SpokenWord Paris

Open Secret! Wednesdays all summer long @ Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais, 5è Paris. 8:30 open mic sign-up buds, & at 9pm it blooms crazily as roadside tiger lilies! Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4). Innovations in writing, song, comedy, performance art, theater, & dance, eeeeeven – strut yer proverbial stuff!

Featured poet Matt Jones has lived to write (poignantly, even exquisitely) about his war experiences in Afghanistan…unforgettable work! You are so welcome to come witness this, & share your own creations as well!

Matt’s Bio:
Matt Jones has penned prose and poetry about his experiences in Canada, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, China, and while on a warship. In Ottawa he worked as the artistic director of VERSeFest 2015, and was an editor of In/Words magazine, where he published a chapbook, “White Flowers and Landmines.” In 2014 he won Arc Poetry Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award for his poem “Wounded Village.” Published in Arc, Scintilla, and Ottawater, among other places, Matt currently writes in Paris.

Open Secret! Wednesdays all summer @ Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais (a teeny-tiny secret passage uniting Boulevard Saint Germain & rue Lagrange – look for the Franprix-in-the-alley) 5è Paris. 8:30 rolling open mic sign-up sparks, 9pm – fireworks! Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4). Your own personal lab for experimental writing, song, comedy, performance art, theater, dance & more! With featured singer/songwriter Darshana…

Bio:
Darshana, after six years of playing rock music at many venues & festivals in Paris (such as Gala Polytechnique, La Loco, Scène Bastille, & Festival Rock’n’Solex) as the singer and guitarist of the Four Black Taxis, started a new solo career with a completely new energy and repertoire. He is essentially a musician of protest songs in folk music, & has been coached by the music editor of Eddy Mitchell for 4 years. Notable interviews include Fault Mag (http://fault-magazine.com/2011/03/darshana-congreve/ /http://fault-magazine.com/2011/07/darshana/) & the world-renowned INSTITUTE Mag (https://institutemag.com/2012/05/29/darshana-congreve-2/). A new CD – ONE (7 Songs) is coming in October 2016, with the engineer & musicians of Louis Lumière. (Darshana’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT_g4xQkgtxPMbMQJmm34og).

See you at Le Bistrot des Artistes 2nite, friends!

Open Secret! Wednesdays @ Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais, 75005 Paris. 8:30 open mic sign-up, 9pm show. Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4). Experiments in writing, song, comedy, performance art, theater, & dance, eeeeeven – whatever you got cookin’!

We have a double feature this Wednesday: James Berg has been charming & moving & grooving audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for years (hear his SoundCloud here: http://www.soundcloud.com/jamesfromtheusa). . .but we will also have the great good fortune to witness Didier Cornevin’s reinvention of radical (not just for its time) French verse into vibrant song: the works of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine…as well as his strong original songs & dramatic recitations. Wowie Kazowie! J

James’ bio:

Dividing his time between the United States and France, James Berg performs as a poet, storyteller and musician. Often collaborative, his songwriting has been performed and recorded by American folk/rock musicians and was included on Old Shoe’s CD, Family, named by WXRT as best Chicago album of 2013. James’s poetry was most recently published last month in While You Were Waiting by Poems While You Wait in Chicago. His past and upcoming poetry, essays and short fiction are available in Paris at Shakespeare & Company bookshop through Spoken Word Paris and Paris Lit Up publications. Visit jamesfromtheusa.com for more info.

See ya @ the Bistrot!

Open Secret exists at Le Bistrot des Artistes – 6 rue des Anglais, 75005 Paris. A petite passage between Boulevard Saint Germain & rue Lagrange…From Saint Germain, look for the Franprix-in-the-alley! Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4). 8:30 sign-up, 9 of the clock rock!
“Poetry is that which is lost in translation?” is our theme-question. Featuring formidable poet/translator Matt Rosen . Also appearing,  the unforgettable singer Cat Rickman. She rocks!

MATT ROSEN is a photographer, writer & translator from London, who studies presently in Paris, and specializes in surrealist poetry. His photos have been published in several magazines, including Stirring: a Literary Collection, and Driftwood Press. He makes every effort to translate works of the surrealist group which have never before appeared in English (like his translations of Breton & Reverdy, in the current issue of Terre à Ciel:http://www.terreaciel.net/). His first play, The Sower Works for Mastery by Turning the Wheel, was featured in the conceptual theatre festival Fourplay.

CAT RICKMAN is a New York-based singer-songwriter, authoress, and poet. Her influences include the jazz greats, various hipster indie queens, and angsty British rock bands. Think, what would happen if Ella sang for the Arctic Monkeys.

