Spoken Word Istanbul


9 January 20:30 at Tiyatro Kahve, Beyoglu, Istanbul 

SpokenWord Paris is proud to announce that Merve Pehlivan is launching the first SW Istanbul on the 9th of January. The poster is in Turkish but all languages are welcome. Merve was a long time member of the Other Writers' Group and Spoken Word Paris while she was here in France.



Kelimelerinizi defterlerden, müsveddelerden çıkarmak, onlara ses olmak için...
Şimdi Spoken Word İstanbul bizi dinlemek için var!



SPOKEN WORD
 İSTANBUL
9 Ocak Pazartesi 20:30
Oyuncular Tiyatro Kahve
İstiklal caddesi Rumeli Han Kat:2
Beyoğlu, 34421 Istanbul, Türkiye


Bu sahne sizin! Öykülerinizi, anılarınızı, yaşadıklarınızı, şiirlerinizi, şarkılarınızı paylaşmak, kelimelerinizi duyurmak için artık Spoken Word İstanbul var! Her dilde, her usulde kendinizi ifade etmeniz için! (Başvurularınız ve danışma için Merve Pehlivan: 0533 669 46 46)

Éditions du Chemin interview

Chantal of Éditions du Chemin interviewed me about SpokenWord, the Paris writing sceen, Strangers in Paris, etc.

Read the interview
Next Other Writers' Group
~ Saturday 7th January 5pm Shakespeare & Co.
Next SpokenWord
~ Monday 9th January Au Chat Noir

Spoken Word Paris 12.12.2011 Report

By Alberto
Mandoline Song Of Victory, Marie Song of Draw, Anthony: “I want to leave the City”, Jason reading for his personal pleasure leftovers from his old website something about bleeding tomatoes (as an Italian I’m moved). Kate reads four short poems, James told the tragic Story of a Butcher called Jean Marie “qui avait the best meat of Paris”, Eva singing a sad song called “Too much talking is good for a blind.” Alberto dedicated this monologue to last saturday night fighters. Griffin, for Griffin I mean this guy




performed a poem called “the third box” referring to Plato’s (Aristophane’s) sex myth.
In Round II the first is Claire. That's how I found out another fellow spokenworder won the Troubadour’s third prize even in 2010, her name is Claire Gheerardyn with her poem “Nest”. Troy Yorke, our Personal Jesus: “My hoven was hot and I was a witch”. Matt: you wake up in the morning and your head is on fire.
Amelia Parenteau:

Drift back to the beach,
Me, pot bellied and princessing,
You taught me to float,
And I haven't sunk since.

Pablo singing: Les Anges de Paris. Patrick gurgling waves like a saxophone altissimo.
and Lucy from:

Full Body Blush
(or)
Warning, Lucy Gellman is Supernovaing in the Grad Study Center

I leave black holes where I walk. The hallways of Paris IV breathe
with them, and the dixièmes cobblestone streets, and this bright bright city,
the only thing we share in the night.

What galaxies you hold in your hands, I told him once.
How much light you have trapped inside of me.

Chantal: “On dit que cette musique c’est votre nome, Sokol asking Proust for a sip of strenght.


And finally Kelly: “My apologies”. Please forgive her, folks. Last Spoken Word b4 Xmas holidays will be Monday, December 19 Au Chat Noir. See you there.

Last SpokenWord of 2011

Monday 19th December, Au Chat Noir
76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud
Metro Parmentier/Couronnes
Sign up in the bar from 8pm
Underground poetry from 9pm

Sad news: Death of George Whitman

Just read that George Whitman of Shakespeare & Co has died.

Without George, alternately infuriating and a sheer delight, and his crazy-wonderful bookshop, there would be no SpokenWord Paris, no Other Writers' Group, no issue.ZERO and no Strangers in Paris. And so much else. How many of us would even have stayed in Paris? Not me.

David

SPOKENWORD Report from 5th Dec

by David
This was the launch of issue.ZERO's Winter 2011-2012 number and it was packed. The photo is actually before it got really packed! Sold a lot of issue.ZEROs and we're now well on the way towards making back the printing costs. Click on the link above for details of how to get hold of a copy for 10 euros. Or come to the last SpokenWords of 2011 - Monday Dec 12th & 19th - and get one from us - Au Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Metro Parmentier/Couronnes. Sign up in the bar form 8pm, poetry starts 9pm.


