SAVE THE DATE!

CANESSA PARK READING SERIES:

708 Montgomery Street (at Columbus)

San Francisco, CA 94111

2^nd Monday Nights – September 10th, 2012

Ron Loewinsohn – reading from the memoir Home Again, Home Again.

John Sakkis & Angelos Sakkis – reading translations of Demosthenes Agrafiotis new book                                                                          "now,   1/3" and thepoem 
Laura Wetherington – reading from A Map Predetermined and Chance

Doors open at 7 pm.  Reading at 7:30 pm.

Donation $6.   (No one turned away for lack of funds.)

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Ron Loewinsohn is the author of the novel Magnetic Field(s), which won the Bay Area Book Reviewers' Association Award for Fiction in 1983.  He is also the author of some nine collections of poetry, including Watermelons (Totem Press, 1959), Meat Air (Harcourt Brace, 1970), and Goat Dances (Black Sparrow Press, 1976.  He was one of the two youngest poets in Donald Allen's landmark anthology The New American Poetry (Grove Press, 1960).  He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and  two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.  He is the editor of W.C. Williams' collection of prose piecesThe Embodiment of Knowledge (New Directions, 1974).  From 1970 to 2005 he taught American Literature and Creative Writing at Univ. of Calif, Berkeley.  He is currently working on a screen adaptation of Magnetic Field(s) and a memoir titled "Home Again, Home Again."

John Sakkis is the author of Rude Girl, and with Angelos Sakkis he has translated three books by Athenian poet and multi-media artist Demosthenes Agrafiotis — Maribor (The Post-Apollo Press), awarded the 2011 Northern California Book Award for Poetry in Translation, Chinese Notebook (Ugly Duckling Presse), and the just released "now, 1/3" and thepoem (BlazeVOX Books). The author of numerous chapbooks, pamphlets, mixtapes and ephemera, most recently White Castle Skateboard Stuntsand RAVE ON!. Under the moniker BOTH BOTH he has curated/ edited various projects including: blog, "band," reading series, and since 2005 a magazine.

Demosthenes Agrafiotis (1946) ,poet and intermedia artist, is active in the fields of poetry/ painting/ photography/ intermedia/ installations and their interactions, with books of poetry and essays, and exhibitions both in Greece and abroad. He has a special interest in the relations between art and new technologies. His book Maribor (The Post-Apollo Press) was awarded the 2011 Northern California Book Award for Poetry in Translation, Chinese Notebook (Ugly Duckling Presse) appeared later that same year-both books are translated by Angelos and John Sakkis. His recent books are: +-graphies (Veer Books, London),Betises (Editions Fidel Anthelme X, Marseille,in french) and ,ArtxArt (Redfoxpress, Ireland). He is based in Athens, Greece.

Laura Wetherington’s first book, A Map Predetermined and Chance (Fence 2011), was selected by C.S. Giscombe for the National Poetry Series. She has poems forthcoming in the Minnesota Review, Drunken Boat, and a Telephone Books anthology, The Sonnets: Rewriting Shakespeare. Wetherington co-founded and currently co-edits textsound.org with Anna Vitale. She teaches creative writing in Sierra Nevada College’s low residency MFA program.

I've seen Jose Canseco play baseball.

I own a Jose Canseco coffee mug. I used to keep movie ticket stubs in it. Now my girlfriend drinks coffee from it.

I once stuck an American Beauty ticket stub on someone's car.

I used to call wet dreams "thumpers."

My sister called me a Hog for eating too many Taco Bell tacos on my birthday.

I used to think I was fat.

I liked the idea of collecting toys more than playing with them.

Batman is my favorite superhero.

I wish my Pappou taught me how to play poker.

My Pappou was a boxer.

I've broken my left wrist, my right arm, my left elbow, my left and right pinky and thumbs.

When I have reoccurring dreams they are invariably about skateboarding, rollerblading, bridges, water and running/ jumping.

I enjoy compartmentalization.

Constraints appeal to me in the way that drinking a glass of wine in the closet for hours and hours appeals to me.

It's that feeling of having to go pee, of panicking that's erotic.

I once let a dog hump my leg because I thought it was playing with me.

I once let a tick crawl all over my hand because I thought it was a small spider.

I've never seen a UFO.

I haven't been to a baseball game in three years.

I should have been a composer/ producer.

Taste level is a real thing.

Jokes make me uncomfortable.

I've been to Wyoming.

