Exploring Inspired by Gertrude Stein: A Workshop

The Word Works is presenting Inspired by Gertrude Stein, a special master class workshop. So what does that mean? Perhaps this video will give you a better idea.

INSPIRED BY GERTRUDE STEIN: A WORKSHOP

February 4, 2012, 10 am to 5 pm

Stanford in Washington Art Gallery

2661 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC.

Karren L. Alenier, author of Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On

& Hans Gallas, a San Francisco-based collector of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas memorabilia

Open to writers of all levels & genres

Sponsored by: The Word Works & Stanford in Washington

More Info: http://wordworksdc.com/

Word Works Authors at Split This Rock Festival

The Word Works is spreading the word about our authors Sarah Browning and Brandon Johnson who will make the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness another huge success.

Of course, Sarah Browning, author of Whiskey in the Garden of Eden, is the founding director of Split This Rock. She knows how to attract the most socially active poets. Among her featured poets is Marilyn Nelson, who gave a master class workshop for us in 2001 on how to work with and write researched-based poems. Kim Roberts, who is also a featured poet, supported Marilyn's Word Works master class by getting us a great venue to hold that class. Of course, Word Works knows anything Kim does will be worth experiencing. Word Works has sponsored a number of her projects including her book Lip Smack: A History of Spoken Word in DC.

Brandon Johnson, author of Love's Skin, is active with Cave Canem, a national organization committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of black poets. He is a founding member of the Modern Urban Griots, a poetry and performance collective in the District of Columbia. And he is a dynamic reader of his own work.

Testimonials and reviews from the 2010 Festival tell the bigger story.  So make your calendar with these dates March 22-25, 2012 for Split This Rock!

Inspired by Gertrude Stein: A Workshop

Saturday, February 4, 2012, The Word Works, in cooperation with Stanford in Washington, will sponsor Inspired by Gertrude Stein, a special master class workshop on Gertrude Stein, a unique opportunity to learn about Stein and to be inspired by her work and the work of artists already influenced by this great Modernist. 

The 10 am to 5 pm workshop will take place at the Stanford in Washington Art Gallery, 2661 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC. The program, which includes an overview of Stein and her work, a curated tour of the exhibition (now extended to March 2012) “Insight & Identity: Contemporary Artists and Gertrude Stein,” writing time, and an opportunity to share newly created work, will be led by Karren Alenier, author of the libretto Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On, and Hans Gallas, co-curator of the “Insight & Identity” exhibition.

The program is open to writers of all levels and genres. The cost is $50. Visit http://wordworksbooks.org  for more information or call 301-581-9439.

KARREN LaLONDE ALENIER, poet, librettist and innovator of educational programs, specializes in creative work related to Gertrude Stein. Since 2003, she has been writing The Steiny Road to Operadom, a monthly column on Gertrude Stein and opera for Scene4.com. She is author of five volumes of poetry, with a sixth — On a Bed of Gardenias: Jane & Paul Bowles — forthcoming January 2012. Her opera Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On premiered in New York in 2005 with a good review from the New York Times.

HANS GALLAS, writer and artist, is a San Francisco-based collector of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas memorabilia. Items from his collection have been included in exhibitions around the world and are featured in the Stanford in Washington gallery show.  He is also the author of the recently published picture book, Gertrude and Alice and Fritz and Tom. 

The Word Works is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit literary organization publishing contemporary poetry in artistic editions and sponsoring public programs for more than 35 years.

#   #   #

Cafe Muse Celebrates Fine Poets September & October

September 19, 2011, at Café Muse, The Word Works had the pleasure of hearing poets Megan Synder Camp and Michele Wolf read from their new books as well as host Greg McBride who gave moving tribute to our recently departed friend Ann Knox.

