Janet Kuypers’ “This Just In” 8/22/17 poetry feature @ Chicago’s Gallery Cabaret

    Chicago poet and Austin resident Janet Kuypers returned to Chicago for a week in August to coincide with the August 21st total eclipse of the sun (where she traveled to southern Illinois to photograph the event). During her stay she was honored with the opportunity to guest host the open mic she rand for over half of a decade in Chicago (then titled “the Café” at the Gallery Cabaret) as well as perform her feature show “This Just In” for Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret (2020 N. Oakley Ave. in Chicago – one block east of Western Avenue and one block north of Armitage) Tuesday, August 22nd 2017.

[tubepress mode=’playlist’ playlistValue=’PLYa-AZK78_hqh33uPFPKr9OzmeYVO-XNp’ ]
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYa-AZK78_hqh33uPFPKr9OzmeYVO-XNp

    Because Janet Kuypers knew she was coming back to Chicago the week of the total eclipse of the sun (and because she had no book releases of her poetry for years, ever since she moved TO Austin), Janet Kuypers was thrilled that Scars Publications was able to release the first printing (from a U.S. printer) of two new books of hers, of poetry she had written while living in Austin, “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” and “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 show poems” (the second book of poems she wrote for features she has had in Austin). Since her return from this trip, Scars Publications has also released the second printing of “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” and “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 show poems” (from an Amazon affiliated printer, with sales from printers in the U.S., the U.K., all of Europe, and also Japan). Everything she read in her show was from these two books, and she also sold proof copies to audience members after the show.

Read the poems from the feature “This Just In” (as well as poems performed during the open mic before the feature):

Protecting Peace can Put you in Prison
Original Snowbirds
Ultimate Connectivity: a bird in the hand
erasure poem: A Poetic History
Just One Book
Newspaper Ink’s the Blood of a Dying Species
Elusive Imaginary Creature
Your Imaginary Soul Weighs 21 Grams
Yearning to Break Free
Just By Holding His Hand (extreme 2016 sestina variation)

Knew I Had to be Ready
Ultimate Connectivity: Getting Naked with Nature
X-rays and Broken Hearts

Poems of Death & Incense by Alisa Velaj. Translated by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj

 
WHEN DEATH PILES UP
 
They should not have piled those dry branches up here
It is midday and the crowd
Will soon pass by them
The forest ghost will terrify the Dead
With the marrow dried in his bones
Then he will convey the crowd’s death
Like an electrical conductor permits a flow of energy
They should have piled them up in the heart of the Bazaar square
But no, by no means
At midday
 
 
THE DEATH’S PAWS
 
Death has white paws
With the hare’s soft fur
And blinding whiteness
Like that of the tiger’s teeth
 
With the hare’s soft fur
We rub ourselves
On meadows
Growing narcissi flowers
But the lake in the middle of them
Never shows us
The tiger’s reflection…
 
 
INCENSE
 
I pray again after hushing or I hush right after praying
The lily of dreams has long ran away from the white colour
The whiteness of the snow, the whiteness of the petals, the whiteness of the egg
A raven black as death flies around the lily and fades away falling in the hands of the storm
 
The incense’s smell piercing through smelling…
 
 
DISTANCE
 
He is three hours away from the Swan’s Neck.
The screams of the bird have been staying frozen on those shores since the midnight of the last song.
He is three nights away from the songs and a life away from the screams.
 
 

 
 
Alisa Velaj has been shortlisted for the annual international Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in UK in June 2014. Her works have appeared in more than eighty print and online international magazines, including: FourW twentyfive Anthology (Australia), The Journal (UK), The Dallas Review (USA), The Linnet’s Wings (UK) The Seventh Quarry (UK), Envoi Magazine (UK) etc etc. Velaj’s digital chapbook “The Wind Foundations” translated by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj is published by Zany Zygote Review (USA). Her poems are also translated in Hebrew, Swedish, Romanian, French and Portuguese. Alisa Velaj’s poetry book “With No Sweat At All” (trans by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj) will be published by Cervena Barva Press in 2019.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds) and his latest Collected Poems Volume at Next-Arrivals

