Listen to music samples of Vendetta Creme, the featured musical guests for the Roof Garden event. The doors open and the band starts playing at 7:30 p.m. The poetry reading begins at 8 p.m.
Category: Asheville
A poetry reading and jazz show on the Roof Garden of the Battery Park Hotel
Rooftop Poets
Barbara Gravelle, Matthew Mulder, Brian Sneeden
with music by Vendetta Creme & Aaron Price
1 Battle Square, Asheville, North Carolina
Friday, October 22 · 8:00pm – until
doors open at 7:30pm — event begins at 8:00pm
In celebration of the publication of Barbara Gravelle’s latest book, Poet on the Roof of the World, join the Rooftop Poets under a full moon on the Roof Garden of the Battery Park Hotel for a Prohibition-era poetry reading, book-signing and jazz show.
Local poets Barbara Gravelle, Matthew Mulder and Brian Sneeden will perform alongside the French jazz music sensations Vendetta Creme and Aaron Price at the Roof Garden of the illustrious Battery Park Hotel.
Tickets are $10 and include a signed and numbered, limited-edition, 64-page book of poems featuring the work of all three poets, as well as complimentary light refreshments and hors d’oeuvres.
Few people have access to the Battery Park Hotel’s Roof Garden. Join us for a fine evening of poems, songs and full-moon revelry.
Space is limited. Reserve your tickets today by emailing: info@coffeehousejunkie.com
The evening’s cast of characters include:
Barbara Gravelle, author of several poetry books including, Keepsake, Dancing the Naked Dance of Love, and her latest collection of poems, Poet on the Roof of the World.
Matthew Mulder, one of the original members of the Traveling Bonfires, his poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, Small Press Review, The Indie, H_NGM_N, and other publications.
Brian Sneeden has produced, designed or written for more than a hundred theatrical performances. He is the current director and MC of Asheville Vaudeville.
Cabaret singer Vendetta Creme (aka Kelly Barrow) and Aaron Price (piano, guitar) perform lesser-known songs from yesteryear. This duo scour the globe for their songs including material from five continents weaved into a seamless, unforgettable show.
Two questions on a Monday afternoon
- How many of you have seen Asheville from the Garden Roof of the historic Battery Park Apartments?
- How many of you would like to see Asheville from the Garden Roof of the historic Battery Park Apartments?
Poetry at the Pulp presents feature poet Landon Godfrey
About a month ago I visited the Orange Peel’s private club PULP for an open mic event. The event featured Keith Flynn and the Holy Men followed by an open mic. This weekend I read on the Asheville Poetry Review Facebook page:
POETRY AT THE PULP open mic night on Wednesday, October 6 at 7pm. Sponsored by Wordfest and The Asheville Poetry Review. Feature poet: Landon Godfrey, whose book of poems, “Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Soufflé Chiffon Gown,” selected by David St. John for the Cider Press book award, will be published February 2011. Come join us and share your work with one of the best crowds in Asheville. The Pulp is located underneath The Orange Peel on Biltmore Avenue. See you there!
If you are unfamiliar with Landon’s work, I recorded on of her readings at the Flood Reading Series, Sunday March 29, 2009. Should be another fine evening at PULP tomorrow night. I look forward to seeing you there.
* * *
[scene one]
Asheville may be the only place I know that can turn a hula hoops event into something slightly tamer than pole dancing. Walking to the Transit Center earlier this week, I observed quite a large crowd of people with hula hoops at Pritchard Park. A deejay whipped up some trance vibes and the crowd responded with hips and hoops. For the most part, the event seemed quite family friendly with the exception of a few women whose performance with hula hoops approached the idea of *ahem* public art.
[scene two]
The next evening I walked along Patton Avenue — again heading toward the Transit Center. A guy leaning on the rail outside the Asheville Yacht Club with a Pabst Blue Ribbon can in his right hand stared across the street as if watching a tired rerun of That 70s Show. I didn’t think much of it. Maybe he had a lousy day and was trying to unwind. Maybe he was waiting for someone to join him and was just killing time. When the signal lamp changed I crossed the street and realized that the guy outside the Asheville Yacht Club was watching two young women making out at one of the tables on the street outside Thirsty Monk’s Pub. Who needs a television? or an iPhone? Just grab a seat at the rail outside the Asheville Yacht Club, order a PBR, and watch the wildlife at Thirsty Monk’s Pub. The whole scene made me feel oddly lugubrious.