Here are the opening poems from The Forest of Sure Things by Megan Snyder-Camp:

SEA CREATURES OF THE DEEP

O sockeye O rock sole O starry flounder

O red Irish lord O spiny lumpsucker

Dear threespine stickleback, sweet broken-backed shrimp—

hear the dreadful voices from the balcony.  You’re the blind

taking the bull by the horns.  You’re snow on a stick,

a stuck jukebox, a ribbon-swamped trike.  O gum boot,

O lemon peel nudibranch—do not fear the leafy horn-mouth;

dogwinkle and moon snail walk the floor and burn their bridges.

Lonely whitecap limpet, days are not true.  You stand on one foot,

and we brush past.  To live a life is not to walk across a field.

Pity the ghost shrimp, heart on his sleeve, or the glassy sea squirt,

run through with tears.  O to have gathered no moss, to know a clam’s

muddy joy.  You shut with a snap, you blur with silt, you poke

among barnacles.  A bunch of one-trick ponies, even brave wolf-eel. 

Cornered, the plainfin midshipman sings when afraid.   

They say it fears only the elusive cloud sponge.

and from Immersion by Michele Wolf: 

THE GREAT TSUNAMI

She recognizes its crest in the way he looks at her.


The wave is as vast as the roiling mass in the Japanese


Print they had paused in front of at the museum,


Capped with ringlets of foam, all surging sinew.


That little village along the shore would be


Totally lost. There is no escaping this.


The wave is flooding his heart,


And he is sending the flood


Her way.It rushes


Over her.



Can you look at one face


For the whole of a life?



Does the moon peer down


At the tides and hunger for home?

Greg McBride read two poems by Ann Knox and in this video, you can hear one of these. Note the photo of Ann that Greg brought to the reading. It was taken at Ann’s last reading on the day of her death. Ann was a great asset to our literary community and we miss her very much.

Our our next program is October 3 with poets Linda Pastan  and Jane Shore with tribute to Ann Darr.

Miller Poetry Series Wrap Up

Word Works had a successful partnership with the National Park Service as we teamed up to present eight programs from June 9 to July 28 in the Rock Creek Nature Center planetarium in Washington DC. We had a great mix of familiar audience and newcomers. Here are some images from the July programs and a poem written by Rhonda Williford who attended every program!

META-CONSTELLATION

The Word Works Graces

have tipped the bowl

of the night sky free

of humidity, light pollution --

to expotential stars,

skim of Milky Way creamed.

The Lyra held upright to strum

sound bright to twin the lights --

too various to connect all dots --

intimate as a lost love,

extraterrestial as the setting,

neither desert or the whale

neglected.  The poets drew

the pictures -- and the pictures

sang.  We sat under

the constellations, grateful

for the created

community of words.

--Rhonda Williford

Cafe Muse Celebrates Hispanic Poets in Washington DC

Café Muse was sizzling hot for its July 18 program when Luis Alberto Ambroggio and Carlos Parada Ayala brought together luminaries associated with their new anthology Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC (At the Foot of the White House: Hispanic Poets in Washington, DC). The program opened with tribute to Egla Morales Blouin by her daughter Wendy Harmic Blouin and Egla Blouin’s best friend Dr. Miriam Davis. Blouin worked on Al pie de la Casa Blanca but did not live long enough to see the work in print. She also did translation work for DC’s Gala Hispanic Theatre.

Congratulations to Luis Alberto Ambroggio for his upcoming induction in the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (an honor from the government of Spain). The ceremony will take place September 30, 2011 at the Library of Congress.

Congratulation to Rei Berroa for The International Poetry Award that will be bestowed to him by the City of Trieste, Italy in December 2011. The International Poetry Award is an honor that has been given to highly esteemed writers from around the world for each of the past 12 years in recognition of lifetime achievement.

 

Here is the list in the order of their appearance and the country of origin:

-Wendy Harmic Blouin, Egla Morales Blouin's daughter (US)

-Dr. Miriam Davis, Egla's best friends (Argentina)

-Alberto Avendaño  (Spain)

-Ada Vilageliu Díaz  (Spain)

-Rei Berroa (Dominican Republic)

-David Camero (Venezuela)

-Yvette Neisser Moreno (US)

-Carlos Parada (El Salvador)

-Luis Alberto Ambroggio (Argentina)

This poem is a translation of Sami Miranda’s word play poem “Como vino.” Word play is very difficult to translate, but this translation by Yvette Neisser Moreno seems to please those in the know. 

