SpokenWord Paris

There were gasps and groans from the audience as Shane recounted cocoons being laid in his pubic hair. Helen read from her tale of an attempted poisoning. David Fishel ate near 50 pancakes to win a bet for his grandad. At first Lucy Hopkins was afraid, she was petrified. Jessamyn started smoking again; everythign looks like carnage in this country. I can’t sleep without your warmth.
Emily’s eyes roared with light. Alberto was investigated for child porn and won his case when accused of horse fucking. (Wtf! Where does this stuff come from? Sometimes I read over these notes and it’s like seeing icebergs loom out of the mist of my beery amnesia and settle back into reality.) Jason translated violence from Naples.

Round 2:
Lucy Gellman was there “…and someone to bake it with.” Moe was stealing back his life. Ben thought of others, a candle in the darkness. Lucile was left standing godless. Edward saw the rain full of ghosts. Constanza    read e.e.cummings’
THERE ARE SO MANY TICTOC
By e. e. cummings

there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people 
what toctic time it is for 
tictic instance five toc minutes toc 
past six tic 

Spring is not regulated and does 
not get out of order nor do 
its hands a little jerking move 
over numbers slowly 

we do not 
wind it up it has no weights 
springs wheels inside of 
its slender self no indeed dear 
nothing of the kind. 

(So,when kiss Spring comes 
we’ll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss 
lips because tic clocks toc don’t make 
a toctic difference 
to kisskiss you and to 
kiss me)

And then it was almost over. Caroline filled the empty space with flowers. And Evan brought us news from the internet wars – Porn vs Cats – which you can listen to here 

Next SpokenWord tonight, and every Monday, au Chat Noir.
Cheers,
David

                                         Pansy: we splayed kiss marks all over the room.

Jessanyn: perhaps you thought no harm in letting her pretend. Louisa’s Christmas: Cats fucking interrupt our morning. Emily’s sex positions. Alberto’s May 2: Obama vs Osama. Griffin: “I am every gay-child who’s been told you better off dead.”

                                         Melissa playing the piano during the break.

 

Shane the nature poem of Saint Hook (or another Saint?), Fatima’s tick tock 52 weeks in a year

is my life measured by a laughter from ear to ear? Gina Bonati’s song: Don’t be so merciful, Don’t be too kind, I’m so used to this. Gabriel: What do you have to say now Prometheus? Tino’s singing it’s not about my monkey it’s about me and my pussy. Bruce’s exact change on the bus driver’s mind. Lucille introducing Scarecrow Collective number 3. Buy it at Spoken Word for Euro 1.50. Alex’s Baudelaire: Les gents se figurent l’ivresse comment un pays prodigieux. Ferdia and Shane and the new superhero: Man-man, half man, half man. Finally Beatrice brought flowers for David Barnes.

                                                 

                                          David Barnum looking into the future.

                                                       Margaux’s human Sculpture. 

 Shaping the Poem. From Completion to Publication. “How do we shape a poem so that it shimmers with meaning?.” We’ll discuss how to make our work the best it can be, with attention to communication and publication. Kathleen’s clients write their heads off, publish widely in all genres and win major prizes and top awards. You will too!   http://pariswritersworkshop.org

*******************************

bio, Kathleen Spivack

Kathleen Spivack’s memoir With Robert Lowell and His Circle: Plath, Sexton, Bishop, Rich, Kunitz will be published in 2012 by University Press of New England. A student and friend of poet Robert Lowell, Kathleen Spivack has written about the poets of his time, notably Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz and others who took her under their wing, with a focus on how they approached their work.

She is the author of seven previous books of prose and poetry (Doubleday, Graywolf, etc), has published in over 300 magazines and anthologies,  and received numerous awards. Named “Best Writing Coach” by the NWU, Kathleen teaches in Paris and Boston.

by David.
Photos by Marie De Lutz

It was Shakespeare’s Death Day. And somebody’s birthday too, who could it be? Oh yes, me! Unsex me now!cried Kate, filled to the top with direst cruelty. “You’re not drunk – the floor’s just moving,” responded James. Alberto took arms against a sea of English grammar. Jason filled the breach with English dead, which may be ‘cos he doesn’t like the English or may be because he was out to antagonise the French against us. Troy responded to Jason with words from Cassius. And then, and then… I’ll come to more non-Shakespearean stuff in a sec but first – the witches! Check out the witches, fresh from Tesco:

Glam rock witch

Scots witch, Glam rock witch & French Resistance witch… just back from Tesco to cook up something wicked

How cool is that!
Some other fragments:
Shane’s nomad conversing with a dead dolphin. Pablo’s panic attack. Melanie skipped a step when she should have said “Fuck you!” Moe leaned into the afternoon. Sonny Shula sang. Ferdia with a deleted scene from Hamlet. Gina: Life as a whore. Antonia:

Report by Alberto
Photos by Marie De Lutz.
Music by Frank Sinatra.

