Report from 9th April

Photos by Marie de Lutz

Video & words by David Barnes

Hansel and the Candy Crook, by Troy:

Tonight
Troy showed up. He'd threatened to respond to Jason's stripping (and wasn't there a poem involved?) 3 weeks ago. He's still threatening, as Jason didn't show up.
We had disobedience, A.A.Milne style, with cellular sensations all the way down to the double helix.
Then a right hook from a headcase called Sharon, in Prague.
That solidified the experince for David Fishel; he looked for a swarm of words.
There are 3 kinds of mindless violence.
"The easter eggs are hidden in the nettle patch and the timer is running," said Emily, as she ran off to work in marketing. Someone was secreting away hours in cigarette boxes, unlocking spaces in him he'd forgotten he had.
Alberto's twin brothers pretended to be Siamese. It was spring time in Paris and Troy had a poem about Christmas.Georgina towered in Babel.
Edward read Stuart Leonard's Taking Brooklyn Bridge - see here at Occupy The Press
And David F, here on loan to us from his Ginsberg-Gainsbourg night in New York, refused to say the "ch" word, out of respect.


Say cheese!

How many years bad luck is this?

What's so funny?

David Fishel: more Ginsberg or Gainsbourg?

Next SpokenWord: tomorrow, Monday, featuring Rhys Trimble and his stick as star guest.

Spoken Word in Paris 02/04/2012

Report by Alberto
Photos by Marie De Lutz.
Music by Frank Sinatra.



Attention please: the running order might change at random. Kate’s tribute to Adrienne Rich and to the new Nokia vibrating tattoo. Ian W. Sperber’s Impro. Guest crooner Sonny Shula singing “One of Those Things.”
Yann’s first time: Horses, Orchids and Credit Cards:

Some people like horses.
Big mammals, like a giant
dog with square teeth,
towering, rippling canvas bags
of muscle and primitive thought.
Horses are just another large thing
that makes me very uneasy.

Emily Ruck Keen’s Poem on my mother and wine:

My Mother
...
She is a sad breathless frog
on a parched armchair
Remote control, locus of the room's energy

Silence hangs here like cigarette smoke
There is nothing to tell, except that
Loneliness is framed
in family photos
...




David Barnes’s “Higher than a high wire walker.”

Higher than a high wire walker

she orbits earth/satellites the world

Hung out to dry, clotheslined to the capsule,

her breath is frozen crystals and hashish smoke.

What reels her in?

her 3 year old son

the living cord

the pulse pulse oxygen rich and heat 

Arazo: Happy Birthday Mina. I hide in the bottle. I can hear my name. Brianna wrote in a Starbucks. Patrick I’m not a Crazy Messiah. Ex stripper Jason redeem his soul translating Saramago. Sid wanted to read from her novel but a situationist avangard action by Ashley, Chris, Ferdia, Shane and Emma broke in promoting Fifth Wall, the new international comedy troupe.



Debbie: If I had three wishes:

1. Something.
2. No more something.
3. Three wishes.

Lizzie goes fishing. Leonie leaves Paris and poetry sounds poetic. Georgina’s Mithological trip. Rigettini’s Falling Stars Kamikazes. Austin’s one liner: I’m always moving from side to side. Magda glares with hatred, she wants to destroy you. (Who? David Barnum? The Bartender Nico?) Rachel: This man has a big dick (D.B.? The bartender N.?) I’m Jewish. I don’t know what that means.” Jane: I said what? and she said: Dig! I said: Are you Roger? and she said: Who’s not? Shane: I knew I had an important life catching frogs and throwing rocks. Lucy: The Only Enjoyable Part of Writing a Thesis. Is that your clitoris becomes a drumset. Sonny Sinatra Shula. Fly me to the moon. Let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on a, Jupiter and Mars. In other Spoken Words, hold my hand, baby, kiss me.

bits of Monday 26th

Report by David.

Eyelids like wet towels
Wax melting on the skull vault;
a purring razor.

Shane reading from Word Legs: 30 Irish poets under 30
Downloadable ebook for next to nothing here:
http://wordlegs.com/30under30/

Always carry the disease with you - may you never get well!
Songs about drowning
A letter from Henry James: Don't melt too much; Content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own problems.

Marie Baby & Light Leaks previewed their concert Thursday 5th April

Mandoline: the great clock of your life is slowing down, 

and the small clocks are running wild..

Ian collapsed raindrops.

Merve from SpokenWord Istanbul:

THE LEAST COOL KIND OF SLEEPLESS NIGHT

by Pablo Sotinel

The sound your sheets make

as you shift in your sleep

remind me of waves against

the body of a ship.

