Archive for July, 2012
Glorious Luminaries: Jerry Kelley and William Blake
What: Salon on Blake, presented by Jerry Kelley
When: Thursday, November 29, 7 pm
Where: WordSpace, 415 North Tyler St.
Admission: Members FREE Non-Members $10
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.
Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work.
Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Jakob Bohme and Emanuel Swedenborg. Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake’s work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar, William Rossetti, characterised Blake as a “glorious luminary,” and as “a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors”.
Jeremiah Kelley is an original member of WordSpace Board of Directors, published writer, and world traveler. From Harvard in the 60s to the Canadian Bush in the 70s, he now lives in Dallas with his wife, poet Patty Turner. His work has appeared in a number of literary journals, including Southwest Review. Jerry presented Blake as a multi-media performance at the WordSpace’s Texas Unbound Festival.
Around the World in 80 Minutes: a Live International Webcam Reading Event
FEATURING:
Munich-Dean Pasch, London-Abol Froushan and Alexandra Ryan, Manilla-Edwin Cordevilla, Monterrey- Adru Lemon & Roy Pizano, Seoul-Tae-Joo Na, New Delhi-Saksham Khosla, Beijing-Anna Simone M, and from the US of A: excerpts from Dial a Poet Television and North Texas selections from Between Covers: An Exhibition for Smart Phones.
When: Saturday, July 28, 11 am
Where: WordSpace 415 North Tyler St.
Admission: Free to Members, $5 Non Members
More Info: 214-838-3554, wordspace@wordspace.us
Produced and Hosted by: Karen X, Jessica Tolbert, Cliff Martinez, and Charles Dee Mitchell
[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157630791010642″]
Dean Pasch is a poet and artist – born in England. He has lived in Munich, Germany since 1990. 10 years in London included a 4 years Bachelor of Arts studies in Fine Art – focusing on film and video making.In the last 30 years – his life has revolved around paying the bills – and at the same time pursuing life as art, in whatever ways are possible, writing, drawing, creating palimpsests and making films. He is passionate about the arts and culture – and while confessing a love hate relationship with words – due to a real love and obsession with silence – he accepts the likelihood of spending the rest of his artistic life writing. When asked which of his mediums of expression – writing or visual non-word picture creation – he felt closest to … the answer was immediate and clear: the latter. In that space he is free of words and enjoys that. His poetry has featured in Mannequin Envy, Niederngasse, Tiferet and Quill & Parchment.
Abol Froushan is a Persian poet, translator and critic, currently living and working in London. He studied at the Imperial College of London, and is currently the Iran Editor of Poetry International Web, and chair of Exiled Writers Ink, UK. Abol Froushan writes poetry of phenomenal presence and fresh vision, recording the sudden and re-examining archetypes and universals in microscopic detail. Two selections of Abol’s poetry have been published: “A Language Against Language” (English) 2008 by EWI and the bilingual volume, “I need your desert for my sneeze” (in Persian & English) in 2009 by PoetryPub. He has recently published his English translations of Ali Abdolrezaei: “No one says yes twice”, (2012) by London Skool, in addition to two other volumes of his English translations of Ali Abdolrezaei: “In Riskdom where I lived” (2008) by EWI and “Sixology” (April 2010) by PoetryPub. Other published translations of Abol include Parham Shahrjerdi’s “Risk of Poetry”, by Poetry Pub. Abol has been published in the anthology Silver Throat of the Moon Ed. J Langer and the Exiled Ink magazine, Turbulence Issue 6 and Sententia Issue 2, as well as Poetry International Web, www.photoinsight.org.uk and www.poetrymag.info (see Bibliography). Here’s a link to the latest book on Amazon.
Alexandra Ryan: It is quite possible Alexandra Ryan is half girl, half blade of grass. But really, Alexandra is just a girl. With a pen. She writes her poems with a cold feet and a cold hands and a hot head, with her mind in the gutter of backyards and sidewalks that wither and whence anywhere but here. She is trying to return to grassroots writings, that come out in outcome covered in a muddy immediate.
She was born in Oxford, and grew up inhaling America through the back seat of a
car window. She was fed on a diet of chocolate milk, corndogs and abstract
expressionism until fat with nostalgia and dada. Alexandra now exists. Truly,
madly, deeply. She exists. For her next life, Alexandra would like to come back
a sweet potato. She enjoys music, colors and squirty cream.
Edwin Cordevilla is a poet based in the Philipines. His works include “Phoenix and Other Poems”, “The Occasions of Air Fire Water Earth” and “Ten Thousand Lines Project for World Peace”. Cordevilla is also a public relations professional, an award winning journalist. He describes his poetry as a communion with the universal soul and the common man. “Poetry appreciation is a blessing from the heavens above that should not be confined to the elite, but should be relished by, as much as possible, by everyone”.
