Thursday, July 30, 2009

Recent, New & Forthcoming publications...

Summer does not forget itself entirely, though I feel I have... my mind washed away on the beaches of Sète, listening to the waves crash agains the falaises at night, and then here, Paris, still bustling and hustling about, the weather perfect--sun, breeze, warmth but not too humid. So I am just stopping into Blogger to announce a few recent, new and forthcoming publications.


Now Out ONLINE & in PRINT:
Translations: in Versal 7 of Albane Gellé, from "A Sound of Glass Inside her". The magazine featuring poetry and prose from around the globe is available for subscription or single issues via sales online at http://www.wordsinhere.com/.

ARTICLE & PHOTOS : Reminder, the last "Art Seen" article of the season, on Matthew Rose: is still up at EyePreferParis.: http://www.ipreferparis.net/2009/07/paris-artseen-matthew-rose.html

POEM: This week Jonathan Wonham posted a photo and my poem on his blog, Connaissances: his photo choice to accompany my poem "A Stanza in the Snow as Equal": http://connaissances.blogspot.com/2009/07/stanza-in-snow-as-equal.html

FORTHCOMING THIS MONTH IN PRINT:
Article : in Tears in the Fence, issue number 50: « Of Tradition and Experiment II : The Object in The Poem ». This issue is a magnificent TOMB, celebrating many years of the UK Lit review's success as a magazine promoting poetry writing in a wide array of aesthetics along with book reviews, short poetics articles and mini reflections. My article falls on pp. 104-109. For copies in UK: Single copies £6, Subscriptions £15 for three or £25 for six issues: David Caddy 38 Hod View, Stourpaine, Blandford Forum, Dorset DT11 8TN England. Please make cheques payable to Tears in the Fence. For USA Subscriptions/copies: They are available from D.E. Laczi 714 South Street, Lafayette, IN 47905, USA. Please make checks payable to Deane Laczi, $7 for a single issue or $20 for four issues.

FORTHCOMING FALL 2009/Winter in Print & Online:
Translations of Jean-Michel Espitallier's "58 Propositions" on Action Yes online magazine run by Action Books. The poems will appear in the December/January issue. See their current issue and enjoy the work up by others at: http://www.actionyes.org/

Translations of 3 prose poems by Jérôme Mauche, "Brachial", "Jugular" and "Cricoid" from his book Electuaire du Discount, (Le Bleu du Ciel, 2004) in Paris Litmag edited by Barbara Beck, Rufo Quintavalle and others: Upstairs at Duroc. For copies of the issue: pick one up at a reading this fall when it appears, or email Barbara at upstairsatduroc@yahoo.fr

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Little bits of Lodève...

