Poetry Beat

The New/reNEW Series

From 1975 to 1990, the Niagara-Erie Writers played a key role in the growth of the local literary community.

NEW (as it was known) brought several hundred writers from widely disparate backgrounds (i.e., urban and rural, tenured academics, labor movement activists, feminists and environmentalists) together in an organization that sponsored readings, workshops, and a monthly "NEWsletter. That publication, edited by the late Robin Willoughby, was the definitive source of literary news and information for poets and writers across the region.

NEW's demise was not a result of declining membership or internal dissension.  Instead, it was the victim of a kind of paradigm shift in public funding for the arts.  With little earned revenue or corporate sponsorship, NEW was unable to adapt to changing criteria for how groups applying for public support were evaluated.

Beginning next month, a new reading series organized by former NEW program coordinator Ryki Zuckerman and sponsored by Just Buffalo Literary Center pays tribute to NEW's legacy.  The "New/reNEW Series" will bring together poets and writers associated with the former Niagara-Erie Writers with promising "new voices" emerging from the community.

The initial reading at 7 p.m. on Sept. 20 at Impact Artists' Gallery (Suite 545) in the Tri-Main Center, 2495 Main St., Buffalo, will feature poet Michael Basinski, a former executive director of NEW who is now curator of the poetry collection of the University Libraries at the University of Buffalo.  The widely published Basinski's improvisational text and sound-based performances are like archaeological digs through the deep structure of language.  You never know what linguistic treasures he might unearth amid the ruins.

Reading with Basinski will be Karlen Chase, a self described "serial laborer and recovering vagabond" with a MFA in creative writing from the University of Vermont,  who returned to New York from a stint out west with an award-winning chapbook of poems entitled Spreading Stars to enter the master of library sciences at UB.

For information about future events in the New/reNEW Series visit justbuffalo.org.

Reed, Troupe at Book Fair

Two of the leading figures in the American Black Arts movement  will read and discuss their poetry at Saturday's Buffalo Book Fair. 

Both Buffalo native Ishmael Reed and former California poet laureate Quincy Troupe are prolific authors probably best known for their prose: Reed for his satirical novels (Mumbo Jumbo, Flight to Canada) and controversial essays and Troupe as a biographer (Miles Davis, James Baldwin), memoirist, and the co-author (with Chris Gardner) of the book version of last year's Will Smith film The Pursuit of Happyness.

Both began their careers as poets and have continued to write and publish poetry with such regularity that one could argue that it forms the baseline from which the rest of their work stems.  Reed, for instance, returns home to Buffalo as co-chairman of the book fair and in support of his recently released New and Collected Poems, 1996-2006, published in March by Carroll & Graf.

He will be interviewed and engage in an open discussion with Lorna C. Hill, founder and executive director of Ujima Theater Company, about the new book and his five-decade-long career as a writer.  "A Conversation with Ishmael Reed" will take place from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. in the downtown library's "Ring of Knowledge" area.  This is a "can't miss" event for anyone interested in great literary talk between two strong personalities.

In that same area from noon to 1 p.m., Troupe will be interviewed by Les Trent, the former Channel 4 News reporter/anchor who is now a senior correspondent for television's Inside Edition. Troupe's most recent collection of poems, Architecture of Language, was published in October by Coffee House Press.

Troupe will read from his jazz-influenced performance poetry from 3 to 3:45 p.m. in the "Literary Cafe'" area.  Reed will read from his New and Collected Poems at 5:30 p.m. in the "Uncrowned Queens" pavilion.

New Spoken Word Series

Last week I heard from a talented young poet and spoken word artist who was frustrated with the "poetry slam" format as a way of presenting her work.  Her objection was how the three-minute time limit and the mindset of most competitors combine to restrict rather than broaden the range of expression.

She's right, if not about the value of poetry slams in general, then about the fact that they are not the best forums for the work of many poets and spoken word artists.

At the local slams I've attended, most competitors approach the constraints of the format with the same strategy: to utter as many syllables in as histrionic a fashion as 180 seconds will permit.  One might call this the "Red Bull effect"--the impression one gets that every contestant has consumed an entire six pack of the so-called "energy drink" before he or she took the stage, resulting in paroxysms of Extreme Talk.

Any competitor who opts for an understated or minimalist performance runs the risk of a puzzled response from his or her peers and the audience and likely first round elimination.  One can only wonder how a young John Cage or Jackson MacLow would fare in such a setting, but just once I'd love to see someone speak in a whisper or rant in randomly generated phonemes.

Fortunately for my young friend, a new showcase for spoken word poetry performance in Buffalo is in the offing.  Beginning at 8 p.m. this Sunday (June 17th), Allen Street Hardware Cafe', located at 245 Allen (near College Street) will present a weekly Sunday night spoken word series organized and hosted by versatile poet and spoken word artist Liz Mariani.   The format of '"Spoken Word Sundays" will feature performances by two invited spoken word artists each week, followed by (or alternating with) "open mic" performances obtained from a sign-up sheet that will be available prior to each event at 7:45 p.m.