On to a kaleidoscopic condensed poem of a report of words spoken and sung:

The waves brought a handful of fists
An alligator
The sudden pop of kneecap to neck bone
A foot like hailstones
There's always someone in the family who takes the jibes
I'm so mean I make medicine sick
He looks bad enough to get shot
Smells of tar
Is hard at the seams
Made of peacock feathers
While syringes kiss
And I melt like a marshmallow sticky on a campfire
Everyone had a cigarette and cocktail that night
Even the children
As Fermat's Last Theorem stripped off in Hollywood
Searching for harlequin who rode in on blue flames
Thick with memory and flesh
Tongue sulphur-thick
C'mon Mister - Get your jabberwocky out!

Hélène improvising


Tanti Baci & Casimir at the link last night


issue.ZERO launch SpokenWord Monday Dec 5




issue.ZERO the upstart lit mag from Paris
grown out of SpokenWord & The Other Writers' Group
launches no.-1 at SpokenWord on Monday 5th December

at the Chat Noir


Au Chat Noir
76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud
Métro Parmentier/Couronnes

8pm sign up in the bar
9pm the first round starts

Mailing list change

I'm killing the old mailing list (that works through meetup).

Spoken Word Report 21.11.2011


Crowd.

Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome to Spoken Word Paris. Thanks Troy. Mandoline opens, Jo plays the piano this time, James Navè having light issues (that’s my fault). David reading Pity le pauvre parisien: Who d’you think you are, Johnny Halliday?



Patrick.

Griffin’s got boyscouts in expedition between his legs. Come taste the poet. Em Johnstone with “Men are from mars, and girls are from Venus” and “Beautiful Pollution”. Listen to this one in a more domestic atmosphere. Lucy G. about traumatic sex, Brandon “eat me, drink me .....and Calvin Kline”, Kate operating necessary surgery. James “In high definition across the street, she pretended not to look”. Troy took this song called Festival from Sigur Ros, screwed the islandic and the gibberish syllables, rewrote a poem, sat down at piano and sang it. Holy Guacamole!!! Whadda xxxx is gibberish? A famous poem in gibberish is Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. Please Johnny Depp, can you read it for us?



Troy.

A new Chris Newens production, I just remember one line, ehm two words: “Faboulous breasts”. Jason Marcos: dry salt and many tears”. Felicia: two poems for the same person, some sappy shit (those are her words not mine), Megan Fernandes, the poetry editor of Strangers in Paris, is back in town “dating the taxodermist.” Check out her books and blog. Alberto’s for Megan panegyrical remix “Phenomenal Womegan”. Georginas backstabbing and opening secret files from Alberto’s sketchbook, secret dialogues during a lectures on “Dante and the conception of authority in the middle ages.” (“enormous huge gigantic boobs)” Sara and Anne “J’ai eu une enfance dificile”: Maxim slightly misunderstood the meaning of featured reader, so Miss Peacock and Amelia read when we were already overtime, but we made it! See you next monday here in Rue Jean Pierre Timbaud, down in the basement au Chat Noir!
Alberto

Next SpokenWord: Monday 28th Nov at Le Chat Noir


Host: David
Place: Le Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011
Métro Parmentier/Couronnes/Oberkampf
Sign up from 8pm in the bar
Poetry begins 9pm... underground

Report from SPOKENWORD 7.11.11

...featuring Emma McGordon, Lucy Hopkins, Benji, Sandeep, Leemore and many others.

Pity les pauvres Parisian men with gold teeth,
 fight off your father's idea of a cuddle,
  search for your reflection in a bucket of silky oil,
   your heart punctured.
If you'd known me,
 we could have been great friends.
  But now I have to roast you and kill you.
Rise arborescent, my carnivore plant.
Berdache boy -
 he throws like a girl but he fucks like a man,
  and he won't tell me what you took from him.
Dance, waiting for the metro,
 with looks like the crack of a whip,
  to piano sonata number two in B flat minor.
Every year, make a little piece of Tuscany disappear,
 coax deformations from jagged rock.
Take a deep sea dive down the toilet.
Be witched,
 be bothered
  and be wildered.
Sing golf songs.
Boys, don't you dream of princesses rescuing you?







