[Dec 11] Feral Voices XIV: The Other Brooklyn Series

Join us Wednesday, December 11th at 7 pm for a Feral Voices reading! 
 
Feral Voices is a monthly reading series that focuses on celebrating a selection of writers who work and struggle outside of the typical institutions of the writing community.

A night for those who work one or more "day jobs," but have a voice to share that goes against the grain or upends capitalist, patriarchal understandings of the label "author."

If your writing is proactively weird, if you are part of a marginalized group, and/or if you struggle with the financial insecurity that stems from pursuing writing outside university funding or published manuscripts then submit your work to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. They accept short stories, poetry, essays, plays, scripts, novel excerpts, and anything genre-bending and mind-altering.

And consider submitting your work for this event! Feral Voices is looking for 1-3 more readers.
 
Come to share, read, listen and build something new!

[Dec 6] Joanna Howard & Patty Yumi Cottrell

Join us Friday, December 6th at 7 pm to celebrate Joanna Howard's recently published novel Rerun Era in conversation w/ Patty Yumi Cottrell.


Rerun Era is a captivating, propulsive memoir about growing up in the environmentally and economically devastated rural flatlands of Oklahoma, the entwinement of personal memory and the memory of popular culture, and a family thrown into trial by lost love and illness that found common ground in the television.

(Find out more about Rerun Era here: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/rerun-era?taxon_id=1)


Joanna Howard is a writer and translator from Miami, Oklahoma. She is the author of the novel Foreign Correspondent, the story collections On the Winding Stair and In the Colorless Round, and Field Glass, a collaborative novel written with Joanna Ruocco. She also co-translated Walls by Marcel Cohen and Cows by Frederic Boyer. She teaches in the literature PhD program at Denver University.


Patty Cottrell was born in Korea and raised in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Milwaukee. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Guernica, BOMB, Gulf Coast, and others. She lives in Brooklyn. Sorry To Disrupt the Peace, her first novel, was long-listed for the Times Literary Supplement’s Republic of Consciousness Prize, and is the winner of the Best First Book – Fiction 2017 National Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards and Barnes & Noble’s 2017 Discover Award for Fiction.


(More about Sorry to Disrupt the Peace: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/sorry-to-disrupt-the-peace?taxon_id=4)

December Readings at Unnameable

Wednesday December 4th Karthika Nair with Bibi Deitz
Thursday December 5th Anna Vitale // Lewis Freedman // Zack Piepe
Friday December 6th Joanna Howard and Patty Yumi Cottrell
Saturday December 7th Launch Party for the Marquis deSade's Aline & Valcour
Tuesday December 10th Greg Gerke and John Haskell
Wednesday December 11th Feral Voices reading series
Thursday December 12th Greetings says farewell until the Spring with Bob Rosenthal // Maggie Dubris // Patricia Spear Jones // OAE (music) // Ani Blech (performance)
Friday December 13th Eve and Sparrow Present...

[Dec 4] Karthika Naïr "Until the Lions" with Bibi Deitz

Karthika Naïr Until the Lions with Bibi Deitz
Wednesday December 4th 7-9 pm

"Most books’ epigraphs don’t slap me in the face, but then Karthika Naïr’s Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata (Archipelago Books) is not most books, and Naïr is not most writers. Her epigraph quotes Chinua Achebe: “There is that great proverb—that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter…Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian.” Naïr, in nearly three hundred pages of connected poems, reimagines the story of the Mahabharata as the lions’ story, giving a voice to nineteen of its characters and allowing them each to tell their own account." --Bibi Deitz from her interview with Karthika Naïr in Bomb


"I was keen on exploring the human cost of war beyond victory and defeat, on imagining and chronicling the testimonies of those for whom victory becomes a word without meaning. The families left shattered, distraught siblings and wives, a populace shorn of land and home, those reduced to slavery or serfdom or the reign of another ruler, who’d merely perpetuate an expedient social 'order.' And to examine too, through these accounts, how we can all too easily become complicit in conflict and injustice." — Karthika Naïr

Come hear Karthika discuss Until the Lions, her radical retelling of the Mahabharata. She will be in conversation with Bibi Deitz. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.

In "Until the Lions," Karthika Naïr retells the Mahabharata through the embodied voices of women and marginal characters, so often conquered and destroyed throughout history. She captures the richness and complexity of the Mahabharata, while illuminating lives buried beneath the edifices of one of the world’s most venerated books. Through shifting poetic forms, ranging from pantoums to Petrarchan sonnets, Naïr choreographs the cadences of stray voices. And with a passionate empathy, she tells of nameless soldiers, their despairing spouses and lovers, a canny empress, an all-powerful god, and a gender-shifting outcast warrior. "Until the Lions" is a kaleidoscopic, poetic tour de force. It reveals the most intimate threads of desire, greed, and sacrifice in this foundational epic.
 
Karthika Naïr is the author of several books, including the poetry collection "Bearings" and the children’s fable "The Honey Hunter," illustrated by Joëlle Jolivet. She was the principal scriptwriter of choreographer Akram Khan’s multiple-award-winning solo, DESH (2011), and of its 2015 adaptation for family audiences, "Chotto Desh." Khan's adaptation of one chapter of "Until the Lions" won the 2016 Tanz Award for Outstanding Production. Another adaptation of the book, this time for opera, will premiere in March 2020 at the Opéra national du Rhin in France.

Naïr’s poetry has been widely published in anthologies and journals, including Granta, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Magazine, and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. She was a 2012 Sangam House Fellow, a 2013 Toji Foundation Fellow, and was awarded a Villa Marguerite Yourcenar Fellowship in 2015. Her latest book is the collaborative "Over and Under Ground in Mumbai & Paris," a travelogue in verse, written with Mumbai-based poet Sampurna Chattarji, and illustrated by Joëlle Jolivet and Roshni Vyam.


