Monthly Archive: May 2012

Jeanne Lupton’s poetry series at the Bread Workshop featuring Lynn Alexander

July 3, 2012. Bread Workshop, 1398 University Ave., Berkeley, CA. (corner University Ave. and Acton St.)

This poetry series is hosted by Jeanne Lupton. The featured reader is Lynn Alexander, followed by an open mic.

Lynn Alexander is an American writer, artist, poet, and independent producer of publications and web content. She is a social worker and is involved in a number of social justice organizations, collectives, and community groups. She is the producer and editor of Full of Crow and runs Full Of Crow Press And Distribution. Lynn is the Head Fiction Editor at Red Fez Publications.

For more information about this reading, please contact Lynn Alexander.

Street, Meat & Beat Poetry Handbill

100 Thousand Poets for Change 2012 Flyer (pdf)

100TPCflyer2012

Chicago Poetry Bordello Handbill

Chicago Poetry Bordello Handbill for May 19, 2012

Chicago Poetry Bordello Celebrates Double Screw Steamers

May 19, 2012

NEW DATE: Saturday, June 16, 2012

Come aboard before the ship wrecks and we’ll suss out the tramps!
8PM to Midnight
May 19 Thalia Hall/Ristorante al Teatro, 1227 W 18th St Chicago
Chicago Poetry Bordello Celebrates Double Screw Steamers
(It’s a steamship, silly.)
Burlesque Beauty debut: Miss B.
Special Guests: Pinch and Squeal from Cleveland!
$5 if dressed Victorian. $10 if not.

City of Paris embarked on her maiden voyage in April 1889. A month later, she won the Blue Riband for the first westbound voyage under 6 days, making her the fastest ship on the north Atlantic route.

A year later, City of Paris was steaming towards Liverpool when her starboard propeller shaft broke, causing the starboard engine to race and then disintegrate. She was dead in the water and needed towing by the tramp steamer, Aldersgate.

In our steamship celebration, you’re the tramp wandering from port to port looking for the perfect poet! The tramp with the most ribbons wins! Each poetry whore will have three ribbons to give away during his or her first three private readings—the tramp with the most favors WINS a trophy worthy for christening!

Enjoy a wonderful dinner from Ristorante al Teatro! and a good time at the bordello! See you there!


Visit the Chicago Poetry Bordello website here or join the event on facebook here.

Midwest Small Press Festival

June 1-3, 2012.

The 1st annual Midwest Small Press Festival will be held over the weekend of June 1st-3rd in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The weekend-long event will take place in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, a cozy little spot full of artists and doers with a cooperative fervor.

The festival will center around a book-fair at the Polish Falcon (801 e. clarke st.) on Saturday June 2nd where small presses from throughout the region will have their wares on display and for sale. With presses coming from Chicago, Minneapolis, Michigan and Ohio, as well as from other parts of Wisconsin. The event hopes to present an impressive introduction to the independent literary presence in the Midwest.

Ancillary events throughout the weekend include an opening reception at Woodland Pattern Book Center (720 e. locust st.) and multimedia word based performances at The Nut Factory (3750 n. fratney) on Friday June 1st as well as workshops and readings at the Cream City Collectives (732 e. clarke st.) throughout the day on Saturday the 2nd and a brunch spelling-bee and literary trivia game at the Riverwest Public House (815 e. locust st.) on Sunday June 3rd as well as live music, gallery showings and more.

Table space is cheap at $15 for half a table, $25 for a full table.

For more information about the festival including a complete schedule and list of visiting presses please keep an eye on www.midwestsmallpressfestival.org. Contact the organizers here with questions.

Poetry at the Collingwood Arts Center

The Collingwood Arts Center of Toledo Ohio is a unique space wherein creativity, diversity and artistic expression is fostered and nourished. Live readings of poetry are hosted at the Collingwood every last Sunday of the month.

For more information visit the Collingwood Arts Center website here.
Contact Michael Grover for more information.

Street, Meat & Beat Poetry

Individuals and presses involved with the grassroots organization, The Literary Underground, will present a live author reading at the Cream City Collectives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Saturday, June 2nd from 3-5pm as part of The Midwest Small Press Festival. Representatives from Red Fez Publications, Ten Pages Press, The Meth Lab and Covert Press will be on hand to perform their works live as well as offering their books and other associated independent press books for sale at the Polish Falcon across the street. An open mic will be part of the two-hour reading.

