A Wall in Philadelphia

Yellow stenciled
digits slashed
red with spray
paint, an asemic
text November
sun comprehends
as the limit of
its reach. Deep
green weeds
glow in the rift
where asphalt
meets wall—
arched leaves
wide as any
tire in the lot
drip light, but
the lines lead
the eye:
white oval
remnant
of a name
beneath
a square
cement patch.
The poem, all
that wants
to be said,
is said—there. Read More >

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.

Dylan Krieger’s collection, no ledge left to love, is the recipient of the Ping-Pong Free Press poetry prize of 2017, chosen by judge and poetry badass, Brian Henry. It is my extreme pleasure to share with you a sneak peek–one of my favorite poems out of this fascinating and essential collection, release date: December 1, 2017. Read More >

The Hartnell College Planetarium and the Homestead Review are pleased to announce the 17th annual Poetic Voices Poetry Festival. This event will take place at 7pm in the Hartnell College Planetarium. This year’s featured readers will be a bevy of local poets: Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts, Jennifer Fellguth, River Tabor, Bob Barminski, and Maria Teutsch.

Poetic Voices Poetry festival celebrates the poetry of college students, and will also feature 10 student poets who will receive the Circo Prize for poetry. Students wrote poems about various celestial bodies and/or planets. Andrew Lindsey, planetarium coordinator, will display celestial images to accompany the poets

The event is sponsored by the Homestead Review literary journal and the Hartnell College Foundation. Student winners: Erica Craddock, Helen Dunston, Jaime Flores, Celia Jimenez, Jennifer Le, Joel Pablo, Monroe Vallejo, Christina Veitenheimer, Jacob Vosti, and Paige Wolfe

The reading will take place at the Hartnell College Planetarium at 7PM, Thursday, April 27th, 2017. The event is free and open to the public.

Poet Republik Ltd. is proud to present the dual launch party for two extraordinary books of poetry:

Invitation to a Rescue by Kate Lutzner and Occassionally, I Remove Your Brain Through Your Nose, by J. Hope Stein with guest readers Jameson O’Hara Laurens winner of Ping-Pong Free Press Poetry Prize, 2016, Maria Garcia Teutsch, Christine Hamm, Karen Hildebrand, Martha Cambridge, Sherry Stuart and musical guest, Orly Bendavid

Saturday, April 22nd at Botanica Bar, 47 E. Houston St., in Soho, NYC from 6-8.

The post-reading party info is to be announced.

I will be reading and performing part of my new multi-media piece from American Dissident with Henry Miller Memorial Library director, Magnus Toren at the Page Poetry Parlor at the historic home of Geraldine Page and Rip Torn, now an artist’s space for actors, directors and well, unknown poets such as myself. It also happens to fall on my birthday, so cake may be involved–all I’m saying. I do so love being the girl with the most cake.

I will be reading with the wondrous Lisa Samuels who will be flying in from New Zealand to share her poetry.

I am apoplectic with joy to be reading with Lisa Samuels on April 17th for the folks at Torn Page Poetry Parlor

from Wild Dialectics (Shearsman Books 2012)

Peephole metaphysics

Listening for you listening notes for right to seek up

futures as a buffer against permanence can you make

actuality not a matter of argument I’m sirry I’m political

ready to drag down changeable as the crew people

jumping in to small boats showing their interest

without necessary attributes to be hot, so hot

sirrah listening to the heart boats bombing are you

new to the names amidst your hectares get along

new to your improves on several hats beside the year’s

tasted aperture months ready to open pour in

astonished to discover mouths underneath the boats

craggy as fashionable creamy broody belts in range

out of range the edges of the heart mouths totally

unsteady drama groovy coming along worth trying

to sell our inherited personalities for settlement when

people came here they planted themselves in utterly familiar

and hills coming along at the edges of the heart

mouths planting the recognizable in water at the moment

falling through the atlas trope sway comprehensive

for another album of highlights everybody getting a little

somefin a tiny mouthful louche over the skin of the teeth

a point especially clear when terms of value broken

across the example becomes clear a like simple

economy of scale transient as the top blend came on

a simple feat hot off the head as hundreds rippled

like scales real as existence marbles tottling on

the edges of the site kept at it fully every rim

consistent turning square to diamante pusher

folly coming along saying flask as catskin blueberry

rich or cast is it what you expectation frag there

slightly animistic with an absolute forearm

or what it means to compromise with cultural life

as you make room make room stead skulldigger

in a roaring mind the trophy on your head your own

juggy code out at the stuck late skin in show

I often kilter or a separately repeated to see how

it changes a man with a fixed expression in plastics

a cast as what you expectation frag there yes

Lisa Samuels is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, with recent experiments in memoir (Anti M, Chax 2013) and the novel (Tender Girl, Dusie 2015). Her poetry is in anthologies such as Out of Everywhere 2 (Reality Street 2015) and has inspired scholarly work and musical scores internationally. Her literary essays include Over Hear: six types of poetry experiment in Aotearoa/New Zealand (TinFish 2015), and in 2016 she is a visiting scholar at the University of Washington Simpson Humanities Center, writing The Civic Unconscious (poetry) and The Long White Cloud of Unknowing (prose) and continuing experiments in soundwork. Some of her writing and recordings can be found via the Electronic Poetry Center, academia.edu, and pennsound.

I will be reading at Beyond Baroque in Venice Beach, California on March 11, 2016, with the wondrous Sesshu Foster.

Sesshu Foster has taught composition and literature in East L.A. for 20 years. He’s also taught writing at the University of Iowa, the California Institute for the Arts, the University of California, Santa Cruz and Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program. His work has been published in The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, and State of the Union: 50 Political Poems. He kicks ass! Check out the Poet Republik edition where he’s featured here!

Valentine’s Day Poetry Reading:

Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium at Old Capitol Books

559 Tyler Street

Monterey (between Pearl and Munras)

$5 admission

I will be reading with Doren Robbins:

Doren Robbins’s poetry has appeared in a wide variety of journals, including The American Poetry Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Indiana Review, The Iowa Review, New Letters, Sulphur, and several other periodicals. His books include Driving Face Down (awarded the 2001 Blue Lynx Prize from Eastern Washington UP); My Piece of the Puzzle from Eastern Washington UP (awarded the 2008 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Poetry Award). His current collection, Twin Extra, has been nominated for the 2015 The National Jewish Book Award in Poetry. Since 2001 he has been Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Foothill College, where he is a three-time recipient of the Foothill College Honors Society Appreciation Award for his teaching. He will read from his new collection, Twin Extra, and a variety of poems from his published works.

Jesse Goodman has been producing benefit concerts for the Henry Miller Memorial Library since he brought Patti Smith there in 2004. The past few years he has been bringing poets in as the opening acts of these shows, which as you can imagine, pleases us here in the Republik of poets to no end. This year he is bringing in legendary San Francisco poet, David Meltzer to open for Pink Martini in this year’s benefit on December 8th at the Golden State Theatre in Monterey, California. Get your tickets baby, they’re going fast . . . So, to honor Jesse’s mad genius we are featuring his story as well as poems by David Meltzer and his wife, the poet Julie Rogers. Scroll down for his story, but first: the poets. Enjoy. Read More >