Ah, la tristesse...


SPOKENWORD 14th November

Host: Alberto
Place: Le Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011
Métro Parmentier/Couronnes/Oberkampf
Sign up from 8pm in the bar
Poetry begins 9pm... underground


Halloween SpokenWord

David, photo (c)  Jean-Alain Le Borgne

Halloween began with B's scary whispering Nevermorrrrrrrre, Poe's The Raven. Me reading my translation of Poison (or possibly, The Fish) by Baudelaire. Georgina's Little Red Riding Hood chomping on her grandmother's thigh, while the woodcutter throbbed with the smell of sweat, salt and hair.
Patrick
Kate washed down a piece of Mrs Haversham's wedding cake with the best espresso in the world. Patrick slouched out of Babylon, his hour come round at last. Sandeep practised interpretive dancing before the cafes of Paris. And a fridge-cold fish stared at Lucille, rolling down the hill.
Lucile, photo (c) Jean-Alain Le Borgne
Marie Baby combines Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf in one.
Alberto: While I was killing you, I was saying I love you.
Camille selling a little girl's soul.
Gabriel was buried at night. Or possibly in night. Max practised alchemy, changing unrequited love into that which is desired. He reiterated the act of love, but found propinquity is not fusion. Jason pretended to be Italian. Ryan's Satan lives in Prague, drowned within a sanguine flood - but is it wine... or blood? 
Troy: festering feet from the old country
Bruce was Black Pelvis, brought us the liar who says sleep will come easily and a girl who smells of bacon fat. James gave us 'Bicycle, my Bicycle.' Margot and Tamara shook dreams from our hair.

Next SpokenWord: Tonight at Le Ballon Vert
Sign up from 8pm, first round starts 9pm
Thanks to Julianne Sibiski and Jean-Alain Le Borgne for the photos.


Pity le pauvre Parisian

Sens d’humour excised at birth
but schooled in ridicule.
Langage distorting the mouth.
Monkeys with Mick Jagger lips
condemned to a permanent pout.
With their enunciated phrases from Molière,
their aristocratic scowls.
- Who d’you think you are, Johnny Halliday?

Consider the curse of le pauvre Parisian
Thinking themselves thinner at the café philo
or dodging dogshit in the place du Cliché.
Watch as they set their sharp shoulders
and walk directly into opponent pedestrians.
They disdain apologies as the mark of fools
- Ha! These collisions are not accidents!

Paris! A museum of steam-blasted ghosts.
Suspicious, defending their corners.
Pour le vrai Parisian every joke is mockery
and behind their code of kisses
they languish,
conjugated by their own contempt.
- Ah, tourist! Stranger! Peasant lost in the big city!
What if you should contract their disease?

by David Barnes

Hallowe'en SpokenWord at Le Ballon Vert


Finally we'll be at Patrick's Le Ballon Vert
It's a real Irish pub and a fun place to party! 
33 rue de Montreuil
75011
Metro Faidherbe-Chaligny (line 8)

Usual times: sign up from 8pm, first round starting 9pm

This is a special Hallowe'en SpokenWord
and you're invited to dress up and/or bring scary poems, songs, stories/on a Hallowe'en theme... though all poems, songs, stories and non-dressed up people are still welcome. 

Cheers,
David 

Spoken Word Paris Report 24/10/2011

By Alberto.
B like Bukowsky, bothered by me repairing a sink, David: The Corporate Goldfish and the 7 rules for living. Chris: All those mushy things between amphibians. Carolyn: Naked in Hotel de Ville. Marie: Bondage Darling Mistake. If you want listen to her for a whole week, here you’ll find one song a day. Lucile: We are living dead. Troy: I’m squishing flies between my fingers, you are a terrible fuck. Camille: Out of my bush, home-made socks, the angel is lost, for all who consume home made socks. And we didn’t have our happy report by Trelys, it was a terrible shock, everyone immediately felt sad, and negative and cinic, almost Parisian. We had to do something. What?





