(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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COMEDY

We were still drifting as the day broke
improvising lines, like we practiced
machines in their tracks, mud
turned to cement, the feet
missed our gardens we
were coming and going
like it will matter, currents
through white sheep completely
alive, this was during the day—

it should be the truth. Naturally
in those lines this is a lie—

Uncertain—it heard us
never asking, how do you talk, even find
the words, from all the words
in your head, such a moment, liquid
of the ears, the blues
of the planet, two spoonfuls
absorb, in each head, a spiked drink, tongue
know the dropper, seem
surprised to drown the point.

Jared Schickling is the author of Needles of Itching Feathers, recently published with The Operating System. He has written several BlazeVOX books, including The Mercury Poem (2017) and Province of Numb Errs (2016), as well as The Paranoid Reader: Essays, 2006-2012 (Furniture Press, 2014); Prospectus for a Stage (LRL Textile Series, 2014); Donald Trump and the Pocket Oracle (Moria Books, 2017); and Donald Trump in North Korea (2017).  He edited A Lyrebird: Selected Poems of Michael Farrell (BlazeVOX, 2017) and he edits Delete Press and The Mute Canary, publishers of poetry. He lives in Lockport, NY.

AWP Off-site reading, Dupont Circle!

I will be reading at the Mad Hatter for Minerva Rising Press on February 10th.

My book signing at Minerva Rising Press, AWP 2016

The Mad Hatter Dupont Circle

The last time I was in Dupont Circle it was to march with my friends against the first Iraq War under George H.W. Bush’s regime. We chanted “no blood for oil!”

I will be reading at the iconic Bookshop Santa Cruz on October 18th. Details TBA

Ping-Pong Free Press and Poetry International will be hosting a poetry reading/performance art exhibit at the Coagula Curatorial Gallery at 7:30 pm on March 31st, 2016 during the AWP conference. If you can’t make it come by our table at the conference: 559!

Featured Readers:

Malena Morling

Michael Waters

Katie Farris

Mihaela Moscaliuc

Katie Ford

Jesse Nathan

James Meetze

Janel Spencer

Jenny Minniti-Shippey

Adam Deutsch

Maria Garcia Teutsch

River Atwood Tabor

with special guest: Babe Teeth in performance!

Featuring Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye in performance

pc: Jaroslav Kratochvil

Group Reading of Howl, screening of the Telling Pictures film, Howl.

Poetry Reading of The Revolution Will Have its Sky, Maria Garcia Teutsch

For Immediate Release:

Contact: Mike Scutari 667-2764

Speech is Not Free

Howl 60^th Anniversary, choral reading and Film; music by Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye; a benefit for Ping-Pong Free Press/release party for the 2015 journal.

On Friday October 16 the Henry Miller Memorial Library will present their second annual Speech is Not Free Event with apoetry reading from the Library’s literary journal Ping-Pong; a group reading of Howl; a performance featuring Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye followed by a showing of the Telling Pictures film, Howl.

On Saturday the Library will host performance and poetry workshops: 10-11:45, Riot Writing: poems to start a revolution generative workshop with Ping-Pong EIC, Maria Garcia Teutsch; 12-12:30 brown bag lunch. 12:30-2:30-Performance and Poetry workshop with Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye; 2:30-4: Free Speech Presentation and exhibit: informal chat with library executive director Magnus Torén.

On Saturday Evening there will be performances by Grammy award winning artist Ian Brennan, and Bob Forrest of Thelonius Monster.

Allen Ginsberg typing Howl

Saturday 10/17/15 Workshops:

10:00-11:45 am: Riot Writing—Poems to start a Revolution: Poetry of Protest is Poetry of Witness generative workshop with Maria Garcia Teutsch

Poetry is written for any number of reasons, most often having to do with witnessing: the poet sees something so beautiful they want share it with the world, or perhaps the poet sees an injustice they want to give voice to—poetry of social consciousness. Working primarily with poetry of the latter ilk, we will examine Chicano/a poetry, Feminist poetry, Palestinian Poetry, Jewish poetry, Russian poetry, Syrian poetry etc… and then generate and share our own poems of protest.

