Goodbye, Gil Scott-Heron

I hope you're new, wherever you are.

The Reader

So, when did my everyday face start looking like Kate Winslet's tortured face in The Reader?

There's my poem right there. 

I just received an email about how I'm supposed to be doing this:

Fine. 

John the Revelator

The Devil is beating his wife

A couple years ago, I found out that people don't say that "devil's beating his wife" thing outside the South.   That's ok.  It's kind of creepy, anyway.    

I Made the Wigleaf Longlist

According to Wigleaf, my short short prose piece Andy was one of the top 100 pieces of very short fiction in 2010.  I'm in good company with writers like Nin Andrews and Kate Lorenz.

Thanks, Wigleaf!  And thank you to Opium for publishing it. 

I Bet You Didn't Know I Had This Superpower

by Joanna Penn Cooper and Todd Colby

You are probably more special than even they remember, too,

letting me breathe on your elbow for luck on my way out to fight

time you can't figure out time, so you might as well join it,

but this is all I have,  the heading out, the mechanism of doubt

like Leave it to Beaver, waiting for Ward to come home, facing

the abyss, and so putting on pearls and a corsage

to vacuum the house.  I will never have you all to my own,

he says through crumpled leaves the lemon sun receding 

the smell of lilacs assaulting our faces like tiny elfin
slackers. I will build you something sweet and rapturous

like a pillow full of soft dice and peanut butter. I love

the look of surprise you get when I build you things like
that, then eat the whole thing with Nutella before you

get home from work.  Watch the nut butters, hon,

your heart is faint, will break were the last words ever,

or at least the last words I heard before the Rapture.

Two events

I'll be participating in two events this week with some brilliant musicians and poets.  Come out and see us, if you're interested!


Monday May 9, 2011
8pm

Secret Orchestra
with special guest poet Joanna Penn Cooper
Yuko Fujiyama - piano
Clif Jackson - bass
David Gould - drums/percussion

University of the Streets
Muhammad Salahuddeen Memorial Jazz Theatre
130 E. 7th St.
2nd Floor
NY, NY 10009

$10 admission
Alcoholic and non-alcoholic refreshments available

http://www.universityofthestreets.org/
http://maps.google.com/?q=loc%3A130+E+7th+Street+New+York+NY+10009




Friday May 13, 2011
7 p.m. sharp


Stain of Poetry Reading series

MEGA WOMEN'S READING

@Goodbye Blue Monday – Bushwick, Brooklyn

with

Joanna Penn Cooper ~ Claire Donato ~ Farrah Field ~ Molly Gaudry ~ Hailey Higdon ~ Anne Cecilia Holmes ~ Brenda Iijima ~ Julia Story

For bios and photos, please visit the website:


http://stainofpoetry.wordpress.com/ 
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=171817919538834

Ram fountain

Goodbye, ram fountain. 

Five for Thursday

1.  Last day of classes at Fordham.
2.  A Handmade Museum by Brenda Coultas
3.  Meetings with students.  They always look different up close. 
4.  There's always one student on a laptop in the Poetry Room at the Fordham library, and she's always wearing really strong perfume, and always frowns and looks puzzled when you come in to look at the poetry books.

5.  Rehearsal with Secret Orchestra.  At their next performance, I am reading a poem by S. Tanigawa as part of a composition by the trio's piano player, Yuko Fujiyama.  At one point, Yuko was like, "Here you can just improvise some sounds."  And I was like, "Improvise? Sounds??"

Today

Three from this weekend