Janet Kuypers

Janet Kuypers’ “Our Cultural Independence and Achieving Global Freedom” 7/1/17 poetry feature @ Austin’s the Baha’i Center

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    Below are video links and poem text links from the July 1st 2017 (7/1/17, or 20170701) poetry performance “Our Cultural Independence and Achieving Global Freedom” (accompanied by Hotel Music “Amongst Hills” from the HA!Man of South Africa) of Janet Kuypers’ Austin poetry feature through ”Expressions Supports Cultural Independence!” at Austin’s the Bahá’í Center.

    In this show, Janet Kuypers decided to tackle different forms of freedom and independence, as highlighted in her first poem “fader, his mädchen and the Führer”), about giving rights to a Socialist (and rapidly becoming Fascist) government, read to her recorded music of playing an electric bass with a bow. The HA!Man of South Africa’s “amongst hills” then played foe the remainder of her show, when she then switched gears by talking about freedom from oppression and independence from sexism in “of independence or freedom”, before moving to new poems about independence from idolatry in “Xerostomia”. Her final longer poem then tackles searching for cultural and intellectual independence and respect in “Utopia never happened”.

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    Before the show started she also released copies to people there of a Scars Publications cc&d bonus release chapbook of the writings she was performing in her show (in the order they were performed). All of the pieces from this evening’s reading were also released electronically in an online “Our Cultural Independence and Achieving Global Freedom” chapbook, which you can download as a PDF file for free any time.

Read the poems from the feature “Our Cultural Independence and Achieving Global Freedom”:
“fader, his mädchen and the Führer”,
“of independence or freedom”,
“Xerostomia”,
and “Utopia never happened”

Janet Kuypers’ “Meant to do Big Things” 6/3/17 poetry feature @ Austin’s the Baha’i Center

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    Enjoy writing links and video links from a June 3rd 2017 (6/3/17, or 20170603) poetry performance (with Janet’s video recorded electric bass sounds with a bow, and her live playing an acoustic guitar with a bow) of Janet Kuypers’ Austin poetry feature through June is a Woman! at Austin’s the Bahá’í Center about being a woman, and about what women go through.

    Before leaving her Chicago home to live in Austin Texas, someone told her (which she left as a note on her desk, and was the impetus for her writing her twitter-length poem “you were meant”), “you were meant to do big things, which you are.” This note, when used s a reference to women, was the perfect title for her woman-themed show “Meant to do Big Things”.

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    Before the show started she also released copies to people there of a Scars Publications cc&d bonus release chapbook of the writings she was performing in her show (in the order they were performed), as well as a bonus poem she performed after her show titled “My brain was (2017 Streamline)” in the open mic. All of the pieces from this evening’s reading were also released electronically in an online “Meant to do Big Things” chapbook, which you can download as a PDF file for free any time.

Read the poems from the feature “Meant to do Big Things”:
“you were meant”,
“Athena”,
“a man calls a woman”,
“cover”,
“Diane Talking About her Trip to Mexico City”,
and “Echo in my Mind”

Janet Kuypers’ “Time to Start the Show” 5/6/17 poetry feature @ Austin’s the Baha’i Center

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    Enjoy writing links and video links from a May 6th 2017 (5/6/17, or 20170506) poetry performance of Janet Kuypers’ Austin poetry feature through “Honoring Open Mic Hosts” live at the Bahá’í Faith Center in Austin.

    Since the evening was about hosting open mics by “Honoring Open Mic Hosts”, Janet Kuypers started with a poem about going to open mics, then a poem dedicated to the previous host of the poetry open mic Janet Kuypers ran for over half a decade in Chicago, then the first and last poems Janet Kuypers read at her Chicago open mic, and then poems about the troubles and the joys of hosting a poetry open mic. Her “Time to Start the Show” show was also accompanied by music played live in a past reading of hers at 2017 Austin Rhythm Fire from 3/20/17.

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    Before the show started she also released copies of a chapbook of the writings she was performing in her show (in the order they were performed), and all of the pieces from this reading were also released electronically in a “Time to Start the Show” chapbook, which you can download as a PDF file for free any time.