LODEVE: The last post of today, before I head off to listen to many poets and a few debates on/about poetry. For those of yuo unfamiliar as I was last year with this festival, it is an annual festival called Voix: as in voix de la méditéranée, and gathers together authors from all corners of the med sea as well as a few who have gathered to read despite their land-locked locations! I have particularly enjoyed the varied venues, such as lounding on a hammock (see feet!) whil enjoying authors reading from Algeria, France, Iran, Tunesia, Malte... I wander from venue to venue, listening, observing, occasionally taking a pic or two. The readings start at 10am every day and finish arund 1am. There are also concerts, and nearby a volcanic lake, red-rocks and a pebble beach, where I took a break, hiking for a fewhours then swimming and lounding on the beach before heading back on the bus into this southern mountainous village. For the event site, see: http://www.voixdelamediterranee.com/php/index.php Voici quelques photos!!!
Arrival that is not an arrival: Marielle Anselmo and I sit in a little café within the ramparts in Montpellier between train and then bus onto Lodève (photo above of the Montpellier ramparts). Sweet frozen café drinks and the gurgling of a fountain at Marielle's back. Vacation begins!
Opening night: I sit with Maryanne and F while the eternal series of discours goes on thanking everyone, politicizing and culture and econ and politics chatting. The official thanks and welcome talks were the only marathon thus far! Opening night: 70 performers (poets, musicians, sound experiments). The most performers doing separate pieces that I have ever seen gathered at once. It was astounding, putting 4 poets on stage with their own mikes,; spread out, then just popping the spotlight on one then antoher as they read for a minute or less, a tiny taste of the work to be savored at later events. At the end of each, Blaine read out the author or musican's name(s) and then their country of origin, and on we went to the next and the next. Sometimes, as in this pic of Claude Ber with her accompaniatrice (sorry, I forget her name) the mike is brought to the author/performer and then the spotlight glows down on them wherever they are among the audience and tables. Made for a lovely dynamic. Julian Blaine takes a pause from his announcer role to do his own performance piece. Was the mic necessary? Perhaps this time!!! But he does have a serious pair of lungs!!! Dimanche: photo of my feet as I lounge in a hammock listening to Egyptian poet Yasser Abdel-Latif, French poet Jean-Gabriel Cosculluela, Iranian poet Farzin Hoomanfar and the presentations by French poet Josyane De Jesus-Bergey. A fabulous way to spend the afternoon. Aftter, I wandered and looked down on the setup for the reading to take place where the audience's feet sit in the water.
Then I had a wonderful experience of discovering the"sound" poetry, and really just very exciting both visual, lyrical, dynamic work of Anne Kawala--here in her blue dress with her arms dancing alongside her in the Place de l'Abbeye. Post-dinner, I discover a cozy off-beat spot, café bar set up with lounge spaces, people half-hiding in plantlife and laying against each other on wide white couches or along carpets set over the road as various authors read (Geneviève Raphanel from France, Souad Salem El Hagaj from Libia and Issa Samaa from Oman). Finally, to end my first full day here, late night, still meandering in circles mid-walls of Lozère, I stumble upon a qute event taking place where between the mini lyrics of Tunesian author Abdelfatah Ben Hamouda and the longer Italian "songs" of Fabio Scotto, Spanish musican and performer Pepe Martinez is banging agains the walls of the lavoir, singing joyous little bubbly song-poems breaking up the drowsy evening spirit in this glowing red space. By Tuesday I have taken on the habit of attending most of the sound & visual poetry performances, as well as the debates mediated by Julian Blaine. I find it terribly exciting to hear paired the extremes of lyric, from the traditional to the sound poets, and enjoy the fact that a dialogue is being encouraged between them here in this village. Among the most ear-splitting and also diverse was the reading and debate with Fabrikdelabeslot (French, in middle here, who calls himself neither poet, nor performer, nor plastician, but somewhere around these) and Jean Joubert--pictured here at right with F's sound tools in front of him, and with Julian Blaine at the two poet's left. Then Fabrikdelabeslot in action, in his bright orange workclothes. Also arriving on the sound/poetry rim of readings has been Pierre Joris, pictured here, who read in French translation with some language mixings poems with sound and/or music behind (around) them in the Place de l'Abbeye. Finally, the picture of me on break: out at the lke, taking in some air, silence, or rather the wild sounds of the waves, wind and either cicadas or crickets.

Images from London Reading

This is the quick fix series of imags from the London Oxfam event! Thanks Todd for inviting us all. Hope those of you who attended had as much fun sweating there on the post Marlybone High Street as I did. Also managed to catch the wonderful Concrete Poetry show going on over at the ICA, and advise anyone who has not seen it to head on over there!!!
Todd Swift, our Announcer, MC extraordinaire for the night!!! Also the Oxfam poet in residence. First reader, but a lovely posed pic as I did not have the camera ready (why I am a poet and not a photographer...) Rufo Quintavalle!!! Second up was George Vance who read, among other things, his collage from his new chapbook!
Then Barbara Beck defied gravity with her glasses as she shared some longer poems that were all new to my ears. Brentley Fraser was a great treat for me to hear for the first time, and I advise you check this Australian who is meandering round Europe this summer out! Following Brentley we had a little break for Wine and cheese and oxygen, Then we started up again with Jonathan Wonham who is now residing in the Northernmost Nortern of his hemisphere, or presque! He shared work from a collection coming out with illustrations by his brother (picture removed by request by JW).
Then I (Jen Dick) got up and babbled on as you all know I do. I read from the series I am co-writing with Amanda Deutch who is in NYC, on Orpheus & Eurydice. "Ballsy", urban poems, if I do say so myself, having left my rural, romantic Iowan roots aside for this language collaboration. We are having fun, and I cannot wait until we find ourselves on the same continent for a reading event! Finally, David Caddy did a reading and in a way a dance for us. I had never thought of David as so active. Hard to capture him in a still moment, as his poems races over the landscapes of England, his body mimicked their galloping forth. A fabulous end to a great night before we had to all rush out into the new storm that had come to cut the heat and chill the air.