Individuals scheduled to perform include:
Michele McDannold lives in central Illinois where she has lived for most of her life. She is the founder of The Literary Underground, a grassroots organization committed to fostering community in the independent press and the Director of Print and Special Projects at Red Fez Publications. She was the founding editor/publisher of the now defunct Rural Messengers Press and is currently the editor of Citizens For Decent Literature, an online and print zine.

Catfish McDaris has written 20 books of poems and prose. He’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize 15 times(many times by Gerald Locklin), he won the Uprising Award (AL) in 1999, the Flash Fiction Award (TX)in 2009 judged by the U.S. Poet Laureate. Featured poet in both the Chiron Review (KS), and The Penny Dreadful Review(TN), the last poet of 1999 in The Shepherd Express(WI). Catfish has been published in The Bukowski Review, Pearl, Slipstream, New York Quarterly, Mad Rush, Louisiana Review, George Mason Univ. Review, and hundreds of other magazines both on line and in print. He’s read at The Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore in Paris, in NYC with Jimmy ‘the ghost of Hendrix’ Spencer, at Allen Ginsberg’s farm with Ed Sanders, Anne Waldman, Janine Pommy Vega, Ray Bremser, Charles Plymell, David Amram (Kerouac’s musical back man), and all the Beatniks left alive in 1998. He’s been translated into Esperanto.

Frankie Metro was born in Masonville, Iowa and now lives in New Mexico. He is the Head Nonfiction/Associate Fiction Editor at Red Fez Publications where his column, The Left Handed Smoker, runs monthly. Frankie is The Chemist at the online lit journal The Meth Lab. His first chapbook “The Anarchist’s Blac Book of Poetry” will soon be released by Crisis Chronicles Press.

Michael D. Grover is a resident artist at the Collinwood Arts Center in Toledo, Ohio. He is the founding editor and publisher of Covert Press and the Head Poetry Editor at Red Fez Publications. He is the author of numerous poetry collections including “Transmissions From Third World america”, “Love Poems For Toledo” and “Confessions Of An american Outlaw” and his poetry has been published widely in the independent press. Michael has founded and run many literary reading series and was instrumental in bringing Zyfez 2011 to Toledo.

Tim Murray (b.1977) is a lifelong resident of Northwest Indiana. He has hosted the Red Fez blogtalk radio show since 2010. He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize by NightBallet Press for his poem “Certified Outlaw”. His e-chap “What I Did Monday” is available for free download from Ten Pages Press. Tim will be a featured reader at the upcoming Zyfez California event in July.

Tom Andrews (b. 1968) is a writer of surreal short fiction, spending most of his energy writing unsettling narrative and stream-of-consciousness dialogue heavy with symbolism. He is a native of the south side of Milwaukee, and currently lives and writes in the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa. His past non-fiction work has ranged from book reviews for Gwiadza Polarna to motivational speaking and speech writing, while his fiction has appeared in online and print journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including Side B Magazine, Red Fez, Metazen, Brain Harvest and others. Represented in the British and European markets by the Monika Luukkonen Literary Agency of Helsinki, he is awaiting the publication of one novella and a collection of short stories. He can be found most easily at his almost-daily fresh flash fiction site A Martini and a Pen, www.martinipen.com and at his author site, www.tomandrews.us.

A Chicago native and long-time resident of Milwaukee, Russell Streur is now a born-again dissident residing in Johns Creek, Georgia. He operates the world?s original on-line poetry bar, The Camel Saloon at http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/. Streur edits the publications associated with Camel Saloon including The Bactrian Room, The Eye of the Needle, The Second Hump and Books on Blog. He co-founded Poets Democracy in 2010 with Christi Kochifos Caceres. In 2012, he authored the Petition to Free Zhu Yufu and established The Bamboo Forest to support the health, safety and freedom of that dissident Chinese poet and activist. He is a member of Amnesty International, Ars Poetica, the Audubon Society, and the Georgia Poetry Society. Streur is the author of The Muse of Many Names (Poets Democracy, 2011) and Table of Discontents (Ten Pages Press, 2012).

For more information about the festival including an ongoing list and itinerary of events and visiting presses and writers, please visit www.midwestsmallpressfestival.org. For more information about The Literary Underground, please go to theliteraryunderground.org.

Join the facebook event here.