presidio--LOCATION CHANGE

from the nonsite collectives website:

Ah, the fate of guerrilla theater!

Since we initially scouted the site, construction has begun at the Presidio bunkers, making them unreachable to the public!!!

However, there is a more easily accessible public space at the Army Education Center across the way that should also make for good
theater.

Directions are the same: The easiest parking is in the huge unpaved lot just before Fort Winston Scott. The lot is on your right hand side, about 1/3 mile after you turn right off of Kobbe onto Lincoln Blvd.

Then, rather than going west towards the Coastal Trail, head east across the giant army quad at Ralston Ave.

There will be signs (and ushers) directing you, so you won’t miss it. Watch for the first sign just after the turn at Kobbe.

It is possible to get a glimpse of the bunkers from the Coastal Trail detour. We will try to get some information about their fate to share with you at the performance.

"The Persians"--Performance event in the Presidio, Aug. 26th

*****PERFORMANCE EVENT ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 26*****

*****RIDES AVAILABLE TO THIS EVENT*****

*****BE AWARE, THIS EVENT IS NOT WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE (OR NOT WITHOUT
REAL DIFFICULTY)*****

Dear Friends,

Come see military civilizations collide!, in a special production of

Brandon Brown's "The Persians by Aeschylus"

Brandon's text is a literal translation of "The Persians" by
Aeschylus, which has been adapted for a site-specific performance in
San Francisco's Presidio, at the bunkers near the Golden Gate Bridge.


-----
CURRICULUM SOURCES RELATED TO THE PERFORMANCE


For an artist statement by Brandon Brown on his translation, please
see the PAGES section of the Nonsite Collective website (click on
"Curriculum Resources") at: www.nonsitecollective.org.

For info on Aeschylus' play, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persians

For info on a "literal translation," please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literal_translation

For a (standard) translation by Robert Potter of Aeschylus' "The
Persians," please see:
http://classics.mit.edu/Aeschylus/persians.html

For info on the Presidio and its history, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_of_San_Francisco
www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/san-francisco-presidio.htm

For info on Executive Order 9066 (authorizing the internment of
Japanese Americans in concentration camps, signed at the Presidio):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066

If you would like to share information you have found about the
Presidio's past/present/future, or to share any other potential
resources related to this performance, please send a link or document
to:
presidiodocs@nonsitecollective.org

-----

The cast for this special performance will include: John Sakkis,
Cynthia Sailers, Suzanne Stein, Dan Fisher, Taylor Brady, Tanya
Hollis, Lauren Shufran, and Brent Cunningham.

We suggest you bring along a blanket and a cold beer for a hopefully
not-so-cold afternoon.

The performance will begin at 2pm.  Rides to BART will be available
afterwards, so that we all can catch the New Yipes event at 21 Grand
in Oakland at 7pm, featuring novelist Steven Beachy and poet Lara
Durback, with films by Martha XIV.

For more info, please see:
http://newyipes.blogspot.com/

-----
PRESIDIO MAP

For a map of the Presidio, please go to:
http://www.nps.gov/prsf/planyourvisit/maps.htm

There is a "Printable Park Map" pdf there; when printing, choose
"crop" in order to get a larger image of the northwest corner of the
map.  This will give you an image that encompasses the Arguello St.
entrance as well.

The bunker, called "Battery Marcus Miller," is located at the very
northwest (top left) corner of the map, about an inch below the Golden
Gate Bridge.  It should be easy to find on the map-image because it
has a very distinct shape: it has two small semi-circles bulging out
at the left (towards the west).

The bunker is also located right on the Coastal Trail, about .1 miles
from the Golden Gate Bridge.  There are spectacular views of the
bridge here—almost like optical illusions.

For a re-scanned map of the Presidio with the bunker circled, please
see the PAGES section of the Nonsite Collective Website (click on
"Curriculum Resources") at: www.nonsitecollective.org.

-----

We hope to see you all there!!

All best to you,

Brandon Brown, and the Nonsite Collective

RIDESHARES AVAILABLE TO THIS SPECIAL EVENT!!!!!
PLEASE SEE THE DIRECTIONS BELOW FOR ARRANGING FOR RIDES AND OFFERING
RIDES TO THIS NON-STANDARD LOCATION.

Getting and Offering Rides

To get a ride to the Presidio site or to offer a seat in your vehicle
to someone seeking a ride, please send an email to:
carpool@nonsitecollective.org

Please specify whether you want to pick up/be picked up at the
MacArthur BART station or at the Civic Center BART station.
Ride-givers: Please give details about the look of your vehicle so
that ride-seekers matched with you can find you.

