#206 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2006 IDLE REMOTE SHREWD DANGEROUS DRINKER LONER FARMBORN HOTHEAD ACADEMIC BITTER AMBITIOUS OBSCURE GAMBLER CELEBRATED LIAR OBSESSIVE HARMLESS INSCRUTABLE AMUSING CLIMBER PRICE $5.00 ST. MARK’S CHURCH IN-THE-BOWERY 131 EAST 10TH STREET NEW YORK NY 10003 www.poetryproject.com #206 FEBRUARY / MARCH 2006 NEWSLETTER EDITOR Brendan Lorber 4 ANNOUNCEMENTS DISTRIBUTION Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh St., Berkeley, CA 94710 FROM THE DIRECTOR NEW YEAR’S THANK YOUS THE POETRY PROJECT LTD. STAFF FROM THE EDITOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Anselm Berrigan AN APPRECIATION OF OUR TOKEN PROGRAM COORDINATOR Stacey Szymaszek PROGRAM ASSISTANT Corrine Fitzpatrick FAREWELL TORY DENT MONDAY NIGHT COORDINATOR Corina Copp MONDAY NIGHT TALK SERIES COORDINATOR Renee Gladman FRIDAY NIGHT COORDINATOR Regie Cabico 7 WORLD NEWS SOUND TECHNICIANS Corrine Fitzpatrick, Arlo Quint, David Vogen BREAKING REPORTS JUST IN FROM BOOKKEEPER Stephen Rosenthal ALBANY / AUSTIN / BOSTON / BROOKLYN DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT Stephanie Gray BUFFALO / THE CATSKILLS / ITALY / ITHACA BOX OFFICE Charles Babinski, Courtney Frederick, Erica Kaufman, Michael Nicoloff, Joanna Sondheim PETALUMA / PHILADELPHIA / SAN DIEGO / INTERNS Kathryn Coto, Stacy Garrett, Laura Humpal, Evan Kennedy, Stefania Marthakis, Erika Recordon VOLUNTEERS David Cameron, Miles Champion, Jess Fiorini, Colomba Johnson, Eugene Lim, Sirius SEATTLE / SLOVAKIA / SPAIN / THE TWIN CITIES McLorbotague, Perdita Morty Rufus, Jessica Rogers, Lauren Russell, Bethany Spiers, Joy Surles-Tirpak, Pig Weiser-Berrigan 16 EVENTS THE POETRY PROJECT NEWSLETTER is published four times a year and mailed free of charge FEBRUARY & MARCH to members of and contributors to the Poetry Project. Subscriptions are available for $25/year domestic, $35/year international. Checks should be made payable to The Poetry Project, St. Mark’s Church, 131 East AT THE POETRY PROJECT 10th St., NYC, NY 10003. For more information call (212) 674-0910, or e-mail [email protected]. BOARD OF DIRECTORS Rosemary Carroll, Jordan Davis, Ted Greenwald, John S. Hall, Steve Hamilton, 18 THE NOAM CHOMSKY Siri Hustvedt, Gillian McCain, Elinor Nauen, Paul Slovak, Edwin Torres, Hal Willner, and John Yau. INTERVIEW [PART 2] FRIENDS COMMITTEE Brooke Alexander, Dianne Benson, Susan Davis, Steve Dennin, Renée Fotouhi, WITH BRENDAN LORBER Raymond Foye, Michael Friedman, Vicki Hudspith, Yvonne Jacquette, Patricia Spears Jones, Michel de Konkoly Thege, Greg Masters, Peter Pennoyer, Jessica Reighard, Kimberly Vernardos, and Alexander Wood. 21 THE ROMANTIC-MODERN FUNDERS The Aeroflex Foundation; the Axe-Houghton Foundation; Brooke Alexander Gallery/Brooke Alexander Editions; Erato Press; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; the Foundation for Contemporary Performance LYRIC: POETRY FOR Arts, Inc.; Edge Books; The Herman Goldman Foundation; Granary Books; The Greenwich Collection, The Heyday Foundation; Irwin, Lewin, Cohn &Lewis; the Laura (Riding) Jackson Board of Literary Management; THE NON-POET The Jerome Foundation; Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; the Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund; Nenaker & Herrmann; BY DALE SMITH Penguin; Scribner; Soho Letterpress, Studio One; Talisman House; The Tomorrow Foundation; Vehicle Editions; The Winslow Family Foundation; Anonymous