[scene three]
Thursday morning the sunrise bruised the sky with purple and red clouds. The air echoed its coolness and as I walked from the bus stop to Starbucks. After purchasing a pumpkin muffin and a tall bold coffee, I walked across the parking lot toward the office. I noticed a car with all its windows open about an inch or so. It seemed trashed. Piles of plastic bags with clothes, stuffed toys, fast food restaurant bags, and shoes cluttered the interior of the car and seemed to reach the window. As I bit off a morsel of muffin I realized, at second glance, that a woman, man and child were sleeping in the car. What appeared to be plastic bags were black sleeping bags that were unzipped and pulled up to their necks like quilts. The woman was in the driver’s seat with the seat reclined back as fast is it will go. The man was sleeping on his right side facing the woman. His seat was also reclined, but not as much as the woman’s. The child slept in an a car seat with a dark blanket pulled up to the neck. I paused, but thought a third glance would be wrong and might wake them.
The sun still hid behind the mountains to the east as I finished eating the muffin while standing in the parking lot. They’re story must be interesting, I thought to myself as I stuffed the paper muffin wrapping in my pocket. It was still early. No one was in the office yet. I hesitated for a few seconds, looked back at the car in the parking lot with a sleeping family, took a sip of coffee and walked up the steps to the office.
Comic strip artist Michael Jantze and Julie Negron in #AVL this weekend
National Cartoonists Society members Michael Jantze, artist of the comic strip The NORM, and Julie Negron, artist of the comic strip Jenny the Military Spouse, to be featured at the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society present a “Shop Talk” this Saturday, September 11, 2010.
The Cartoonist and Illustrator Shop Talk schedule is as follows:
10am – 11am Shane “Shane Hai” Harris and James E. Lyle (comic book artists) present an inking demonstration combined with a brief history of American comic books.
11am – 12 noon Michael Jantze (syndicated cartoonist and instructor at SCAD) speaking on his career as a cartoonist.
Noon – 1pm Portfolio review for the attendees.
1pm – 2:00 pm Julie Negron speaks about “Jenny and 9/11”.
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Matt Mulder (New Media) moderates a round-table discussion on web-media, featuring the scheduled speakers.
3:00pm – 4:00 pm Kaysha Siemens (Illustrator) demonstrates digital painting techniques.
Hope to see you all at the Skyland/South Buncombe Library this weekend!
Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society presents Michael Jantze and Julie Negron
Yes, you did read Monday’s Citizen-times correctly. I am scheduled to moderate a round table on new media as it relates to cartoonists, comic book artists and illustrators. Some of the topics I hope to cover during the round table include: Is it a good business model to create cartoons/comic books for iPads (and other digital devices)? Does online cartoons/comic devalue the art form? Is it possible to protect your cartoons/comics from online piracy? What is the future of collecting traditional print comics vs. downloading digital comics?
This Saturday, September 11th, the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society presents a “Shop Talk” at the Skyland/South Buncombe Library (260 Overlook Road, Asheville, NC). The program will run from 10 am until 4 pm.
Also, if you’re interested, the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society meets monthly at Frank’s Roman Pizza. The meet up is open to all interested parties and all ages. Regulars include teens, twenty-somethings, thirty-sometings and older-somethings. If you’re interested in hang out with local artists feel free to contact me.
Saturday’s event features two members of the National Cartoonists Society: Michael Jantze (artist of the comic strip The NORM, and instructor at Savannah College of Art and Design), and Julie Negron (artist of the comic strip Jenny the Military Spouse for Stars and Stripes magazine).
More ShopTalk details and schedule to be presented soon.
Link: The Western North Carolina cartoonists group presents ‘Shop Talk II’
Michael Jantze, comic strip artist of The NORM, coming to Asheville
Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society usually meets on the first Tuesday of every month. On Saturday, September 11, 2010 the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society present a “Shop Talk” at the Skyland/South Buncombe Library (260 Overlook Road, Asheville, NC). The program will run from 10 am until 4 pm.