Bibi Deitz lives and writes in Brooklyn, and grew up in the East Village. Her work has appeared in Storyscape, Paper Darts, Bomb, Bookforum, Vice, The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. She has been awarded residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Vermont Studio Center, and has an MFA in fiction from Bennington College, where she was a Barry Hannah Scholar. She recently finished her first novel, Stand Clear the Closing Doors, and she’s at work on her next book.

[ Dec 7] Marquis de Sade's Aline & Valcour Launch Party

Please join translators
John Galbraith Simmons & Jocelyn Genevieve Barque
in a conversation
moderated by Christopher Winks
to celebrate Contra Mundum's publication of the first English translation of the Marquis de Sade's epistolary novel Alaine & Valcour

Set against the impending riptide of the French Revolution and composed while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, Aline and Valcour is a sprawling and intellectually sweeping work. Unlike 120 Days of Sodom, the famous scroll that lay concealed in his cell as he wrote, while not pornographic, Aline and Valcour embodies the multiple themes and ideas that would become the hallmark of Sade’s far more sulfurous Juliette and Philosophy in the Bedroom. <more>

books, libations, and other delights

Saturday December 7th at 7pm
Unnameable Books
600 Vanderbilt Avenue
Brooklyn

[Nov 22] Prajna Desai [[reads]] Chang// Hein// Ilgenfritz// Kurdi[[performs]]

Please join us Friday, November 22nd at 7 pm for a night of music and poetry. 

Prajna Desai will read from her new book why not again a love story from Planta Baja Press. The chapbook-length poem  is a meditation on the molecular and narrative forces of language as the locus for human engagement.  Desai weaves mordant satire, raw emotion and razor-sharp intellect with an ease and clarity of voice in this exhilarating experiment in narrative poetry. And a stellar group of musicians: Leo Chang (voice, electronics), Nicola Hein (guitar, objects), James Ilgenfritz (bass, objects), and Muyassar Kurdi (voice, electronics) will be performing in a series of arrangements and combinations.

Prajna Desai is an art historian and writer of fiction. Her scholarship deals with visual politics, print culture, and built form at the intersection of nineteenth and twentieth century intellectual histories and narratives of science. She lives across languages and resides in Brooklyn. Bombay is home.

Leo Chang is a composer and musician currently living in New York. Born in Seoul, Leo lived as an expat in Singapore, Taipei, and ultimately, Shanghai during his formative years. The tensions between identity, residency, and rootlessness inform his artistic practice and research. Leo’s music has been described as having a “dark strength” that is “compelling” (TheatreScene.net). Leo is the co-founder and director of Consensus, an experimental ensemble that confounds the boundaries between improvisation and composition via processual groupwork. He strives to work with musicians with disparate backgrounds: from ensembles such as the JACK quartet, Bearthoven, and the RighteousGIRLS, to students, friends, children, or anyone who is curious enough to work with him in a creative capacity. Leo has presented his music and research at various conferences and festivals: notably the International Computer Music Conference, the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States National Conference, and the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival. 

Nicola L. Hein (*1988 in Düsseldorf) is a guitarist, composer, philosopher and soundartist. As a guitarist he is mainly concerned about the search for new sounds on his instrument. He plays electric and acoustic guitar with or without preperations and tries to find new ways of playing the guitar within the context of Free Improvised Music and Jazz. He plays the guitar with his hands and plectrum but also with a lot of different objects: screws, rulers, iron wool, violin bow, abrasive paper, magnets and many other objects which are part of his musical vocabulary. The result is his very own world of sounds, which is using the rich potential of the guitar as a creator of sounds. The manual creation is a very important character of this sound world, which never gets distorted by the use of electronic effects. As a composer he finds different ways of integrating philosophical ideas into music and to play music as a form of philosophy. In order to actualize itself the compositional work is always aimed at the improvising musician as a dialectic partner of the composition. From the interplay of these partners an ästhetic emerges that is based on the spontanity of the performance and the setting of aesthetic action spaces alike. 

Bassist and composer James Ilgenfritz has worked in New York’s experimental music community for ten years, interacting with visual artists, improvisers, composers, and literary figures. As an improviser James has performed with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Coleman, Jin Hi Kim, Jon Rose, Steve Swell, Nate Wooley, Jeremiah Cymerman, and Brian Chase. As an interpreter of notated music, he has also worked with composers Lukas Ligeti, JG Thirlwell, Annie Gosfield, Pauline Oliveros, Ted Hearne, David T. Little, Karin Rehnqvist, Duane Pitre, Kevin Norton, & Gordon Beeferman. He recently completed a tour of the Midwest and northeast with his jazz quartet MiND GAMeS (with Denman Maroney, Andrew Drury, Angelika Niescier). His debut solo recording ‘Compositions (Braxton) 2011’ features his distinctive solo bass interpretations of the music of Anthony Braxton, and was called “a considerable achievement of solo instrumentalism and an important demonstration of the possibilities open to the double bass in the early 21st century” by Avant Music News’s Dan Barbiero. Current projects include his longstanding Anagram Ensemble (which has morphed from jazz quartet to experimental big band to avant-garde theatrical chamber ensemble), Hypercolor (with Lukas Ligeti and Eyal Maoz), Red Triangle (with Chuck Bettis and Nonoko Yoshida), COLONIC YOUTH (with Dan Blake, Philip White, and Kevin Shea), The Curators (with Joe Hertenstein and Mikko Innanen) and Radiant Tongues (with Jason Ponce). In 2011 James was Artist In Residence at Issue Project Room, where he premiered his opera The Ticket That Exploded (based on the 1962 William S. Burroughs novel of the same name). He is coordinator of the WSB100 festival, New York City’s month-long celebration of the life and legacy of William S. Burroughs on the occasion of his 100th birthday. James Ilgenfritz holds degrees from University of Michigan & University of California San Diego, and is on faculty at Brooklyn College Preparatory Center & Brooklyn Conservatory.