Foundations and Corporations; Russell Banks; Dianne Benson; Katherine Bradford; Mary Rose Brusewitz; Rosemary Carroll; Willem Dafoe; Peggy DeCoursey; Georgia & Bill Delano; Anne Delaney & Steve Staso; Agnes Gund & Daniel Shapiro; Ada & Alex Katz; 24 BOOK REVIEWS Kazuko.com; Mary and Dave Kite; The Estate of Kenneth Koch; Michel de Konkoly Thege; Vicki Hudspith & TED BERRIGAN / EMILY XYZ / Wallace Turbeville; Jonathan Lasker; Katy Lederer; Mark McCain; Deborah Berg McCarthy & Michael McCarthy; Jerome & Diane Rothenberg; Jeannette Sanger; Hank O'Neal & Shelley Shier; Simon Schuchat; JULIE CARR / CARLA HARRYMAN Andre Spears; Peter & Susan Straub; The Harold & Alma White Memorial Fund; Joan Wilentz; Karrie & MARY BURGER / TYEHIMBA JESS Trevor Wright; members of the Poetry Project; and other individual contributors. The Poetry Project’s programs and publications are made possible, in part, with public funds from: the 30 RECEIVED National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts; the City of New York’s Department of Cultural Affairs; and the Materials for the Arts/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs JUST RELEASED BOOKS, CDS & OBJECTS and Department of Sanitation. OF INTEREST SENT OUR WAY COPYRIGHT © 2006 POETRY PROJECT ALL RIGHTS REVERT TO AUTHORS UPON PUBLICATION. 32 JOIN NOW WWW.POETRYPROJECT.COM ON THE COVER: INSCRUTABLE, 2006 COVER AND INSIDE ART: TRACEY MCTAGUE FROM THE PAST WILL RETURN IN THE FUTURE WHEN THERE IS LESS PRESENT TO PRESENT FEBRUARY/MARCH 2006 3 FROM THE DIRECTOR Boni Joi, Brenda Coultas, Brenda Iijima, dhistatavas, lucid dervishes & disillusioned Brendan Lorber, CA Conrad, Cat Tyc, American emporers, jazzed by well-dressed Dear Readers, Charles Babinski, Chris Stackhouse, anarcho-syndicalists, gregarious hermits, Courtney Frederick, Don Yorty, Douglas and riled by the ghosts of wobbly rank & We had a great New Year’s Day Marathon Rothschild, Ed Friedman, Eddie Berrigan, file, by rejected aztek dieties & oblivion’s Reading, and managed to raise over Elizabeth Tung, Erica Kaufman, Erica housecleaner. Is it possible that this secret $13,000 for the Project across the roughly Weitzman, Erica Wessmann, Eugene Lim, location depends on you to make it exist, ten hours of readings and performances. Evan Kennedy, Evelyn Reilly, Felicia motherfucker? Excuse me, I mean, on you, The lists of various thank yous will follow, Mayro, Gail Tuch, Gillian McCain, Jan ye distinguished professor of future history but I want to particularly thank the 140 or Trumbauer, Jeff Perkins, Jen Benka, Jennifer and chief reifier of everyone’s private desires! so readers, performers, musicians and Bartlett, Jennifer Coleman, Jennifer dancers who made the event happen on- Brendan Lorber Robinson, Jennifer Tsuei, Jenny Smith, Jess stage. It is also worth noting here, as it has- Fiorini, Jessica Rogers, Jim Behrle, Joanna n’t been noted publicly yet, that the last two Sondheim, Karen Weiser, Kathleen Connell, WELCOMING A Marathons have included about fifty new Kelly Kivland, Kim Lyons, Kristen Kapsis, poets and performers, maybe closer to sixty, NEW PRESS Laura Elick, Laura Humpal, Laura and it has been fabulous to broaden the bill. Cypher Press, an new imprint started by poet Jaramillo, Lauren Russell, Lauren Wallach, Willie Perdomo and president and publisher This year we added a number of new faces Lisa Ozag, Macgregor Card, Marcella of Rattapallax Press, Ram Devineni, came to but did not bring