Son of a Pony & Three Rooms Press rock the NY Poetry Festival This Saturday

Join Son of a Pony and Three Rooms Press as poets take over Governor's Island for the FREE New York Poetry Festival Saturday & Sunday, July 30-31 from noon-5 each day.

The Son of a Pony Posse will read on SATURDAY, JULY 30 at 4:30 PM on the BRIGADIER stage. Featured poets include Hala Alyan, Peter Carlaftes, Kat Georges, Brant Lyon, and Jane Ormerod. During the reading, we'll have free giveaways including books, cds & more!

Meanwhile, Three Rooms Press will be there both days with a table showing our latest offerings for you to check out!

With over 30 reading series, 100 poets and tons of vendors on board, the festival connects disparate poetry communities by bringing poetry out of the dark bars and universities, to a place amongst elms, plein trees & sycamores on an island in the sun. Bring a picnic, blanket, sunscreen, and lots of water!

There will be a Pre-Fest Party and Fundraiser at the Bowery Poetry Club on Thursday, July 21st, 8pm-2am. Tickets are $10 and support this free festival. Hear curators of the series to be presented at NYPF read their work, and dance to live jazz from Shawn Randall and tracks from DJ Eliel Lucero, among others.

NYPF's sponsors include City Winery, Sixpoint Brewery, and Bowery Poetry Club.

Details available here: http://tpsny.org/

Amy Winehouse is Dead -- A Memorial Poem

by Kat Georges

Amy Winehouse is dead.

She joined the 27 club with fellow members

Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison & Cobain.

I didn't think the young rebel stars

still died these days. That way.

It's a game these days.

You watch them self-destruct online

then they are cured and their careers

go down the drain.

But not this time.

Amy Winehouse is dead.

Her jazzy throaty swirl bent the rules

and brought her fame. It was her

who bent my ears and made me

pay attention, sway. Those words,

so today, swimming in a stream of

olden beats and minor riffs.

She sang about rehab and vodka and love

and cheating and heartache and pills and

scoring and pubs and baths and bed and

sex and life and lust and hurt and fear

and yes it was pop but it was so deep

and heavy and light at the same time

and you got the feeling that she knew

she knew

she knew something about the core

the center the invisible needles that

sew us up in modern society. The things

that make us rot and make us thrive and

are more real that fluff that is the stuff

we now believe in. She was under skin

and twisted the fake smiles that became

the norm when everyone got their own

camera phone. And she is dead, she's

gone, she ain't coming back.

She's not going to Rehab. She's not going

anywhere. Amy Winehouse is dead and all

those gossip pages are going to have to

find someone new to tear to pieces.

She should have known better Mick and Keith

said. We made the mistakes so she wouldn't

have to. Talking like fathers about their errant

daughter. Daughters don't listen. The ones like

Amy Winehouse have to strip it down, they have

to burn the finish, they got to get to the core and

build fresh. These days it takes a lot of work

to undo the layers of who you are supposed to be.

Amy Winehouse is dead. She stripped it to the core.

She made me burn hearing words and a voice that

slipped in and out of the unreal she made real.

And she is dead. She is gone. She is finished.

She is done. Amy Winehouse is dead and every

Twitter feed and Facebook status update broadcasts

the fact that it was -- after all -- just a matter of time.

Omitting that fact that it's just a matter of time for us all.

Some burn slow. Some bright. Some dim.

And some burn with such intensity they glimmer

in their sleep. A glow. Amy Winehouse is dead.

They all say we told you so.

and then they say

Who's next?

Poets Aimee Herman and Eric Alter Rock the Mic at Son of a Pony 8/5

Three Rooms Press

presents

Son of a Pony Poetry Reading Series

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2011
Featured poet: Aimee Herman
Spotlight poet: Eric Alter
PLUS NYC's Sensational Open POETRY Mike
With Special Guest Host Jane Ormerod

AIMEE HERMAN is a queer performative poet who has been featured at various NYC reading series and venues including: In the Flesh Erotic salon, Hyper Gender, Red Umbrella Diaries, and Sideshow: Queer Lit Carnival. Her poetry can be read in Cliterature Journal, InStereo Press, Audio Zine, Pregnant Moon Review and anthologies such as Best Women's Erotica 2010 (Cleis Press), Nice Girls, Naughty Sex (Seal), and hell strung and crooked (Uphook Press).

ERIC ALTER is an electric, thrilling Staten Island-based poet, writer and photographer.

The featured reading follows the fabulous Son of a Pony open reading at the cafe. For this reading we have a special guest hostess, the impressive poet & publisher Jane Ormerod. Doors open at 5:45 p.m.; the open reading begins at 6 p.m. Admission is $7, which includes a free drink.

Son of a Pony is on the 1st & 3rd Fridays of the month, and is curated by Kat Georges. 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

Tribes Magazine Launch Party at Poets House Today

Today at 5!

Tribes Magazine Launch Party

Poets House, NYC!

Poets House
10 River Terrace New York, NY
(212) 431-7920
July 23rd 5-7pm.
The cover charge will be $10 and will include a copy of the new magazine (priced at $12.95). Attendance is free for contributors, so register at the door. Refreshments will be available.

Featuring readings by: Steve Dalachinsky, Kat Georges, Robert Gibbons, Jee Leong Koh, Puma Perl, Yuko Otomo, Amy Ouzoonian, and Kyrce Swenson with a musical performance by Bible Gun.

Tribes 13 features writers and artists including poetry by Adonis, Ellen Bass, and Bob Holman, short stories by Marc Olmstead and Dennis Doherty, visual art by Vidya Gastaldon, David Haines, and David Hammons, along with interviews with Amiri Baraka and Theresa Byrnes, and much more.

Poets Karen Hildebrand & Avi Frishman Ride the Pony 7/15

FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2011

Featured poet: Karen Hildebrand

Spotlight poet: Avi Frishman

PLUS NYC's Top Open POETRY Mike

Hosted by Kat Georges

KAREN HILDEBRAND co-wrote and performed in “The Old In-and-Out,” a two-woman play that premiered to a sold-out audience at The Bowery Poetry Club in 2009 (work from the play is in the Three Rooms Press book of the same name). Her poetry is published in the chapbook "One Foot Out the Door" on Three Rooms Press (Our first poetry book produced in NYC!), as well as in a variety of journals including Blue Mesa Review, G.W. Review, Maintenant (contemporary dada writing & art), Meridian Anthology, Slipstream, Fourteen Hills, A Gathering of the Tribes, and is forthcoming in the Uphook Press anthology, -gape-seed-. She was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize, and her manuscript “Need” was a finalist for the Center for Book Arts Chapbook Competition judged by Kim Addonizio.

EVEN "AVI" TZVI FRISHMAN is a poet and fiction writer. His writing is largely informed by Zen, and the places he has travelled, the places he has lived, and those he calls home; among them, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Miami, Florida, Buffalo Grove, Illinois and Kfar Chabad, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel. He currently lives and writes in the Yorkville section of New York City, and in Kerhonkson, in the Catskill mountains of New York State.

The featured reading follows the stupendous Son of a Pony open reading at the cafe. Poet & highly illustrative 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