Ear Eater #3: Audio Recordings

Stream audio from the latest iteration of Ear Eater, the Chicago-based reading series co-hosted by Sara Drake and Cassandra Troyan (also host to the spirit of Werner Herzog). This session of Ear Eater had 'performance' as its theme.

The playlist, which you can cycle through by clicking the 'next track' button, is:

1. Christopher Higgs part 1
2. Christopher Higgs part 2
3. Jac Jemc
4. James Payne
5. Sara Drake

HTML Giant linked to this.

As did Chicago Now's Chicago Subtext blog.

Cartoonist Aaron M. Miller mentioned reviewing/editing my poetry manuscript. 

Two Poems at Metazen

Two of my poems, 'Occupy Everything' and 'Poem for Sitting in Panera,' were published by Metazen.

'Occupy Everything' was written in response to the 2009 tuition-hike protests against the University of California education system. 'Demand Nothing, Occupy Everything' was a common refrain for the demonstrators at the time, and for the earlier NYU sit-in of the same year.

That fact that similar events aren't happening on a weekly basis puzzles me. At OSU, after a drastic rise in tuition rates less than eight months ago, President Gordon Gee is making vague rumbles about charging students even more for their education at a public land-grant university, whose initial students (2 per congressional district) were not charged fees. And yet, I neither see nor hear any popular resistance to Gee's idea, or, for that matter, to the inevitable statewide austerity measures to be enacted by the new Kasich administration. The consistent lack of resistance (which makes U of C and NYU seem like memorable news stories when they should be normal incidents) makes me wonder if the reason my generation is  turned off by political demonstrations is that we are too consumed by resisting ourselves through our eating/personality disorders, poor self-esteem, social anxiety and depression. That we're too self-conscious for social conscience.

After all, how can you 'occupy everything' when you don't even like yourself? And if you don't like yourself, are you likely to think you should stand-up for yourself to begin with?

'Poem for Sitting in Panera' was written, sitting in a Panera, after being turned down for a slew of positions, a.k.a every day of my life. I had no idea why I was in a Panera, and no idea what was to become of my life - only cognizant of upward mobility's ephemeral nature.

'Occupy Everything' and 'Poem for Sitting in Panera' are in my upcoming chapbook, Austerity Pleasures, to be published by Monster House Press, about recessionary economics and receding relationships.

In other news, Haggard & Halloo signal their intention to review Assuming Size. 

Pop Serial mentions my poems on Metazen.

Radioactive Moat Interviews Richard Wehrenberg Jr. Re: Assuming Size

Read the highly elucidative interview here.

I made Richard's and Stephen Tully Dierks's end-of-year-beginning-of-year round-ups.

Sara Drake posted an audio-recording of her long-gestating long-form poem 'A Truce with Circumstance.'

Monster House Press signals its intention to release my upcoming chapbook Austerity Pleasures as well as a chapbook by a new Columbusite, Joshua Kleinberg.

BTW, Monster House Press is now a co-operative venture with full vision, dental and health benefits for Ryan Eilbeck, Joshua Kleinberg, Jack Ramunni and Richard Wehrenberg Jr.

Two Poems at Slingshot Litareview

Two poems of mine, 'Books Of Love' and 'Ice Cream Etiquette,' were just published at Slingshot Litareview.

Playlet at the Ozone Park Journal

Louis Riel

Ryan Starinsky (Sidekicks, Slugging Percentage, What Gives, Amelia, Letters) and I wrote a playlet while on the Lose The Tude tour in Canada. It's entitled Louis Riel, Do You Know How I Feel? and it was just published by Ozone Park Journal. Ozone is a literary journal put out by the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College of the City University of New York. 

Lous Riel... is an elderly dog walker's extended, bewildered lament. It's free to all who wish to perform it.

New Poems

Classified Déclassée 

Q: But, do you love me?

A: ‘I consider myself a revolutionary communist.’

(Burned on the return, ash met dirt with marked éclat.)

Preview Of My Upcoming Chapbook, "Us out of North America and/or Austerity Pleasures."

   A UST ERIT YPLEAS IRS

AUSTERITY PLEASURES 

A USTERITY PLAISI RS 

Or download.

Also, a review of Assuming Size at The Cold Cup Cafe.

Aarthi unilaterally published a desperate Facebook conversation.

Aarthi unilaterally published a Facebook playlet recounting my self-worth's skirmish with the Canadian border guard.

At Pop Serial Stephen Tully Dierks reads poems from Assuming Size.

Arty Party is back in stock at Quimby's in Chicago, IL. Assuming Size is also for sale at Quimby's but not through its online store.

Ryan Starinsky and I have a playlet entitled Louis Riel, Do You Know How I Feel? in Ozone Park Journal's next issue. Who wants to stage the first production?

Poems

I wrote poems about paintings, unicorns, dreams, poetry, poverty, maybe-soon-to-be defunct companies, ice cream and math.

Assuming Size Poetry Chapbook Is Out

Assuming Size; cover drawing by Maryn Jones.

