(A video of the reading can be found at the bottom of this page)

Maria Garcia Teutsch
&
Danusha Laméris

Sunday, September 13, 2:00 p.m. via Zoom

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Ladies and Gentleman,

I’d like to introduce you to the collection, Talking Doll, by J. Hope Stein, published by Dancing Girl Press. What is wrought here in this collection is Genesis and the Big Bang birthing a corporate reality where everything and nothing is co-opted. First published in the 2012 issue of Ping-Pong, “The Invention of the Talking Doll,” is an example of what I am talking about: Read More >

Ping-Pong Free Press’ 4th Annual Speech is Not Free gathering: Writers Against Fascism and for Freedom of the Press. Ping-Pong Free Press  and Poet Republik Ltd. gathered at the Howl! Happening Gallery in the Bowery to feature readings by writers who oppose fascism and dictatorships, and who are for freedom of the press and against totalitarian notions of state-sponsored propaganda. Read More >

Here’s a groovy interview with me conducted by Climate Activist, Dan Linehan for Monterey Poetry Review

Thank you to editor Jillian Mukavetz and womens quarterly conversation for asking me really smart and fun questions.

Here’s the introduction to the interview, for the full text please click here:

womens quarterly conversation profile in poetics with Maria Garcia Teutsch

You are sitting beneath the shade of a coral curtain. The curtain was created by ‘we’ hand-strung ornaments, balanced from sandy trees in the Far East. In the Western hemisphere of the world ‘I’ stretch out my legs on a plush Ikea perch, making sure to check if ‘I’ have enough. Carbon dioxide cartridges for my home made sparkling mineral beverage, for example. Take a step away from the romanticization of these images and ask yourself the following. Does patriarchal structure and commodification depend on its cultural configuration? How does self and subjugation interplay in the conversation? Does identity depend on its soil? We converse today with Maria Garcia Teutsch: a writer whose journey in this interview begins as a young girl planter of wishes. Read More >

I would like to thank Heather McHugh and the editors at Minerva Rising journal for selecting my collection of poems, The Revolution Will Have its Sky, which will be published this year:

Thoughts on The Revolution Will Have Its Sky by Emily Shearer

The personal is political, and politics are everywhere: the courtroom, the throne room, the confessional (real or fake), the brothel, the gallows, and the street corners. Here in The Revolution Will Have Its Sky, Maria Garcia Teutsch presents a manifesto for an ageless cause. By turning her poetic tricks, she conflates image and casts aspersions–we see shadow and reflection, we see queen as whore and judge as prophet as well as thief.
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Henry Miller Memorial Library announces “Speech is Not Free! 50th Anniversary: Tropic of Cancer Obscenity Trial”

Friday, November 7th at Coagula Curatorial Gallery in Los Angeles
Henry Miller is responsible for — to quote scholar James Decker — “the free speech that we now take for granted in literature.” It began fifty years ago when Miller’s novel “Tropic of Cancer” was deemed not obscene by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur and its literary magazine Ping-Pong, will be throwing a party at the Coagula Curatorial Gallery in Los Angeles to honor this landmark event while ruefully acknowledging that free speech is once again under siege.

“Speech is Not Free! 50th Anniversary of the Tropic of Cancer Obscenity Trial” will celebrate this historic win for free speech by bringing together writers, poets, and authors who will read or display a piece of art/prose/poem/song that was banned and that effected them in a transformative way. Participants will also read or sing an original piece. Read More >

Recently I asked my creative writing students to do this exercise: Begin by remembering a particular song and then say what you were doing the first time you heard that song. It helps if it’s one of your favorites. Here’s one of mine:

by Maria Garcia Teutsch

Many people whose opinion I admire say that Radiohead’s lyrics are weak. Not so, mon frère. Radiohead is composed of mad genius poets. Their lyrics do stand up on the page, though admittedly an entirely new form of language is created when joined with their music and Thom’s warbling. I chose “Idioteque” at random knowing I wanted something off of Kid A. There is an homage to Dadaist poetry on this album, and the band has admitted to using this method of cutting up lyrics and arranging the songs by drawing words out of a hat. As a poet and editor, I find this immensely satisfying. There is even a made up word in “Idioteque:” skwrking, at least in the lyrics I’ve found. Read More >