Banging The Drum For Call & Response

The tiny text reads:

Hamilton Gallery, Washington DC

January 23 – February 2010.

This show is the product of a handful of visual artists’ responses (Response) to a handful of pieces by DC area writers (Call).

The list of participants (stolen from Mike Scalise’s Blog) includes: Mike Scalise, Matt Klam, Sean Carman, Tati Suarez, Joe Hall, Leah Frankel, Danika Stegeman, Mike Dax, Jen Girdish, Gerald Maa, Eleanor Graves, Wade Fletcher and many many others.

A lot of good friends in that list.

I recently found out I’m paired up with Tati Suarez. She picked a poem which involves animal heads, pornography, and delicate religious sentiments. Her self-portraits are grotesque, mischievous, and  beautiful. I’m pumped to see what results.

Thanks to Kira Wisniewski and William Bert for putting this together. I’ll post the date of the opening when I know it. It’ll be a good event.

You can even follow this business here:

http://twitter.com/CallResponseDC

(Chap)Book Notes: Janaka Stucky’s Your Name Is The Only Freedom

After reading for the GRE Lit test the past several months, I came to this, the first chapbook I’ve read in a long time, with my brain violated by all the Victorianism–shell-shocked–& still digesting some  shifts in my “personal life” (some crappy, some better (living here)).

In the halo of fire surrounding an encounter with a destroying goddess/beloved, Your Name… is erotic, esoteric, and makes the frightful what we should desire–exactly what I needed to read.

Some of the best lines here take gestures that might seem absurdly gothic–

In the dark there is only darkness and

And push forward, unblinkingly–

The darker things dark clings to

–imploding our initial resistance to it through sheer excess.

Sample poems here. Beautifully printed too.

The kind of short line making, couplet use, and the correlating rhythms seems related (cousins maybe?) to what Schomburg is doing in Scary, No Scary. It seems deceptively simple. I’m looking forward to more.

That’s all. I’d hate to ruin my enjoyment and maybe yours by saying any more.

Thursday at Big Bear: Ken Jacobs, Kevin Stoy, Alison Hennessee & Mercury Fools The Alchemist

Come to the November edition of Cheryl’s Gone on Thursday (at 8 at Big Bear Cafe). Details here. I’ll be there. & beer.

Recently read Ken Jacobs’ “Locatable.” It is beautiful & hectic. Should be a good event.