from Brent Cunningham's Journey To The Sun, "chimps, sakkis, gibbons"...

this was not an accident, I asked him.

I'm off to Seattle!

while reading Temblor #8 I came across a selection of Rosmarie Waldrop's tranlsations of Jacques Roubaud's Some Thing Black. about half way through the selection I had to stop, go back to the beginning, start all over again.

man, these are harrowing, mysterious, incantatory poems, I've never read anything like them, poems that just seem to get it exactly right, the "it" being death and loss, emptiness, grief. the book is about the death of Roubaud's wife.

"I'm not a necrophile, I don't desire your corpse. I don't/ know what that is. if it is. I've seen you dead. I have not seen/ you as a corpse.// Yet I desire."

I wrote Rosmarie thanking her for the translations (26 year old translations at that, Temblor #8 was published in 1988) and she very generously sent me a copy of the book, the full text, which I received earlier this morning. Thanks Rosmarie. 

and then much much later, after many Oakland adventures traipsing many Oakland blocks, Uptown to Downtown, Fairyland to Jack London, we were joined by Sarah and Liz and Channel at The Nightlight, there was a The Cure cover band, they were not good, we didn't care.

Saturday afternoon Fairyland with Wythe, Megan and Kim.

I'm participating in this UDP group reading at Green Arcade Friday, March 7th. 

announcement from Julian Poirier... 

 

"Friends,

I want to invite you to two poetry events coming up in early March. 

My friend and colleague Matvei Yankelevich will be in town from New York. We'll be reading poems together at San Francisco State University on Thursday the 6th. The next night (Friday March 7) we'll host an Ugly Duckling Presse authors' night at the Green Arcade bookstore in SF. It's going to be great! Clark Coolidge is coming down from Petaluma and a pageant of local UDP poets will be at the store to hang out and read: Micah Ballard, Dodie Bellamy, Tom Comitta, Brent Cunningham, Patrick Dunagan, John Sakkis, Cedar Sigo, and Sara Wintz. Party! The event is co-sponsored by UDP, the Green Arcade, and the Poetry Center at SFSU.

Both events are free. Here are the details:

Matvei Yankelevich and Julien Poirier 

Thursday MAR 6 @ The Poetry Center, San Francisco State 
HUM 512, SFSU, 4:30 pm, free 

Ugly Duckling Presse in San Francisco
Friday MAR 7 @ The Green Arcade
http://www.thegreenarcade.com/
1680 Market Street (at Gough), San Francisco, 7:30 pm, free 

Looking forward to seeing you there!"

Katy Bohnic and Lindsey Boldt read at The Speakeasy, 2/18/14

Katy Bohnic says "it's 80degrees in San Diego!"

2 Asians stare at me while I pee

Lindsey Boldt shakes hands with a ghost

and then on Sunday my friend Kati's band CALLS played an hour long acoustic set at Ohmega Salvage in Berkeley (those chairs filled up).

Woolsey Heights Reading Series w/ Jason Morris, Jean Day and Alan Bernheimer
1/15/2014

Jason Morris from the kitchen

b

Jean Day waves "hello living room I'm Jean Day"

Alan Bernheimer before the walls caved in on him

went to James Cordas's OHMN II exhibition at the CCA Gallery in Oakland, an interesting sound installation + video installation + poetry reading event. my good friend Zoe Brezsny and former SPD intern Nathan Gale read from their poetry, written in response to the show.

 Zoe Brezsny and Nathan Gale 

 James Cordas

soundscape

they're closing in on Zoe Brezsny as she reads a poem from her iPhone

I published a translation of Siarita Kouka's sequence Arotho on BOTH BOTH Books. If you'd like a copy I'd love to send you one, always on the house. Email me at john.sakkis@gmail.com.

Dodie Bellamy reading at Other Fabulous Reading Series (The Long Haul, Berkeley CA)

Luc Ferrari: Music promenade (1964/1969)

   Elderly 2