Nov 28, 2011

OF GENTLE WOLVES LAUNCH @ HOLY TRINITY IN PHILLY

A CULTURAL CELEBRATION OF ROMANIA’S NATIONAL DAY

PHILADELPHIA—Calypso Editions is proud to team up with the Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church and V. Rev. Father Nicolai Buga to host a celebration of Romanian National Day. The event will take place on Saturday December 3, 2011, at 4:30 pm, in the Church's Festivity Hall (714 N American St. Philadelphia, PA 19123), featuring a talented group of Philadelphia based artists: the Philadelphia String Quartet, Romanian translator Adam Sorkin, and Romanian translator and poet Martin Woodside.

Ilya Kaminsky writes:
“Woodside’s translations perform miracles. There is no other way to say this: the poems are alive, they breathe, they laugh and howl, they re-create our world again. This is an anthology to live with: a sample or two from such established authors such as the venerable elders Marin Sorescu and Ana Blandiana, to many new voices that are restless, ruthless, ravishing and utterly lyrical.”


http://www.calypsoeditions.org/bookstore/romaniananthology/ 

Nov 12, 2011

Guerrilla Poetry Performances in Las Vegas

The poems performed were most of them picked from the ongoing communal MARGENTO grapHpoem we are working on together with Iulia Militaru, Jerome Rothenberg, David Baker, Charles Wright, Ovidiu Nimigean, GC Waldrep, Dana LevinMartin WoodsideFelix Nicolau, Gerður Kristný, Radu AndriescuPage Hill StarzingerRadu Vancu, a number of SE Asian poets soon to be presented on this blog, and many more.
 
Intro @ Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas
Chris Tanasescu
Tongue Place

Back to the airport? Oh, of course
we got a great deal on this flight (low cost),

and now we’re slowly drifting through the bars
just eying in amazement each displayed price –

so that’s the alphabet that anyone can read...
the new Esperanto? I belieeeeve, the restroom trumpet sounds.

Yeah, yeah, we are by nature conquerors
of airs… – “But will we go gently through the heavens’ customs?

you bantered, even Guillaume le Conquerant
ended up both blistering, coruscant, flowing out of his casket.”

Sure, although we’ll only be taken to the second
heaven, the one where they don’t serve any complimentary food:

and then, all clean on the inside, getting off the flying can-
ton, we’ll fill out the place with our tongue.



Chris Tanasescu
A Madrone in La Jolla

Se me confunden los ojos y las hojas…
amo el mundo del viento y del follaje,
no distingo entre labios y raices.
                                Pablo Neruda, “Primer viaje”
A poet’s occupation
is to compose poetry
The writing of it
is everywhere
                Ed Dorn, “Hello La Jolla”


There is no rain            but the breeze that brings the brine
which freshens up my bristle leaves      the berries’
glisten slowly pushing                 the sun                     into the ocean
            through reflection       towards      refraction  -- we breathe in           earth
listen!              the moon started         to rustle           under
            the wheezing night        traffic                        I’ll soon                       dissolve
                        in         the descending               dark  and slowly spread around       my own sea

in the moonlight we watch the madrone’s berries quiver:
reddish, yellow – like Russian candies in a Romanian Christmas
tree – candies all turned small monitors, last
Vegas lucky sevens winning paid outs, Paz’s
árbol mental – for man is a tree of images, woodcutter
Cut my shadows from me       Why was I born among Lorca’s mirrors?
the night copies me in all its stars. Unforgotten, shadowed
            by a one-star Non-com, a deranged Berenger in a beastly play I sing:
There are so many sides to reality Choose the one that’s best / for you… I just can’t get used to life The vast / similitude that hangs us all from this ramose / life tree truly hypnotized by the deep of clear light / makes me so thirsty for some native stories All words / are Indian (says Hugo). Love is Indian
for water, and madness

means, to Redmen, I am going home.                        Home
I stick my fresh roots in this earth now                I touch
the native skulls          its ovaries
it makes me     bear fruit              Mexican berries      Euro sy l
l able       I stutter:       this earth loves it so much       she’ll never let me go
the sun             moon              world                   will pass
but I will still make love to her and  even when         I die (O love
solve all) she’ll hold me in      digest me                     slowly
                          and be forever                  pregnant

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