Bex sails to Byzantium

In a weird room carved with faces, having waded through flooded tunnels, seen bones, and flowstone, yellow stalactites the colour of nicotine-stained fingers, passages whose rooves were held up with Victorian wood swallowed by calcification & the permanent drip of limestone, two hours underground after the abandoned railway tunnel we found... Bex, reading a poem.

Tom waits for Donald Tournier & rattles his bones

...there's a world going on underground.

Me... burning sugar somewhere under the 14th arrondissement

God, so that's what I sound like.

The Catacombs: Donald Tournier goes underground...

...and finds true love cowering at the bottom of wells, dank air heavy with humidity, the lungs of the world, hermits drinking from underground rivers, who'd gone white as ghosts hiding from the light of day, poetry living off the mud of dank pits...

No Tell Motel - Monday/lundi 19th May

In English...
Spoken Word and The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel Second Floor anthology invite you to a poetry reading from the anthology followed by an open mic on the theme of Eros, desire, sex & sensuality.
Monday, May 19th 8pm downstairs at the Highlander, 8, rue de Nevers, (southwest of Pont Neuf) Métro Saint Michel ou Pont Neuf.
En français...
Spoken Word et l'anthologie ''The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel Second Floor'' vous invitent au soirée de poésie commençant par un lecture de textes de l'anthologie par les poètes eux-mêmes, en anglais, suivi par un scène ouvert sur le thème de Éros, désir, sexe et sensualité.
Lundi, 19 mai 20h au cave à The Highlander, 8, rue de Nevers, Métro Saint Michel ou Pont Neuf.
When?Quand?
20h00 No Tell Motel anthology Readings by the poets (in English)/Lecture par les poètes de l'anthologie en anglais
21h00 Open mic/scène ouvert (bilangue anglais-français)
(17h-20h Happy Hour: come early and have a drink with the No Tell Motel poets)
More info:
A double-bill poetry reading to celebrate spring, agape, and eros featuring poets Evie Shockley, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Lea Graham, and Timothy Bradford from The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel, Second Floor anthology (No Tell Books, 2007) followed by an open mic with David Barnes and the Spoken Word reading series. The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel, Second Floor, edited by Reb Livingston and Molly Arden from poems that appeared on their on-line journal No Tell Motel http://www.notellmotel.org/, explores the multi-faceted aspects of desire, love, sex, and sensuality. The anthology and No Tell Books can be found at <http://www.notellbooks.org/individual_title.php?id=40_0_1_0_C>. A link to the anthology at Lulu, which offers an online preview, can be found at <http://www.lulu.com/content/1191170>. BIOS: * Evie Shockley is the author of two poetry collections: The Gorgon Goddess (2001) and a half-red sea (2006), both with Carolina Wren Press. A Cave Canem fellow and the recipient of a residency at Hedgebrook retreat center for women writers, Shockley teaches African American literature and creative writing at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. * Jill Alexander Essbaum's first book, Heaven, won the 1999 Bakeless Prize. Her second book, Oh Forbidden, is a collection of erotic sonnets (Pecan Grove Press). Her latest book, Harlot, is available from No Tell Books. A fourth book, Necropolis, (neoNuma Arts), is forthcoming in spring 2008. She splits her time between Zürich, Switzerland, and the States.* Lea Graham's work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Notre Dame Review, American Letters & Commentary, Mudlark, Shadow Train, and The Worcester Review. Her chapbook, Calendar Girls, was published in the spring of 2006 by above/ground Press in Ottawa. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. * Timothy Bradford's poetry has appeared in Bombay Gin, CrossConnect, DIAGRAM, H_NGM_N, Mudlark, No Tell Motel, and Runes, among other journals. Currently, he is an associate foreign researcher with the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent as he finishes researching and writing a novel based on the history of the Vélodrome d'Hiver. AT: The Highlander, 8 rue de Nevers, just southwest of the Pont Neuf, 75006, Metro St-Michel. (Happy hour from 5-8. Come early and have a glass with us.)

Report from 23rd April

Photos: Colin, Thérèse, Joy... crazy guy & poet (help me out - identify yourselves)




The City
Anne gave us Kabul. Charlie had seen it all before, a case of Déjà Vu. Giémo took us to meet La Ville Amante, à la fois proche et absente and introduced us to Denise, the richest SDF in Paris. Didier invoked Alfred de Mussy. Thérèse had lunch at the McDo de Bobigny (qui vous dit merci) and rescued a crab in destin de crabbe. Colin wasn't there, he was in Seville. Bex begged to differ, arguing people are everything, it's never the place. Donald headed off drunkenly to The Crimson City of the North. Conor gave him increasingly frantic misdirections - just drive through the hospital and up the traffic lights. Alex' ghosts were on a countdown to death. Robert Teetsov sang and Chris Fowle was filled with foreboding. An anglicized Colin took the Last train to Barnsley. Marco Polo and Ghenghis Khan showed up, discoverer and collector of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. Erica sang form the point of view of Achilles, all dipped in glory except for the heel. Alexa left on the underground train, observing that the metroline you take is obviously the one that is going to fuck up most. Charlie got up shot. Ben Slatky did Shaunessey's Over the Moon. Conor threw canibal ink into the night sky. And I slowly turned 37.
Lots more people did stuff, too numerous to mention. And there were so many people they were backed up the stairs in the first half.

Deadlined...



So much going on I've had no time to report about the last 2 Spoken Words - lots of good stuff lined up to put here when I have time though. Next Spoken Word is 9pm Tuesday 13th May at L'Ogre a Plumes, theme to be confirmed. (Please email me suggestions!)


And in the mean time Spoken Word regulars Erica & Stefanos are doing a free concert at the Pop In 9pm this Wednesday (7th May); Erica was also briefly mentioned in Telerama and her myspace is:
http://www.myspace.com/ericabuettner
The Pop In

105 rue Amelot
75011, Paris
Entree libre/ Free!
Metro Saint Sebastien Froissart