Tuesday, June 29, 2010

July 2 Cornelia St. Poetry Blowout with (back from Chicago) Marty McConnell & (out from the UK) Caroline Gilfillan


FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2010
6 PM | CORNELIA STREET CAFE
SON OF A PONY POETRY SERIES
Featuring
Direct from England!
Poet CAROLINE GILFILLAN
and
Back from Chicago!
Poet MARTY MCCONNELL
PLUS
NYC's Best Open POETRY Mike
Hosted by Kat Georges

Join us this Friday for two STRONG women poets at the Fabulous Son of a Pony reading series in the wondrous basement performance space of Cornelia Street Cafe. Caoline Gilfillan and Marty McConnell will rock your world--be sure to catch them (as well as join in NYC's most varied open poetry reading).

Caroline Gilfillan was brought up in Sussex and spent her formative years in east London writing, playing in various bands, and working in publishing and education. She’s written poetry all her life, and her work was published in Seven Women and One Foot on the Mountain early in her writing career. Her poem The Painter was nominated for the Forward Prize for the best individual poem in 2007 and her work appeared in the Forward Collection of Poetry in the same year. She was a winner of the North West Poetry competition in 2000, and Drowned in Overspill, a collection of her poetry, was published by Crocus Booksin the same year. Yes, her new collection, was published by the Hawthorn Press in December 2009.

For nearly a decade, poet Marty McConnell co-curated the flagship reading series of the New York City-based louderARTS Project, which featured poets including Yusef Komunyakaa, Mark Doty, Marie Howe, Dorianne Laux, and more. She appeared on both the second and fifth seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. She returned to Chicago in 2009 to co-found Vox Ferus, an organization dedicated to empowering and energizing individuals and communities through the written and spoken word. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies, including Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Movement, Spoken Word Revolution Redux, Women of the Bowery, Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader, Bullets and Butterflies: Queer Spoken Word Poetry, Will Work for Peace, Women.Period and In Our Own Words: Poetry of Generation X, as well as journals including Salt Hill Review, Rattapallax, Fourteen Hills, Pedestal, Boxcar Poetry Review, The November 3rd Club, Thirteenth Moon, 2River View, Lodestar Quarterly, Blue Fifth Review, and Rattle. She recently relocated to Chicago so don't miss this rare opportunity to catch back on NYC turf.

The featured readings follow the fabulous Son of a Pony open reading at the cafe. Poet/convivial mistress of ceremonies Kat Georges hosts. Doors open at 5:45 p.m.; the open reading begins at 6 p.m. Admission is $7, which includes a free drink.

Cornelia Street Cafe is at 29 Cornelia Street, between W. 4th Street & Bleecker, just around the corner from the W. 4th Street subway station. Phone: 212-989-9319.www.corneliastreetcafe.com

Sunday, June 20, 2010

E.J. Strickland Group at Small's

Next time you're in the mood for a night of phenomenal new jazz, check your local jazz calendar to find either the E.J. Strickland Group or Marcus Strickland Trio and go check them out.

Twins Marcus (on soprano & tenor sax) and E.J. (on drums) are phenomenal musical forces. Both are composers as well as players and at Small's on Saturday night E.J.'s group was happening— playing a late night set of cookin' cool jazz originals, plus a steamin' version of Wayne Shorter's ESP.

With Joe Sanders and bass, Fabian Almazan on piano and Jaleel Shaw on alto, the band started the set with two of E.J.'s pieces dedicated to jazz drummer legend Elvin Jones. With intricate melodic lines and an underlying pulsing, inspired stickwork by E.J., the pieces set the packed house on fire. But it was a few more tunes into the set, with the ballad "In This Day," that the band really hit a groove. The song is the title track on E.J.'s 2009 CD debut (produced by Ravi Coltrane). On the CD, the track is preceded by and built upon a poem, as E.J. explained (during a long break in which Marcus' soprano broke, and--because Small's is so cool--someone in the audience happened to have a soprano sax for him to borrow). The tune is a real wonder.