Muyassar Kurdi (b. 1989 in Chicago) is a New York City-based interdisciplinary artist. Her work encompasses sound art, extended vocal technique, performance art, movement, photography, and film. She has toured extensively in the U.S. and throughout Europe. A versatile improviser, Muyassar has composed and performed music for voice, harmonium, piano, lyre, autoharp, theremin, bass, and cello. She currently focuses her attention to interweaving homemade electronic instruments and sculpture into her vocal and dance performances, stirring a plethora of emotions from her audience members through vicious noise, ritualistic chants, and meditative movements. Most recently she completed SEVEN VOICES, a multi-channel project for seven voices, which was recorded during her artist residency at EMS in Stockholm February 2018. She also released Travelling on NORENT Records and Intersections and Variations on Astral Spirits in early 2018.

[Nov 20] 50 Things to See in the Sky: Launch Event!

Join us Wednesday, November 20th at 7 pm to celebrate the launch of 50 Things to See in the Sky by Sarah Baker

50 Things to See in the Sky is a hip and handy guide helps you learn the science behind blue skies, sun dogs, and the solar eclipse, and shows you how to observe nocturnal wonders such as lunar halos, Martian ice caps, and far-off galaxies. Fifty celestial phenomena come to life with expert tips from astrophysicist Sarah Barker and stylish illustrations by Maria Nilsson. Any explorer can become an adept observer with their guidance, and more ambitious stargazers will be able to discover more distant sights with the help of binoculars, a telescope, or a local astronomy group. With a glow-in-the-dark cover, 50 Things to See in the Sky is a perfect complement to your next camping expedition and a wonderful gift for anyone who marvels at what lies in our celestial sphere.

On November 20 at 7pm Rachel Karpf will be asking Sarah Baker some Q's and she'll be giving some A's. You can also ask your own Q's.

Sarah says, "Then I can sign your books! I'll even draw some very childish stars and planets if you like....."



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

Rachel Karpf: Rachel produces theater, live performance, and mind-blowing experiences. She is the Artistic Producer of Off-Broadway’s WP Theater.

Sarah Barker: Sarah is a former astrophysicist, and current science communicator, committed to enthusing people about learning. Sarah does this by producing engaging factual television, enthralling live events, and now, books!

50 Things to See in the Sky: “A beautifully presented, practical gift guide to 50 sights in the skies above us – complete with a glow-in-the dark front cover. Explained with fascinating, easy-to-understand commentary from astrophysicist and science communicator, Sarah Barker, and illustrated throughout with captivating drawings by Maria Nilsson, each guide helps you locate an incredible sight.” Here’s a full review.


Please spread the word and invite as many people as you'd like :)

Mid November Events

 

Wednesday 11/13: Feral Voices (One Year Anniversary)

Thursday 11/14: Greetings ( Inbar//Truitt//Hammed//Otomo & Ghost Shephards)

Saturday 11/16: Burgundy Poets (Russo//Topp/Belz(z)//Sparrow)

Wednesday 11/20: 50 Things to See in the Sky by Sarah Barker Book Launch

 

[Nov 6] Loren Connors: Autumn's Sun Book Release

Wednesday, November 6th, 2019

6:30 - 7:30 PM

In celebration of Blank Forms Editions’ publication of Autumn’s Sun, Suzanne Langille and Yuko Otomo will read from the book followed by a short performance by Loren Connors. Loren and Suzanne will also be available to sign copies of the book. 

One of the world’s most singular guitarists, Loren Connors is among few living musicians whose prolific body of work can be said to be wholly justified in its plenitude. On more than 100 records across almost four decades, Connors has wrung distinct shades of ephemeral blues from his guitar, its sound ever-shifting while remaining unmistakably his own. From his early, splintered take on the Delta bottleneck style through his song-based albums with Suzanne Langille and on to the painterly abstraction that defines his current work, Connors has earned the admiration of many, leading to collaborations with the likes of John Fahey, Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, and Kim Gordon.

In the mid-80s, Connors took a partial break from music and focused instead on the art of haiku, for which he received the Lafcadio Hearn Award in 1987. With his wife Suzanne Langille he also co-wrote an article on blues and haiku, “The Dancing Ear,” published in the Haiku Society of America’s journal. It was during this period that Connors penned the material that appears in Autumn’s Sun, a chapbook first published by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley’s Glass Eye in 1999. The text features diary excerpts from 1987, lyrically fragmented observations interspersed with haiku-like poems that paint an idyllic impression of the passing seasons in his home of New Haven, Connecticut. With synesthetic perception, Connors gazes from tranquil domestic streets. Sycamore, elm, and catalpa trees are activated by the breeze and made to rustle in unison with their natural and artificial surroundings, including the howling dogs from which Connors derived his ‘Mazzacane’ moniker. As summer fades to winter, Connors portrays death as an undramatic certitude, the flux of his own maturation reflected in musings on his son’s. Like his music, Autumn’s Sun is tender without being sentimental, conjuring those rare, delicate moments when time stands still.  

 

Blank Forms’ edition of Autumn’s Sun includes “The Dancing Ear” and an introduction by Lawrence Kumpf.

Unnameable Books

600 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238

[Oct 10] A Serious Evening of Funny Ass People (presented by Peter BD)

 "a serious evening of funny ass people"

presented by peter bd

and featuring
ana fabrega. comedian/actor/writer 
arjun srivatsa. journalist/designer 
nadia pinder. comedian/business owner 
peter vack. actor/writer/director 
monica mcclure. poet/curator 
colin burgess. comedian/actor/video-maker


Thursday October 10th at 7pm
(wear a sweater--it may be in the backyard)

Unnameable Books
600 Vanderbilt Ave
Brooklyn, NY

[Oct 6] Kit Robinson reads with Uche Nduka

Join us Sunday, October 6th at 2 pm for Kit Robinson's reading of his new book, Thought Balloon joined by Uche Nduka.

