I'll be reading tonight at the Nomad Cafe in Oakland...
It's on Shattuck and 65th St., walking distance from Ashby BART. 7:00-9:00.
Serene will read a few poems, then I'll read my poems and translations, and then a break and an open mike.
like to try a couple of my translations of Nestor Perlongher. They're strange poems, and they don't make a huge amount of linear sense, and they work by talking around the subject in baroque fractal image/wordplay digressions. So that the images will all be of starfish and rays of light and greasy film running through a projector and rayon shirts and feather boas, and every word has three meanings and interconnections to other words, but somewhere in the middle you are hit by a blinding realization that the poem is all about the metaphysics of cocksucking. They were VERY hard to translate and I would dig testing them out in front of people. I'll read some of the short ones in Spanish, but most in English. I'd also like to read a sampling of my translations from the anthology I'm working on - Latin American women poets from 1880-1930.
If that sounds good, then I hope you show up!
Hi Liz:
ReplyDeleteHow was the reading???
Hugs, Gabby
Hi Gabby! It was fun. I got there late, and missed the poems that Serene read, and was sorry to have been so rude... Not a lot of people came - only a few of my friends and Serene's friends, and a couple of strangers, but these friends were people whose opinion I value highly, and it was great to read for them!
ReplyDeleteI read "Hago como Spártaco" by María Luisa Milanes, "A una rosa" by Emilia Bernal, "(grades)" by Nestor Perlongher, and I'm not sure what other translations.
Then from my own poems, I read "Mother Frankenstein", "Apollonia of Rhodes", "Mitochondrial Lilith", and the second half of a Homeric Hymn to Hermaphrodite.
The cafe is very noisy, so every few lines were punctuated by the shrieking of the espresso machine and steaming of milk. I'm pretty sure I was still loud enough. I used to practice reciting loudly on the beach, but it's a long drive to get there. Now I practice in my car, with music blasting and the windows rolled up!
Oh, two more notes: someone else got up and read from a xerox zine called "Slutfucker". That was amusing!
ReplyDeleteAnd I read a long poem, "The Dead Girlfriend of Novalis", which I read once before at an art gallery, and I'm not sure if it makes sense to anyone, or if I was clear enough. I've been experimenting with long poems for a while, and there's not a lot of opportunity to read them aloud. Also, no one seems to want to publish them in magazines!
ey Liz, I would like to read your 'Mother Frankenstein", please!!!!
ReplyDeleteWe have the same porblem every time we read in bar: the coffee noise!
abrazos, Gabby