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Event Horizon / January 1, 2007
Here's to the Men And Women Who Never Knew They Were Poets
By Ellen Aug Lytle
Event Horizon:
The 13th Annual Spoken Word/Performance Extravaganza, took place for the fourth year at the Bowery Poetry Club and just about
all the downtown poets showed up but since my time was limited I'd like to mention the people I really heard. We poets/artists
are constantly stretching to the stars for things not apparent; sometimes we grasp stuff like a brass ring and lay it out
for expression, other times it quickly disappears, but mostly we try and that's what's truly important.
On a black and white and filmy silk stage designed by Su Polo, where the poets added color, Pete Dolack started off as emcee
and Miriam Stanley did the “wicked'”flagging. Richard Kostelanetz performed some visual word games to warm up
the audience which was already hot when Orion delivered a really nicely done, humorous, piece about how he's just a midget
compared with the 'greatness' of two local poets one of whom was John Farris. Hobo Bob's “life is but a breath from
death” stirred me and Jeanne Dickey needing a new pair of shoes comfortable enough to walk from the subway to her office
job to pay for those shoes tickled me silly. Madeline Artenberg's story about being molested while hitchhiking Texas impressed
us a lot and Bob Heman's, ” The meals themselves were still alive…too afraid to crawl away”, was so cool.
Iris Berman's rhyming takeoff on Rumplestiltskin cheered us on while Peter Vicinanza's bedtime story listening to Gene Shepherd
on the radio (in the 50s) alone at night in his family's Brooklyn apartment was as entertaining as something from A Prairie
Home Companion. But Avra Kaufman, a new face this year, got me good with her poem about how strangers who are poets “know”
or can usually recognize each other; “Is everyone born unwrapped like us?” she mentioned. Tom O's, “you
are/and the terrible future I knew I was going to have…a craziness waiting for rent…” was another well done
poem and John Holt's, “throw away everything so that nothing owns you,” again cheered us. I liked Peter Chelnik's
poem, which was as openly grand yet ruggedly seeded as his western plains. Of course it wouldn't be a marathon reading without
Hal Sirowitz's mother/father says; and even his one line proves his unique comedic voice “having a long nose doesn't
mean you're Jewish…look at Pinocchio!” Just as this poem from Susan Sherman proves her uniquely masterful with
content and craft; “here's to the poems that never get published…here's to the men and women who never knew they
were poets…here's to the blood that moves us forward… the face of the wind is silent…:
It was definitely a lift seeing so many familiar faces including; Don Lev, Larry Jones (his Café Nico was the home for the
first five alternative New Year's Day “spoken word's” beginning in 1995). Eve Packer, Danny Shot, Eliot Katz,
Bob Hart, Peter Kernz, Jushi (hu-manning the book table) Ilke Scobie, Jeff Wright, Lee Klein, Vicki Hudsmith, J. D .Rage,
Reggie Cabico, Laura Boss, Clara Sala, and Bob Holman, who read a poem by Jackie Sheeler and ended with; “Dear Bob,
you are not allowed to use the word beautiful in a poem this year!” But I will when I thank Bruce Weber and Joanne
Pagano Weber for their beautiful work all these years… and, I wish I stayed longer and listened harder but there's always
2008… something to hang our caps on? …something of a future…
Hassan Al Abdullah
K
Magdalena Alagna
Nelson Alxndr
E.J. Antonio
Penny Arcade
Madeline Artenberg
Dorothy Friedman August
Brett Axel
Ellis Avery
Cheryl B. Jordan Bernstein Philip Beitchman
Iris Berman
Jordan Bernstein
Big Mike
Farid Bitar/ Unit 5
Steve Bloom
Laura Boss
Michael Broder
Meagan Brothers
Amy Marie Bucciferro
Tom Burnett
Charles J. Butler
Regie Cabico and the New York Futurists
Maryellen Cammarosano
Steve Cannon
Rosette Capotorto
Patricia Carragon
Guillermo Castro
Peter Chelnik
Terry Chiesa
Michael Coffey
Andy Comess
Kathy Crisci
Vivian Demuth
Jeanne Dickey
Pete Dolack
Robert Dunn
David Elsasser
John Farris
Jim Feast
Corie Feiner
Tommy Fernandez
Bonny Finberg
Thomas Fucaloro
Bingo Gazingo
Gregg Glory
Allan David Goldschmidt
Rigoberto González
Laraine Goodman
Michael Graves
Viviana Grell
Bob Hart
Bob Heman
Diana Gitesha Hernandez
Carl Herr
Roxanne Hoffman
Amy Holman
Bob Holman
John Holt
David Huberman
Ice
Evie Ivy
Larry Jones
Jushi
Janet Kaplan
Eliot Katz
Kendell Kardt
Andrew Kaufman
Peter Kerns
Anyssa Kim
Ron Kolm
Katherine Korth
Richard Kostelanetz
Peter Kozlowski
David Lawton
Master Lee
Jean Lehrman
Linda Lerner
Rick Librizzi
Donald Lev
Rick Librizzi
Tsaurah Litzky
Richard Loranger
Jason Tallon
Fran Luck
Tracey Luszcz
Brant Lyon
Ellen Aug Lytle
Mindy Matijasevic
Susan Maurer
Marnie McCasland
Jan McLaughlin
Taylor Mead
Daniel Meltzer
Nancy Mercado
Middle Poet
Robert Milby
Lissa Moira
Emilio Murillo
D. Sharese
Ngoma
Carol Novack
Tom O.
Valery Oistenu
Jane Ormerod
Sean Osman
Amy Ouzoonian
Eve Packer
Paco
Nick Patti
Mireya Perez
Sherlly Pierre
Paul Pines
Middle Poet
Su Polo
Ray Pospisil
Kathy Price
Just Putt
J. D. Rage
Jill S. Rapaport
Martin Reckhaus
Vittoria Repetto
Eugene Ring
A.E. Roman
Robert Roth
Armand Ruhlman
Katherine Rutgers
Thad Rutkowski
Sarah Sarai
Iris N. Schwartz
Ilke Scobie
D. Sharese
Bina Sharif
Susan Sherman
Larissa Shmailo
Phillip Sherrrod
Danny Shot
Hersch Silverman
Frank Simone
Hal Sirowitz
Joanna Sit
Jessica Slote
Robin Small-McCarthy
David Mark Speer
Miriam Stanley
Rita Stein
Kyrce Swenson
Cheryl Boyce Taylor
Marjorie Tesser
Jessica Thiesen
Ken Thompson
Bobby Tiedeken
Jack Tricarico
Marilyn Perez-Uncal
Unknown African
Reagan Upshaw
Angelo Verga
Faith Vicinanza Peter Vicinanza
Laura Vookles
George Wallace
Barry Wallenstein
Bruce Weber
Joanne Pagano Weber
Joe Weill
Richard West
Nathan Whiting
Jack Wiler
Manny Williams
Liza Wolsky
Chavisa Woods
Jeff Wright
Yictove
Emma Zakarevicius
Nick Zedd
Zork
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