Kit Robinson is a Bay Area poet, writer and musician. His most recent poetry books are Thought Balloon (Roof, 2019), Leaves of Class (Chax, 2017) and Marine Layer (BlazeVOX, 2015). His essays on poetics, art, travel and music appear online at Jacket2, Open Space and Nowhere. He plays Cuban tres guitar in the charanga band Calle Ocho. He writes, "Poetry is language on a holiday. Free to go where it will. But it is not jobless. The job of poetry is to continue, despite everything that is pitted against it."


Uche Nduka is a Nigerian-American poet,essayist and collagist. He is the author of 12 volumes of poems of which the most recent are NINE EAST and LIVING IN PUBLIC. His writing has been translated into German,Finnish, Arabic ,Italian, and Dutch. A new volume of his poems titled FACING YOU is forthcoming from City Lights Books in Spring 2020. He presently teaches at CUNY-Queens College and lives in Brooklyn.

[Sept 20-26] Welcome to Boog City 13 Arts Festival: Poetry, Music, Theater

The full line-up for Welcome to Boog City 13 Arts Festival: Poetry, Music, Theater. Now 7 days of arts goodness. (Thanks to Daisy Hulme for the swell fest logo.)

Everyday takes place at Unnameable *EXCEPT* Sunday, Sept. 22nd which will be hosted by the Bowery Poetry Club.

FRI. SEPT. 20
—poetry curator David A. Kirschenbaum
—music curator Todd Carlstrom

6:00 p.m. Sophie Malleret
6:10 p.m. Bevil Townsend
6:25 p.m. Darren Black
6:40 p.m. poetry talk talk, with
Sandra Beasley and E. Tracy Grinnell reading and in conversation, part 1

7:10 p.m. Kelly Webb (music)

7:40 p.m. break

7:50 p.m. poetry talk talk,
Sandra Beasley and E. Tracy Grinnell, part 2
8:15 p.m. Elizabeth Primamore
8:25 p.m. Hossannah Asuncion
8:35 p.m. Jessica Rogers-Cerrato
8:45 p.m. Maria Lisella
8:55 p.m. Hugo dos Santos
9:05 p.m. Jocelyn Mackenzie (music)


SAT., SEPT. 21
—poetry curator John Mulrooney
—music curator Todd Carlstrom

1:00 p.m. The Trouble Dolls (music)
1:30 p.m. Simeon Berry
1:45 p.m. Adam Blowers
2:00 p.m. Mark Lamoureaux
2:15 p.m. Drew Boston
2:25 p.m. Christie Towers
2:40 p.m. Mary Bonina
2:55 p.m. Nichole Callihan
3:05 p.m. Santana Nair
3:15 p.m. Amy Lawless

3:25 p.m. Break

3:35 p.m.

—poetry curator David A. Kirschenbaum
—music curator Todd Carlstrom

d.a. levy lives: celebrating renegade presses

Autumn House Press (Pittsburgh)

Christine Stroud, Editor in Chief

3:40 p.m. Kathy Anderson
Sherrie Flick

4:10 p.m. Jason Trachtenburg (music)

4:40 p.m. Charles Kell
Clifford Thompson

5:10 p.m. break

—poetry and music curator Thomas Devaney

6:10 p.m. Julia Bloch
6:25 p.m. Warren Longmire
6:40 p.m Jim Cory
6:55 p.m. Kirwyn Sutherland
7:10 p.m. Cynthia Dewi Oka
7:25 p.m. Sparrow and Rachel Swaner (music)
7:55 p.m. Michael Lally
8:05 p.m. Caitlin Grace McDonnell
8:15 p.m. Vincent Katz
8:25 p.m. Caroline Hagood
8:35 p.m. Dan Wriggins (music)


SUN., SEPT. 22
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
The East Village

12th Boog Poets Theater Festival
—Bill Considine, curator

12:00 p.m. Introduction
12:03 p.m. Allan Yashin, The Story of My Life
12:12 p.m. Stephen Paul Miller, Physiocrats in Flight
12:28 p.m. Edmond Chibeau, Leviticus Tattoo
12:45 p.m. Davidson Garrett, What Happened to the Man Who Taught Me Beowulf?
12:56 p.m. Ellen Pober Rittberg, Sabbath Elevator
1:14 p.m. Aimee Herman, The Forgiveness of Lightning Bugs
1:26 p.m. Kevin Killian, The Lenticular

2:00 p.m. Panel:
Can This Machine Kill Fascists?
Poetry, Publishing, and Empire

Mark Gurarie, curator and moderator

Panelists:
Alex Crowley
Joey DeJesus
ELÆ [Lynne Desilva-Johnson]
Zefyr Lisowski

—poetry and music curator
David A. Kirschenbaum

3:00 p.m. Kyle Dacuyan

3:10 p.m

For its 25th anniversary,
Silver Jews' debut album Starlite Walker
performed live by Trusty Sidekick, Alex Emanuel, Tyler and the Names, and more.


MON., SEPT. 23
—poetry curator Suzanne Mercury
—music curator Todd Carlstrom

6:00 p.m.

d.a. levy lives:
celebrating renegade presses

Tender Buttons Press (New York City)

Lee Ann Brown, (Poet & Founding Editrix) & (Tender Buttons author & Star Arkestress Katy Bohinc) joined by local poets from across the years. Featured reader will be Lynne Sachs reading from Year By Year Poems, just out from Tender Buttons.