12:30-2:30:The Poem-in-Performance: A Workshop with Anne Waldman & Ambrose Bye

Working with our melopoeia, — the innate music of our writing — we will let our poetry guide us into various performance strategies and modes of composition. We will be working with our voice, our timing, possible instrumentation, collaboration and the like. We will consider methods of sprechstimme (speak-singing), monologue, vocal duets, curses, spells, lullabies, blues, poem-as-libretto, and also consider how to shape the work on the page with its orality in mind. We will begin with some “experiments of attention” and work toward individual pieces we will then record on a CD. Participants may also bring a piece of their choice to class to work on, as well as instruments they can play. Musicianship is welcome! Discussion will include some performance theory.

Sign up for Workshops here: Workshop signup (space is limited)

7:00PM–Saturday evening performances by Grammy Award winning artist Ian Brennan and Bob Forrest (Thelonius Monster).

About the artists:

Anne Waldman The author of more than 40 collections of poetry and poetics, Anne Waldman is an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry movement, and has been connected to the Beat movement and the second generation of the New York School. Her publications include Fast Speaking Woman (1975), Marriage: A Sentence (2000), and the multi-volume Iovis project (1992, 1993, 1997).
Her work as a cultural activist and her practice of Tibetan Buddhism are deeply connected to her poetry. Waldman is, in her words, “drawn to the magical efficacies of language as a political act.” Her commitment to poetry extends beyond her own work to her support of alternative poetry communities. Waldman has collaborated extensively with visual artists, musicians, and dancers, and she regularly performs internationally. Her performance of her work is engaging and physical, often including chant or song, and has been widely recorded on film and video. www.annewaldman.org

Ambrose Bye, musician/producer grew up in the environment of The Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University, graduated from The University of California, Santa Cruz and was trained as an audio engineer at the music/production program at Pyramind in San Francisco. Working primarily with poets, he has produced four albums with Anne Waldman, “In the Room of Never Grieve”, “The Eye of the Falcon”, “Matching Half”, and “The Milk of Universal Kindness”. He also produced “Comes Through in the Call Hold” featuring Waldman, Thurston Moore, and Clark Coolidge. Recently he produced, “Harry’s House” a compilation from recordings done at Naropa University and is working on Volume Two. www.fastspeakingmusic.bandcamp.com

Maria Garcia Teutsch is an award-winning poet, editor and educator. Her most recent collection, The Revolution Will Have its Sky, received the Minerva Rising Chapbook award, Judge: Heather McHugh. She serves as editor-in-chief of The Homestead Review, Ping-Pong Magazine and Ping-Pong Free Press. She has been teaching poetry and creative writing classes at Hartnell College for the past 16 years where she received the Gleason Award for teaching excellence. Ilya Kaminsky says of Maria’s poetics: “The voices in her poems are direct and yet there is a certain mystery to this directness, this clarity of address. Clarity, the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish taught us, is the first mystery. She understands this too. Her poems can be devotional, or political or sexy, but there is always this sense of direct address, of clarity that isn’t all that simple, that contains a kind of tenderness, a kind of playfulness that is clear and mysterious at the same time.” www.marialoveswords.com

I will be reading with Donna de la Perriere and Joanna Fuhrman

at the legendary Moe’s Books

Donna de la Perriere, Joanna Fuhrman, and Maria Garcia Teutsch (that’s me!) Wednesday, September 23rd

Donna de la Perrière is the author of True Crime (Talisman House, 2009) and Saint Erasure (Talisman House, 2010), a 2011 NCIBA Book of the Year Award finalist. The recipient of a 2009 Fund for Poetry Award, she teaches in the creative writing programs at California College of the Arts and San Francisco State University, and curates the Bay Area Poetry Marathon reading series in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Kindergarde: Avant Garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children (Black Radish Books, 2013), No Gender: Reflections on the Life and Work of kari edwards (Litmus Press, 2009) and Bay Poetics (Faux Press, 2006), as well as journals such as American Letters and Commentary, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Five Fingers Review, Interim, New American Writing, and Volt. Her chapbook, “First Love,” is part of the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange collection at San Francisco State University, and she has work forthcoming in the upcoming anthology, Manifesting the Female Epic (Lark Books, 2016). She is currently working on a third full-length manuscript, Second Person.

Joanna Fuhrman is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Year of Yellow Butterflies (Hanging Loose Press 2015) and Pageant (Alice James Books 2009). She teaches poetry writing at Rutgers University, in her Brooklyn apartment and through Teachers & Writers Collaborative and Poets House.

Maria Garcia Teutsch, The Revolution Will Have its Sky, winner of the 2015 Minerva Rising chapbook contest, Judge: Heather McHugh, is editor-in-chief of Ping-Pong Free Press published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, California where she serves as President of the board.