SpokenWord Paris

What happened to themes?

Posted on September 22, 2010 by David Barnes

Currently running without themes, for a change. But feel free to suggest some good ones.

On fait un period sans thèmes actuellement. Mais merci de nous envoyez des idées pour l’avenir…

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Wailing report from 6th Sept 2010

Posted on September 19, 2010 by David Barnes

Maria d’Arcy, in a tale of the Devil:

Thérèse, with a poem with no future:
Sergio’s god is only sand and wind in the desert:

Alberto appeals to the audience:

Claire Trev, at her last SW for a while:

Wail:

Featured poet of the night was Suzanne Allen with her long poem ‘Wail’, a new feminist’s ‘Howl.’ A poem that borrows from the structure and narrative style of Ginsberg’s poem and achieves much of its power and impact.

I saw the best minds of my gender ripped by feminine fantasies, dichotomous pretty, pretty birds,

balancing on thin wires strung between sanity and independence sainthood and sin above societal shark tanks,

pagans with primal instincts long repressed and forgotten in the quest to thrive aroused and awakened at the new moon to dance gratuitous circles together til desert dawn…

Hopefully she can send me a link to the rest.

Charlie found a lost peach and winced. Sam said “Bark like a dog, attack like a turkey. Give yourself a good dressing down.” John reminded us that whatever we’re doing here, these moments may never come again…. I like the ‘may’ in that sentence! Dylan spoke of malicious utilities. Sergio’s god is only sand and wind in the desert. Michele was… well, Michele, really. Rufo went grooouaaahhhhhthhspth p pt! Maria d’Arcy performed an extract of Burns’ Tam O’Shanter. Claire Trev reworked Rimbaud. Nigerian whores punched Alberto’s windows. Thérèse said a poeme pour personne, un poèsie sans avenir, par un poète instable. And there was much more besides.

Next SpokenWord: Tomorrow lundi 20 septembre at 21h. No theme/open theme.

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The Paris scene

Posted on September 1, 2010 by David Barnes

Useful connections:

Jen K Dick’s listing aka fragment78:

http://parisreadingsmonthlylisting.blogspot.com/

September dates confirmed

Posted on August 26, 2010 by David Barnes

lundi 6th

lundi 20th

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Your assignment for the next SpokenWord in Septembre

Posted on August 5, 2010 by David Barnes

Dates to be confirmed.

I’m bored of themes, so instead here’s an idea – for the first SpokenWord in September, write a deliberately ugly poem. So many poems aim at beauty or the sublime. Let’s turn that on it’s head and aim for ugliness. That’s your starting point. Go anywhere you like from there. Of course you might find an ugly poem, or a poem that aims at ugliness, written by some famous or infamous writer. Or one that simply describes something ugly. But what I think will be most interesting is to try to write something yourself without your usual goals, whatever they are, that you have when you’re writing poetry, but write a poem that deliberately aims at some kind of ugliness.

J’en ai marre de thèmes. Donc pour le premier soirée de SpokenWord de la rentrée, je vous invite d’écrire un poème laide et/ou moche. Ça peut être interessant.

Salut maintenant

David

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Next SpokenWord will be in September. Date to be confirmed.

Posted on August 3, 2010 by David Barnes

Le prochain SpokenWord sera en septembre. On confirmera le date.

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Report from Le Grand SpokenWord d'Été 26th July 2010

Posted on July 27, 2010 by David Barnes

I write this from the depths of my hangover & while listening to George Orwell Down and Out in Paris and London. The place got packed after a while and the temperature soared. (Temperature being last night’s theme.) So. The report on the poetry & stuff:

Fundament:

Rufo heated his fundament in ”Hot tub.” Dylan has had one of his poems extracted. A dance troupe has turned this poem into a dance. He assumes it’s a dance, actually they’ve only sent him an audio recording of themselves clattering across a stage.

Hot and cold all over:

My own poetry was more concerned with the heat death of the universe. Contrastingly, Tate was all cracked lips, cracked ice in the rudeness of winter. Amanda has florescent white feet. Rosalia told of being the Disappointing African. Michele brought silver monkey rock and invisible painting. Gèno cherchait les ombres pendant la canicule. Josiane has a thing for clouds, all kinds, all shapes.

Meaning of Poetry:

For Patti, this was a game of nonsense. ”What is it to be a poet?” John responded. Meanwhile Rufo noted his movements on a chart and Suzanne was sleeping into death, aware that her cats will eat her face.

Sex & Death:

”The hottest vacation’s in bed,” said Jeanne. Tate took steps of disobedience. Maxx read from Lebanese poet Joumana Haddad‘s book I have not sinned enough. If we are lovers, it is because of endorphins. This poisoning is love.