Mariani is currently searching for "dynamic, positive, wordsmith/spoken word artists" to fill both the open mic and the featured artist slots. If you are interested, e-mail sample mp3s and other relevant attachments (i.e., a CV, other recordings, poetry manuscripts, etc.) to her at liz@lizmariani.com.

For additional information on the series, contact Mariani ia her e-mail address (above) or Allen Street Hardware proprietor Mark Goldman at Markgold46@hotmail.com or www.allenstreethardware.com.

Nobel Prize winners to visit Buffalo

With the spring reading season more or less behind us--this month's "If All Buffalo Read the Same Book" project featuring Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God is the last major component of high profile literary programming before the relaxed pace of summer -- interesting news comes from Just Buffalo Literary Center's Artistic Director Michael Kelleher.

He tells of a major series of events featuring four major figures in World Literature visiting Buffalo for one day residencies beginning this November and extending through April of 2008.

The series, called "Babel," is co-sponsored by Just Buffalo, Talking Leaves Books and Hallwalls, and will focus exclusively on International (i.e., non-American) authors whose works are noteworthy for their broad and humanistic global vision. Just Buffalo plans to do "If All Of Buffalo Read The Same Book," projects around each author's visit in the month prior to their arrival.  Here's the lineup, along with the book titles that will be featured in the reading project:

November 8: Orhan Pamuk, Turkey, 2006 Nobel Prize Winner, Snow
December 7: Ariel Dorfman, Argentina/Chile, Death and the Maiden
March 13: Derek Walcott, St. Lucia, 1992 Nobel Prize Winner, Selected Poems
April 24, Kiran Desai, India, 2006 Man Booker Prize Winner, The Inheritance of Loss

This will be a subscription series and tickets for selected events--which will take place at Hallwalls and The Church on Delaware Avenue--in all four visits will be available later this summer from Just Buffalo.  A press conference is planned for next month to announce details, including the awarding of a grant of $323,000 from Buffalo's Oishei Foundation to underwrite the series over the next three years.

Urban Epiphany 2007 now available online

If you happened to miss part or all of Urban Epiphany 2007, the sixth annual installment of Buffalo's most inclusive literary community gathering and marathon-style reading on April 29th at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Elmwood Avenue, extensive sound files of the event are now available online courtesy of Buffalo area poet Robb Nesbitt (who recorded and served as sound engineer of the project) for local media activist Richard Wicka's new internet radio community thinktwiceradio.com.

Seventy two of the eighty one poets who (by my count) read at the five hour event on the last Sunday afternoon of National Poetry Month can be heard here (just click on each name), reading in the (approximately) two minute segment format that has proven so successful in making Urban Epiphany democratic and accessible in its appeal to both established community voices and talented newcomers alike.  A gallery of 75 photos of particpating writers Nesbitt took at the reading is also available at the same site.

If one single event on the calendar each year can be said to best represent the open-minded, participatory spirit of the Buffalo area literary community, Urban Epiphany is it.  Much credit must go to event co-founder and host Celia White, a young woman who has parlayed her organizational skills and the community's goodwill into what is quickly becoming a Buffalo area institution.

Speaking of Ms. White, her new collection of poems Letter was published earlier this month by Ambient Press.  A book launch reading and reception in conjunction with the release is planned from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 27th at Rust Belt Books, 202 Allen Street.

Nikki Germany is the winner

It was a tight contest--full of thrilling rushes, dramatic comebacks and clutch performances that finally ended in an exciting come-from-behind victory.  No, we're not talking about the Buffalo Sabres Friday night overtime victory over the New York Rangers in the NHL playoffs.

The other contest in town that night was the second annual Buffalo Poetry Slam Championship in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's Clifton Hall, which saw eight finalists compete for four slots on the Buffalo Poetry Slam Team that will compete in the National Poetry Slam Aug. 7-11 in Austin, Texas.

In an evening when urban hip-hop stylists outpointed cooler ironic types and women generally outscored men, Nikki Germany rallied from the middle of the pack with strong second and third round performances to narrowly edge last year's champion Howard Smith and win the 2007 Buffalo Poetry Slam Championship.

Germany, who currently lives in Lockport, and is an accomplished performance poet scored well with three-minute pieces that dealt with body image and self empowerment issues, an angry and vulnerable repudiation of a former lover, and a powerful closing piece "I Want To Be That B----" that took a familiar gender stereotype and reclaimed it as an assertion of feminist prerogative.

One didn't need to wait for the randomly chosen slam judges' scores to realize that her final piece was a momentum turner.

I won't claim any special expertise when it comes to evaluating hip-hop poetry--the last time I checked, my "street credibility" was less than zero--but any close listener will recognize that what differentiates Germany's work from her peers is the sophisticated use of enjambment and internal rhymes, her jazz-influenced use of inflection and line breaks, and ability to superimpose a monologue-like narrative over a fairly complicated rhythmic scheme.

