Fun Fishes Will Find Me At The Freq

Fishes,

FREQUENCY READING SERIES
Saturday March 25th at 2:30 PM
at the Four-Faced Liar
165 West 4th St. (212) 366-0608
A,C,E,F, or V to West 4th
FREE

Saturday, March 25th will feature Chris Tonelli, Justin Marks, and Carol Novak.

Chris Tonelli lives in Cambridge, MA. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Verse, LIT, GutCult, New York Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Sonora Review , Asheville Poetry Review, and Redivider. His chapbook, Wide Tree, is available from Kitchen Press.

Justin Marks has poems in, or forthcoming from, Fulcrum, The Literary Review, McSweeney's, Typo, Word For/Word, RealPoetik, canwehaveourballback?, Black Warrior Review, Coconut and others. His chapbook, You Being You by Proxy, is out on Kitchen Press (http://www.kitchenpresschapbooks.blogspot.com/). His full length manuscript, Twenty Five Hours in Iceland and Other Poems, was a finalist for the 2006 May Swenson Poetry Award. He is Editor of LIT magazine and lives in New York City.

Carol Novack's writings can or will be found in many publications, including The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets, Anemone Sidecar, Big Bridge, Diagram (web and print), elimae, Milk Magazine, Mindfire, Muse Apprentice Guild, Newtopia, Opium, Pindeldyboz, Retort, Ravenna
Hotel, SmokeLong Quarterly, Unpleasant Event Schedule, Word Riot, and Yankee Pot Roast . Her prose poem/fusion "Destination" was selected as a "best" of Web Del Sol fiction at Sol eScene (Series 20). Carol publishes and edits the "edgy and enlightened" multimedia journal Mad Hatters' Review: http://www.madhattersreview.com, hosted by Web Del Sol, and she is co-editing an anthology of innovative, "intoxicating" fiction, Butterflies of Vertigo. Carol's launching the Mad Hatters' Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes Reading Series at the KGB Bar on April 7th. Her burgeoning blog, http://carolnovack.blogspot.com , provides additional details.

Frequency

For those of you who are keeping score, the online Frequency Series Schedule has been updated to reflect the current season.

MarPoWriMo Etceterizes!

A Clean, Well-Rested Possum in Fancy Dress

"Is that a possum, or a prince?" people asked,
when the clean, well-rested possum rolled into town,
dressed as he was in fancy dress.

Never had anyone seen a possum dress so fancy
or groom so cleanly; never had anyone seen a possum
rest so thoroughly.

"Princes can be possums, and possums can be princes,"
said the well-rested possum sagely. "If you folks
would rest more completely, you could see more clearly."

The town folks "harrumphed" but decided to try it,
and when they awoke, they resumed chasing the possum
with a broomstick and a renewed, well-rested vigor.

The Durge Report

Sybil Durgin "was talking for some time about the travelling wilburys and how the guy from elo must be pissed. he had his short, brief moment playing with genius. his name in lights, with theirs. then roy died and his estate pulled the rights. you can't buy the first record anywhere and the second doesn't hold water at all. then george died and the dream did too. for a while, a sweet while, it was george, tom, bob, roy and jeff. even if people didn't really know who jeff was, it was still jeff. now if people even remember the travelling wilburys at all, its george, tom, bob, roy and that guy from elo. man, is he pissed!"

Blog Template Solidarity #2

Lori in Austin has a blog just like ours!

ICWAPAA #2

High School Isn't Harder On Anyone Than The High-Schoolers

No one was as confused as I was
when I found that box of glass eyeballs
in my locker. My high school
did not even have a prosthetics program,
so those eyeballs must’ve traveled
a long, long way to get there;
it must’ve been a long way to travel
to confuse me.

But I don’t like to look confused;
am I too proud? Or is it an older aversion --
maybe I don’t want to look weak
in front of the other high school students
lest they gang up on and eat me.

Those may have been idle musings,
but at the time they were enough for me,
all of a sudden every other human creature
was a danger to me and my eyeballs
(including the extra ones -- possession
being so much of the law back then.)

So I knocked over all of the tables
in Mrs. Caldwell’s third period,
and then I righted only one of them,
on which I stood and said to the gathering crowd:
That’s right! Look at me! I’m crrr-
aazy! And I’m a-gonna put your eyeballs out
one by one, so buy my one-and-only
brand-new prosthetic eyeballs now
before they’re gone.