Round Two. Beth Jervis / Miss Peacock reading from Revolutionary Poetry for Individuals in Capitalism, buy it here.
Patrick: Plum Prize, Dice are Cast. Lucy: Troy gets me into missionary position. Alberto: We can float like an oarless boat. Jason: not do do do do but pa pa pa pisser sur la pipe du pap pa pa pas. Chris Newens starring Georgina: Boning yours social inferiors on a night bus at Lambeth North. Alex: It’s later than you think. We made it. We can’t live without it anymore: Collective Dramatic Happy Weekly Report: Matilde Happy Monday, Molly Happy Tuesday, Alex Bad Tuesday, Lucy Happy Wednesday, Jason Happy Thursday, Patrick Sad Then Happy Friday, Ashley Happy Saturday. But where is Trelys?
Remember: Next Monday Spoken Word Halloween Special! Dress Up and Read (And Party!)
Where? We’ll keep you posted!

The Happy Report
Beth aka Miss Peacock

SpokenWord Report 17.10.2011


 A second fine evening at the Dallery. Jamie erased dead-eyed cyclists at his discount funeral service. Alberto was back from the UK where he colected a prize for a translation of a Llorca poem into English. Carolyn saw the afternoon spilling all  its clear light over the threshold, saw motorcycles used against the crowd in Iran till the crowd pulled them down, asked When will my heart stop?

 Me & Jason read Neruda's Puedo escribir los versos... (Tonight I can write...) in Spanish & English. Jason was in the underground city. Southbound on the line 5 is the best place to commit suicide. James (we have about 4 Jameses right now) totalled his friend's car.

Georgina
Patrick said Should I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more dreary and more grey. Trèlys preyed she'll always feel kinship with other humans, no matter how many legs they have. Camille brought the revolution in finite time, cut that platinum card.


B (centre, photo above) followed the Easter Bunny, found a catbit - half cat, half rabbit.

Bruce: The Sequel
 One of the most amazing things though this night was Moe's jazz poem with jazz dance by The Pillow Project Jazz Dance Company... really incredible. Chain gangs of song and memory. No photos though - pity - my camera can't do people moving. So check em out here: link

Lucy Gellman
Finally Max should've been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. (TS Eliot of course, and for some reason makes me think of Halloween which is coming next week...) And I tried to terrorise Trèlys and the rest of the audience with my poem about poisoning people. It really worked well with the intimacy of this small bar. Til next time. :-) Or see you at Halloween? That's also on Spokenwordday. Or as it is also known, Monday.

Spoken Word LATE Report 10 Oct. (Sorry I was in London!)

Routine makes the life comfortable and the humans weak and pavid. Finding ourselves suddenly homeless, put us a back to the essence of what is Spoken Word, not the wrap, but the content. Valiant spokenworders gathered in Bastille instead of Belleville, to demonstrate we can make poetry everywhere, and everyone seemed to to his best to prove it. David Barnes opened with a press conference about why we are here and a patriotic speech modeled on the famous “Carpe Diem” Georgina explained how all this started (the earth and the life as we know it, I mean), I told you was a very vigorous night, Kellyjoy went on stabbing like a butcher, Mari read “The Phoenix”, Gus played and sang a song dedicated to all the political springs around the world, Alexa was having an heart attack, I was having an heart attack, listening to her powerful poem entitled: “La Merde”:
“I must be sick cause I see shit everywhere, Je vois la merde partout!”
Shit taking the RER especially.
Patrick, read a poem with his band playing along:

“On a Railway Bridge in Cologne there hang Ten Thousand Locks.
Engraved tokens of Eternity, but they do not Eulogise,
the Monument they are attached to is one of Attachment:
Vivacious Exuberance of the Living Heart,
that hopeful Idealism that Reminds us we are not yet Lost.”

