Zombie Living Room Tue 11.1.11 7P

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Splabman

The Uncanny

It’s alive! Or is it? Genre writers know how to make your skin crawl. A favorite item in their toolkit: The uncanny. I don’t just mean something spooky. I mean something that seems familiar but also  strange. Think of the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Why do they creep us out? Freud has a theory (http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf ). So do robotics engineers (http://www.movingimages.info/digitalmedia/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/MorUnc.pdf). Intriguing enough, but tonight we’ll practice the uncanny, first by looking at examples from some masters, then by revising our own poems that didn’t quite work. Bring an old poem that seems too ordinary and we’ll drop a zombie on it. Scot Brannon is your facilitator.

Uncanny Valley

Writers of all ages and skill levels gather Tuesdays at 7P to read new work, the work of someone else or to just be in the engaging company of other writers. Your donation of $5 helps SPLAB continue our programming. Please bring 8 copies of the work you plan to read. If you do not bring copies, they are available for 10c.

Living Room happens in the new SPLAB in the Cultural Corner of the old Columbia School, between Rainier AV S and 36th AV S, on Edmunds. We’re 2 blocks from the Columbia City Link Light Rail Station. (Parking is available on the school grounds.)

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Living Room 10.25.11 B.Y.O.D – 7P

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Splabman

Have you had an absurd or incomprehensible dream lately?  Rich subconscious secrets and great poems cleverly hide behind and between dream images.  Often the more absurd the inviting dream and its connections are, the more rich meaning resides.  It is our linear mind that balks from the  fearful yearnings of the dreaming soul.  Please bring a recent or past baffling dream, the more absurd the better,  and be ready to unlock it with an existential dream exercise.  Be prepared to step back into the cosmological mêlée of you dream and see what happens.   Joe Chiveney is your facilitator.

Got Weird Dreams?

Writers of all ages and skill levels gather Tuesdays at 7P to read new work, the work of someone else or to just be in the engaging company of other writers. Your donation of $5 helps SPLAB continue our programming. Please bring 8 copies of the work you plan to read. If you do not bring copies, they are available for 10c.

Living Room happens in the new SPLAB in the Cultural Corner at 3651 S. Edmunds. (Look for the SPLAB sign on the wall and come inside.) We’re 2 blocks from the Columbia City Link Light Rail Station. (Parking is available on the school grounds.)


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Writing Love and Sex: In the Spirit of Carolee Schneemann

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Splabman

From Jeanne Heuving:

Do come, reserve tickets with Henry (or take your chances), and forward this
announcement:

The Henry Art Gallery, UW Bothell MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics, and
Writing For Their Lives presents:

Dodie Bellamy & Kevin Killian

DODIE BELLAMY, KEVIN KILLIAN, CARLA HARRYMAN, REBECCA BROWN

Writing Love and Sex:  In the Spirit of Carolee Schneemann
In conjunction with the Henry Art Gallery retrospective of the work of
Carolee Schneemann, four literary artists “in the spirit of Carolee” read
and perform their work.

Thursday, Oct 20, 7 p.m. , Henry Art Gallery Auditorium

Dodie Bellamy is a novelist, poet, critic and cultural journalist. Her most
recent book is the buddhist, an essayistic memoir based on her blog,
Belladodie. Her book Cunt-Ups won the 2002 Firecracker Alternative Book
Award for poetry. Other books include Academonia, Pink Steam, and The
Letters of Mina Harker. Kevin Killian has written two novels, Shy and Arctic Summer, a book of
memoirs, Bedrooms Have Windows and three books of stories, Little Men, I Cry
Like a Baby, and Impossible Princess; two books of poetry, Argento Series
(2001), and Action Kylie (2008).

Carla Harryman

Rebecca Brown

Friday, Oct 21, 7 p.m., Henry Art Gallery Auditorium
Rebecca Brown’s twelfth book, American Romances, a collection of gonzo
“essays,” was released by City Lights in 2009 and won the Publishing
Triangle Award. Some of Brown’s other titles include The Last Time I Saw
You, The End of Youth, The Dogs, and The Gifts of the Body.
Carla Harryman is a poet, essayist, novelist, and playwright. She has
recently published The Wide Road, a multi-genre collaboration with poet Lyn
Hejinian. Her critical writing focuses on contemporary innovative writing by
women and the politics and poetics of Poets Theater and performance writing.
A frequent collaborator, she is co-contributor to the multi-authored
experiment in autobiography The Grand Piano, a project that focuses on the
emergence of Language Writing, art, politics, and culture of the San
Francisco Bay Area between 1975 and 1980.

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The Capilano Review

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Splabman

I pulled this from the SUNY Buffalo listserv from Rob McLennan:

I will be blogging soon at The Capilano Review blog, alongside
Lisa Robertson, Pauline Butling + George Bowering.

http://www.thecapilanoreview.ca/people/rob-mclennan/

*************************************************************************************************************************

George Stanley TCR Cover

Seeing Rob’s email reminded me that I had ordered my copy of the latest edition of the Capilano Review, as it has a feature on George Stanley, and happened to be reading it just yesterday. Stanley was a San Francisco poet who ended up in Vancouver, along with Robin Blaser and Stan Persky, in the mid 60s. The issue begins with an interview that Brook Houglum and Jenny Penberthy conducted with George. They asked him about that scene in the late 50’s that was centered around Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, but also featured Kenneth Rexroth and Josephine Miles. He became close friends with Joanne Kyger. The interviewers get into how those in the Spicer circle were not really connected to the Beat poets in SF at the time, but were aware of what the Beats were doing and that the Beats were more connected to Asian culture than the Spicer-ites.

In Vancouver he connected with Fred Wah, Daphne Marlatt, Lionel Kearns, Sharon Thesen and others, and lived with George and Angela Bowering, so he always seemed to find himself among quality poets. The interview is well done and is a compelling read.

There are several new poems from a series in the edition called After Desire  and one of them is:

The Phantoms Have Gone Away

The phantoms have gone away
& left a space
for beauty.

And the freedom from desire
leaves a stillness, a moment
when you believe.

This is that moment.
Visions of beauty
in an unfamiliar stillness.

They can be spoken to,
called by name.

Desire will not drag
them home.

George Stanley is one of the pure poets who has really embodied the culture of Cascadia. The Capilano Review proves once again it is one of the top two or three “little magazines” in this neck of the world and is well worth your $14.

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