Theme – la rentrée/the Return
As always the theme is there to inspire you, and if it doesn’t then feel free to ignore it.
the return to? the return from? the return of? what exactly was/has/will be returned?
re-entry?
back to Paris and the Chat Noir after a summer of wandering, wondering, scheming and squandering? after a summer of adventure, misadventure or just… things to put down to experience and never do again?
For more info see post pinned to top of thread.
Chris Burke is an English-Irish writer whose debut collection of poetry, The Noise of Everything at Once,was published by Happy House Books in 2017. He won second prize in the 2020 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition and has been longlisted multiple times in the UK National Poetry Competition, while his works have appeared in magazines including Southword, Antiphon, Prole and the French Literary Review. He also leads a second life as a journalist, reporting on football in France and around Europe.
Janine Booth is a ranting, rhyming, revolting poet, recently relocated from London to the South Downs. She delivers poetry formal and free, serious and silly, political and personal. Janine`s work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, and in several books of her own poetry. She performs around the UK and beyond, at poetry nights, festivals, picket lines and the monthly Spoken Word Lewes.
Yazmin Monet Watkins is a poet, comedian, writer, actress, educator and organizer. Touring her intimate yet political poetry from Obama’s White House to Johannesburg, and empowering students from Harvard to youth prisons, Watkins’ body of work weaves art and activism, exploring the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, self-love and all things Black Girl Magic. A Posse scholar and a graduate of Dickinson College, Watkins’ work combines art and activism, providing critical artistic outlets for audiences to self advocate and heal. Watkins has developed pilots with Netflix and Comedy Central alongside Paul Downs, Lucia Aniello and her all Black female comedy group, Obama’s Other Daughters. You can see their work on their Comedy Central show and their Shondaland podcast You Down? Watkins serves as the co-chair of the Arts & Culture committee for Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. Once Beyoncé said she liked her hair.
Poet, essayist, fiction writer, playwright, art critic, translator, Serbian-born Nina Zivancevic published 17 books of poetry. She has also written three books of short stories, two novels and 2 books of essays published in Paris, New York and Belgrade. The recipient of many literary awards, a former assistant to Allen Ginsberg, she has also co-edited numerous anthologies of contemporary world poetry. She has contributed to New York Arts Magazine, Modern Painters, American Book Review, East Village Eye, Republique de lettres. She has lectured at Naropa University, New York University and the Harriman Institute in the U.S., she has taught British studies at La Sorbonne and the History of Avant-garde Theatre at Paris 8 University in France.She has actively worked for theatre ( with the “Living Theatre”in NYC) and radio( 4 of her plays were emitted in the U.S. and Great Britain). She lives and works in Paris.
Unfortunately Sophia has Covid and can’t perform because she might still be contagious.
So… this event will now include an OPEN MIC section, as announced at SpokenWord on Monday.
The open mic will follow the sets by David Barnes (poetry from his forthcoming book) and Kristina Vaughan (songs from her first and forthcoming second album, plus a few covers).
Sign up for the open mic from 7pm at L’Impasse, 4 cité Griset, round the corner from the Chat Noir. Métro Ménilmontant or Parmentier.
Free event (we’ll pass the hat).
William Walrond Strangmeyer was born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1945 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he went to Rutgers University, studying classics, music and psychology, on which he declined to follow up or to practice. He has worked in many different fields of endeavor, including amusement parks, banks, book stores, cinema, door-to-door sales (like Abbott and Costello), poker games, restaurants, taxi driving and warehouses. A forty-five-year resident of Paris, he now earns his living as an English language trainer and translator. He is the former co-editor of Upstairs at Duroc. He is the author of several volumes of poetry (all slim) and has given readings too endemic to cite around Paris, but also in the States. His other principal interests are various forms of combat sports and old music (doo-wop, Gregorian chant, hippie music, Czerny). He is Archon of Paris for the Moorish Orthodox Church and a member of various other organizations embracing a few essential beliefs and having even fewer doctrines and eschews the party of Evil.
Up until two weeks ago, Jillian Montilla (elle/she/her) was a part-time poet and a full-time master’s student in human rights at the Paris School of International Affairs. She’s still a part-time poet, but now she’s just unemployed. In 2020, Jill was named the U.N. Women Spoken Word Youth Poet. Partaking in the age-old tradition of poetry and activism, she has taught workshops on spoken word to migrant women’s groups and performed her poetry for the United Nations and international feminist organizations. Her poetry and essays, which unpack her Filipinx-American identity, have been published in textbooks and independent youth journals and magazines.
Xoài Elda David (pronounced s-why) is a Third Culture Kid who grew up in eight different countries. She studied Graphisme at LISAA applied arts school and Book Design at Ecole Estienne. Xoài has published several poems and short stories, and performed as well as hosted at International House of Poets Shanghai (IHOP) and Spoken Word Paris. Her radio play ‘One Way Ticket’ was performed by Moving Parts Theatre Group. As a co-founder of Organisation to Decolonise International Schools (ODIS), she hosts webinars, writes articles and manages social media. She and her father were once on the front page of the Jawa Pos (Java Post) Indonesian newspaper. Mother of frogs and freelance designer, Xoài is taking a gap year to finish her novel and save up for a Masters in scientific illustration.
SpokenWord Paris 