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

by

    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

[tubepress mode=’playlist’ playlistValue=’PLYa-AZK78_horq9aqEoMVFI3ZgitkJrmO’ ]

    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

Passenger Creek Poem by David Michael Jackson

by

Sugar Camp Hollow
by David Jackson

We were raised in Sugar Camp Hollow
on Passenger Creek
where them reb soldiers camped it is
said
and the confederate gold is buried there
or so the story goes

and I knew you there
and you and I both knew
to leave those grounds
where the small creek meets Passenger.
We both knew to leave
those grounds
before dark.
You and I
shared the secrets of Sugar Camp Hollow,
them rebs,
that gold.

The neighbor Simpson
told the tale,
his skinny fingers
waving, pointing to that
spot where the springs
flow to create that
small
creek
that place
where dreams are
formed.

A poem for you
tonight
Sugar Camp Hollow,
Passenger Creek,
them rebs,
that gold,

and I pause beside this spring
of remembrance;

this moment is
a thin stream of water
flowing
from a tiny spring
somewhere
***

Charlottesville Protest Death by Car Poem

by

charlottesville protests death

When is enough
actually enough
a rock on a pedestal
from a not so forgotten war
that seems to never end
now it’s a Challenger into a crowd
a Vanilla ISIS not a hate crime
and they awoke from a sleep
and they could no longer
put another name
on their hate.
It is a hard look into the mirror,
it is a battered face we see.
This discourse
this fight has been going on
since kings ruled,
gloriously going on,
sometimes in the streets,
in our words.
This discourse must go on
It is the red in our flag
it is the blue of our skies
and the white belongs to all
so
pick up the flag
shake the dust off of the word freedom
and let’s talk.

charlottesville protest editorial by Matt Masters

Janet Kuypers’ “2017 Austin Rhythm Fire” 4 poem set 3/20/17 w/ improv jazz band

by

On March 20th, 2017, people got together at Southern Hospitality in Austin TX for a show to celebrate the spirit of Lonzell Haggary with an evening of mini-features, all potentially accompanied by an improv jazz band. Janet Kuypers was the final feature performance for the evening, where she performed poems reflecting different themes, including “Keeping a Record of Going Too Far”, “Yearning to Break Free”, “Entering the Lake of Fire” and “Only an Observer”.

[tubepress mode=’playlist’ playlistValue=’PLYa-AZK78_hpjMRZ4jK7ubzVqM1-WhwZA’ ]

2017 Austin Rhythm Fire chapbook

    Before the show started she also released a chapbook of the poems included int his performance, and this chapbook “2017 Austin Rhythm Fire” is still available online even during her reading, so anyone could (and can) download as the chapbook as a PDF file for free any time.

Poems included in this performance:
“Keeping a Record of Going Too Far”
“Yearning to Break Free”
“Entering the Lake of Fire”
“Only an Observer”

We Were Poems

by

Can you tell me
can you tell me
oh brave one
can you tell me this sky
is blue for you,
the same blue for me.
This guy was always blue,
young girls
were always running in grand fashion
running into the arms of love.
I am neither wrong nor right.
You are neither there nor here,
not here at all.
I am not here at all,
We were poems,
poems written in the night,
poems written in the day,
poems written for you,
for me,
simply poems,
streams of thought leading to no thought, leading
to you, to me, to us,
to forever