And after that I was OK for a while,
on that ship of cutthroats called high school,
until I joined the water polo team --
everyone’s so mean to the water polo team.

For Your Enjoyment

Here is Steve's movie about a biker who's scared (or not scared?) of an Italian guy's dog. I play the biker.

In the interest of blog-template solidarity...

...I (via Erica) give you www.adamandpetergoto.blogspot.com, which is of the same species as I'll Show You Mine.

March is National Poetry Month!

An Easy Poem About the Return of the Baseball Season

In the Easy Season,
from the Big Easy
to East Milwaukee
we sweat and talk about
who we'll see on the road
or at the home of the home team.

It's easy to fall asleep
on the AM radio;
it's just as easy
to be real cheery
and cheerily curse the umps,
curse G.M.s,
curse the fans who want to be
forever in summertime before
the fall comes and football
storms back on the scene.

I can write a poem about anything.

There, I said it. Leave a topic under "Comments," and I'll write a poem about it.

Whew!

My whirlwind two-borough weekend tour of New York City is over, and we can get back to National Poetry Month. Thanks to Nicole and Marion for putting together two really fun readings, and thanks to Allison for bringing herself and Owen from distant lands to read with Ada.

And thanks to everyone who came to the readings.

Special Sunday Frequency

Fishes,

Join us at the bottom of the sea for a special Sunday Frequency. This installment will feature sea creatures from as far away as Wales, Texas, and Williamsburg.

xo,

Frequency Reading Series

Featuring Allison DeFrees, Ada Limon, and Owen Sheers

Sunday, February 27th at 2:30 PM

at the Four-Faced Liar

165 W. 4th St. between 6th & 7th

A,C,E,F,V to W. 4th212-366-0608

OWEN SHEERS, twenty-nine years old, has received numerous prizes and awards for his poetry in Great Britain, including his selection by the Independent (UK) as one of Britain?s Top Thirty Young Writers. He currently works for the BBC.

Ada Limón is originally from Sonoma, California. She received her MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry from New York University. A 2001-2002 fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, she’s received a grant for Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts and won the Chicago Literary Award. Her work appears in numerous magazines. She lives and breathes in Brooklyn, New York.

Allison DeFrees is a Texan poet and attorney. She is a veteran of the Frequency Reading Series.

Yours,

Shafer Hall

Two Readings

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24 at 8:00 PM
An all-Texans reading featuring
Shanna Compton, Shafer Hall, Susanne Reece & Steve Roberts

Earshot Series
Hosted by Nicole Steinberg
The Lucky Cat
245 Grand Street
(btw Driggs and Roebling)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L to Bedford, G to Lorimer, or J/M/Z to Marcy

$5 includes one free drink
(beer, wine or well drinks only)

More info: http://somechick.orangeoblivion.com/ludlow/earshot.html
& http://www.theluckycat.com

Directions: http://www.theluckycat.com/directions.html


***

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27th at 6:00 PM
An all-PBQ reading featuring
Shafer Hall, Shawn McNally, Robin-Beth Schaer, & Marion Wrenn

Cornelia St. Café
29 Cornelia St.
(btw Bleecker and W. 4th)
Greenwich Village
A, C, E, B, D, F & V to W. 4th or 1 & 9 to Sheridan Square

$6 Cover includes a drink

More info: http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/

FebPoWriMo!

Big Rhythm

I'm gonna sit right here
beside you, big word
with no vowels. I taught
myself how to spell, I
was spellbound by the hisses
of sibilants, by all
the clicking syllables,
but "rhythm" is a word
without rhyme or reason,
its big rhythm is derived
from a loose "th" in the middle;
it's troubling.

Freq of the Week!

Dear Fishes,

Fly Frequency! It's always fun and free!

FREQUENCY READING SERIES
Featuring Brian Waniewski, Charlie Carter, Amaranth Borsuk, and Farnoosh Fathi
Saturday, February 18th, 2PM
at the Four-Faced Liar
165 West 4th St. (212) 366-0608
A,C,E,F, or V to West 4th
FREE

Our third Frequency features readers from around the nation:

Charlie Carter is a librarian and lives in Brooklyn. A modern minstrel, he sets his poems to his own musical compositions. He is currently working on a project called "Dickinsonics" that enlists the talent of other Brooklyn artists in his musical envisionings of a selection of poems by Emily Dickinson.