You are keeping me awake, and I hate you for that

And yes, I am blaming you

Not the lack of alcohol or of orgasm

(which, are also kind of your fault anyway)

But your heat, your barely audible snoring and moaning.

I hope to God you're having that nightmare about Chewbacca that you told me about.

Above me, a mosquito flies in and out of earshot

The fucker's already bitten me twice, on my left big toe, and my right eyelid. I had no idea there was place in insects' brain for cruelty.

I wonder what would happen if I tried to kick you out of my bed at this very moment.

Would you be terrified by my insults, and run down, wearing only one shoe and clutching to your crotch the few clothes you managed to grab on your way out, crouching, lost and ashamed?

Would you tell me to just go back to sleep, knowing I couldn't push you off with all of my strength?

Would you even wake up?

I'm stung for a third time, right inside my belly button. Is there such a thing as mosquitoes with eating disorders? Maybe it's throwing up all my blood somewhere in my bedroom. I hope it's on your face, and it's this kind of thought that makes me realize: I need. To go. To sleep.

When I wake up, you're already gone to work, as we had talked about. Inside my pillowcase, the perfect shape of your face is carved, ephemerally preserved.

Lucile's zine launch:
http://www.facebook.com/events/203832683056145/

***

Béa reads a letter from Henry James

Spoken Word Paris March 19 Report or “On the difference between Beauty and Booty”

Report by Alberto.
Photos by Marie. The whole album is on our Facebook Page.
Magda trilingually opens. Cristelle and Beatrice bilingually singing “Dis, quand reviendras-tu?”. Brian is the referee for Socrates vs The Sophists . Troy: "Stop texting me, Mr. Beautiful."
A few lines from The Ventriloquist by Leonie Shulte about beautiful people:



....
you boy, afraid of your shadow
you’ll jump down an elevator shaft
for a drop of their spit
you’ll shine their shoes
take a beating or two
for one night in their arms
when they’ll remember your name
and kiss you
and kiss you
and kiss you
insane.

Claire is back from London and notices: There’s a puberty of poets in this room.



Marie and Georgina:

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I like it

it must be true, yes, I heard about that secret sex tape. Charlie would be Robert for a free coffee and a free stool.



I mixed up Ian, Mandoline, Mark Strand, Katie Grosso: The first intelligentsia was in love with the 2nd intelligentsia that was in love with the third Intelligentsia. Who wrote that? Calvin Jason Kline was stripping...




If anyone remember what was the poem about, write us. Lucy: it’s something like lovemaking. Mr. Yorke at the piano on Alberto’s When you sleep and your flower reposes from Strangers in Paris. Anna mugged for her memory. Patrick started this Booty or Beauty thing. Uncle James telling us a story of vampires...



... but it’s Georgina who send us to bed with a fairytale about Princesses and bushes.

P.S. Mr. Troy Yorke openly challenged by Jason (as we can see in the back f the picture) promised he will answer to this provocation.
When? Next Monday?

Report from 12th March

Fanculo! says Nicolas

Report by David.
Photos by Marie Lutz. More here

What do I remember from that far off night?
Magda drifting into oblivion...
Gary's quick fish...
Marie Lutz & Christelle's altercation on a bus...
Kate's jazz over the drowned city.

Then Nicolas the barman interrupting with his poem (partly written by Alberto and me, it has to be said):

Fanculo! Fanculo! Fanculo!
I keep hearing it from the apartment downstairs.
What does it mean? Do you know?
I like to think they are words of love.

Fanculo! say it like you say I love you.

The do do ron à la Jason, a tragic optimist.

Ah, Patrick... Declan McManus's oily slick on a wind-up world.
Then Lucy overheard on a Thursday afternoon.
I like to think that Jason was reminding us of what St Paul said: "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do." Do do do not judge for yourself with his recording here.

Camilla saw worms moving in the red dust. Troy: ''It's fun to play with fire.'' Marie Baby was In Heaven. And then it was half-time, time to party. 

Then Round 2:

LN carried out sunflower surgery. Rufo: "Here on our iceberg, these are the best times we'll ever know." Ashley had a love poem for Heisenberg, wet and electric. Brian had a stoney assed grope. Alberto explained about courtesy farts (between gentlemen). Amelia let the wind move her. Henry: "...dipping our biscuit minds into cups of art." And Ben, in a song-story, followed in her ghost-footsteps.

Thought is a trap!

Salut maintenant.

David

Report from Spoken Word in Paris March 5 2012

Report by Alberto
Pictures by Marie De Lutz (Visit our facebook page for more photos)
Featured Poet: Kate Noakes!