Rideshares for the east bay will be coordinated by David Brazil; he
will contact you by Saturday, Aug. 25th.

Rides from the east bay will meet at 1pm sharp!

Rideshares for SF will be coordinated by Taylor Brady; he will contact
you by Saturday, Aug. 25th.

Rides from SF will meet at 1:30pm sharp!

Driving Directions for Rideshares

From the Civic Center BART station

The Civic Center BART is located at about Hyde St./bet. 7th and 8th
streets on Market St. in SF.

Rides and riders can meet up at the following parking lot:

(Exit BART through the Hyde St. exit, walk up Hyde Street.)  One block
up from Market, you'll see the parking lot to your left.  The parking
lot is in between Hyde (east) and Larkin Streets (west), and bounded
by Fulton to the South and McAllister to the North.  There is a statue
glorifying the Spanish conquistadors in the middle of it.

From the parking lot to the Presidio site:
[PRINTING OUT THE PARK MAP IS STRONGLY SUGGESTED]
Take McAllister to Franklin, turn Left.
Take Franklin to California, turn Left.
Take California to Arguello, turn Right.
Take Arguello to the Arguello entrance of the Presidio.
Enter the Presidio, drive about 1/3 mile to Washington Blvd. and veer
Left onto Washington.
Take Washington about 2 miles to Lincoln Blvd.  (There is a small
interface with Kobbe Ave to get onto Lincoln, which is to your Left;
follow the signs to Lincoln Blvd.)
Take Lincoln about 1/3 mile until you are parallel with Ralston Ave.
There are various parking lots here marked with signs and all are less
than ¼ mile to the Battery Marcus Miller.

From the MacArthur BART station:
Take Telegraph to Grand, turn Right.
Take Grand to 880/80 towards the Bay Bridge.
Exit 80 at the Civic Center exit, veering Right, but getting ready to
make a soft Left onto Harrison, for about ½ block.
Get into Righthand lanes to turn R on 9th St.
On 9th St., get into Lefthand lane.
Cross Mission, then Market.  As you cross Market, you'll be making a
soft Left onto Hayes.
Take Hayes to Franklin, turn Right.
Follow directions above from Franklin.

Aug 5: Sarah Rosenthal and Sara Larsen at Overland Books

The Great Overland Book Company Presents

a poetry reading with

Sarah Rosenthal
Sara Larsen

Sunday, August 5, 7:30 pm

The Great Overland Book Company
345 Judah St.

Sarah Rosenthal's cross-genre book Manhatten (Spuyten Duyvil, forthcoming) was shortlisted for the Starcherone Fiction Prize. Her chapbooks include How I Wrote This Story (Margin to Margin, 2001), sitings (a+bend, 2000), and not-chicago (Melodeon, 1998). Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous journals such as Xcp (Cross-Cultural Poetics), 26, Bird Dog, Aufgabe, and Boston Review, and have been anthologized in Bay Poetics (Faux Press, 2005) and hinge: A BOAS Anthology (Crack Press, 2002). She has taught creative writing at San Francisco State University and Santa Clara University as well as privately. She is editing a collection of interviews with Bay Area avant-garde writers. She is a recipient of the Leo Litwak Award for Fiction.

Sara M. Larsen lives in San Francisco where she is the founder of Earthworm Press, Ampersand Press & Sound. She currently studies with Diane di Prima and writes for the American Book Review. Her work has been published in 3.:2, Bombay Gin, Can We Have Our Ball Back?, Combo, el pobre Mouse, One Less: Art on the Range, and Urvox.

Announcing the launch of Digital Artifact's online magazine

Hello All,

Digital Artifact is a new online magazine launched and sponsored by Artifact and edited and designed by a collective of writers and visual artists. Our first issue investigates the ways in which the internet transforms narrative and language.

Check it out at:
http://www.digitalartifactmagazine.com/issue1


Digital Artifact Online Magazine

Digital Artifact Magazine interrogates narrative in contemporary culture
through fiction, criticism, experimental prose, or web-based audio-visual
work. We're specifically interested in how the internet, digital culture,
global and non-Western literature, pop culture, eroticism, documentary,
philosophy, politics and war are creating hybrid texts and new forms of
narrative and literature.