6:30 p.m Todd Carlstrom (music)

7:00 p.m. More Tender Buttons readers

7:30 p.m. break

7:40 p.m. Christina Strong
7:55 p.m. Geof Huth
8:05 p.m. Nada Gordon
8:15 p.m. Paige Taggart
8:25 p.m. Michael Ruby
8:35 p.m. Vex Wilde (music)


TUES., SEPT. 24
—poetry and music curator Joanna Fuhrman

6:00 p.m. Julie Kizershot
6:10 p.m. Jordan Davis
6:20 p.m. Ronna Lebo
6:30 p.m. Franklin Bruno
6:40 p.m. Keri Smith
6:50 p.m. Robert Hershon
7:00 p.m. Orly Bendavid (music)

7:20 p.m. break

7:30 p.m. Adeena Karasick
7:40 p.m. Melanie M. Goodreaux-Fielder
7:50 p.m. Karen Hildebrand
8:00 p.m. Maria Garcia Teutsch
8:15 p.m. Bob Kerr (music)


WED., SEPT. 25
—poetry curator Elinor Nauen
—music curator Todd Carlstrom

6:00 p.m. Alan Kleiman
6:10 p.m. Lauren Raheja
6:20 p.m. Gillian McCain
6:35 p.m. Sergio Satélite
6:50 p.m. Andrei Codrescu
7:05 p.m. John Hurley (music)

7:35 p.m. break

7:45 p.m. Pattie McCarthy
8:00 p.m. Greg Masters
8:15 p.m. Kimberly Lyons
8:25 p.m. James Ruggia
8:35 p.m. Douglas Rothschild
8:45 p.m. Farrell Burk (music)


THURS., SEPT. 26
—poetry curator Debrah Morkun
—music curator Todd Carlstrom

5:30 p.m. Elizabeth Guthrie
5:45 p.m. Paul Siegell
6:00 p.m. T. Nicole Cirrone
6:15 p.m. Lora Bloom
6:30 p.m. Kimberly Essex
6:45 p.m. Magus Magnus
7:00 p.m.Tom Shaner (music)

7:30 p.m. break

7;40 p.m. Courtney Bambrick
7:55 p.m. Tamara Oakman
8:10 p.m. Suzan Jivan
8:25 p.m. Jason Zuzga
8:40 p.m. Anne-Adele Wight
8:55 p.m. Tim Ellis (music)

---
David Kirschenbaum, festival director
Boog City
3062 Brower Ave.
Oceanside, NY 11572
To get on the Boog City event and publication mailing list
email editor@boogcity.com
T: (212) 842-BOOG (2664) Twitter: @boogcity

[Sept 19] Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Nava Dunkelman, James Ilgenfritz, & guests

 Join us Thursday, September 19th at 8 pm for a night of music!

8pm: DUO
Gabby Fluke-Mogul (violin)
Nava Dunkelman (percussion)

8:40: TRIO
Gabby Fluke-Mogul (violin)
Nava Dunkelman (percussion)
James Ilgenfritz (bass)

9:15: GROUP IMPROVISATIONS
Gabby Fluke-Mogul (violin)
Nava Dunkelman (percussion)
Jessie Cox (percussion)
Jen Baker (trombone)
Ty Citerman (guitar)
Sandy Ewen (guitar)
James Ilgenfritz (bass)

[Sept 18] L.A. poet Eric Howard & guests for Brooklyn Book Fest Bookends Reading

Turtle Point Press welcomes Los Angeles poet Eric Howard (Taliban Beach Party) along with special guest readers Timothy Donnelly, Alan Felsenthal, and Mercedes Roffé, on Wednesday, September 18th at 7 pm for a reading as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival Bookends events series. 

[Sept 12] Desert Fox by the Sea Book Launch & Meditative Journaling

On Thursday, September 12th at 7pm come celebrate the new Hoot 'n' Waddle book Desert Fox By The Sea with Christine Sloan Stoddard and special guest readers curated by Quail Bell Magazine! A meditative journaling session will follow.

"Through the voices of a diverse cast of women, simultaneously real and mythological, Christine Sloan Stoddard’s Desert Fox By The Sea addresses issues of racism, sexism, shame, social inequality, personal identity—all in gorgeous verse and riveting prose. These are tales of modern tragedy, unflinching in their struggle, honesty, and art."

Learn more about the book here: http://hootnwaddle.com/desertfox/

Other readers include:

Jeanne Joe Perrone
ßenjamin E. Nardolilli
Lana C. Marilyn

[Sept 11] Feral Voices: The Other Brooklyn Reading Series XI

Join us Wednesday, September 11th at 7pm for Feral Voices!

Feral Voices is a monthly reading series that focuses on celebrating a selection of writers who work and struggle outside of the typical institutions of the writing community.

A night for those who work one or more "day jobs," but have a voice to share that goes against the grain or upends capitalist, patriarchal understandings of the label "author."

If your writing is proactively weird, if you are part of a marginalized group, and/or if you struggle with the financial insecurity that stems from pursuing writing outside university funding or published manuscripts then submit your work to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. We accept short stories, poetry, essays, plays, scripts, novel excerpts, and anything genre-bending and mind-altering.

This month we are featuring Joshua Platt and Mya Spalter with possibly one or two more readers to be added before next Wednesday. It's going to be a great night!

Join us in an event hosted by T. A. Stanley at Unnameable Books. Come to share, read, listen and build something new!

[Sept 5] Manchette's Nada with Donald Nicholson-Smith

New York Review of Books and the Marxist Education Project present:

A release party for Jean-Patrick Manchette's Nada in translation by Donald Nicholson-Smith

Thursday September 5th at 6pm
Unnameable Books
600 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn


Please join us for a celebration and discussion with Donald Nicholson-Smith. This is a New York City reception for the latest translation of Nada, a newly-translated work of Jean-Patrick Manchette, to be published on August 27 by New York Review of Books. 