Waiting for “I spy and Shanti”, her forthcoming book, we celebrated her birthday and we discovered her South African Poems. If you missed it more poems here. We had Gary with a vignette titled The Frisbee. Cristelle’s tales with empty words. Lisa’s motel rooms and Cafè con leche, Jason translating Samarago and words licked and stuck, words like stamps. Marie and Patrick:



James Simpson furious like an average Macbeth: “He deserve to suffer an unpleasing death!”. Awoko singing: Licky Licky. (Is this the proper spelling?) Main difference between Rigettini, Shakespeare and Petrarch. Brian’s party guests and parents’ friends.
Georgina introducing unstrung letter C. with Troy York:



crushed by the tables he’s sleeping under. “I’m a donut, fuck me.” Helene. French. Merci. Patrick: Exctasy makes you cry harder. Shane: We are creatures built to struggle. Griffin takes part to 40 poems in 40 days. Ferdia featuring Patrick, Shane and Marie in “The discount superheroes agency”.
Ambjorn featuring Charles Dickens:




Debbie: We work too hard, we are too tired to make love”. Amelia in a museum where you can touch statues. Pablito: is this an haiku?

Come on, sobbing girl
Wipe the tears off your iPhone
I'm uncomfortable

What do you think? Is it? And we closed with Silvio:

Report from the 27th February 2012

Every week either me or Alberto is faced with the challenge of organising a SpokenWord. We agonise that the lighting will fail, the tango class will refuse to vacate the cellar at 9pm without some kind of physical fight, or that the beer will run out. Last week, one of these terrible things did indeed happen! Nevertheless we switched to wine and continued to the end of the night. 

 Here you can see the concentration with which we choose the running order for the night.

Thanks to Margaux for these photos!

At nine o'clock the cellar is emptied of tango dancers; the pews, sofa and cabaret tables are put in place, the piano is wheeled out and then... and then... all that remains is to face the audience and try to give things a good shove so that they start moving. 

 

This week, James was one of the poets clever enough to see things that aren't there. 
Lisa asked the right questions of souls reincarnated as caged birds.
Gary called in about therapy.
- Habibi? 
- Yes, amore.
- You don't like lying because you're American. 

 Marie knew they don't love you like I love you. And she said so.

 Ferdia pitched his story idea to Chris:
Girl meets werewolf, an Irish werewolf from Cork.

Magda explained he was nothing to write home about.

Scott's machine birds were singing.

Brian had been getting way too much sleep. He steered the conversation past an awkward subject with the grace of an acrobat.

 Suddenly it was round two and Lucky Hopkins emerged from an unexpected alcove. Like a beast with its horn, like a baby stillborn, she tried in her way to reach out to you.

"What a waste of space is man, so quick to coalesce in clan" complained Chris W. But Awoko kept smiling. And singing. And playing guitar. Chris N had Shakespeare off shagging Belinda Big Jugs while Hamlet got philosophical. Troy took his heart and ate it. Like Kate and a few others he's writing a poem a day for Lent. Margaux ended the night with some Gainsbourg, amongst which, for your edification and delight we reproduce this one here:

A CELLE QUI LOUCHE

A celle qui louche

    Je dis

"Je trouve ta bouche

    Jolie"

Si elle begaye

    Eh bien

Moi je fais pareil et

    C'est bien

Lorsqu'elle zozote

    Je dis

"Toi tu n'es pas sotte

    Et puis

S'il te manque une dent

    De lait

Ca te donne l'accent

    Anglais"

Tomorrow night SpokenWord will have Kate Noakes as our Special Guest Poet. That's Monday 5th March, Au Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean Pierre Timbaud. Sign up in the bar from 8pm, poetry starts from 9pm underground.

Meanwhile just a note to say Rest In Peace to the much loved John Kliphan, poet of Boston, San Francisco and Paris who ran The Live Poets Society. Here's a clip of him reading his poetry.

John Kliphan (b.1933, Boston - d. 2012, Paris) was a passionate and compassionate poet, teacher and lawyer. His poems are accessible, incisive, lyrical and often humorous. First published in Boston, then San Francisco, where he lived for many years, Kliphan befriended the Beats and was counsel for the North Beach art community. In the 1980's Kliphan moved to Paris, where he founded and directed the Live Poets Society, an internationally recognized series of readings celebrating the oral tradition of poetry while providing a venue for new voices and verse in Paris, the city's longest-running series of its kind. Invited to perform his work at events and festivals around the world, Kliphan was author of three books of poetry as well as individual poems and articles published in the United States and Europe.

Cheers!

David Barnes