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Poetry Circle Revisited
In the 1930s, the Raven Poetry Circle toured the West Village, selling their poems and hosting readings while the publishing world collapsed around them.
Every May, they hosted a poetry fair in Washington Square Park, selling poems for pennies. I think its time to do it again.
On the evening of Wednesday, April 20, I’m hosting an intimate reading at a cozy shop in the West Village, bringing together some of my favorite writers in the same spirit as the Raven Poetry Circle.
Each writer will read a single page: a story, poem, comic book page, memoir page, whatever they want to write. After they read, each writer will explain how much they would sell the one page of writing for—rekindling the scrappy spirit of the Raven Poetry Circle. After the reading, we will scheme how to celebrate the 78th anniversary of the Ravens’ poetry fair in May.
Join us at 7 p.m. on April 20, 2011 for the reading. The reader list follows below…
Ed’s Martian Book
547 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Jason Boog (host): He is the editor at mediabistro.com’s publishing website, GalleyCat, and an adjunct instructor at New York University’s School of Journalism. His work has appeared in The Believer, Granta, Salon.com, The Revealer, and Peace Corps Writers.
Levi Asher: He is Chief Executive, Creative Director and Philosopher King, LitKicks.com. Published Action Poetry, an anthology (Literary Kicks, 2004), Tiger’s Milk (a poetry chapbook, 2003), Summer of the Mets, a novel (Literary Kicks, 2002).
Rachel Kramer Bussel: She is an author, editor, blogger and event organizer. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, writes a column for SexIs Magazine, and has edited 38 erotica anthologies, most recently Surrender, Gotta Have It and Best Bondage Erotica 2011. She writes about sex, dating, books and pop culture for Alternet, The Frisky, The Gloss, Huffington Post and many other publications. She also blogs about cupcakes at Cupcakes Take the Cake.
Edward Champion: He is writing this short biography just before he is about to cook a low-key dinner of tuna noodle casserole and corn on the cob, which may or may not tell you everything you know. He is one of those easily ignored people, hoping to stay violent and original in his work, who you sometimes see in Brooklyn whipping out a netbook and attempting to chronicle some phantasmagorical thought or overlooked observation on the fly. His cultural musings — often long and also easily ignored — can be found in audio and words here. His musings beyond the real are uncontainable.
Susie DeFord: Her work has appeared in BOMB, Poets and Artists, Mipoesias, Work Zine, Dog Fancy, Shampoo, the Anthology “Dogs Singing,” Pyramid Magazine,The Comstock Review, Poetry Motel, Survivor Magazine, Architrave, and Pinyon. She won the Cody Harris Allen Writing Award and was a finalist in the Muriel Craft Poetry Award and the New Letters Poetry Prize. She runs Susie’s Pet Care, a dog walking, training and pet sitting business. She writes the blog Dog Poet Laureate and is currently seeking a publisher for her first book of poems and photographs by Dennis Riley called The Dogs of Brooklyn.
Lisa Dierbeck: She is the author of two novels, The Autobiography of Jenny X (Mischief + Mayhem/OR Books) and One Pill Makes You Smaller (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a New York Times Notable Book. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Dierbeck has contributed to such publications as The Boston Globe, Glamour, The New York Observer, The New York Times Book Review, People and O, The Oprah Magazine.
Guy LeCharles Gonzalez: He works in publishing by day, world domination by night. Over the years he’s lived in Staten Island and South Beach Miami; served in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, US Army, and Dennis Kucinich’s ’04 Presidential Campaign; won poetry slams, founded a reading series, co-authored a book of poetry and believes in the power of publishing as a community service. He prefers Pumpkin and India Pale Ales, Jim Beam, and Dona Paula Shiraz Malbec, and is a devout Mets and Jets fan from the Bronx now living in New Jersey with his beautiful wife and two amazing kids.
Elizabeth Keenan: She is a publicity director at a major publisher. By night she is a writer who spends more time watching ‘Hoarders’ than writing. She was a regular columnist for the NY Inquirer, has been anthologized in Living on the Edge of the World (Touchstone Fireside), and in the GalleyCat/Scribd literary re-mix of Horatio Alger’s Joe’s Luck. A workshop leader for the New York Writer’s Coalition, she most recently ran a workshop at Serendipity, a home for formerly incarcerated women in recovery in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn.
Andrew Kessler: He is a writer living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in The New York Times and on The Discovery Channel. He holds a degree in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. This is his first book about Mars — or any planet for that matter.