Images of Leiden, Amsterdam, Burgundy...

This is going back a few, to the post-PhD vacation with my parents. Went up to Leiden (for the French, Leyde) in the Netherlands to see my dad's project at the IAMSE conference (that is, if I have it right, the International Association of Mediacal Science Educators).
Full of Drs and vets, one could neither fear for one's health nor that of one's pets, were one vacationing in the company of "man's best friend". I was struck by the odd number of Iowans at the international conference--just further confirms my impression that we Midwesterners like to get out into the world!

While Dad conferenced and hobnobbed and discovered what oither people were doing with computers and teaching, Mom and I visited a few museums, shopped, perused the streets and churches of Leiden and drank Belgian beers (Kriek!) on the sunny terrasse tables by the water. But we all got to visit the spectacular Hortus Botanicus together and admire the stunning giant lily (picutered here, top right, and a large dead leaf is also pictured below) with 2 meter leaves. We took canal cruises in both Leiden and in Alkmaar, also visited a cheese musem in Alkmaar (thus the before and after pics below here of the same place in Alkmaar, one from the late 1800s which hangs on the museum wall, and the other which I took out the window of the museum) :
We went out to the North sea to have dinner along the beach on a windy evening. Another evening, we went out to a Gala dinner with the conference and my parents had a little dance with the big brass band that played for us all. It was quite fun, and great to see my "old folks" being so young!
After our time with the IAMSE folks, we headed into Amsterdam and spent a few days as "hard core" tourists, seeing the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House, walking the red light district, catching the last bit of the fabulous Wimbledon Men's Finals while in a art deco café listening to a brief storm pass showering everyone outside. We ate at a lovely Italian place on the corner of the street near our hotel--the Seven Bridges B & B, where each room has its own charming decr and breakfast is served in the room so you can lounge and drink your coffee when not entirely awake yet (I highly recommend this fabulous place!)
One night I also got to BBQ with Meg Garr of Versal and her friends, talk tourism, poetr, art, the cold spell that descended upon us as we sat in the cooling grassy Vongel Park, and then I finished my trip with a nice nightcap near the hotel with Cralan Kelder and Brentley Fraser, talking more poems over beers in the dark and peaceful streets along the P...gracht (I foget which!) canal.
Of course, it must be said that my parents and I especially appreciated our "silly" tourism, popping into the Bols "museum" for some drinking and cocktail trivia and most importantly not only getting to have our own fabulous, perfectly-mixed cocktails, but topping that off (all pre-dinner as our smiling at the mirrored-ceiling here shows) shots of various Bols liquors.
After which, we headed back to France, passing through Paris then hitting Bougogne (Burgundy for you anglophpones!) where we spent time in Auxerre, out in the L'Yonne area even seeing the Guedelon chateau fort under construction using techniques taken exclusively from the 13th Century! We ate well, drove round and admired the end-of-season cherries and tasted some wines and liquors before returning to Paris then I sent my parents off home.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Art seen: Matthew Rose!!!

Here in Lodève, the ruddy red of the mountains and their greenery makes me smile and sneeze all at once. Been enjoying a wide array of readings day and night here at the 2009, 12th edition of the Festival de la poésie de la méditerranée : http://www.voixdelamediterranee.com/php/index.php where I spend my days reading good books in the shade of a café terrasse or listening to readings while hanging in a hammock. I still must try the readings where you are floating rafts on the tiny river here, or those where you sit in chairs with your feet in the cool river! At night, there are more readings by candlelight, or small concerts--even big ones, such as by Jane Birkin or Cesaria Evora.

And then I popped in here to check emails and I saw that back in Paris things keep going, life and publications that is. And so it is with great joy I announce the online appearance of the final Art Seen for the 2008-2009 schoolyear: Art Seen IX: Matthew Rose inside/outside of A Book About Death by Jennifer K. Dick including many a little pic I took while visitng Rose at his studio last month in Paris. The article is directly visible at Click HERE or see it or cut and paste this link: http://www.ipreferparis.net/2009/07/paris-artseen-matthew-rose.html


Matthew Rose's personal website is also chock full of more exciting art, such as the collage included at the top of this post. To spend the hours it will take to peruse all of it, go directly to : http://homepage.mac.com/mistahcoughdrop/Menu22.html