If you'd like to sample some of Nikki Germany's work for yourself--listeners should be warned that some of her work contains "coarse language"--you can do so at her Myspace page.  Here is a link to that page:  www.myspace.com/nikkigermany

Finishing a close second to Germany was last year's winner Howard Smith, whose body of work is probably the most consistently excellent of any Buffalo-based spoken word artist.  I've never seen him give a sub par performance, and there's no mystery why.  As I was approaching Clifton Hall from the Francis Bacon Exhibition Opening Friday night in the Albright-Knox's Main Building, Smith was alone pacing the sidewalk vehemently rehearsing his one of his pieces.

His work is notable for its linguistic intensity--think of it as a torrent of urban vernacular language pouring into the room like a well spring, or perhaps to use a more appropriate simile, a fire hose.  In fact, the sheer velocity of his work over the length of a three minute piece poses some problems in terms of its comprehensibility.  It's not as if he's speaking nonsense, it's more like one requires special listening skills, and maybe some recording equipment with playback capabilities, to parse all his sentences.

Finishing third and fourth in the competition, and thereby earning the final two slots on the Buffalo Poetry Slam team were one young woman known as Nickie D. (whose smart and edgy rap based performances led the competition through two rounds) and another known as Lovely, whose performance style one might call "urban confessional."

Il in all, this was a terrific evening.  Special thanks go to Gabrielle Boulaine, who hosted and coordinated the event for Nickel City Poetry Slam, Inc., and Michael Kelleher of Just Buffalo Literary Center, the event's co-sponsor, whose cell phone text messages kept me up to date on the Sabres score. 

Poetry slamming at the Knox

Whether you’ve never attended a Poetry Slam or you’re a close follower of the slamming circuit, you won’t find a better opportunity to experience the sui generis mix of hyperbole, pathos, and linguistic fireworks set to hip-hop rhythms that characterize this spoken word art form than tonight’s second annual Buffalo Poetry Slam Championship at 7 p.m. in the Albright Knox Art Gallery’s Clifton Hall.

Competing for four slots on the Slam Team that will represent Buffalo at the National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas Aug. 7- 11, will be eight semi-finalists—all dynamic performers on the Buffalo area scene—including N’Tare Ali Gault (a veteran  spoken word artist who divides his time between New York City and Buffalo), last year’s Buffalo competition winner Howard Smith, Nikki Germany, Jim Antonik, a young woman performer known as Lovely, James Cooper III, MC Vendetta (AKA Jana Willoughby), and Knickie D.

Also making special appearances will be former National Slam Champions Lynne Procope and MAarty McConnell, making this a unique opportunity for Buffalo audiences to witness spoken word poetry at its highest level of accomplishment.

While admission to all other Nickel City Poetry Slam events (hosted by Gabrielle Boulaine) that take place on the first Friday of every month in Clifton Hall are free (courtWesy of its co-sponsors Just Buffalo Literary Center and the Albright-Knox’s Gusto at the Gallery Program), admission to this championship round of the monthly competition is $12, with the proceeds going to travel and lodging arrangements for the eventual Buffalo Poetry Slam team.

In a sense, of course, the recitation of poetry as popular entertainment is as old as civilization itself.  All the great epics, myths and sacred texts of the world’s religions began as the transcriptions of the living memories of bards and prophets. Even after the canonization of literature, the tradition of traveling troubadours and courtier poets competing for the patronage of royalty extended into the 20th century.

The contemporary phenomenon known as the poetry slam began as entertainment inthe Chicago bar and jazz club scene (notably the Get Me High Lounge and Green Mill Jazz Club) of the mid-1980s as an “open mike” night competition involving “old school” jazz and beat poets, younger “dub” poets and hip hop artists, and more conceptual “performance poets” of the Jackson MacLow/Fluxus School.  Within months the format proved so popular that it migrated to New York City (the Nuyorican Poets Café), Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and eventually most of the major urban centers across America.

Poetry slams have been a part of Buffalo’s cultural scene since the early 1990s at several locations, frequently under the sponsorship of Just Buffalo Literary Center, but also notably for several years at the Em Tea Cup Coffee House on Oakgrove Avenue near Humboldt Parkway.      

While the official “rules” of slamming are minimal, they stipulate a 3 minute time limit for each spoken word performance, the banning of all props, costumes and musical or rhythmic accompaniment, and require that scoring of the performances is done by a panel of judges chosen at random from the audience.

In many venues across the country where poetry slams are held—particularly on the club circuit—audience reaction tends to be raucous, with jeering and heckling as well cheering regarded as acceptable behavior.  Here in Buffalo, however, the setting, sponsors and our general reverence for poetry is such that audiences at the half dozen or so slams I’ve attended at the Albright-Knox are unfailingly courteous and supportive of all the performers, reserving their disapprobation for the occasional inconsistent scoring on the part of the judges.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the poetry slam phenomenon is the wide range of linguistic expression and performance styles it accommodates.  Even if you don’t take a rooting interest in the competition, there is always the way in which it places certain transformative pressures on language itself.  You don’t need to be a linguist to recognize new demotic rhythms and grammatical variants introduced into the performances in the heat of competition.  It’s like listening to our language evolve within one’s own earshot.