Amaranth Borsuk's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Antioch Review, Smartish Pace, and The Los Angeles Review. Her awards include an Edward W. Moses prize, a statewide Ina Coolbrith prize, a Shirle Dorothy Robbins Award, a Falling Leaves Creative Writing Prize, and a May Merrill Miller Award. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.

Farnoosh Fathi received her MA in creative writing and literature from NYU and currently lives in Texas, where she continues her studies at the University of Houston and misses her loved ones in CA and NY from equal distances. Her publications include translations of Persian poetry in Circumference and interviews for the Brooklyn Rail; she has poems forthcoming in Denver Quarterly.

Brian Waniewski has been writing poems since before he could speak. He has all the requisite credentials to become an important American poet. He is at the head of the pack and the top of his game.

Many Thanks,

Shafer Hall

February is National Record-Breaking Blizzard Month!

The Big Blizzard

On the Saturday night
of the big blizzard,
the guys were encouraging
the guys, the guys were
leaning halfway out
of windows and saying
“Hey ladies to the ladies”
to the ladies. The girls
were talking to the ladies,
and the blizzard
was swirling up around
the ladies’ heads.

Big blizzard is when
all the good jazz happens;
Saturday night is when
all the encouraging, leaning,
saying, talking, swirling happens.

*

Song of the Voicebird

The voice the bird
the bird was voicing
Saturday night (the night
of the big blizzard) the voice
the bird the song the night
the trick the slip the fall
the fall the last time
it snowed like this the snow
fell all night long.

I opened my voice that night
but no song came out; I opened
my body but no voice came out;
in the morning the day opened
but no sun came out.

*

Writing About Writing About The Blizzard

Oh, you blizzard writer,
you smokestack rider,
you who are so paranoid
about the smell
of natural gas
in your apartment;

you who worry about
worrying about the environment:

were you writing about the blizzard
yesterday when you were repeating
repeating yourself? Was it the blizzard
you were talking about, or were you talking about
talking about yourself?

Be It Known

Wednesday, February 15 at 8:00 PM at the Poetry Project

Shanna Compton & Rachel Blau DuPlessis

The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church 131 East 10th Street

$8 general admission $7 for students & seniors $5 for members

Freq of the Week!

FREQUENCY READING SERIES
Featuring: Chris Cessac, Mandy Keifetz, Robin Beth Schaer
Saturday, February 11th at 2PM
at the Four-Faced Liar
165 West 4th St. (212) 366-0608
A,C,E,F, or V to West 4th
FREE

The Frequency Season is entering its fourth year. We feature local and international poets on Saturday afternoons. February 11th will feature Chris Cessac, Mandy Keifetz, and Robin Beth Schaer.

Mandy Keifetz is a fourth-generation New Yorker. Her work has appeared in QW, Penthouse, and The Contemporary Review of Fiction, as well as in numerous small zines. She lives in New York and Montreal.

Christopher Cessac lives in Marfa, Texas. After degrees in history and English from Texas A&M and in law from The University of Michigan Law School, he received an M.A. from The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. He's been a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and his poems have appeared in The Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Cimarron Review, Cream City Review, Epoch, Mid-American Review, Salt Hill, Sycamore Review, and elsewhere.

Robin Beth Schaer is a third-generation New Yorker. She has taught literature and writing at Columbia University and Cooper Union, and was educated at Colgate University and Columbia University's School of the Arts. She is the recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Rattapallax, Small Spiral Notebook, Denver Quarterly, and Guernica and is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly.

February is National Poetry Month!

The Right Kind of People
"all you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people"

A room is never a room
unless it's filled with other people,
which makes this morning
not a room,
because all of the people
I know are sleeping.

I will close my eyes
and cease to be
for a few more hours,
and when I open them again
everything will be fine.

As Seen On Surgery

Announcing the arrival of The John Cotter/Shafer Hall Poetry Making Machine!

The JCSHPMM is a website featurning online, real-time, live-streaming poems assembled right before your very eyes.

Our rules for assembly will be posted in the "comments" field, so you will always know where we are, and when the end is near.

John and I would like to invite and to encourage you to use the comments field to request subjects and to submit challenging new forms of your own devious devisings.