More details to be provided later.
5 notes from the lecture “The Excess of Poetry”
James Longenbach presented a lecture titled “The Excess of Poetry” at the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers this morning. Here’s a few of the notes I wrote:
- The act of writing is itself an excess.
- What matters in the Pisan Cantos is not the information provided but the tone.
- Our minds are strategically selective. We manage excess by focusing on some things while ignoring others.
- The Pisan Cantos are organized by tone: elegiac, colloquial, haranguing and reverence.
- What writer does not compose him/herself out of nothing?
There are more notes I wrote, but they are a bit scramble. Longenbach presented poems by Keats, Dickinson and Pound as way to explore the “fine excess” of poetry.
Free author readings and lectures
The Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers provides free readings and lectures to the public. The first reading begins tomorrow night. The reading schedule is posted on their web site (link). I plan on attending as many as I am able. However, a passage from one of Günter Grass’s novels makes me wonder about the validity of creative writing programs.
Here unpolished literary attempts were read aloud and critiqued…. based on the American notion of teaching creative writing. (Crabwalk, Chapter 2)
Last night I stood in a bookstore transfixed
Last night I picked up some art supplies downtown. The staff at True Blue is not only helpful, but offered me a cup of water after I coughed a couple of times. For some reason the pollen this year is especially irritating to my throat. It’s not often that staff voluntarily offer a cup of water to store customers, and that kind of service is why I plan to return often.
Being downtown, I couldn’t resist dropping by Malaprop’s for a visit to one of my favorite booksellers. Wandering through the book aisles I came across two book titles that caught my attention. The first book is by Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation. I haven’t read much of Merton’s writings. But as I was flipping through pages of New Seeds my eyes fell upon the following passage:
If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work. In this way I become His instrument.
The work ethics idea in this passage seems so foreign in today’s culture that it caused me to stand, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, and ponder the question: am I true to the task I am performing? However menial the task, do I accomplish tasks with due attention to its purpose?
The other book that caught my attention while I walked through the book aisles at Malaprop’s is The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. Here’s a passage that arrested my attention:
And whereas philosophical reflection applied to scientific thinking elaborated over a long period of time requires any new idea to become integrated in a body of tested ideas, even though this body of ideas be subjected to profound change by the new idea (as is the case in all revolutions of contemporary science), the philosophy of poetry must acknowledge that the poetic act has no past, at least no recent past, in which its preparation an appearance could be followed.
This took me a couple of readings to unpack the idea in this passage, and I’m not sure if I agree with it or disagree with it. My initial thought is not to agree with it simply on the basis that there is nothing new under the sun. However, counterpoint to my initial thought is a recollection of Jane Hirshfield’s thoughts on creativity and originality in poetry.
I wish I could have purchased these books last night, but I spent my money at True Blue and will have to wait until new funds arrive to purchase these titles.
Video: Traveling Bonfires poetry reading at Malaprop’s
Here’s a video of Pasckie Pascua from last week’s Traveling Bonfires poetry reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café.
Always be prepared to read your poems
When I mentioned earlier today that you should join the Traveling Bonfires tonight at Malaprop’s, you really were invited to join the reading. Two of the three poets were unable to show up for tonight’s reading. The emcee of the poetry reading and founder of the Traveling Bonfires invited anyone in the audience to read poems. He asked me to read my poems as well.
I wasn’t prepared to read; only to listen. But no one else came prepared to read. So, I frantically dug into my old messenger bag and found two poetry chapbook manuscripts by other poets. For a brief moment I thought I would read from their manuscripts, but I didn’t want to read poems that weren’t ready for the public. Sandwiched between loose papers and a copy of Selected Cantos of Ezra Pound and Narrow Road to the Interior was my red notebook containing poem sketches and revisions. I had half of a thought to read selections from Pound and Basho, but in my notebook I found six poem sketches and revisions to test in front of an audience.
The moral of the story is this: always be prepared to read your poems and if you’re a poet in the Asheville area (or if you’re a poet traveling near the Asheville area) contact me or the Traveling Bonfires (travelingbonfires@yahoo.com) and we’ll find a space and a mic and a crowd of listeners.