Carolyn wanting to be an insect, but not a cockroach, not a bee, not a fly, not a mosquito, not a bedbug. Marie playing acoustic but complaining she should have been playing electric! Trelys happy report ends up with somebody telling her: “Excuse moi Monsieur!”. Jo singing “This Life.” James offered the audience a multiple choice, becoming a demagogue. Gabriel is such a great rapper. Gus followed with “I’m gonna be number 1 in America”. Chris’s monologue: “Voyeurs”, encouraging you to watch youtube classics like “2 girls 1 cup”, “1 guy and 1 jar”. Camille inspired by the previous shit: “I met a man who shitted out of his side into a bag”, Jason do that when u do do not do do not do do do do what you do not what you, Mandoline recited by heart: “What do women want” by Kim Addonizio. Do you want to play it again? Dododoit!

Alberto has been in Andalusia translating Lorca “La Luna Asoma” or "The Moon Rises” winner of the competition Lorca In Translation. Ryan nailing Jesus on the Cross (I told you wa s a very vigorous night) indeed, Kelly, yeah, Kellyjoy’s final greeting card:
“I wish your balls would just explode.”
Spoken Word it’s every monday. Where? Stay tuned.

Announcement for SpokenWord on 17th October

SpokenWord will be at the Dallery for a second time.


Le Dallery
6 passage Charles Dallery
75011
Métro Bastille/Ledru Rollin/Voltaire/Charonne

All times unchanged -
Sign up in the bar from 8pm
First round starts 9pm

Cheers,
David

SPOKENWORD at Le Dallery 10.10.2011

So it was goodbye to the Cabaret Pop, hello the Dallery, run by Djill. Goodbye problems with heat, hello high ceiling and good lighting. Until we move into the Disquaires in December, SpokenWord is itinerent - and maybe all the better for it: it was refreshing to be in a new place with its different energy and possibilities, although the Dallery is too small to stay long - and too small to do theatre skits.

Streetview of the Dallery with Chris lit up by his cigarette in the centre

Do-do that Jason, centre. Surrounded.

The happy report, is brought to YOU!

Words to music

C
Café Philo

Guitar slingin''
The cat in the hat

Change of venue for 10th October


Monday's SpokenWord will be at

Le Dallery
6 passage Charles Dallery
75011
Métro Bastille/Ledru Rollin/Voltaire/Charonne

All times unchanged -
Sign up in the bar from 8pm
First round starts 9pm

Cheers,
David


SpokenWord likes...

Marie le Tigre & the Marvelous Anarcoleptic

A radioshow recorded live in James' Marie's living room.

SpokenWord Report 19 Sept

An Incomplete Report by David.
Photos by Pearl Pirie, taken on 5th and 19th. I think.

James
I began, reading Shelley...

like the bright shade of some immortal dream
    Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's dark stream

then Theko sang a song in Russian and James laughed and wore yellow, saying "Gym bodies... are let down by the head." Happi recalled how, yesterday, he was only a trace, a tear in an ocean of melancholy. Lisa Pasold talked about dogs. Stuff green as poison. Olivier saw horses dancing. Pearl wants to buy a bottle of water. A fish school scattered. Jason McGinsey was featured reader and did  COCA PARTY. He's a tragic optimist. Alberto called on us to bomb the oceans. (Sometimes when I look back at the notes I take to write this report I read the phrases I jotted down and have no memory whatever of what it was about. Bomb the oceans???)

Lisa Pasold
Troy hiccuped with ecstasy. Georgina told a goblin story. Troy & Suzanne were not necessarily in love. Gabriel hung between sensation and thought, emitting a baritone mating call. Alexa advised "Say no to nuns! The Lord has other plans for you." Chris and Ashley revealed how dentistry has twisted history in a dark and violent direction. Valerie detested the 17th arrondisement. Troy hissed like a venomous doughnut and Moe was a civilised man told to hold his tongue.

Trelys & Alberto
Finished with Hélène who works the bar and that was that. 

SpokenWord will be every Monday from 3rd October. Sign up to read in the bar from 8pm, first round starts at 9pm.

More photos:

Dylan of Corrupt Press
Paul Lisson of Hamilton Arts and Letters magazine
Henrik
David
Pesbo

Troy & Suzanne
Troy
Valerie