Insects:

Charlie was all smoke and exhaust. Conjecturing a contexture, he tried to recapture the rapture. Chris had a butterfly demanding to see its lawyer. Bruce could have landed on the back of a bucking bug. He pursued the destiny of all Terry Jacksons.

Tuscany:

And Alberto brought Don’t steal a stone from Tuscany! In his words:

Yo!

It comes from an extract from the LP “Cicciput” by “Elio e Le Storie Tese” which I’ve translated:

Every year a little piece of Tuscany disappears.

Every year Tuscany is robbed of its own land.

This year Tuscany is fifty-two meters under

its normal level of Tuscanity.

Tuscany is on the path to extinction.

Not because of corruption

Not because of globalization

Not because of ungrateful Tuscanese People

Every year

Every single person who goes to Tuscany

takes a stone away from Tuscany as a souvenir

and step by step, stone by stone we assist to this

destonification and detuscanification.

Don’t steal a stone from Tuscany.

If you steal a stone from Tuscany…

If every one took a stone home from Tuscany

Tuscany would be spread all around the world

and so all the world could be called Tuscany

but you couldn’t call Tuscany Tuscany anymore

means that Tuscany can be wherever in the world

Tuscany in Turkey, Tuscany in New Tuscadonia, Tuscany in Tinsel town

And nobody would recognize Tuscany anymore

Don’t steal a stone from Tuscany

Otherwise we don’t know where the fuck Tuscany is anymore.

We all want Tuscany in Tuscany and not in Fuckoffshire, New Fuckofonia or Fartsintheuniverseville.

Thank you.

Commitee for Tuscany in Tuscany

Check out John Fuentes’ online poet community

He’s also posted a video of his reading on the SpokenWord facebook page: click here

So now we take a break til September. Idea for next SpokenWord: write a deliberately ugly poem.

I leave you with my poem Temperature

One single unit of calorific heat radiated from a cooling sun

and now contained in this biscuit.

It has crossed space as invisible infra red in the fraction above absolute zero.

All that distance! 53 million miles in 8 minutes

(If God has just unplugged the Sun we will not know for 8 minutes)

This world a staging post only on heat’s journey towards entropy,

its long fall through the billenia

that involves an unwinding of order

an unspooling of the tape of DNA

this universe shooting into decay

God’s longshot

targetted on
nothing,

ending in heat death

– that state where

all energy is dispersed

so finely as to be

entirely

useless.

See y’all in September. Keep thinking Ugly Poems.

David

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Posted on July 25, 2010 by David Barnes

Le Grand SpokenWord d’Été

(le dernier SW avant septembre)

lundi 26 juillet 21h

au Cabaret Pop.

thème: temperature

tous les details:

http://www.meetup.com/Spoken-Word-in-Paris/calendar/13891130/

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And now, the gallery

Posted on July 25, 2010 by David Barnes

Alberto, who has run with bulls in Pamplona 3 times and survived:

John McNulty, probably the poet who would win in a fight
Gèno, French poet extraordinaire:
Suzanne Allen, whose house burnt down:
Lars, intrepid traveller:

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Report from Skin/Peau 28/06/10

Posted on July 14, 2010 by David Barnes

Images from The Last Spoken Word Of The Season.
(But check out July 26th Special Summer Night)

Miss Peacock

The audience is clapping

the audience is tripping or sleeping

Sa peau de primtemps et d’etè
Sa peau silisse dont jamais je me lasse
Sa peau tendre ressin ou je me prelasse…

Gerard

Quand elle respire ou qu’elle se penche,
il y a toute celle peau qu’on voit, alors on franche
On en oblie où on travaille, où on habite

Gèno

Go robust buffalo go.

Tom

The Dudes plus Lars

You think you’re taking drugs
But drugs are taking you
You think you’re making money
But money are making you

Colin & The Dudes

hey,
that vagina in the middle of yr back
is mighty inviting
and you –
yr teeth gleam like a flashlight

whose foothills shall i grace ce soir?
which winding paths
the hole left by yr absence
isn’t much of a consolation
that divine sparkle in yr eye

if i were the last man on Earth
and you were the last woman
would you dis me,
ignore me?
i AM the last man on Earth
you ARE the last woman
quoi alors?!?
citywide emergency is flakes of snow

Lars

David

He is the bad smell in your fridge.

He is the rat whose rotting corpse you saw
And that sewage washed up on your shore
There is nothing wholesome in his breath,
And death would seem the only cure.
When he speaks
It’s like toxic worms writhing in your ear
Don’t get too near
What’s clear
Is

That though he thinks he’s on a roll
He has halitosis
Of the soul

David

Chris and Jess