Attention please: the running order might change at random. Kate’s tribute to Adrienne Rich and to the new Nokia vibrating tattoo. Ian W. Sperber’s Impro. Guest crooner Sonny Shula singing “One of Those Things.”
Yann’s first time: Horses, Orchids and Credit Cards:

Some people like horses.
Big mammals, like a giant
dog with square teeth,
towering, rippling canvas bags
of muscle and primitive thought.
Horses are just another large thing
that makes me very uneasy.

Emily Ruck Keen’s Poem on my mother and wine:

My Mother
…
She is a sad breathless frog
on a parched armchair
Remote control, locus of the room’s energy

Silence hangs here like cigarette smoke
There is nothing to tell, except that
Loneliness is framed
in family photos
…

David Barnes’s “Higher than a high wire walker.”

Arazo: Happy Birthday Mina. I hide in the bottle. I can hear my name. Brianna wrote in a Starbucks. Patrick I’m not a Crazy Messiah. Ex stripper Jason redeem his soul translating Saramago. Sid wanted to read from her novel but a situationist avangard action by Ashley, Chris, Ferdia, Shane and Emma broke in promoting Fifth Wall, the new international comedy troupe.

Debbie: If I had three wishes:

1. Something.
2. No more something.
3. Three wishes.

Lizzie goes fishing. Leonie leaves Paris and poetry sounds poetic. Georgina’s Mithological trip. Rigettini’s Falling Stars Kamikazes. Austin’s one liner: I’m always moving from side to side. Magda glares with hatred, she wants to destroy you. (Who? David Barnum? The Bartender Nico?) Rachel: This man has a big dick (D.B.? The bartender N.?) I’m Jewish. I don’t know what that means.” Jane: I said what? and she said: Dig! I said: Are you Roger? and she said: Who’s not? Shane: I knew I had an important life catching frogs and throwing rocks. Lucy: The Only Enjoyable Part of Writing a Thesis. Is that your clitoris becomes a drumset. Sonny Sinatra Shula. Fly me to the moon. Let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on a, Jupiter and Mars. In other Spoken Words, hold my hand, baby, kiss me.

Report by Alberto.
Photos by Marie. The whole album is on our Facebook Page.
Magda trilingually opens. Cristelle and Beatrice bilingually singing “Dis, quand reviendras-tu?”. Brian is the referee for Socrates vs The Sophists . Troy: “Stop texting me, Mr. Beautiful.”
A few lines from The Ventriloquist by Leonie Shulte about beautiful people:

….
you boy, afraid of your shadow
you’ll jump down an elevator shaft
for a drop of their spit
you’ll shine their shoes
take a beating or two
for one night in their arms
when they’ll remember your name
and kiss you
and kiss you
and kiss you
insane.

Claire is back from London and notices: There’s a puberty of poets in this room.

Marie and Georgina:

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I like it

it must be true, yes, I heard about that secret sex tape. Charlie would be Robert for a free coffee and a free stool.

I mixed up Ian, Mandoline, Mark Strand, Katie Grosso: The first intelligentsia was in love with the 2nd intelligentsia that was in love with the third Intelligentsia. Who wrote that? Calvin Jason Kline was stripping…

If anyone remember what was the poem about, write us. Lucy: it’s something like lovemaking. Mr. Yorke at the piano on Alberto’s When you sleep and your flower reposes from Strangers in Paris. Anna mugged for her memory. Patrick started this Booty or Beauty thing. Uncle James telling us a story of vampires…

… but it’s Georgina who send us to bed with a fairytale about Princesses and bushes.

P.S. Mr. Troy Yorke openly challenged by Jason (as we can see in the back f the picture) promised he will answer to this provocation.
When? Next Monday?

Fanculo! says Nicolas

Report by David.
Photos by Marie Lutz. More here

What do I remember from that far off night?
Magda drifting into oblivion…
Gary’s quick fish…
Marie Lutz & Christelle’s altercation on a bus…
Kate’s jazz over the drowned city.

Then Nicolas the barman interrupting with his poem (partly written by Alberto and me, it has to be said):

Fanculo! Fanculo! Fanculo!
I keep hearing it from the apartment downstairs.
What does it mean? Do you know?
I like to think they are words of love.

Fanculo! say it like you say I love you.

The do do ron à la Jason, a tragic optimist.

Ah, Patrick… Declan McManus’s oily slick on a wind-up world.
Then Lucy overheard on a Thursday afternoon.
I like to think that Jason was reminding us of what St Paul said: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do.” Do do do not judge for yourself with his recording here.