SpokenWord Paris

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.

Report by Alberto
Pictures by Marie De Lutz (Visit our facebook page for more photos)
Featured Poet: Kate Noakes!

Waiting for “I spy and Shanti”, her forthcoming book, we celebrated her birthday and we discovered her South African Poems. If you missed it more poems here. We had Gary with a vignette titled The Frisbee. Cristelle’s tales with empty words. Lisa’s motel rooms and Cafè con leche, Jason translating Samarago and words licked and stuck, words like stamps. Marie and Patrick:

James Simpson furious like an average Macbeth: “He deserve to suffer an unpleasing death!”. Awoko singing: Licky Licky. (Is this the proper spelling?) Main difference between Rigettini, Shakespeare and Petrarch. Brian’s party guests and parents’ friends.
Georgina introducing unstrung letter C. with Troy York:

crushed by the tables he’s sleeping under. “I’m a donut, fuck me.” Helene. French. Merci. Patrick: Exctasy makes you cry harder. Shane: We are creatures built to struggle. Griffin takes part to 40 poems in 40 days. Ferdia featuring Patrick, Shane and Marie in “The discount superheroes agency”.
Ambjorn featuring Charles Dickens:

Debbie: We work too hard, we are too tired to make love”. Amelia in a museum where you can touch statues. Pablito: is this an haiku?

Come on, sobbing girl
Wipe the tears off your iPhone
I’m uncomfortable

What do you think? Is it? And we closed with Silvio:

 Here you can see the concentration with which we choose the running order for the night.

Thanks to Margaux for these photos!

At nine o’clock the cellar is emptied of tango dancers; the pews, sofa and cabaret tables are put in place, the piano is wheeled out and then… and then… all that remains is to face the audience and try to give things a good shove so that they start moving. 

 

This week, James was one of the poets clever enough to see things that aren’t there. 
Lisa asked the right questions of souls reincarnated as caged birds.
Gary called in about therapy.
– Habibi? 
– Yes, amore.
– You don’t like lying because you’re American. 

 Marie knew they don’t love you like I love you. And she said so.

 Ferdia pitched his story idea to Chris:
Girl meets werewolf, an Irish werewolf from Cork.

Magda explained he was nothing to write home about.

Scott’s machine birds were singing.

Brian had been getting way too much sleep. He steered the conversation past an awkward subject with the grace of an acrobat.

 Suddenly it was round two and Lucky Hopkins emerged from an unexpected alcove. Like a beast with its horn, like a baby stillborn, she tried in her way to reach out to you.

    De lait