SpokenWord Paris

Can someone turn on the lights?

It was a dark, dark night… downstairs au Chat Noir. My mind was politicking in anticipation of the sudden flashes of inspiration (satori) that this evening in Paris would bring.

Ollie arrived a week late, with Teenage Poetry (last week’s theme). His voice breaking, his soul setting, he brought us his dancing spiders and flat-packed our existence. Premature ejaculation.

Sock puppet poetry from Thomas

Thomas told the tale of Jacques the pastry chef, the Coca-Cola Cassanova, and Edwina the diluted, bristling librarian. In sock puppetry. Edwina unleashed her laugh but avoided the very verve of life. ‘I am an unread book,’ she sighed.

Jane brought the Sleep Runner. Gabriel recalled Canadian cold and misses the white of night in January.

Amel sang a Heartstopper song. Kelly took to the piano. Simon Paul announced ‘Je me reconfort de my lifelong darkness.’ Alex conjugated the verb to hold in a broken circuit of not-us.

Jonathan failed spectacularly. Lizzie read Only snow by Allan Ahlberg. Phineas sang a capella ‘Fly me to the moon.’ Julien changed books. And Alberto described his satori in rue de Sorbier, en route to buy a lamp bulb after a shaving accident brought on by shaving in the dark. ‘I emerged from the dark bathroom my face a mask of blood…’

Kelly on piano

Round 3 grew more chaotic. Nicolette dragged a monkey cage into the forest. Ana sang Tom Waits – I tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past – accompanied by Rafael on piano. HLn improvised a channel charnelle. Bruce brought us back to the days of disco ball babies.

Tomorrow’s theme for SpokenWord 28th Jan is PIRATES. Do with it what you will. Or do what you would have done anyway.

Check out HLn’s amazing site Agglomerat des Reveurs including Georgina’s Dear Paris letters from America and much more. Her slam is every Tuesday Au Clin’s bar see here.

And don’t forget we’re looking for subs from spokenworders to The Bastille in our continuing effort to document what goes on here on a Monday night and what poetics are being concocted in the fair language of English in that heathen city of Paris. Details.

Oh and we’re still looking for a regular photographer to replace the wonderful Stef. Free drinks anyone?

Cheers all,
David

Report by Alberto. Photos by Steph. Full album here. Featured Poet: Alexander Jorgensen.

Alexander Jorgensen has lived and worked in such disparate places as the Czech Republic, the Galapagos Islands, China, and Kazakhstan. He currently resides in South Arabia. His visual poems have been exhibited in such cities as Toronto, Atlanta, Moscow, and Prague. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, 2008.

The infamous Bell.

It’s been fun. Everybody smiling, even laughing.

I) Thomas and just another muthafucking babyface gangsta Justin Bieber, Jonathan the former Osbidivist, Kate booing him. Bibì going German, Chelsea technically still a teenager, Gabriel giving up his hyperanalitical morose poems for his sincere teenage poems. Alexander Jorgensen special guest of Spoken Word Paris.

II) Christian Ames wandering the whole world as a bum, finally Paris, Victor & Freddy Mercury: “I’m just a musical prostitute, my dear”. Mags IS a professional teenage poetry reader, Melinda’s make it home, for a full video click here. Kelly’s cultural clash, Cristina and another very controversial story about fake orgasm, Alberto’s farts of wisdom.

III) Isabelle’s teenage poems from Australia, Shayna Klee and the Year of Purple, you have to imaging Yann dress in black reading his angry ado poem, Rufo: dedicated to the king and queen of teenage poetry: Arthur Rimbaud! Tim fell while reaching the stage and everything became difficult for him and for the audience. Somebody cried. David Sirois very edgy from the border, final teenage crescendo: Alex + Cameron + Katie’s sister poems! Now. next monday theme is Satori in Paris. Whadda??? Hold on, read Jack Kerouac’s words:

“Somewhere during my ten days in Paris (and Brittany) I received an illumination of some kind that seems to’ve changed me again, towards what I suppose’ll be my pattern for another seven years or more: in effect, a satori: the Japanese word for ‘sudden illumination,’ ‘sudden awakening’ or simply ‘kick in the eye.”

We are sure you are into this. Bring it on, Monday 21, under the snow, the Chat Noir’s Basement is even warmer.

by David. Photos by Stef, full album here. And hey, if you want to submit to our magazine check out The Bastille.