Marcus plays with great tone and style on even an unfamiliar horn, swinging through an intelligent and soulful theme, with E.J. tripping around and over and under the beat with melodic stickwork. The tune elicits a feeling of a musical diary of a full urban day--starting slowly at sunrise, coming to live in an daytime rush hour mayhem, then relaxing into a gentle groove of luscious nighttime scenery, and sluicing into a final mood akin to a lullaby.

The set ended with special guest jazz guitarist David Gilmore sitting in on Shorter's ESP, with solos all around and E.J. in particular displaying extensive dynamic range.

Check out the Strickland brothers online at www.marcusstrickland.com and on myspace (E.J. at myspace.com/ejsq; Marcus at myspace.com/marcusstrickland2). Then see them live A.S.A.P. They are a New York sensation.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Poet Peter Carlaftes set for Book Launch at Son of a Pony Poetry Series: June 18, 6 p.m., Cornelia St. Cafe

FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010

6 PM | CORNELIA STREET CAFE

SON OF A PONY POETRY SERIES

Book Launch for

DRUNKYARD DOG

by Poet PETER CARLAFTES

PLUS

NYC's Best Open POETRY Mike

Hosted by Kat Georges



Power poet Peter Carlaftes will launch his first full-length poetry collection, DrunkYard Dog (156 pages, Three Rooms Press, 2010) at the venerable Son of a Pony Poetry Reading Series on Friday, June 18, 6 p.m. at Cornelia St. Cafe.


Carlaftes work has been described as "a beautiful poetic voice, filled with drop-dead humor, searing insight and reselient originality, even while resonating with overtones of Bukowski, Baudelarie and Bogart." He discovered his poetic voice on the playgrounds of the Bronx, and, after seeing the world, branched out to the bars of Manhattan. According to Carlaftes, DrunkYard Dog offers poems from "both sides of the bar," and marks his third Three Rooms Press release in 2010, following A Year on Facebook (humor) and Triumph for Rent (three plays).


The featured reading follows the fabulous Son of a Pony open reading at the cafe. Poet/convivial mistress of ceremonies Kat Georges hosts. Doors open at 5:45 p.m.; the open reading begins at 6 p.m. Admission is $7, which includes a free drink.


Cornelia Street Cafe is at 29 Cornelia Street, between W. 4th Street & Bleecker, just around the corner from the W. 4th Street subway station. Phone: 212-989-9319. www.corneliastreetcafe.com


Wednesday, June 2, 2010

TRP Poets Set to Ignite LA: Peter Carlaftes, Kat Georges, George Wallace

Live L.A. Performance by three poets from New York City's Three Rooms Press! PETER CALAFTES, GEORGE WALLACE and KAT GEORGES, Plus, Host Extraordinaire: S.A. GRIFFIN!!

Sunday, June 13th, 4 p.m. at the incredible L.A. Poetry Institution Beyond Baroque (681 Venice Blvd, Venice, CA).

PETER CARLAFTES, comic author, screenwriter, playwright, actor and poet, authored A Year on Facebook (humor), Triumph for Rent (3 Plays) and hot off the press—Drunkyard Dog (poems from both sides of the bar).

GEORGE WALLACE, award winning poet and journalist, is author of Poppin' Johnny: New American Poems along with 18 chapbooks. He's also editor of poetrybay magazine (poetrybay.com)

Poet/playwright KAT GEORGES has three collections of poetry, Punk Rock Journal, Maiden Claiming and Slow Dance at 120 Beats a Minute. She's the founder and editor-in-chief of Three Rooms Press.

PLUS: The Fabulous S.A. GRIFFIN will be the host of the whole shebang! What could be better?

What's their stuff like? Check out these comments:

“ George Wallace has managed to infuse the soul of music into a surreal trip through the heartland of America.”

“ Peter Carlaftes is a brilliant poetic voice, filled with drop-dead humor, searing insight and resilient originality, even while resonating with overtones of Bukowski, Baudelaire and Bogart.”

“ Kat Georges’ poems burst forth with fire and flare; their seeming simplicity belies a depth that rings the heart strings.”

It's going to be a ball--we'd love to see all our friends there! For details, email info@threeroomspress.com