Kearns & Catalano, Words & Music, December 29 , Poetry Thursdays

Coming soon, creative duo working in two volatile dimensions, poetry and music-- not easily tamed-- at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore’s Poetry Thursdays. On December 29, Rick Kearns and John Catalano will bring their own compelling magic, and the spirit of Lorca, and Tolstoy too!

Music and poetry, one night only--Rick Kearns will recite some of his flamenco poetry, and more, while accompanied by the talented John Catalano on guitar.

Both men have been jamming together in the storied “flamenco kitchen” and in various group situations for over 10 years. John Vincent Catalano (c. 1955) is an American musician, teacher and performer whose areas of interest include prepared and improvised music, flamenco, folk, blues, experimental classical and Gypsy jazz. Catalano is widely sought for performances, workshops and private music instruction.

Rick Kearns is the current Poet Laureate of Harrisburg and Northern Bressler. For many years he edited the poetry journal Blue Guitar. His work now appears regularly in numerous reviews and anthologies. He’s done four verse collections (another: imminent), and has been sowing poetic mayhem along the Eastern seaboard for 30 years. For this performance, these artists have been working rigorously to complete a bold lyric adaptation of the Soviet march song Polyushka Polye into “regimentally exacting” couplets in time to mark their second major collaboration on a free-form literary/music plane.

It’s all goes down December 29. 7-9pm. This special event is part of Poetry Thursdays, since 1999, a continuing poetry series, now held weekly at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore. 1302 N. Third Street. For more information, (717) 236-1680. Hosted by the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel.

Scarves like billowing waves. Pigments mix with gravel and sand.

And, everyone wears multi-colored scarves in the future/ and landscapes and rectangles/ all aspire to one horizon.

Gatherers force subtle narrative line through disparate images in order to slow shifting, whispering phantasmagoria which bleed our true Neanderthal. Yes. Three/ silent concretes.

Hunters impose narrative, fierce ideas, to create a new aesthetic-- a rustle, a gentle sway, a shift. Yes. A wisp, a curve in the dunes. Octaves.

Brave, bold, fragile. Diminuendo after diminuendo. Diminuendo after diminuendo.

Is there a breeze today? Hush... it all depends on the slightest quiver. It all depends. It so depends. It all depends. It all depends. It all depends.

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Hoopla re Pre-Liz-Laribee-Poetry-Thursdays-Gig, October 24

Flaubert in Kyôbashi

(photo: Marty Esworthy).

Van Gogh cried a river and painted literal rain that Hiroshige had carved into a block of wood. Virtual plum blossoms in a snow drift; Whistler transposing Hiroshige’s bridge at Kyôbashi to an Indian Head penny.

Plum blossoms rule. On this V.G. and R. W. agreed. They, almost mechanically, stared, & shook their heads, though not a nodding manner, dazed by the ferocity and angles carved by that genteel lateral reign. --Zuky Kunstweker

perceptions of numbly inherent in breeze effects

Ray Bolger pining, fading away. Yet, outside the Bell Foundry windows-- a sunny street of brownstones and black railings, fenced-in patches of earth round leafless trees, dwarf crocuses just pushing up into one of the first sincerely spring days of whole damn era. --ZuZu Rockit

Marty Esworthy Featured Dec. 3 at Poetry Spoken Here, CityArts

Gentle Harrisburg poet Marty Esworthy will be featured Dec.3 at Poetry Spoken Here, City Arts, 118 W. Philadelphia St., in York, PA 17401.

He's a leading advocate for sound poetry and meta-verse. Esworthy, a Megaera award-winning poet, editor emeritus of Steel Point Quarterly, and renowned poetry impresario, is founder of the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel.

He’s been published in numerous regional and national publications, including Haggard & Halloo, text_TOWER, Literary Chaos, Fledgling Rag, The Fox Chase Review , logodaedalus, Syzygy, The International Digest of World Poetry, and The Miserere Review.

Recent Esworthy tomes include hard reality, Pacobooks, 2004, and The Object Stares Back, Uh-Oh!, T&T Press, 2009.

His collection Twenty-Six Javanese Proverbs won the 2006 R.E.Foundation Award for Outstanding Poetry from Iris G. Press in 2006.

In 2006, Esworthy set in motion A Poets’ Tour of Harrisburg, a poetic stroll through the Capital City, impressed for posterity in a book and on a CD.

A recent Pushcart nominee, dubbed "Gentle Ben" for his sweet, yet sardonic, verse,  he also teaches poetry composition and literary performance. Gently, mais oui.

The Poetry Spoken Here/City Arts reading series, hosted by Keith Baughman, takes place on the first Monday of every Month, begins at 7 p.m. and runs until 9.