The Other Black Girl Collective is a Brooklyn-based black feminist poetry duo comprised of nationally acclaimed award winning authors Angel Nafis and Morgan Parker. Despite popular belief, we are not actually the same person. We aim to celebrate black female expression and sisterhood, honor and highlight the multiplicity of the black female experience, and push against tropes and stereotypes that smother and limit us. Our work, featured in Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, The BreakBeat Poets Anthology, Best American Poetry 2016 and Buzzfeed, is deeply personal and individual, explores 21st century black American womanhood and its complexities: performance, depression, isolation, exoticism, racism, pop culture, femininity, family and politics. With energy, brutal honesty, dark humor, anger and pride, we aim to create a new Black Girl mythology. This is our first international tour of our two woman show If You Are Over Staying Woke.
Danez Smith is the author of [insert] boy (2014, YesYes Books), winner of the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Their 2nd collection, Don’t Call Us Dead, will be published by Graywolf Press in 2017. They are also the author of two chapbooks, hands on ya knees  & black movie, winner of the Button Poetry Prize. Their work has published & featured widely including in Poetry Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Buzzfeed, Blavity, & Ploughshares. They are a 2014 Ruth Lilly – Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, a Cave Canem and VONA alum, and a recipient of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship. Danez is a 2-time Individual World Poetry Slam finalist, placing 2nd in 2014. They edit for The Offing & is a founding member of 2 collectives, Dark Noise and Sad Boy Supper Club. Danez lives in the midwest most of the time.

Open Secret seems to exist (oh-so-happily!) at Le Bistrot des Artistes – 6 rue des Anglais, 75005 Paris. A petite passage joining in holy matrimony Boulevard Saint Germain & rue Lagrange…From Saint Germain, look for the Franprix-in-the-alley! Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4). 8:30 sign-up, 9 of the clock rock!

Come walk on the wild side! The theme tonight is the name of my new fave song, Rykarda’s “The Cloak of Comedy.” Rich possibilities there, non? Please give this a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoF62M762_U…C U there!

Rykarda’s bio:
Rykarda Parasol is a composer, lyricist, vocalist, musician, and performer. Originally from San Francisco, she now splits her time between there and Paris, France. Like any ancient explorer, she has stories and musings to convey. With a precarious, gender-bending vocal she weaves tales of identity, experience, loss, and adventure with elegance and discernment. She describes her sound as “Rock noir” which combines elements of folk. Americana, psychedelic 60s, and even Motown. Parasol has just released her fourth album, The Color of Destruction, on various European labels including Warner Music (Poland) and Interbang (Germany).
• Web Site: http://rykardaparasol.com/

Open Secret! Wednesdays @ Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais, 75005 Paris. 8:30 signup, 9pm show. Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4).

This week’s special guest poet: Chris Bernstorf (http://www.chrisbernstorf.com/), plus ingenious German electro-pop singer/songwriter Jan Dark (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs9_Lp1S5m1iK-HoYadmLfw). Theme: “I’ll never grow up!”

Chris Bernstorf’s bio:
Performing since 2010 and touring since he finished college in the spring of 2012, ChrisBernstorf has carved a singular trail. Having performed around 400 shows in 38 states and Canada, he finds himself equally at home in the middle of a metal show or a living room and has developed a reputation for breaking down the barriers between himself and his audience, inviting everyone in the room into an experience, one he hopes is wrought with honesty, passion, and love.

Jan Dark’s bio:
“Ever since my childhood days in Germany, I’ve always thought of reality as something tedious to avoid at all costs. What helped me through the day was a coccoon made of all kinds of music. Throughout this journey, I’ve always kept writing my own songs. One EP (R.A.W.), one album (Charting Darker Waters), and lots of concerts ensued, and after several years of joyful noise, I felt like cooling things down for a change. The resulting EP “Healer” is equally sober and dreamy: minimalist, hypnotic pop music, with the occasional psychedelic flourish.”
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See ya @ da Bistrot 2nite, for poetry, hilarity & hot music! 🙂

Performing since 2010 and touring since he finished college in the spring of 2012, Chris Bernstorf has carved a singular trail.  Having performed around 400 shows in 38 states and Canada, he finds himself equally at home in the middle of a metal show or a living room and has developed a reputation for breaking down the barriers between himself and his audience, inviting everyone in the room into an experience, one he hopes is wrought with honesty, passion, and love.  His poems run the gamut from shout-a-long anthems to quiet love poems to post-rock-length journeys and are united by an indomitable sense of joy and life.  Performing in every setting from music venues to parks to kitchens to a church bathroom, Bernstorf’s poems have found a home in the ears of everyone from middle schoolers to hardcore kids to middle-aged moms, proving at every turn that the ultimate classification for his poems is simply poetry for people