For more info about Artifact and Digital Artifact please visit:

http://www.digitalartifactmagazine.com
http://www.artifactsf.org

Artifact : 6.09 : Beavers : Evans : Jordan : Tremblay-McGaw

Artifact presents . . .

A LAUNCH PARTY FOR DIGITAL ARTIFACT MAGAZINE!

David BEAVERS
Renee EVANS
Judith JORDAN
Robin TREMBLAY-MC GAW

Saturday, June 9th, 2007
7:30PM, reading begins at 8PM

2921B Folsom St. @25th St. SF 94110
$5 donation goes to Digital Artifact Magazine

www.artifactsf.org
digitalartifactmagazine.com
digitalartifact@gmail.com

BIOS

David Beavers was born in Santa Rosa, and lives and works in San Francisco. He never considered himself a "city person" until he moved there, and has developed a growing obsession to write about sprawling, mythical cities and the bored, lonely, or interesting people who inhabit them. He lives in the Sunset District, which is a much more fascinating place than you might think it is.

Renee Evans was born and raised in Southern Virginia and currently resides in the Bay Area. She received her MFA in fiction from Bard College in 2006 and is the author of the prose chapbook, How it Burned, and the comic book series The Secret Life. Renee spends her spare time making books, checking the mail, cutting up instructional manuals and medical textbooks, and her indentured time as a line cook in San Francisco.

Judith Jordan can be reached at velcro.buttons@gmail.com. Pocket Myths published her short story "Skylla" in their Odyssey anthology last year; snippets of her poetry are up at the Lodestar Quarterly and SomArts Review; a critical essay appeared in The Abolitionist; she was a resident artist at the Jon Sims Center for Performing Arts (2005); and Prestel is planning to publish one of her interviews in the Learning to Love You More collection this fall.

Robin Tremblay-McGaw’s work has appeared in Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative, HOW2, marks, Poetry Flash, Five Fingers Review, Mirage, and elsewhere. Currently she is at work on her dissertation which examines Bay Area Oppositional Writing. With Kathy Lou Schultz and Jim Brashear she edits Lipstick Eleven.

New Yipes : 5.27 : Sailers : Clark : Alvarez

7 pm Sunday May 27
at 21 GRAND
416 25th St
@ B'way
Oakland
Calif
$4

CYNTHIA SAILERS is the author of Rose Lungs (atticus/finch 2003) and
Lake Systems (Tougher Disguises, 2004). Recent poetry has appeared in

Bay Poetics, Vanitas, Small Town and The Recluse. She co-curated the New

Brutalism Reading series and New Yipes from 2004-2006. She is currently working

on a doctorate in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and beginning a dissertation on

narcissism and perversion in pathological groups.

JEFF CLARK was born in southern California in 1971. He attended UC Davis
for football, immediately quit, played baseball for a few months, and not long
after became involved in writing and the Davis music community. He was one
half of Buick (www.quemadura.net/p71alt.html ) and also drummed on Slowest Eye,
the last studio album of the Popealopes. Went to Iowa for poetry, then moved to
San Francisco, where he lived from 1995 to 2000. From 2000 to early 2004 he lived
in Oakland, and now lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan, with his partner, the poet Christine
Hume, and their daughter, Juna Hume Clark. After eleven years with Oakland design

studio Wilsted & Taylor, Clark does book design as Quemadura (www.quemadura.net).

His own books are The Little Door Slides Back (Sun and Moon, 1997; reprint FSG, 2004),

Music and Suicide (FSG, 2004), and 2A (Quemadura, 2006), a book written in

collaboration with Geoffrey G. O'Brien.

ALFONSO ALVAREZ has collaborated with a number of musicians and filmmakers
to create multi-projector shows with live musical accompaniment. His films have
screened in many high-end warehouses, bars, galleries and film festivals locally
and around the world. He recently co-produced a 6 projector, live music show for
the Illuminated Corridor show on the Great Wall of Oakland at West Grand and
Broadway.

Artifact : 5.12 : Banerjee : Kaipa : Wilson

Artifact : 5.12 : Banerjee : Kaipa : Wilson

Artifact presents . . .

