GI 8: Pollock, Browne, Magnus, Bennett

GENERAL IDEA 8 is coming up! Sunday October 7 at 7PM at Brickbat Books. Readings by Iain Haley Pollock, Laynie Browne, Magus Magnus, and Jacob A. Bennett.

Iain Haley Pollock's first collection of poems, Spit Back a Boy, won the 2010 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.  He teaches English at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia and poetry at the Solstice MFA Program of Pine Manor College. 

Laynie Browne is the author of nine collections of poetry and one novel.  Her most recent publications include: Roseate, Points of Gold (Dusie, 2011), The Desires of Letters (Counterpath, 2010), The Scented Fox (Wave, 2007), and Daily Sonnets (Counterpath, 2007). Her work is forthcoming in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry  as well as Ecopoetry: A Contemporary American Anthology  (Trinity University Press). Her honors include: the National Poetry Series Award, of the Contemporary Poetry Series Award, and two Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative American Poetry.  She has taught at The University of Washington, Bothell, at Mills College, Naropa University, and at the University of Arizona. She has also taught poetry-in-the-schools for various organizations including Teachers & Writers Collaborative in NYC and Seattle Arts & Lectures.  At University of Arizona she developed and ran an outreach program which brought graduate and undergraduate students into schools to teach residencies in imaginative writing in three genres (poetry, fiction, & creative non-fiction).  Since 2011 she has been a volunteer mentor for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (http://awwproject.org/). Recent editorial projects include curating for the online journal Trickhouse, as well as a collection of writings celebrating the life and work of poet Stacy Doris on http://www.thevolta.org/. She is co editor of I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues Press, 2012). 

Magus Magnus is the author of The Re-echoes (just out from Furniture Press); Idylls for a Bare Stage (twentythreebooks 2011); Heraclitean Pride (Furniture Press 2010); and Verb Sap (Narrow House 2008). Two poems from Verb Sap - "Radical Crumb" and "Empirical/Imperial Demonstration" - appear in the 10th edition of Pearson Longman's English Anthology textbook, Literature. Washington D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company will host a performance showcase of Idylls for a Bare Stage at Sidney Harman Hall in Spring 2013; development of the Idyll as a performance form can be tracked at http://sharedimagining.blogspot.com/"

Jacob A. Bennett has only known you four weeks and three days, but to him it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. But the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, but then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. He has it written down, and he can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.

GI 7: Hamm, Karl, Marinovich, Wong

General Idea 7 comes to you on Friday May 25 at 7pm. Brickbat Books. Readings by: Christine Hamm, Steven Karl, Filip Marinovich, and Angela Veronica Wong.

Steven Karl is the author of the chapbooks, State(s) of Flux (Peptic Robot Press, 2009) (Ir)Rational Animals (Flying Guillotine Press, 2010) emissions/ of (H_NGM_N, 2011) and with Angela Veronica Wong, Don't Try This On Your Piano or am i standing here with my hair down (Lame House Press, 2012). He is the poetry editor of Sink Review and Immaculate Disciples Press and a news editor for Coldfront Magazine. Currently he lives in New York but will relocate to Miami in August.

Angela Veronica Wong is the author of several chapbooks and one full-length collection of poems entitled how to survive a hotel fire (Coconut Books 2012). She lives in Manhattan and on the internet at www.angelaveronicawong.com.

Christine Hamm is getting her PhD in English Literature, and teaches at CUNY. Nominated four times for a Pushcart, her poetry has been in Rhino, Stone Canoe, Pebble Lake Review, Women's Studies Quarterly, Blue Earth Review, Rattle, and many others. She has published three books of poetry, and the most recent, Echo Park, was just released from Blazevox. Christine is the east coast poetry editor for Ping*Pong, a literary journal published by the Henry Miller Library of Big Sur, CA.

Filip Marinovich is the author of Zero Readership and And If You Don't Go Crazy I'll Meet You Here Tomorrow and of the forthcoming Wolfman Librarian. His poems can be found online in Eoagh, Brooklyn Rail, and Esque. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

GI 6: Etter, Fletcher, Hess, and Spallholz

GENERAL IDEA 6 is on March 31 at 7PM at Brickbat Books (709 South 4th Street, Philadelphia, PA) with readings by Sarah Rose Etter, Sasha Fletcher, Mickey Hess, and Julianna Spallholz.

A retired shipbuilder, Mickey Hess is Associate Professor of English at Rider University, where he teaches arc welding, mig welding, and creative nonfiction. In the early months of 2012, he has released two books: The Nostalgia Echo (a novel) and The Novelist & the Rapper (stories). He is hard at work on a biography of the rap star Ol' Dirty Bastard.

photo by Katie Reing

Sarah Rose Etter's chapbook, Tongue Party, was selected as the winner of the 2010 Caketrain Chapbook Contest by Deb Olin Unferth. Her work has appeared in The Black Warrior Review, Salt Hill Journal, The Collagist and more. She lives in Philadelphia where she co-curates the Tire Fire Reading series.