// just returned from the BMCM+AC poetry reading wordfest event… two hours until the next reading at jubilee…
// drunk on sufi poetry from the reading/performance by Thomas Rain Crowe & Coleman Barks… the hangover should be delicious…
// so when the asheville police showed up at the bobo gallery, i told j- d- ‘now this is what i call a poetry reading’ …
// 18°F outside with a wind chill of 2°F. For those traveling to the airport, all the roads are clear.
// of course, i’ll catch the bus tonight. there’s no buses running today because it’s a holiday….. so much for the working class.
This week at Malaprop’s
Time: Friday, September 5, 2008 7:00 p.m.
Location: Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe
Title of Event: Jonathon Flaum-A Fable of Leadership
Local author and CEO of WriteMind Communications,Inc., Flaum will read from his new book, How the Red Wolf Found Its Howl: The Internal Journey to Leadership
Time: Sunday, September 7, 2008 3:00 p.m.
Location: Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe
Title of Event: Poetrio- 3 Readings by 3 Poets
Join us every first Sunday for Poetrio, poetry readings by three poets. This month’s featured poets are Scott Owens, author of The Fractured World, Beverly Jackson, author of Every Burning Thing, and Pat Riviere-Seel, author of No Turning Back Now (New Women’s Voices Series, No. 30)
These impassable streets
Ditto, Ashvegas:
The other thing that is annoying the hell out of me in Asheville is all the road construction. Every street and sidewalk in downtown Asheville is currently impassable. Link
Last night, I waited at the Transit Center 20 minutes to catch the bus home. Earlier this week, I waited 20 minutes for the bus heading to the Transit Center. Thinking I was late and had missed the bus, I walked back home to at least plug into my digital nomad life. Two minutes later I see the bus pass by. So I totally missed that bus and arrived at work two hours late.
Whoever had the bright idea at ATS, to throw spaghetti on the a map of Asheville and decide that’s how to re-route buses should be forced to drive those routes for an entire day. Since the schedules are fubar, I don’t even plan to show up at the bus stop on time. This morning I found it saved time to simply walk—almost two miles—from the Transit Center to the office.
Biltmore Village Under Construction
(photo by Coffeehouse Junkie)
The elegant lie
Sunday, I had the opportunity to sit in the WPVM studios during a broadcast of WordPlay. Katherine Min read from Secondhand World
Feelin’ Asheville
It’s been a long time since I did an Asheville open-mic circuit on a Thursday night.
The Open Mic at Dripolator offered quite a full evening. Kapila hosts the event. The Drip sure pulls a crowd. Parking was an issue–I had to park two blocks away. Kapila read some of his work around 9 p.m. In one, he laments that this city is now called Ashevegas when Ashevillage is he would dream she be called.
I hung out for awhile and listened to several good singer/songwriters and poets. But I left with an annoying thought–I’m not feeling Asheville. It’s an expression I lifted from another local writer. He uses the expression when a line of prose or poetry works: “Yeah, man, I’m feelin’ it now.” I suspect the expression has jazz or blues roots.
The Courtyard Gallery Open Mic offered a sparse gathering, but I arrived after 10 p.m. So there may have been a larger crowd earlier. Jarrett Leone graciously invited me to read a couple poems I found in my notebook. The same notebook I haven’t been able open since the writers residency back in July. I read a couple blues poems because it seemed to be the only sketches I was feelin’. My voice strained to pull the words off the page and send it to the audience. Jim, a regular at the Courtyard and previously Beanstreets, greeted me warmly and told me he was thinking about me the other night when he was reading through my old chapbook, Late Night Writing
I began to feel Asheville again, but it was awkward–like kissing an ex-lover. A lover that has moved onto to someone else, and the space between us is more than physical. It is an annoying thought that troubles me tonight. I’m not feelin’ Asheville. And I don’t know why.
(Literary) Weekend photo essay (with some comments)
The Flood Fine Art Center poetry reading series Friday night inspired me. Four talented poets read their work to a very supportive audience.
Stephen Kirbach
Shad Marsh
Jennifer Callahan
Lynette JamesSunday afternoon offered a Writers at Home Series at Malaprop’s Cafe & Bookstore. Patrick Finn and Michael McFee read from their work.
Michael McFee
Coffeehouse Junkie 