Neelanjana BANERJEE
Summi KAIPA
Emily WILSON

Saturday, May 12, 2007
7:30PM, reading begins at 8PM

2921B Folsom St. @25th St. SF 94110

$5 donation goes to Digital Artifact online magazine - coming in June!

www.artifactsf.org
artifactsf@gmail.com

BIOS

Neelanjana Banerjee's writing has been published in the Asian Pacific American Writers' Journal, Kitchen Sink, Nimrod, Ellipsis, Suspect Thoughts and others. She is putting the finishing touches on her MFA thesis for San Francisco State University, a collection of short fiction entitled "Misbehaving." She also works as an editor and journalist for non-profit media organization New America Media and Hyphen magazine.

Summi Kaipa has authored several chapbooks, including "The Epics" (Leroy Press), "One: I Beg You Be Still" (Belladonna), and most recently "The Language Parable" (Corollary Press). For eight years, she was the editor of Interlope, a magazine publishing innovative writing by Asian Americans, and in 2002, she received a Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize to write and produce her first play. Once a resident of SF's bustling Mission District, Kaipa now resides in a quiet neighborhood in North Berkeley, where she studies for a doctorate in psychology, cooks delicious meals, and makes slow progress on her first full-length manuscript. Occasionally, she emerges from her shell to charm friends and admirers with a benshi or a reading.

Born in NYC and educated at UCBerkeley, Emily Wilson is a visual artist and writer. Chlorine, a photographic/prose collaboration with Amanda Davidson, may be found online at marjoriewoodgallery.com. Emily has shown her paintings at Southern Exposure and The Lab, as well as Portland's Pulliam-Deffenbaugh Gallery; the Mark Wolfe Gallery in San Francisco has scheduled a show of her work in October. Emily is currently working on Failure: A Novel.

SPD's Bee-In! May 14th

Join us for a celebrity spelling bee to support SPD!

Tickets are selling out fast! Don't miss your chance to attend this exciting event with even more spellers added to the roster!

THE BEE-IN, A Spelling Bee to Benefit Small Press Distribution will be an old fashioned spelling bee but with alcohol and more fun! The proceeds will help support the work of SPD, the nation's only remaining non-profit distributor of literary small press books.

Drinks, Nibbles & Spelling!

Monday, May 14th - Crown Point Gallery, 20 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco

Doors Open @ 6:30 (Bee starts at 7:30 and lasts for about an hour)

Cocktails courtesy of Craft Distillers, pouring Hangar One Vodka

MC: NPR commentator Laura Sydell (All Things Considered)

Judge: San Francisco Chronicle Book Editor Oscar Villalon

Spellers (With More to Come!):

• Cookbook guru Mollie Katzen (The Enchanted Broccoli Forest )
• "Sexpert" Susie Bright (Best American Erotica )
• Author and Stanford professor Tobias Wolff (Old School )
• Ex-stripper Stephen Elliott (Happy Baby )
• Jack Spicer biographer and former New York state Spelling Bee champion Kevin Killian (Little Men )
• Political commentator George Lakoff (Don't Think of an Elephant! )
• Former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez
• Writers with Drinks diva Charlie Anders (Choir Boy )
• Author and teacher Melanie Abrams (Playing forthcoming from Grove/Atlantic)
• New York Times bestselling novelist Beth Lisick (Everybody Into the Pool )
• "Riot grrrl" Michelle Tea (Rose of No Man's Land ).
• Best-selling fiction writer Daniel Mason (The Piano Tuner )
• Award-winning author Nona Caspers (Heavier than Air )
• Novelist Marc Lecard (Vinnie's Head )
• Novelist, poet, teacher and literary magazine editor Maxine Chernoff (Among the Names )
• Poet and former SPD Board Member Forest Hamer (Rift )
• Cultural leader Penny Cooper
• (NEW!!) Journalist, subculture skipper, and novelist Kemble Scott (SoMa)

General Admission Tickets: $50

Patron Tickets: $250


www.spdbooks.org/bee/

For Directions to Crown Point Gallery, please click here.

Parking: at 5th & Mission garage or at lot on 3rd between Howard & Folsom

10 Brecht Poems as Plays

Here's something you don't see all the time: Brecht's poetry performed dramatically:

April 26-28, 2007
At FURY factory Festival - San Francisco 7 PM

Travelling Jewish Theatre 470 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA
415-626-0453 ext. 108
www.foolsfury.org
$15 General Admission / $12 Student, Senior

10 Brecht Poems will be presented as part of a special NET (Network of Ensemble Theatres) weekend. This festival within a festival will feature performances, workshops and panels focused on the growing cultural movement of ensemble theatre in America. A full NET weekend pass is available.