Donald Nicholson-Smith has been translating the work of Manchette for English-reading audiences for more than a decade. At this event at Unnamable Books we will celebrate the release of “Nada”, but our subject will also include all the works of Manchette, including other novels published by NYRB, such as The Mad and The Bad, Fatale, and Ivory Pearl. Donald will consider the influences on Manchette and share his long-term relationship with many of Manchette’s works.

From the review of Nada by Luc Sante:
 
Nada, first published in November 1972, was the fourth novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette, not counting pseudonymous titles, novelizations of films, and other products of what he called “industrial” writing. He was twenty-nine and a seasoned Grub Street professional, and he was fully aware of the political currents of his time. He had joined Communist youth organizations a decade earlier and demonstrated in favor of the liberation of Algeria; more recently he had come under the influence of the Situationist International. It was natural, especially in the highly politicized cultural climate of post-’68 France, that he should merge his two reigning passions and begin writing thrillers on political themes.

To RSVP (totally optional) on FB

[Aug 16] Pieces of a Map: Poets in Conversation

Join us Friday, August 16th from 7-9pm for a reading and conversation!

Sokunthary Svay is a Khmer writer from the Bronx. She is poetry editor for Newtown Literary, the only literary journal for the borough of Queens, and a founding member of the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association (CALAA). She has received fellowships from American Opera Projects, Poets House, Willow Books, and CUNY. Her first collection of poetry, Apsara in New York, is available from Willow Books. She is a doctoral student in English at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her first opera, in collaboration with composer Liliya Ugay, will premiere in January 2020 at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

Sean Anderson is the son of Jamaican immigrants who came to
New York in the 60’s. He holds a B.A. in English from Howard
University, a M.A. from Queens College in Secondary English
Education and a M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in Fiction. He is an award winning writer whose first book, Alphabet City Blues, was published in 2019. He is a past recipient of the Howard University Trustee Award, the Himan Brown Award for Fiction and was given Honorary Mention for the Ross Feld Literary Award. He is a former Fellow of the Center for Black Literature’s North Country Fellowship Writing Program. His work has been read at the Bowery Poetry Café, Small’s Jazz Club, Howard University, Columbia University, Queensborough College, the Old Utica Hotel and Medgar Ever’s College and his short stories have been published several times in the Killen’s Review of Arts and Letters. Sean Anderson was a Featured Writer at the 2019
National Poetry Celebration, An Evening with Willie Perdomo and Friends, held by the New York Public Library and the Center for Black Literature and he was honored in May of 2019 as a Human of Henry Street for his accomplishments in writing and youth advocacy.
 
Keisha-Gaye Anderson is a Jamaican-born poet, writer, visual artist, and media professional. She is the author of Everything Is Necessary (Willow Books), Gathering the Waters (Jamii Publishing 2014), and A Spell for Living (Agape Editions), which received the Editors’ Choice recognition for the Numinous Orisons, Luminous Origin Literary Award, and is forthcoming from as a multimedia e-book, including music and Keisha’s original artwork. Keisha’s poetry, fiction, and essays have been widely published in national literary journals, magazines, and anthologies that include Kweli Literary Journal, Small Axe Salon, Interviewing the Caribbean, Renaissance Noire, The Caribbean Writer, The Killens Review of Arts and Letters, Mosaic Literary Magazine, African Voices Magazine, Streetnotes: Cross Cultural Poetics, Caribbean in Transit Arts Journal, The Mom Egg Review, and others. Keisha is a past participant of the VONA Voices and Callaloo writing workshops, a former fellow of the North Country Institute for Writers of Color, and was short-listed for the Small Axe Literary Competition. In 2018, Keisha was selected as a Brooklyn Public Library Artist in Residence. She is a graduate of the Syracuse University Newhouse School and College of Arts and Sciences, and holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from The City College, CUNY.

https://www.facebook.com/events/405011770119587/?notif_t=event_description_mention&notif_id=1565139543064703

[Aug 15] Feral Voices: The Other Brooklyn Reading Series X

Join us Thursday, August 15th at 7 pm for Feral Voices.

Feral Voices is a monthly reading series that focuses on celebrating a selection of writers who work and struggle outside of the typical institutions of the writing community.

A night for those who work one or more "day jobs," but have a voice to share that goes against the grain or upends capitalist, patriarchal understandings of the label "author."

Feral Voices is still looking for readers so send your work if you're interested in sharing! 

If your writing is proactively weird, if you are part of a marginalized group, and/or if you struggle with the financial insecurity that stems from pursuing writing outside university funding or published manuscripts then submit your work to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. We accept short stories, poetry, essays, plays, scripts, novel excerpts, and anything genre-bending and mind-altering.

Join us in an event hosted by T. A. Stanley at Unnameable Books. Come to share, read, listen and build something new!

For more information about Feral Voices: https://tastanley.com/feralvoices or message me on FB. If you want to submit to be a reader please send any poetry, fiction, nonfiction, etc to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. Submissions are always open!

https://www.facebook.com/events/2408942639390041/

[Aug 11] Boog Reader 12 Release Party

 Join us Sunday, Aug. 11, at 1:00 p.m. in the beautiful backyard for the Boog Reader 12's Release Party!