Andru Lemon & Roy Pizanoare a hot mess of Beat devotees living in Monterrey. Andru Lemon was born in Dallas, Texas, where one day in the Half Price Books bargain bin, he found a manuscript of Ginsberg’s Howl, changing his life forever. A course at Richland College on the Beats brought him into contact with the Dallas Poetry scene, with whom he ran around for a time before running off to live his own Kerouacian fantasy in the Third World, where he does his best to live a First World lifestyle, making him even more of a Third Worlder.He is currently teaching English, or some semblance of it, to spoiled upper-middle class kids at the Universidad Regiomontana in Monterrey
Roy Pizaña is a young volunteer fireman who is studying to be helicopter pilot and plays authentic Irish folk music. He speaks with a mix of Irish and Mexican accents. He isn´t strictly a poet, but he is a songwriter. He and Andru composed a song together about the San Patricio Battalion, a group of Irish who were conscripted into the US Army to fight in the US-Mexican war, who decided they would rather defend their fellow Catholics and defected to the Mexican side. Roy himself is a breathing poem.
Tae-Joo Na is a nationally renowned poet of South Korea with 32 poetry books, several Zen poetry books, 10 prose books, and 1 children’s book.He has been a prolific writer, receiving many prestigious awards such as The Literature of Earth Award (given by the President of Korea), Chungnam Cultural Award, Contemporary Buddhism Literature Award, Park Yong-Rae Literature Award, Poetry and Poetics Award, Pyun Woon Literature Award, The Association of Korean Poets Award. Besides gaining recognition from the literary scene, he also has a broad range of public fans who frequently quote his poetry in many settings. His most recent book is “Rapture” (2012). One dominant thread of his poetry is nature and humanism, and it has evolved into three stages, changing the focus from individual love to social love and recently to spirituality. According to critics, his poetry is “naturalist poetry that showcases the beauty of Korean language rhythmically” and he is “a poet who discovers the clues to enlightenment from small things.” Besides being a busy poet, he was a dedicated educator for 43 years, retiring as principal of a public school. Currently he is the Director of Kongju Cultural Center. The four things he is proud of in his life are being a poet, living as a country man, having worked as an elementary school teacher, and using public transportation without a car. He calls himself as “car-less beggar”. His work will be translated onsite by Young Eui Choi, professor at Richland College where she has taught Composition, Literature, and ESOL.
Saksham Khosla is a writer and student at Oberlin College. His writing is witty and informed by his studies in economics and history. He lives in New Delhi.
Anna Simone M is a writer at the Red Gate Artists in Residency Colony in Beijing. A multi-disciplinary artist, she graduated from the College of Santa Fe with a Self-Designed major and co-created the highly acclaimed IPI (Interactive/PerformanceArt/Installation) Festivals, and collectively installed Meow Woof Arts Collective, in Santa. She lives in Brooklyn, teaches photography at the International Center of Photography, has shown in numerous galleries, read in numerous venues and is a regular contributor to The End of Being.
WordSpace was among the first to use webcam technology to present artists skyped in from around the world for public large screen view. Skype readings by individual writers has been a regular feature of WordSpace programming since 2009. Last Fall, Charles Dee Mitchell created an experimental project at the MAC, entitled Between Covers: An Exhibition for Smart Phones, archiving north Texas writers videotaped readings, wall mounted them in large QR code that, when accessed with a smart phone app, linked the viewer to a website that played the readings over the phone.
Karen X’s Dial a Poet Television project, sponsored in the mid-80s-through the early 90s, by Paris Records, was part of a weekly Arts Live night curated and executive produced by James Chefchis at Dallas Cable Access TV. featuring live broadcast experimental television shows. Producers of the regular time slots included Bart Weiss, Susan Teegarden, Paul Quigg, Dave Dennard and others. On Dial a Poet Television, writers phoned in across the country and around the world, reading live to ambient video artists, curated and art directed by Dave Hynds from his his and Susie Riddle‘s collection as video programmers for the Starck Club. Among those who participated were Gregory Corso, Ira Cohen, Andrei Voznesensky, William Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg, Andrei Codrescu, Jello Biafra, Robert Creeley, and hundreds of other well known and emerging artists around the U.S., the world, and Dallas. The St. Mark’s Poetry Project, directed by Richard Hell, were regular contributors.
Jessica Tolbert is a creative writing student at Oberlin College and WordSpace Intern Program Coordinator, 2012.
Charles Dee Mitchell is immediate past president of WordSpace and co-chair, Programs
Karen X Minzer is director of WordSpace and co-chair, Programs
Cliff Martinez is a cyber sultan.
Videotaped by Steve Paul Productions