Friday, 4.27 : kari edwards memorial

Frances Blau, Marcus Civin, Rob Halpern, Joseph Lease, Kevin Killian, Roxi Hamilton and Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson would like to invite you to:

a memorial celebration
of the life and work of
kari edwards (1954-2006)

Friday, April 27, 2007 at 7:30 PM
Co-Sponsored by Small Press Traffic and the CCA MFA Writing Program

Presenters will include:
Charlie Anders, Frances Blau, Taylor Brady, Marcus Civin, Amanda
Davidson, Donna de la Perriere, Rob Halpern, Roxi Hamilton, Brenda
Iijima, Kevin Killian, Joseph Lease, Wendy Loomis, Akilah Oliver,
Leila Rauf, Ellen Redbird, Leslie Scalapino, Sherman Souther, Eleni
Stecopoulos, Eileen Tabios, Justin Veach, Maggie Zurawski

The memorial will also feature video of kari edwards

ALL ARE WELCOME

California College of the Arts, San Francisco Campus
1111 Eighth Street
San Francisco, CA 94107

The memorial will celebrate kari edwards' indomitable spirit and
compassionate revelation of body and language. Focusing on kari's
considerable legacy, the memorial will include poetry, performance and
visual art. Despite our deep sadness for kari's untimely passing,
kari's commitment to justice in general and transgender issues
specifically and hir ingenuity as an artist inspire all of us.

Contact
Small Press Traffic: 415-551-9278 www.sptraffic.org
or Marcus Civin: Marcus_Civin@hotmail.com
for more information about kari, please visit the blog: transdada3.blogspot.com


did I not say
despite the body
there is a universe
despite the universe
born waves of existence
did I not say
saying I must go
did I not say
death does not annihilate
it only breaks up conjunctions


kari edwards, did I not say, www.listenlight.net
from the unpublished manuscript Bharat Jiva

Digital Artifact : Call for Submissions : April 30th

DIGITAL ARTIFACT
Call for Submissions
**Deadline April 30th**

Digital Artifact, a new, online journal created in conjunction with the Artifact Reading Series and Press, seeks work that interrogates the role of narrative in contemporary culture. We're specifically interested in how the internet, digital culture, global and non-Western literature, pop culture, eroticism, documentary, philosophy, politics and war are creating hybrid texts and new forms of narrative and literature.

The first issue of the journal will be dedicated to examining Narrative and Global Digital Culture. What is the impact of the internet and global culture on language and conceptions of narrative? We invite creative responses that explore this question, whether through fiction, criticism, experimental prose, or web-based audio-visual work.

A series of salons focusing on related topics will be held in conjunction with production of the web journal. To find out more about participating in the salons, email digitalartifact@gmail.com . Find out more about Artifact online at artifactsf.org.

We look forward to reading your work!
Chana Morgenstern, Amanda Davidson and the Editorial Team


SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We accept e-mail submissions only. Send submissions to digitalartifact@gmail.com by April 30th. In the subject heading, include your last name and the word "submission." Do not send previously published work, and let us know immediately if the work has been accepted elsewhere. One submission per person, please. Include a brief (50-100 word) bio with your work. We will get back to you within three months.

**We accept text pieces up to 2,000 words in length. Please paste your work as plain text directly into the e-mail. You may also send a text document as an attachment in addition to pasting the content, if formatting is important to the piece.

**For images, we accept visual files in pdf, jpeg, and gif format. Please send a low-res (72 dpi) version for submission review.

**For sound, send mp3 files, zipped if possible, at a length of 5 minutes or less.

**For video footage, email QuickTime files, compressed for web, again in the vicinity of 5 minutes or less. If we have difficulty looking at your video due to compatibility issues, we will email you with information about uploading your submission to the Digital Artifact YouTube account.

Artifact : 4.21 : Cunningham : Ratcliffe : Saidenberg

Artifact presents...

Brent CUNNINGHAM
Stephen RATCLIFFE
Jocelyn SAIDENBERG


Saturday, April 21, 2007
7:30PM, reading begins at 8PM

2921B Folsom St. @25th St. SF 94110

$5 donation goes to readers & drinks!

www.artifactsf.org
artifactsf@gmail.com


BIOS

Brent Cunningham's first book, Bird & Forest, was published in 2005 by Ugly Duckling Presse in Brooklyn. Since 1999 he has worked for Small Press Distribution in Berkeley. Recent writing and visual art can be found in Vanitas, Encyclopedia, Bay Poetics, and on his blog at www.brentcunningham.blogspot.com. As the co-founder of Hooke Press (www.hookepress.com), he and Neil Alger have published delightful chapbooks by Norma Cole, Kevin Killian and Lauren Shufran.