I should have been an athlete.

I hated athletics when I was a kid.

I once shot for 36 points  in a basketball game after eating a Jack In The Box breakfast sandwich.

I played Catholic School basketball for 8 years.

I'm not Catholic. I never made the A Team.

My elementary school girlfriend was pregnant by 7th grade.

I just can't get into theory.

I like listening to Robin Blaser talk about Georgio Agamben.

Millepedes are horrifying.

Camping is unhealthy.

A healthy vagina should taste like metal.

Sometimes cigarettes taste like raisons.

Persimmons smell like semen.

My Mom once noticed a man fondling himself behind her on the bus. She told the driver to stop the bus, she walked the rest of the way home.

The bus if full of cretins and thugs rapping about Lebron's automobile.

I once signed a t-shirt after a skate competition, the kid thought I was somebody else.

I have no idea how to inscribe books.

I have no idea why I cross out my printed name before signing books.

I noticed Alice Notley cross out her name while signing my copy of The Decent Of Allette.   

Sometimes my pee smells like Cheerios.

I get embarrassed easily.

Sometimes I talk over people.

Loud people are selfish.

Crass people are too eager.

When I run Lime Ridge I think of the airport.

When I box I think of prosody.

I think our sense of smell is the closest we can get to time travel.

I've had nightmares of cats clawing at my arms.

I've had nightmares of humiliation and infidelity.

I miss too many friends living and dead.

I have no idea how landscape has affected me.

I dream of hills and Pacific Oceans.

I have no idea what my poetics is.

I know that music is primary, I wish I could make music. 

this pretty much sums up my weekend. a lot of sunshine in the park. then late night homemade fried chicken, mustard greens, corn bread, and mac n' cheese.

this quote too "it's official, I'm carrying around shit in my bag..."

I slept horribly last night. I kept dreaming that my brother was 11 years old. Rhythm Gymnastics remind me of the Cuban Missile Crises/ Soviet Block. twee overuse of the word "vagina," I agree. I have no poetry to submit. in the future everyone will "sparks outrage." I forgot to curate my bed this morning.

my friend Billy sent me this photo of him in a Dodgers hat. puke.

Billy is from the Bay Area, born Bay Area, bred Bay Area. He's lived in LA for like 10 years, but still, puke.

here's a haterade poem for Billy J.:

LA Dodgers Hat

Gin Rummy/ Vin Scully bashed a baseball at a blue-bellied turn-coat

My GAWD I can't stand the rain in LA

I'm LACMA-intolorant at the poolside working on my CV

Silver Lake is kewl though, I have friends in Echo Park

And who has time for sushi in Studio City
when the Giants are being outbid on the diamond

Billy Jack we want you back!

Cowboy up you blue-balled hick

the East Bay isn't the same without you

XOXOX

Recently texted "Serendipity Loves Company" and then thought about TMing it.

I was skateboarding with Micah Ballard.

Once Lana Del Ray showed up she started singing, and I started landing tricks.

LDR was our friend, we had lots of inside jokes.

I was landing big Ollie Impossibles, huge Pop Shuvits, nice little slappy board slides.

I heard from Logan this morning, he asked me about Mexico, said the post never delivered my new book.

I ate ribs yesterday, Greek salad, watermelon and figs and Greek yogurt with honey and raw oatmeal.

I watched the Giants game and read the newspapaer.

My wounds from Yelapa still aren't healed.

My new tattoo is almost healed.

What happened to my crew? Circumstances happened to my crew.

Oakland can be a lonely place to live, though SF can too.

I had a dream that everyone reactivated their Myspace accounts, we were all together again. Though obviously I was just time traveling. Obviously I'm 32 years old.

I think my favorite part of the day is waking up next to the person you Love, they're still asleep, you put your arms around them, face real close, close your eyes.

It was too hot to run yesterday, Concord, CA is not Concord, MA (Clay Banes). I'll box tonight.

I haven't boxed since before Mexico. 

for KJH

A space heater is not a video game
A Macintosh is not a fruit box
Arizona is not The X-Files being shot in Portland

Paris Is Burning vs. I Still Call It The Mission

If I could have one rock button for every lapel
I'd have 2 pupusas for eyes
And white wine for a tongue

Let's Chi-Lite slow dance on a horse trail
Let's butter finger kiss on a rickshaw
Let's BDP-Boogie when the time is right:
On a stoop, in the backyard, on a balcony with no view