Gabriel (photo with miner’s lamp) had his hands on various thighs; fixed at this point with a curled lip, while an old man tugged at his laughter lines. J.D., about to go back to the USA for family & health reasons, sang ‘Are you gong away with not a word of farewell? Will there be not a trace left behind?’ Charles recited Shel Silverstein’s Man Who Got No Sign from memory:

Look out, Momma, he’s headin’ this way,
One eye yella and the other one gray,
Lookin’ for a soul, but he won’t get mine.
He’s the man who got no sign.
Well he blew right in, sat right down
And rolled himself a righteous smoke.
He lit his roach with a lightnin’ bolt,
He took a toke and spoke.
Said he was born in an astrological warp
When the moon refused to shine
On the cusp of nowhere and nevermore.
He’s the man who got no sign.

There wasn’t much Dr Seuss as it turned out, but I did Oh the thinks you can think and Melinda’s I do not want to play this game was inspired by Green Eggs and Ham. David Sirois did impressions of Paris. From impression no.53:

Smoking salesmen on the impatient sidewalk
There are no dogs…
…only traces of them.

Victor’s history of chanson reached 1968: Riots and Reactionary Chanson.

Brief History of the Postwar French Popular Music
Chapter VI : “Crève salope”
La France de 1968 en musique, du réactionnaire rockeur au gauchiste du terroir.
Jacques Dutronc, « Fais pas ci », 1968
Nino Ferrer, « Mao et moa », 1967
Renaud, « Crève salope », 1968 ?
Michel Sardou, « Les Ricains » (Sardou/Magenta), 1967-68
Jean Ferrat, « Ma France », 1968

Round 2 – Amel sang ‘Give a Man a Home.’ Callum did Monty Python’s ‘I like Traffic Lights.’ Kirsten was not waving but drowning c/o Stevie Smith. Sam lost his footing, wrote in the heart. The door was painted shut. Lizzie brought a poem from an old book. Bruce brought hymns sung from the back of greasy menus. Yann Icus read 3 great poems, one I leave you with here and another can be found on his blog.

BUKOWSKI’S BOXCAR

When I was 13 I decided to jump a freight train
after running away from home. I watched
my father shout my name leaning out the front
door, a letter crumpled in his dangling hand.
A letter of adieu, in dramatic cursive, my vengeful
farewell. Exeunt, stomping feet.
Ink bruised my palm from all that sweaty rewriting,
whittling those words to needle point, to cut deep.
I watched the sprinkler on our manicured lawn.
Watched the clockwork of grass growing, the grownups
staring from the porch like sailors on a deck.
Still, the roiling Ocean was too far.
There were no train lines to jump, no roads to Kerouac.
No-one trusts hitchhikers anymore.
Bukowski lied. He never even saw
the inside of a boxcar.
I stole food from my own kitchen, clean socks
from my own bedroom, and slept in the shed
with all the power tools and wood chips.
Father knew the whole time, he told me, years later,
with a gruff chuckle. Thought it was best
I ride this out.

SpokenWord is back Monday Jan 14th with the theme “Teenage Poetry” – bring what you will, your own or by others… the worse the better! Stuff off-theme also welcome. And we have a Featured Reader –

Jan 14th – Alexander Jorgensen
His writings and visual art have appeared in such publications as Van Gogh’s Ear, Diagram, e-ratio, The Nervous Breakdown, Big Bridge, Cricket Online Review, VLAK, Moria, Drunken Boat, Noon: Journal of the Short Poem, Shampoo’s 10th anniversary edition, Sous Rature, Otoliths, The Return of Kral Majales: Prague’s International Literary Renaissance 1990-2010, The Last Vispo Anthology (2012), and others. “Letters to a Younger Poet,” correspondences with the late Robert Creeley, appears in Jacket #31.

He was nominated for the Puschcart Prize, 2008.

Cheers all,
David

Report by Alberto. Pictures by Stephanie Hoffman (Whole album here).

Flashback to 2012! For the Last Spoken Word Rumble of The Year, featuring Rachel Rose Reid winner of the UK Young Storyteller of The Year!

I remember 2012, we were so young and naive: Pat Cash, David Barnum, The Tragicoptimist Jason, Christelle, Kate Noakes, Dylan Thomas, Chelsea, Lucy Gelman (Really?) like in the very very good good old times, nonetheless J.D. Ragan was singing “Hard Times come back no more”. Victor was singing Johnny Halliday come back no more, Walter and Thomas like Shakespeare vs Puskin. “This container contains emptyness.” claimed David. Alberto beseeched once again: Please don’t steal a stone from Tuscany (During your Christmas Holiday). Phineas’s Jazz from North Carolina, Vanessa G. (Remember Cigarettes Machines?), Dan singing in the snow, David (which one? The L.A. resident in South Africa). Bruce’s old man abused by the aliens, Sam reading: “Merry Christmas, Pissed Again”. Kia wanted to give this Christmas song as a present for the Family. Spoken Word’s Family please survive the end of the world and come back on January 7 for a new year of loud poetrynezz in tha Bazement!!!