Stephen Ratcliffe's most recent book is REAL (Avenue B, 2007). Previous books include Portraits & Repetition (The Post-Apollo Press, 2002) and SOUND/(system) (Green Integer, 2002). Listening to Reading, a collection of essays on contemporary experimental poetry, was published by SUNY Press in 2000. He lives in Bolinas, California and teaches at Mills College in Oakland.

Jocelyn Saidenberg is the author of Mortal City (Parentheses Writing Series), CUSP (Kelsey St. Press), winner of the Frances Jaffer Book Award, and Negativity (Atelos). She is the founding editor of KRUPSKAYA Books. Born and raised in New York City, she lives in San Francisco and works as a reference librarian for the public library.

*Just a note:

This will not be the last reading of the season!

Amanda Davidson will be curating readings for May & June!

Yay for Amanda!

Sunday, 4.22 : New Yipes w/SPT: Boyer & Moor with video by McGuire

New Yipes & SPT present

Seven pm Sunday

April Twenty-Second

at 21 GRAND

416 Twenty-Fifth Street

Oakland, California

$4 would be great

ANNE BOYER is a poet, painter, fashion model, neurophysician, elevator repairwoman, ghostbuster, and empress operating out of various enclaves, conclaves, and clavier warehousesin the midwest. Her chapbook Anne Boyer's Good Apocalypse was published by Effing Press in 2006, and her book The Romance of Happy Workers is forthcoming from Coffee House Pressin 2008. She is also the creator of the art project Odalisqued (http://odalisqued.blogspot.com/) where the remains of her visual/textual collage work as well as assorted dream visions and geopolitical prophecies can be found.

"WILLIAM MOOR is the true and undeniable author of many another man's authorships. Usingmodern technology devices such as email, WILLIAM MOOR assumes an identity, the grotesquefictionality of which is only equivocated by his real appearance. To see him in person is to seehis mediocre stunt double, for in fact I, Stan Apps, am the real WILLIAM MOOR and author of all his poems. Only his numerous plagiarisms continue to inspire doubt: surely Stan Apps is notthe elected representative of the people of Arizona? All that and more: WILLIAM MORE! I thank him for participating in this great façade and self-promotional scheme." --Stan Apps

ANNE McGUIRE's feature-length films include "Strain Andromeda, The" (1993) and "Adventure Poseidon, The" (2006), which played last month at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art. Her non-kinetic visual work is on view in the show "To Here Knows When" at Soap Gallery (1142 Howard between 7th & 8th Streets, San Francisco) through May 12.

http://newyipes.blogspot.com/

Thurs, 4.19: Unitarian Center : Larsen & Harrison

Roberto Harrison and David Larsen
Thursday April 19, 2007
7:30 pm @ the Unitarian Center
1187 Franklin (at Geary), $5

Roberto Harrison edits Crayon with Andrew Levy, and the Bronze Skull chapbook series. Two full- length collections appeared in 2006, Os (subpress) and Counter Daemons (Litmus). “This gorgeous, riveting, improvisational epic shatters the singular viewpoint with burgeoning polyrhythms...brilliant and beautiful in its modulations of flux and open collectivity.” (Brenda Iijima on Counter Daemons). Harrison works as a Systems Librarian at the Medical College of Wisconsin and lives in Milwaukee.

David Larsen’s long record of self-publishing was broken in 2005 with the appearance of The Thorn from Faux Press (Cambridge, MA). That same year, a downtown Oakland reading series fastened itself to him and called itself New Yipes.

At his first reading for the Poetry Center Larsen’s poetry takes a back seat, that he may present his translation of a stirring treatise by the philologist Ibn Khalawayh (d. 371 AH/980 AD). David Larsen lives in San Francisco.

Reading @ New College : 4.20

A Poetry Reading at New College
Friday, April 20th 7pm

You're invited to kick up your heels with:

Brian Teare
Jane Mead
Catherine Meng
Nicole Collen
Susan Maxwell

New College Theater, 777 Valencia St., S.F.
The Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry from Autumn House Press

Small Press Distribution OPEN HOUSE : 4.14

SPD's Spring Open House Saturday, April 14th, 2007 12 Noon - 4 PM 20%-50% off all books! Readings at 2 PM Poetry Trading Post! Trade in a poem or story for a Free Book!