WINDING UP HERE (“Como vino”)

Like wine.

Like red wine,

like white wine.

How’d a black man wind up here?

Wandering on a raft.

How’d he wind up here?

Like wine in a bottle,

a message crossing

the sea.

When I saw that

they didn’t want me,

I drank a bottle

of wine. So what?

Red wine.

White wine.

Black man came on a raft,

four days on a raft.

When the helicopter wound down

and took me to Guantánamo

I stayed.

They asked: How’d you wind up here?

Like a bottle of wine

crossing the sea

with a message

no one reads.

Since he had come,

I sat and talked with him.

We drank a bottle of wine

and when he asked:

How’d you wind up here?

I said, what does it matter  
if I'm already here.          

‘Como vino’ by Sami Miranda

Translation by Yvette Neisser Moreno




COMO VINO

Como vino.
Como vino tinto,
Como vino blanco.
¿Cómo vino el negro?
En una balsa.

¿Cómo vino?
En botella,
un mensaje cruzando
el mar.

Como vi que no
me querían,
me tomé una botella
de vino. ¿Cómo?

Vino tinto.
Vino blanco.
Vino negro en balsa,
cuatro días en balsa.

Como vino el helicóptero
y me llevó a Guantánamo
me quedé.
Me preguntaban: ¿Cómo vino?

Como botella de vino
cruzando el mar
con un mensaje
que nadie lee.

Como vino,
me senté a hablar con él
y nos tomamos una botella de vino
y cuando me preguntó:

¿Cómo vino?
Le contesté, qué importa
si ya llegué.

by Sami Miranda

About Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC:

The anthology includes the work of 24 of the most prominent Hispanic poets who have lived in the DC area in recent years, including Naomi Ayala, Quique Avilés, Rei Berroa, Consuelo Hernández, Gladys Ilarregui, Mayamérica Cortez, Arturo Salcedo Martínez, Alberto Avendaño, Marty Sanchez-Lowery, Milagros Terán and Vladimir Monge.

It also includes a pair of essays by the editors, putting in context the thematic and aesthetic development Hispanic poetry in Washington within American poetical perspectives and the local history of Hispanic-Latino poetry. The poetry is interspersed with photographs by the Spanish academic, writer and photographer Gerardo Piña Rosales, which offer a cutting-edge visual essay that creates a stimulating dialogue with the poetry. The English translation of this anthology is in progress now.

The NEXT CAFÉ MUSE program will happen August 1, 2011 and feature Poets Kyle Dargan & Lew Watts with tribute to Sterling Brown. Please join us for another outstanding program.

Miller Time Update

Are we flying high at the Rock Creek Nature Center Planetarium with the newly relocated Joaquin Miller Poetry Series? You betcha!

Maybe you saw our opening night post.

Our June16, Kathi Morrison Taylor & Deborah Ager presented Pia Taavila & Ian Williams. Pia gave us a look into deaf culture—she was raised by deaf parents and now teaches at Galludet. Ian gave us a 21st century look into the life of a single man but not before telling us the story about how his condo apartment house burned down days before he came from the greater Boston area to DC for his reading.

 On June 23, Adam Tavel and Melissa Tuckey joined us in the Planetarium. We were also pleased to have The Word Works resident star-gazer Dr. Jim Beall who runs his own planetarium at St. Johns College.

June 30, we had a big crowd for Yvette Neisser Moreno and Iain Pollack. The heavens were rocking with lots of celestial imagery and sound effects.

If you missed any of these readings, you can still check out the books from many of these authors in the lobby of the Nature Center. It's not hard to get to the Rock Creek Nature Center by car or by public transportation.

The Planetarium is totally cool in every sense of the word. (No bugs either!) Join us July 7 for the next reading by Hailey Leithauser & Suzanne Rhodenbaugh.