Monster House Press, an ad-hoc organization of people who make alcoholic cider on the second floor, has just released a four-way poetry chapbook entitled Assuming Size. The authorial quartet in question is comprised of Jordan Castro, Ryan J., Richard Wehrenberg Jr., and myself. Maryn Jones drew the cover image and Wehrenberg provided the editorial direction and design scheme. The covers were then screenprinted by Shout Out Loud Prints. It looks and feels very nice. It has hand sewn binding even.

Four poems of mine are printed in Assuming Size: "How I Smelled On I-90," "Arthur Danto," "Nature Morte," and "One-Of-Everything." Jordan's 2 poems are very good. Ryan's 3 poems are very good. Richard's 2 poems are very good. As Ryan said on Friends and Wieners, this is probs a coattails. I am fine with that.

You may purchase Assuming Size for $2.00. There are eleven poems in it. This is less than twenty cents per poem. To place an order, email richardwehrenbergjr@gmail.com. 

A reading in support of Assuming Size takes place at Kafe Kerouac in Columbus, Ohio on Nov. 27th at 8 p.m. There will also be a reading in Oberlin, Ohio on Nov. 10th and a reading in Kent, Ohio at a date to be determined later.

If you are interested in reviewing Assuming Size or doing an interview in support of it for your blog, web site, or newspaper, send an email to monsterhousepress@gmail.com.

Assuming Size has a Goodreads page.

Pop Serial reblogged this news. 

BTW: James Payne Bedroom Concert Series is very much back in action.

New Poems

OCCUPY EVERYTHING

In all capitals, all the time

OCCUPY EVERYTHING
OCCUPY EVERYTHING
OCCUPY EVERYTHING

but I don’t even feel like
being in my own body. 

My Poem With Subtle Dutch Themes After Being Translated Into Dutch and Then Translated Back Into English Five Times By http://www.freetranslation.com/

Before:

In remembrance of lemonade and gin: the Chicago spring.

When we dance we dance
a dance of windmills,
stationary and flailing,
We "produce that energy."
--------------------------------
Floods and tulips and still lives,
I get life's brevity.


After:


In memory of lemon lemon lemon lemonade and gin: the Chicago source.

When we we a dance of wind mills,
stationair and swing game dance dance,
We "vegetables that energy"
 --------------------------------
 Tides and tulips and lives still,
 gets I the kortheid of life.

THIS PIECE OF WORK IS PART OF A LARGER PROJECT THAT IS INDICATIVE OF MY PRACTICE

This piece of work is part of a larger project that is indicative of my practice

For most artists who go to art school to study art and produce what the outside world calls “art” it doesn’t suffice to say “this is my art” or “I am an artist.” Clearly, those wordings are just too clear.

Some straw men would say those phrases smack of pomposity and they would go on to repeat “I am an artist” using the French “artiste” to make everyone aware of the pretentiousness it entails. But if avoiding pretentiousness is the goal of avoiding the word “art” one would think the term “maker,” as it is one step away from the godly “creator,” would seem a bit inflated. But no, “maker” is trending toward ubiquity on art school campuses and “a creative” is already mainstream terminology. It seems anything – as long as it is not “art” and “artist” – is fine to call art and artists.

For those in the unlucky position of having to talk to the products of the artist-intellectual complex, those unwashed masses “looking for funding” because they are “working on a project,” you will be all too familiar with the following terms, which are usually preceded by a “my.”

  “piece”            “practice”          “work”          “project”

New Poems

BHL & Oxford, NC

I want to be Charlie Rose,

a lot.

Have a farm in North Carolina,

get too excited around architects.

Just don't want to be friends with BHL.

Don't like BHL.

            T  H  A  T   S  O  N  G

                Illustration by Sara Drake

New Poems

Two new poems: Recollections of How I Smelled on I-90 and 22 For Babe's Blues (For Babe's 22).

An excerpt:

                I smelled like the exculpations of

                The weight of the world,
                The palimpsest
                Of justification
                And whateverness.

They are after "The Jump."

America and 3 Other Poems

Newsies.

Cat Pack For AEM

                                 Cat Pack Portraits by Sara Drake-Wain

On the occasion of Anne Elizabeth Moore's birthday month, Sara Drake and I hatched together a gift cat pack inspired by Sara's currently gestating comics biography of Louis Wain and Anne's two kit-kats. Sara painted these frisky portraits of Thurber and All Girl Metal Band while I wrote them honorific poems - Thurber's details his careening addiction to catnip while All Girl Metal Band's is an eponymous investigation into the world of discrimination and metal show flyers. The poems may be read after "the jump."

2 New Poems & Submitted Slogans

Besides The Biz Markie Interpolation

It seemed
all the raps
that you rapped

while standing in the subway

were strictly themed
on not wanting to be
rapping while standing in the subway

Implied: An SAIC Creative Writing Guild Publication March 2010

I recently had a story published with an illustration by Sara Drake in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Creative Writing Guild's publication "Implied." The issue is thematically arranged around the word "Implied", which, I guess, is implied. The issue was edited by Jeni Crone. The Creative Writing Guild's site can be found here. Issues are currently free for pickup at SAIC.

New Poems

I wrote four new poems.
They are after "the jump."

Also, David Leighty made a portrait of me. It captures the scorched earth of my soul.