Everyday Russian family in the View of Americans | Poem by Vladimir Tayninskiy

Everyday Russian family in the view of Americans.
Vladimir Tayninskiy

I’m home!
Why so late?
On the way to bear I was detained – I gave him vodka!
Everyone at the table !
Let’s drink some vodka.
Mom, I’m gonna go play with the bear.
He was already drunk and happy!
OK, only first you son have a drink vodka.
Where’s grandpa?
It is the second week in a queue for coupons on coupons for vodka!
Well, before that he drank vodka and not sleeping.
Okay, go for a walk, son, and don’t forget to write a report to the KGB tonight!
We don’t have food,but there’s a box of vodka.
That’s 30 bottles.For a month.
Honey, something’s boring!
You drink vodka and play the balalaika.
I’m going to dance.
I’m already drunk and funny!
And so on…
what do you really think?

100 Thousand Poets for Change(100TPC) Leeds 2017 Free Online Anthology

100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC) is a worldwide artistic movement whose aim is to raise awareness about our man-made social, political, environmental, moral and economic crises.
Artists have an especial sensitivity and language, as well as a commitment to beauty, spirituality and truth and that is why Artists can and should make a difference in bringing people together and reinforcing their solidarity, with a view on transforming society.
This book was incepted as a digital initiative supporting the 2017 100TPC events across the World that took place on 30 September 2017 concertedly with Thousands of other Artists on the whole planet, including our own reading in Leeds, held in The Chemic Tavern in Woodhouse under the auspices of Word Club.
We have included poems by generous West Yorkshire artists who wanted to contribute to our cause by responding to our invitation with poems on: Revolution, War, Streets, Business, Nations, Equality, Politicians, Conquest, Racism, Love, Europe, Nature, Death, Life, The World, The Good, the Great, the Evil. The Human and beyond.
This is the second of a series of 100TPC published by Transforming with Poetry, this time in conjunction with Word Club.
 
 

 
 

 
 
Co Editors of 100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC) Leeds 2017. UK
 
 
Mark Connors:
Mark Connors is a poet and novelist from Horsforth, Leeds. His debut poetry pamphlet Life is a Long is a Long Song was published by OWF Press in 2015. His first full length poetry collection, Nothing is meant to be Broken was published by Stairwell Books in 2017. Mark won the Ilkley Literature Festival Open Mic competition in both 2014 and 2015 and has received a number of prizes and commendations for his short fiction. His debut novel Stickleback was published by Armley Press in 2016 and was longlisted for The Guardian’s ‘Not the Booker Prize.’ His second novel, Tom Tit and the Maniacs was published in 2018 by Armley Press. He runs spoken word nights for WORD CLUB in Leeds and comperes and performs regularly at Literature Festivals. He is a managing editor of the new independent publishing company, Yaffle Press, For more info visit www.markconnors.co.uk
 
 

 
 
Antonio Martínez Arboleda:
Antonio (Tony Martin-Woods) started to write poetry for the public in 2012, at the age of 43, driven by his political indignation. That same year he also set in motion Poesía Indignada, an online publication of political poetry. He runs the poetry evening Transforming with Poetry at Inkwell, in Leeds, and collaborates with 100 Thousands Poets for Change. Tony is also known in the UK for his work as an academic and educator under his real-life name, Antonio Martínez Arboleda. His project of digitisation of poetry, Ártemis, compiles more than 100 high quality videos of Spanish poets and other Open Educational Resources. http://www.artemispoesia.com/ . He is the delegate in the UK of Crátera Revista de Crítica y Poesía Contemporánea , where he also publishes his work as translator from English into Spanish. He published his first volume of poetry in Spanish, Los viajes de Diosa (The Travels of Goddess), in 2015, as a response to the Great Recession, particularly in Spain. His second book, Goddess Summons The Nation, is a critique of the ideas of nation and capitalism, mainly in the British Brexit context. It incorporates voices of culprits, victims and heroes with mordacity and rhythm. It consists of 21 poems, 18 of which are originally written in English. It is available in print and kindle in Amazon and other platforms.
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds) and his latest Collected Poems Volume at Next-Arrivals