WITH READINGS FROM PBR12 CONTRIBUTORS N.Y.C. POETS

Peter Bushyeager • Lydia Cortes • Bob Gaulke • Carol MirakoveUche Nduka * KB Nemcosky • Michele Madigan Somerville  

AND MUSIC FROM 

The Jasmine Dreame Wagner Quartet

AND THE ISSUE (including work from all 30 contributors)
https://boogcity.com/boogpdfs/bc130.pdf 

Hosted and curated by Boog City editor and publisher David A. Kirschenbaum 

For further information: 212-842-BOOG (2664), editor@boogcity.com

[July 25] Trio, Solo, Ensemble

Trio, Solo, Ensemble

Thursday July 25th @ 7pm
 
An evening of improvisations:

7pm: Dan Joseph (solo dulcimer)

7:45: Miyama McQueen-Tokita, James Ilgenfritz, Jessie Cox
koto/bass/drums

8:30: Mixed Ensemble Improvisations
Chris McIntyre - trombone
Josh Sinton - baritone saxophone
Judith Berkson - voice
Dan Joseph - hammer dulcimer
Miyama McQueen-Tokita - koto
Jessie Cox - percussion
James Ilgenfritz - bass

[July 13] Brooklyn Society Writers Group

Saturday, July 13th @ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Brooklyn Society Writers Group Presents "Love Storms, Thunder and Lightning" - a Poetry Reading and Open Mic.

Featured Writers/Poets will present their work
& Open Mic (is open to all on a first come basis)

(Light Refreshments will be available)

[July 10] Feral Voices: The Other Brooklyn Reading Series IX

Join us Wednesday, July 10th at 7 PM!

Our community continues to grow and continues to astound with its support and talent. This month we are featuring three wonderful writers: Erin O'Malley, Avika Talmor, and marcus scott williams!

Feral Voices is a monthly reading series that focuses on celebrating a selection of writers who work and struggle outside of the typical institutions of the writing community.

A night for those who work one or more "day jobs," but have a voice to share that goes against the grain or upends capitalist, patriarchal understandings of the label "author."

If your writing is proactively weird, if you are part of a marginalized group, and/or if you struggle with the financial insecurity that stems from pursuing writing outside university funding or published manuscripts then submit your work to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. We accept short stories, poetry, essays, plays, scripts, novel excerpts, and anything genre-bending and mind-altering.

Join us in an event hosted by T. A. Stanley at Unnameable Books. Come to share, read, listen and build something new!


For more information about Feral Voices: https://tastanley.com/feralvoices or message me on FB. If you want to submit to be a reader please send any poetry, fiction, nonfiction, etc to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. Submissions are always open!

https://www.facebook.com/events/2229052540505504/

[July 2] The Queer Issue X: A Reading and Party

Join Words Without Borders at Unnameable Books Tuesday July 2nd at 6:30pm for a reading of queer writing from around the world, in celebration of the 10th edition of our annual Queer Issue. 

The event will be hosted by Jeremy Tiang with readings by Tiang, Claudia Salazar Jiménez, Amanda Lee Koe, John Keene, and other writers to be announced.

From 2010-2019, the Queer Issue has given a platform to 89 queer writers from 48 countries writing in 32 different languages, from Arabic to Serbian to Spanish to Thai. Many of these writers were given their first exposure to English-language readers in this issue, and some are not free to discuss their queerness in their home countries or languages.

Help us close out Pride month with a celebration of this milestone. Refreshments will be available. After the reading, there will be an afterparty at Soda Bar across the street.

***SUGGESTED DONATION: $5***
All proceeds will be donated to All Out, an organization fighting for international queer rights.

https://www.facebook.com/events/722855644834728/
https://bit.ly/2WgHysS

[June 18] Art Workers' Inquiry

As workers in the NYC's arts industry, we deal with exploitation, coercion, and extreme alienation on a regular basis. As communists, socialists, and anti-capitalists, we want to build a struggle for worker power in the arts. The first steps in that struggle are coming together and learning about where power resides in our industry. So, you're invited...

To an art workers inquiry gathering! Red Bloom has created an Art Workers' Inquiry based on the Workers' Inquiry Marx developed in 1880. The idea then and now is to use a questionnaire about working conditions both as a means of developing a record of the working class by the working class and also to use as an organizing tool. At this gathering there will be an opportunity to use the inquiry to share your working conditions and learn about those of other art workers.

Come to Unnameable Books on Tuesday, June 18 from 7-9pm to meet up with other arts workers and discuss how we can build a cross-craft, cross-media arts workers struggle. There will be drinks!

[June 23] Robert Musil's Unions--Book Release Soirée

Robert Musil Unions Book Release Soirée

with Genese Grill (translator), Prof. Nicholas Birns (moderator), and Jason Mears (saxaphone)

Sunday June 23rd (7pm) at Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn

In 1911, following his 1906 debut, The Confusions of Young Törless, Robert Musil published the two experimental stories that make up Unions. “The Completion of Love” and “The Temptation of Quiet Veronica” were some of Musil’s earliest forays into what would become a life-long exploration of the life, adventures, and psychological processes of his fiancé, Martha Marcovaldi — the future Martha Musil.

The stories in Unions explode conventional morality; explore questions of self, union, and dissolution of self; and approximate exceptional sensations of erotic and intellectual perception in a shimmering and exceedingly dense proliferation of metaphors.

This is a new English-language translation from Contra Mundum Press of the two stories and the first one to appear — in the form of Musil’s original publication — as Unions. A scholarly introduction by the translator, Genese Grill, explains the provenance of the stories and the need for a new approach to this book so central to his oeuvre.

http://contramundum.net/2019/03/17/unions/
https://jmearsmusic.com/

[June 16] Queer and (Anti-) Capitalism Education Event

Join us Sunday, June 16th from 2-4 PM. 

Salih Alexander Wolter`s und Heinz-Jürgen Voß’s book “Queer and (Anti-)Capitalism” has caused major debates in Germany. It productively brings together Marxist, queerfeminist and anti-racist perspectives, and the third German edition has just been printed.

Now the American translation has been published. It is included in the book “The Queer Intersectional in Contemporary Germany: Essays on Racism, Capitalism and Sexual Politics," ed. by Christopher Sweetapple. You can get the free Open-Access version here: https://www.psychosozial-verlag.de/7444 .