back every person from Durand, Martha Oatis, Merry Fortune, life in late 2005 with the publication of the year before. This is going to continue - Mitch Highfill, Nada Gordon, Nathaniel Suheir Hammad’s book of poems the idea is to start alternating some read- Siegel, Nyx-Brimmer Williams, Regie ZaatarDiva. Cypher Press will be, according ers/performers each year, meaning some- Cabico, Rich O’Russa, Sally Whiting, Shu to Perdomo, “devoted to publishing the best one who didn’t read this year but has quite Chin Li, Stefania Marthakis, Stephanie Gray, in contemporary spoken word/poetry, fic- often in the past is likely to be invited back Steve Rosenthal, Tetra Balestri, Tobi Joi, Tom tion and creative non-fiction with the occa- next year. And some folks who got the stage Savage, Tracey McTague, Virlana Tkacz this year will likely not be asked back until sional reprint of a classic.” Congrats to BOOKS: Anne Tardos, Anne Waldman, ’08. There are always more people who Cypher, and keep the new presses coming, Belladonna, Coffee House Press, Elizabeth could perform than there are slots, so we are we say. Treadwell, Gillian McCain, Hanging Loose working deliberately to adapt the Marathon Press, Harry Burrus, Lungfull, Mary Lyon, to this reality as it moves forward. May Meritage Press, The Southern Review, Ugly AN APPRECIATION 2006 be less evil than 2005. Duckling Presse, United Artists OF OUR TOKEN Cheers, During December’s transit stike the easy Anselm Berrigan FROM THE EDITOR target of our collective anger & sore feet was the transit union, but they were the wrong NEW YEAR’S We all come from tough circumstances and target. As much as each of us was hassled, THANK YOUS now, bummed out in a city fresh out of the subway & bus workers lost paychecks & bums, increasingly at odds with the basic got fined. All because they didn’t want to We would like to pay a huge public thank assumptions, tough doesn’t begin to have to work to age 62 when the median you to the following volunteers and donors describe it. But our one institutional asset, age of death for a transit worker is 57. To who helped out during our Annual New nothing and a few holes through which even help them & their families, Lungfull!magazine Year’s Day Reading. As William that clatters away, means we will manage to redirected $2 from every new subscpription Shakespeare wrote in Henry V, “As many exist despite the flight of all the CBGBs and during the action to the Transit Workers arrows, loosed several ways, come to one 2nd Ave Delis from this world. Pastrami is Union Strike Fund. If you’re still angry at mark...so many a thousand actions, prologue for those who know everyone who the transit workers because they asked for a once afoot, end in one purpose.” We’re rais- has something going is bound to have for things to be bearable, you better stand ing our jewel-encrusted chalices to toast the everything gone soon enough. Unlike most clear the closing doors on your own continued proliferation of poetry in 2006. cultural icons, the ones who spend their chances. FOOD: 2nd Avenue Deli, Amy’s Bread, lives amplifying the voracious nostalgia into Bob Rosenthal and Don Yorty, The which they were born and then pass away FAREWELL TORY DENT Bourgeois Pig, Counter, DeRoberti’s, on a wilted bed, let us, the operatives We note with sadness the passing of Tory Elizabeth Tung, The Hummus Place, La behind the scheme realize we haven’t yet Dent, a friend to the Poetry Project.