Julianna Spallholz's short (and very short) fiction has appeared in Caketrain, Denver Quarterly, Sleepingfish, Tarpaulin Sky, and elsewhere.  Julianna has performed and collaborated her work with musicians, visual artists, a DJ, and a chef.  For the moment, she lives in upstate New York.  Her book, The State of Kansas, is available from GenPop Books.  Please visit her website  at http://www.juliannaspallholz.com/

Sasha Fletcher is the author of the novella WHEN ALL OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED MARCHING BANDS WILL FILL THE STREETS AND WE WILL NOT HEAR THEM BECAUSE WE WILL BE UPSTAIRS IN THE CLOUDS [ml press 2010] and the poetry chapbooks I AIN'T ASKED ANY PARDON FOR ANYTHING I DONE [the greying ghost 2011] and I CANNOT PRETEND TO BE A GHOST TODAY [paper pusher 2012]. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

GI 5: Greg Bem & Gregory Laynor

General Idea 5 presents former Philadelphia poets Greg Bem and Gregory Laynor on Tuesday, December 27th at 5:00 at Moonstone Arts Center/ Robin's Books in Center City: 110A S. 13th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19107.

Greg Bem used to live a hearty life in Philadelphia and was a member of the New Philadelphia Poets, but then he moved to Seattle in August, 2010. In the year and four months since the migration, he has regularly volunteered for the poetry non-profit SPLAB and the Columbia City Public Library. He co-curates a dynamic multimedia performance series (called the Breadline) with poets Alex Bleecker and Jeremy Springsteed, works in the schizoid Search Engine Marketing/Optimization industry, and attends the Information School at the University of Washington. In September he organized and hosted Silence and Communication, a 20-feature event dervied from Cagean aesthetic, which helped get Greg shortlisted for the Stranger's Genius Award. The most important thing a poet can do, Greg believes, is help promote the advancements and document the actions of friends, villains, self, and the masses.

Gregory Laynor is living in Seattle, where he is studying & teaching at the University of Washington and curating readings & talks at the Hedreen Gallery. Recent work appears in EOAGH and Fence. He is co-editing the collected writings of Gil Ott for Chax Press. He is on the Internet at academicpoetry.com.

Vids from GI 4: DC Poets & Writers

DC Poets!

Back: Jenn DePalma, Buck Downs, Ken Jacobs, Cathy Eisenhower

Middle-ish: Mel Nichols, Adam Marston, Casey Smith, Katy Bohinc 

Front: Chris Nealon

DC Poets & Writers | Dec 3 | Fergie's Pub 4:30 PM

Come celebrate the DC literary community in Philadlphia on Dec 3, 2011 4:30 PM at Fergie's Pub (1214 Sansom Street).

Readings by: 
Katy Bohinc
Adam Marston
Ryan Walker
Mel Nichols
Cathy Eisenhower
Ken Jacobs
Buck Downs
Jenn DePalma
Casey Smith
Chris Nealon

Katy Bohinc studied mathematics & comp lit (French, English & Mandarin) at Georgetown University. She is working on a manuscript.

Adam Marston was at the poetry work-study at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute this year and is an undergraduate at George Mason University. He has a squid that is a pink kite.

Cathy Eisenhower is a poet and librarian in Washington, DC. Her first full-length collection is forthcoming from Edge Books. Read from her chapbook Language of the Dog-Heads, and read her poems in nanomajority and word for/word.

Mel Nichols’s most recent books are Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon (Edge Books, 2009) and Bicycle Day (Slack Buddha, 2008). She teaches at George Mason University.

Ryan Walker's poetry collection You Will Own it Permanently is available

here.

Ken Jacobs has lived in and about Washington D.C. for more than thirty years. A chapbook, Sooner, from Phylum Press was released in December 2009 & he has poems in ‘The Portable Boog Reader′, the online journal 'Everyday Genius' and forthcoming at 'Sentence' and 'Wheelhouse Magazine'.

Buck Down's newest book is BLACK PEPPERMINT, available at www.buckdowns.com. Buck sends poetry postcards across the country and around the world every month, and posts occasional essays at www.bucksmonthly.com.

Jenn DePalma earned her BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in 2006. She owns and runs Bona Terra, a garden design and installation company and has participated in DC reading series Cheryl’s Gone, In Your Ear, and Bridgestreet Books. Her artwork has been shown at Transformer Gallery and G Fine Art. She is half of the performance art collaborative the YAY team.

Christopher Nealon teaches American literature, aesthetic theory (especially the history and theory of poetry), and the history of sexuality. He received his PhD from Cornell University in 1997, and taught at UC Berkeley from 1996 to 2008.

Casey Smith is the author of "Opulent Stone Moccasins" in the"Publishing the Unpublishable" series (/ubueditions 2010) and various infrequent pieces in magazines, journals, art catalogs, etc. Lately he has worked with a wide number of printmakers, typographers, and book artists on visual poetry broadsides: Nilay Lawson, Jim Wilder, Kerry McAleer-Keeler, Georgia Deal, and Paulette Palacios are among his recent collaborators. Since 1997 he's been fortunate to teach amazing students at the Corcoran College of Art & Design in Washington DC, where he also organizes readings and literary events.

Vids from GI 3: Bloof Books Tour

Shanna Compton reads for GI!

Maureen Thorson reads for GI!