Heinz-Jürgen Voß will give a short overview of some of the main ideas in “Queer and (Anti-)Capitalism," and then we will break out into small discussion groups. Typically we go for food and drinks after.

Please note that this venue is unfortunately not wheelchair accessible.

[June 12] Feral Voices: The Other Brooklyn Reading Series VIII

                 
Join us next Wednesday, June 12th at 7 PM to listen to some more local writers share their work! 

Feral Voices is a monthly reading series that focuses on celebrating a selection of writers who work and struggle outside of the typical institutions of the writing community.

A night for those who work one or more "day jobs," but have a voice to share that goes against the grain or upends capitalist, patriarchal understandings of the label "author."

If your writing is proactively weird, if you are part of a marginalized group, and/or if you struggle with the financial insecurity that stems from pursuing writing outside university funding or published manuscripts then submit your work to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. We accept short stories, poetry, essays, plays, scripts, novel excerpts, and anything genre-bending and mind-altering.

Join us in an event hosted by T. A. Stanley at Unnameable Books. Come to share, read, listen and build something new!


For more information about Feral Voices: https://tastanley.com/feralvoices or message me on FB. If you want to submit to be a reader please send any poetry, fiction, nonfiction, etc to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. Submissions are always open

[June 8] Soo Yeon Lyuh w/ Rosenberg, Snyder, Roberts, Ilgenfritz

Please join us for Saturday, June 8th at 8 PM for an evening of performances by west coast musician Soo Yeon Lyuh and friends

8pm Jonah Rosenberg/Jeff Snyder/Mariel Roberts/James Ilgenfritz
8:30 Soo Yeon Lyuh solo
9pm Soo Yeon with guests (duo/trios, etc)

Soo Yeon Lyuh is a master of the haegeum, a two-stringed Korean bowed instrument. She possesses not only flawless technique and a full command of the haegeum’s traditional repertoire, but is also widely recognized for promoting the creation of new pieces for haegeum. For twelve years, Lyuh was a member of South Korea’s National Gugak Center, the foremost institution for the preservation of Korean traditional music. Since then, Lyuh has endeavored to weave authentic styles into new musical domains, relocating to the Bay Area and drawing inspiration from its dynamic improvised music scene. Her contributions have sparked the creation of new repertoire for haegeum—the lifeblood of any instrument. She has premiered dozens of new works and recently made her debut as a composer with the Kronos Quartet.

[May 30] Greetings from Rogal // Poppick // Pearl // Millstein // Spotless Leopards

To All the Children Of Spring That Have Not Yet Sprung & Then Some,   

And even to those who feel they've Sprung their last Spring - ho! You've got more left in that poetry machine than you know & nothing can put a flower tiger in your tank like some open air Spring in the World of Poor Mutts like some just right or wrong poetry can, so don't stay home & eat that leftover corn-dog alone- bring ye over to the delightful basement / backward of enigmatic realization & imbibe the night's spirit with us at Unnameable Greetings Readings. for the penultimate installment of Unnameable Greetings this  Thursday, May 30th, @ 7:30 pm featuring four poets & music: (please note earlier 7:30 meet - n - greet time in order to respectfully mind the neighbors' wish to have a crowd free space from 10 pm on - which means we'd like the first poet to go on as close to 8pm as possible & do our best to finish up by 9:30 so we can have a lil' hang time before departing to establishments possibly nearby  ) Now ya'll be aware that Mother Natural is calling for lovely rain & perhaps a few bolts of Zeus - which means we be gathered down below closer to Vulcan's stithy where we can get cozy with the built in library sensation awaiting us... 

Lisa Rogal - treads lightly in verse that at first feels floating then drifting then anchors us into clouds that are really masses of land we passed through not knowing where we were going until we got there & then by gum we were there & a pleasant sensation passed through us where it remains till this day like a smile we take out in the rain. 

Rachel Pearl - shhhh... Rachel is almost here.... she'll be here soon...you'll know her when she walks in... her voice will carry beyond her.... it is the voice you will know... the pages of pomes that walk out of her... the city in disguise... there once was a poet... & now there is too... & know you will hear her... & she will hear you 

Denise Milstein  - islands of fire surround her... the tale travels & so too the pome... where too?... where now?... who go?... why you ask?... what you say?... hit.. the... road?... or stay, sit & contemplate the neat rip in time you've made as Denise's verse takes a needle to the mess & sews it up only to have her lines bust the seams & pour forth like a biker scorning data for the whipping wind

Dan Poppick  - pops that top, pilfers the pedagogy of poetry, ponders period pieces then peels a pear without so much as a lazy adjective, pronto! poof! per annum, no no no - try daily! through a praxis of time-delayed performance, placed periodically on pivotal shelves, unlike the Po-po-police, not preening but productive, nothing out of the ordinary prurient but provoking nonetheless a pointed effort, not puritanical mind you but freedom inducing - like a drug you didn't know you needed till it opened the door inside you.  

Also on the bill - most likely strumming up a mood to set the meet & greet on its lively ear, dear, will be the return of the Greetings House Band OAE posing as SPOTLESS LEOPARDS recent escapees from mad King Leopold's deadly Congo catastrophe we'll be soothing souls of all traumatized Trumpe l'oeil victims who still have trouble believing that Trump actually exists in his present unreal-all-too-real form.

So hope to see you at the Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave, near the corner of St Marks in burgeoning Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Meet n' Greet begins at 7:30 pm to be followed shortly thereafter by performances 8:00=ish. In what's left of the white stone backyard we'll be, (Tho it may be cold rainy thundery blurry & / or hairy) but if the weather does indeed turn inclement there's the snug book-lined basement. Either way the event is free. Listen for the drum then strum.

X's to Your O's

Jeffrey Joe