Poetry Thursdays, June 30-- Jeff Rath is featured, one night only!

On June 3o, artist, poet and author Jeff Rath will be the featured reader at Poetry Thursdays' poetry series at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore.

Rath has done four outstanding collections of poetry beginning with The Waiting Room at the End of the World (2007), In the Shooting Gallery of the Heart (2009) and Film Noir (2011), and, most recently, The Old Utopia Hotel (2015), all published by Iris G. Press. His works have been published in a numerous journals including Everyday Genius, Delmarva Review, and Fledgling Rag. He is the 2007 R.E. Foundation Award winner and a Pushcart Prize nominee.7-9pm.

Iris G. Press editor Le Hinton says, in his introduction to The Waiting Room at the End of the World, "If you are one who prefers to experience life and savor its moments, sacred, painful, and true, I promise that you will find several of your own favorites that you will return to for sustenance, for pleasure, and for wisdom, and you will never be disappointed."

This event is part of Poetry Thursdays, a continuing poetry series, which began in 1999, now held weekly at the Midtown Scholar. 1302 N. 3rd Street. 7-9pm. For more information, (717) 236-1680. Hosted by the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel.

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.

.

.

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