Guest-blogger Kim Roberts: Top 5 Spoken Word Venues in Washington DC

The literary scene in Washington DC, which would be a shining beacon anywhere else in the nation or the world, crouches in the dense and noisy shadow of the national government and all its multitudinous personalities' to-ings and fro-ings and shennanigans from Capital Hill to K Street & etc. Alas! Anyway! I'm a jump-up-and-down fan of Kim Roberts' splendid work, both as a poet and as an advocate for poetry, and not only within the Beltway, but radiating far beyond. The author of three books of poems, including the forthcoming Animal Magnetism, winner of the Pearl Poetry Prize (Pearl Editions, January 2011), Roberts also edited the anthology Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC (Plan B Press, 2010) and, for over ten years, has edited the acclaimed online journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Her new book is Lip Smack: A History of Spoken Word Poetry in DC (Beltway Editions, September 2010, in partnership with The Word Works, Inc. and the Humanities Council of Washington, DC), for which there will be two -- both free and open to the public-- launch events:

Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 5:00 pm
As part of The Humanities Council of Washington, DC 30th Anniversary Celebration and Grantee Showcase. Exhibits, readings, performances, and film, with an awards ceremony, and a champagne and cake reception. Historical Society of Washington, Old Carnegie Library, Mount Vernon Square, DC. (202) 387-8391. (Free, but reservations required.)

Friday, September 24, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Featuring Kim Roberts, with performances by Chris August, Twain Dooley, Gowri K, and Patrick Washington 15th Annual Baltimore Book Festival, Festival Stage, Mount Vernon Place, 600 block of North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD.

Over to you, Kim!

Washington, DC is one of several cities at the forefront of the development of spoken word, notable especially for its development of youth poetry slams (we were the first city to have one!), the range of organizations that nurture women performers in particular (or were run by dynamic women performers such as Toni Blackman and Toni Asante Lightfoot), and for being the only city in the nation to offer monetary grants to support hip hop arts and culture. Lip Smack, arranged in a timeline format, covers the years 1991 to 2010. For more information, or to order a copy (for only $10!): http://www.kimroberts.org/publications.html

Want to hear the poetry? Here are my top five spoken word venues in the Washington DC area:

# 1. Busboys and Poets
Three combo restaurants and performance spaces, Busboys has named a Poet-in-Residence at each, and runs several popular ongoing reading series. The two locations in DC are at 14th and V Streets NW, where Derrick Weston Brown hosts the 9 on the 9th series, usually packed, and at 5th and K Streets NW, where Holly Bass reigns supreme over their Open Mic series. Busboys is also home to the DC Poetry Slam Team.

# 2. Sulu DC
A monthly showcase of Asian American and Pacific Islander American performers that takes place at Almaz Restaurant and Lounge in the U Street neighborhood. Events usually combine spoken word with live music, stand-up, and video. Try to catch Regie Cabico when he takes the stage.

# 3. mothertongue
Although this series has reduced its programs from monthly to about four showcases a year, it is still going strong. Performances take place at the Black Cat on 14th Street NW, and admission fees benefit a rotating series of area nonprofit social service organizations. This all-women performance venue has nurtured some of the region's top performers.

#4. DC Guerilla Insurgency
Although they run an indoor space in the colder months, the way to really experience this group is on warm nights when they converge on Dupont Circle. The insurgency specializes in poetry of confrontation and resistance, to a backbeat of hand drums.

# 5. Beltway Slam Team
There are two slam teams representing DC, as of this summer. The DC Slam Team meets monthly at Busboys, but a looser, more interesting group has formed that combines spoken word performers from DC and Baltimore. Meeting monthly at The Fridge in the Barracks Row section of the Eastern Market neighborhood. Try to catch Chris August or Sonya Renee.

--- Kim Roberts

---> For the archive of Madam Mayo guestblog posts, click here.

Grace Cavalieri's The Poet and the Poem Radio Series at the Library of Congress

Read all about it here.

Guest Blogger Zack Rogow: 5 Links re: The Cover of The Number Before Infinity

Zack Rogow is the only poet and literary translator I know who can make an entire auditorium erupt into howls of laughter over the word... embryo. Well, maybe you had to have been there. I was! It happened at an Associated Writing Association Conference panel on literary translation. We've also crossed paths in Montreal and most recently, his class on Latin American Literature in San Francisco's California College of the Arts. As he has just published a new book of poetry, The Number Before Infinity, (Scarlet Tanager Books), I invited him to contribute this week's guest-blog post. An honor indeed that he accepted: Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of seventeen books and plays, including six collections of poetry, three anthologies, four volumes of translation, and a children's book. He's the editor of an anthology of U.S. poetry, The Face of Poetry, published by University of California Press; and editor of two volumes of TWO LINES: World Writing in Translation. Over to you, Zack!

I know you can't tell a book by it's cover, but when Scarlet Tanager Books accepted my collection of love poems, The Number Before Infinity, my first thought was about the cover. I'd been admiring for a long time the work of Mona Caron, the artist who painted an amazing mural that stretches the entire length of the Safeway supermarket at the corner of Market Street and Church Street in San Francisco. The mural celebrates the creation of bike paths in San Francisco, and it decorates the length of one of those rights-of-way with a continuous ribbon of images that metamorphoses from a train to a road to a snake to the track of a bike at the beach looking out at the waves of the Pacific Ocean.

I enjoyed looking at that mural for years when my trolley home from work surfaced from its underground route right at the site of that mural. Then by chance I met Mona at the dedication of another mural she did right near where I was living, and found out she had also done the bike mural, as well as a poster for the Critical Mass bike rides that give us a monthly reminder that fossil fuels are not the future.

For the cover of my book Mona chose to illustrate a poem of mine called "A Map of You," a love poem that begins with the lines: You've become my map, my geography:the Black Forest of your hair, your alpine lake eyes, fathom after fathom, your mouth red as turned Carolina earth, those shoulders like Dover's chalk towers, your Sugarloaf breasts, by your peninsular arms

Mona's initial design faithfully reflected the lush descriptions of the poem. When Mona did the sketch for the cover, the publisher, Lucille Lang Day, who is also an excellent poet and prose writer, was concerned the cover might be too much of a cheesecake image, the usual woman as sex object. Mona modified it so it showed a woman literally sitting on top of the world, sensual but powerful as well.

I hope the book does leave you with that image of the beloved. It also has a number of poems that reflect on the difficulties of love, particularly when the lovers are already committed to others. Yes, it's that complicated a love story. Many people tell me they like poems but often find them dense or inaccessible. I try to write poetry in a way that reaches out to the reader. The book is like a novel or memoir in verse, where each poem is a chapter in the story.

--Zack Rogow

--->For the archive of Madam Mayo guest-blog posts, click here.
P.S. You can order Zack Rogow's new book from Small Press Distribution and also from amazon.

Split This Rock in DC

Coming March 20-23 to Washington DC the Poets Against the War "Split This Rock" Festival. Check out: Why? Who? Featured Poets; Schedule and Program; Blog This Rock.

Kim Roberts Has A Website

Kim Roberts, editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, author of The Kimnana, and DC's all-around Poetry Goddess, (at long last!) has a website: www.kimroberts.org Check out her new book and scheduled readings. Next upcoming is the Poesus Reading Series, Wednesday, September 19, 7pm, at Pentagon City Borders Books, 1201 S. Hayes St. Arlington, VA. (703) 418-0166. Hosted by Cliff Bernier. Free Admission. Read her guest-blog post for Madam Mayo here.