Juliana Spahr teaches at Mills College. Her most recent book is This Connection of Everyone With Lungs. The Transformation is forthcoming from Atelos Press

Will Alexander is a visiting writer at Mills College and is the author of many books of poetry, including the recent Exobiology as Goddess. He has also written numerous plays and essays.

Dodie Bellamy's Academonia is just out. Her book Cunt-Ups won the 2002 Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Poetry. She is a novelist, essayist, journalist and teacher.

Albert Flynn DeSilver is the author of Letters to Early Street and Walking Tooth & Cloud and is the publisher of The Owl Press. He teaches in San Francisco and Marin.

The Open House also offers open-stack browsing on our 13,000+ titles, a 20-50% discount on all books (including 20% off the Plants and Landscapes book), and ample free food and drink.

Founded in 1969, SPD now distributes more than 500 small presses to libraries, bookstores, colleges, online stores, other distributors, and individuals.

For more information, call SPD (510 524-1668 x 300) or email Alli Warren at alli@spdbooks.org.

Sunday, Mar 25: Overland Books Reading Series

The Great Overland Hong Kong Tea Literary Society Reading Series presents:

An evening of poetry

Yvonne Cannon
Sharon Pretti
Cathryn Shea

Sunday, March 25
7:15-9:00

Great Overland Book Co.
345 Judah, San Francisco

ARTIFACT : 3.17.07 : Gluck : Robertson

ARTIFACT presents...

Bob Glück
Lisa Robertson

March 17, 2007
7:30PM
Reading begins at 8PM

$5 donation goes to readers & drinks!
(no one is turned away for lack of funds)

2921B Folsom St. @ 25th St. SF 94110
www.artifactsf.org

contact us @ artifactsf@gmail.com

Bios

Robert Glück is the author of nine books of poetry and fiction, including two novels, Margery Kempe and Jack the Modernist. His new book of stories, Denny Smith, appeared in 2004. Glück was co-director of Small Press Traffic, director of The Poetry Center at San Francisco State, and Associate Editor at Lapis Press. Glück’s poetry and fiction has been published in the New Directions Anthology, City Lights Anthologies, Best New Gay Fiction 1988 and 1996, The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Best American Erotica 1996 and 2005, and The Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction. His critical articles appeared in Artforum International, Poetics Journal, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, and Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors, and he prefaced, Between Life and Death, a book of paintings by Frank Moore. Last year he received the Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Poetry. With Dean Smith, Glück has made a film, Aliengnosis. He teaches at San Francisco State and he is an editor of Narrativity, a web journal. In 2005, Coach House Press published Biting The Error: Writers on Narrative, an anthology edited by Glück, Camille Roy, Mary Berger and Gail Scott.

Lisa Robertson just learned that she will be visiting artist at California College of the Arts in 2007-08. Her most recent publications are The Men (Bookthug, Toronto) and Rousseau's Boat (Nomados, Vancouver). Just now, she is writing an essay on Piranesi, Sir John Soane, and the architecture of the book, for a colloquium in Corner Brook, Newfoundland.

SPT : 3.16 : Degentesh & Gardner

Friday, March 16, 2007 at 7:30 p.m.
Katie Degentesh & Drew Gardner

Katie Degentesh joins us in celebration of her first book, The Anger
Scale (Combo Books, 2006), of which Anselm Berrigan says ""Don't be
fooled by the bawdy surfaces... [these] joyous, meta-ballistic poems
will guide any reader daring enough to read them in a realm where
everything is turning out just like the prophets of the Bible said it
would. You will be shamed by your elders and peers for not possessing
this book." Degentesh has an MA in Creative Writing from UC Davis, and
now lives in New York.

Drew Gardner is the author of Sugar Pill (Krupskaya, 2002) and
Petroleum Hat (Roof, 2005), which received a Small Press Traffic Book
of the Year Award and of which Publishers Weekly says "Gardner
conjures the kind of complicated, childish political ignorance and
faulty, malevolent citizenship that George Carlin can only joke
about." Gardner joins us from NYC, where he edits Snare magazine and
teaches workshops at St. Mark's Poetry Project. He conducts the
Poetics Orchestra, an ensemble featuring poetry and structured
improvisation.


Unless otherwise noted, events are $5-10, sliding scale, free to
current SPT members and CCA faculty, staff, and students.