Read the poems from the feature “Time to Start the Show”:
“the Bathroom at the Green Mill”
“Frozen Together”
“the Battle at Hand”
“On Ashes”
“Kick Someone Out”
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls”

bonus “Haiku on the Fly” reading:
“keep”
“escape”
“force”
“drowning”
“oceans”
“destroy”

Janet Kuypers’ “Drop the Bomb” 4/30/17 “Poetry Bomb” readings to strangers live in Austin TX @ Graffiti Park

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    In continuing with the tradition of the annual meetings of the Poetry Comb (started on the last Sunday of April in Chicago), Janet Kuypers decided to go sponsor Austin’s 2017 Poetry Bomb at Graffiti Wall at Castle Hill outdoors for her Austin, TX installment of this annual Chicago poetry tradition on April 30rd, 2017, starting at 3:30 in the afternoon. She invited people to got together to read poetry at a place that is not an open mic, to just share poetry with passers-by — and people did go there to join her to read poetry — but they never found each other in the vast outdoors space! Either way, Janet Kuypers did read a number of her short poems (all poems she had either never read before, or only read once in public, so they were not well-known poems) when she decided to “Drop the Bomb” — the poetry bomb, that is. (And it is funny that John chose to facebook live stream some of her reading, because that is the only way we found that some people went to Graffiti Park, and we happened to miss each other)

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In addition to YouTube videos, there was also a live facebook streaming video of a good portion of the reading as well (since it was a live facebook streaming video, it could not be placed in the YouTube video playlist from this event).

Drop the Bomb - poems from Janet Kuypers

    Before the show started she also released a chapbook of all of the short poems she held slated to read (and she read all of them expect the last poem in the chapbook), and this chapbook “Drop the Bomb” is still available online even during her reading, so anyone could (and can) download, or view online for free, the chapbook titled “Drop the Bomb” as a PDF file for free any time.

Read the poems from the show:

“control”
“earth”
“enjoy”
“unbounded”
“Just Thinking About It”
“Kick Someone Out”
“Lades and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls”
“Exhaling Toxic Fumes”
“Jumping from the Mausoleum”
“Just to be On the Safe Side”
“Nobody Finds Me”
“Bored the Night Before 9/11”
“energy”
“errors”
“rescue”
“This is Only a Test”
“You”
“Only Searching”
“Ugly Babies need the Most Love”
“Bimbo”
“Good Escape”
“Goth Girl Photographer”
“Koala Porn”
“Occupy”
“On a Downtown Chicago Light Pole”
“On This Ride”
“Marne Rifle Poem”
“No Thank You”
“He makes me Think about These Things”
“(and you could hold me)”
“From Words to Wars”

Janet Kuypers’ “World Poetry Day” mini-feature event 3/21/17

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    Because March 21st is “World Poetry Day”, Janet Kuypers hosted an afternoon event at Half Price Books in Austin, where people read poems about a variety of topics.

Janet at World Poetry Day Janet at World Poetry Day

    Below are writing links and video links of Janet Kuypers from March 21st 2017 (3/21/17, or 20170321), where she performing 2 poetry readings (one of lengthy world-related poems ad one of shorter world-themed poems), as well as a few individual poem readings, in Austin at Half Price Books.

On March 21st, 2017, people got together at Half Price Books in Austin TX for a show to celebrate “World Poetry Day” mini-feature event hosted by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers. During this event, she performed a set of Lengthy World Poems on World Poetry Day, a set of Short World Poems on World Poetry Day, her “erasure poem: Corner Stone Against Slavery” (where shw took a confederate speech and “erased” portions of it to make an anti-slavery poem), and (because other features that day read poems for other poets for World Poetry Day) Kuypers also read the Carolyn Forche prose poem “the Colonel”.

Janet at World Poetry Day Janet at World Poetry Day

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    On the same day as the show, she also released two online chapbooks — one of “Lengthy World Poems on World Poetry Day” and one of “Short World Poems on World Poetry Day“. These two chapbooks are the writings she read in two different reading blocks (in the order they were to be performed). She did not distribute copies of this chapbook to the people in the audience of the bookstore, but she made sure the chapbooks “Lengthy World Poems on World Poetry Day” and one of “Short World Poems on World Poetry Day“ were available online on the same day as her reading, so anyone could (and can) download both of the chapbooks “Lengthy World Poems on World Poetry Day” and one of “Short World Poems on World Poetry Day“ as a PDF file for free any time.

Janet at World Poetry Day Janet at World Poetry Day

Poems included in this performance:
“Freedom just past the Fence”
“My Kind of Town”
“Been a World Leader”
“Enough’s Enough”
“The Little Differences”
an edited “Communication 2012”
“erasure poem: Corner Stone Against Slavery”
“Every Street Corner”
“Our Lady of Mercy”
“shoe prints on the toilet seat”
“unclean left hands”
“Get His Product to Town”
“Ever Consumed Goat”
“Moros y Christianos”
“middle eastern man in front of me”
“Obama on the Subway”
“Poverty in America”
“Flying to China”
“Building Houses out of Pallets”
“Everyone Has a Choice”

Janet at World Poetry Day Janet at World Poetry Day