Unless otherwise noted, our events are presented at Timken Lecture
Hall, California College of the Arts 1111 Eighth Street, San
Francisco (just off the intersection of 16th & Wisconsin)
http://www.sptraffic.org

New Yipes : 3.18 : Bellamy : Campanna : films by Lockhart

Sunday, March 18

at 21 GRAND

416 25th St

at the corner of

Oakland's Broadway Auto Row

7 pm | $4

"ARMAND F. 'THE DEVIL' CAPANNA II RHSP CHICAGO W 16, L 10, K 150, BB 56, .327 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, CG 5, SO 2, HB 32, WP 4, BAA .217 (.250 R, .178 L), HR 15 BATTING H 15, .112 BA, 1 SB, 2 3B SCOUTS NOTES Excellent Staff Ace...Fireballer who gives batters 'the creepies'...biggest break on a back door curve I have seen a RHP have...student of the game, quiet, thoughtful, will teach young rookies...like having another coach...not a misprint hit 32 batters last year...will not be f&cked with...Ejected 5 times last year...Umpires tires later found slashed...clubhouse behavior is mixed, some like him, others hate him...stole Sammy Sosa's Barbie collection last year and strung the heads around his locker...When confronted Capanna told Sosa '[The Bodies] are in the ivy, where your children will be if you ever talk to me again you f&cking prick.' ...ruins lives...is responsible for Rick Ankiel's breakdown, Capanna was a September call up for the Cardinals that year and was upset that Ankiel got a spot on the postseason roster and not him, Ankiel will only acknowledge that 'He [Capanna] did things to my head, he got in my dreams. I can't get him out of my dreams. You devil I give in I will never pitch again!'...Methadone addiction, though has never done heroin...Gang affiliations...strange sexual proclivities...Will only wear 'throwback uniforms'...the devil...he's in my head...I can't get rid of him..."-Parker Zane Allen

Dodie Bellamy's essays and reviews have appeared in The Village Voice, The San Francisco Chronicle, Bookforum, Out/Look and The San Diego Reader as well as numerous literary journals and web sites.In January, 2006, she curated an installation of Kathy Acker's clothing for White Columns, New York's oldest alternative art space. With Kevin Killian, she has edited over 100 issuesof the literary/art zine Mirage #4/Period(ical). Her novel The Letters of Mina Harker (reprinted 2004 by University of Wisconsin Press, with an introduction by Dennis Cooper) is a Gothic thriller updated for the 21st century; Cunt-Ups (Tender Buttons, 2001), a radical feminist revision of the "cut-up" pioneered by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, won the 2002 Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Poetry. Come join us in celebration of Dodie's latest, a cross-genre collection of pedagogical essays and fictions entitled ACADEMONIA (Krupskaya, 2006).

Sarah Lockhart screens Suburban Guerrillas, a work of cultural misanthropology that posits the inhabitants of America's cul-de-sacs as an exotic warrior tribe and depicts their rituals, environment and battles through cut-up Super-8 home movies with obligatory subtitles. Lockhart also premieres America's Favorite Movie-The Trailer, inspired by the conceptual work of Komar and Malamid, deconstruction directed by statistics.

Woolf at the Berkeley Rep: 02-23 thru 02-27

Apologies to ye Artifacters that this isn't exactly poetry, but it is the almost-poetry of Ms. Woolf, as performed by the Berkeley Repertory Theater.

The Berkeley Rep is kindly extending a special 20% discount to see their world premier adaptation of Virginia Woolf's TO THE LIGHTHOUSE this weekend. The offer was originally for Small Press Distribution supporters, but they encouraged SPD to pass it along.

For details, go to http://www.berkeleyrep.org/smallpress

Dates are Friday Feb 23rd, Sat Feb 24, Sun Feb 25, and Tuesday Feb 27th.

About the show:
For the past two years, Obie Award-winning director Les Waters has shown Bay Area audiences the best and worst of family dynamics in the luminous Eurydice, dark and disturbing Finn in the Underworld; breathtaking The Glass Menagerie; and edgy, enthralling The Pillowman. Now he reflects on yet another family with To the Lighthouse, a bold world-premiere adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s landmark novel. Just as Virginia Woolf’s innovative style exploded the boundaries of prose, this production explores and explodes the boundaries of theatre -- with brilliant new music by composer Paul Dresher (whose venues include the Carnegie Hall, San Francisco Symphony and Project Artaud) to further illuminate the lives of the Ramsay house and its inhabitants.