VI. Believe What I Tell
She lives in a cave haunted
by the ghost of a giant
fox. She answers
questions in cryptic
verse & her answers
are always true:
Feathers, flowers,
sticks & stones. You can
grab my skin but
you’ll never get
my bones.
Tonight: The WINEO READING SERIES: 41, WOMEN WHO WRITE
words, notes, noise, inappropriate laughter, trial and error
Date: Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Time: 7:30-10pm
Location: Wineo Bar & Restaurant, 447 Poplar Street
(N 5th & Poplar in Northern Liberties)
WOMEN WHO WRITE
Jenn McCreary: is the author of :ab ovo:, published by Dusie Press in the spring of 2009. She is also the author of two chapbooks: errata stigmata (Potes & Poets Press), & four o’clock pocket chiming (Beautiful Swimmer Press); the e-chapbook :Maps & Legends: (Scantily Clad Press) & a doctrine of signatures (Singing Horse Press). Her poetry has been published in magazines including Combo, Lungfull!, Tool: A Magazine, POM2, So To Speak, Sous Rature, Tangent, & How2. She lives with her husband, the writer Chris McCreary, & their twin sons in Philadelphia, where she co-edits ixnay press with Chris, works for the Mural Arts Program, & serves on the board of the Philly Spells Writing Center.
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan: is from Harlem, New York. Her fiction has appeared and is forthcoming in a number of journals and anthologies, including Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Best New Writing, Bloom, Philadelphia Stories, Lumina, Baby Remember My Name, X-24: Unclassified, Woman’s Work, Homeboy Review, and Baobab South African Journal of New Writing, as well as literary publications from Columbia, Yale, Temple, and Howard Universities. Her nonfiction prose has also appeared in GLQ, American Visions, and other publications. A 2006 Best New Voices nominee, her short story, “A Strange People,” received Crab Orchard Review’s 2008 Charles Johnson Fiction Award, and her short fiction manuscript, Blue Talk and Love, was named a finalist for the 2009 Sol Books Prose series award. Her short story, “Wolfpack,” was a shortlist finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award from Best New Writing, and her short story, “Blue Talk and Love,” was chosen by Rick Moody as the second-place winner of the American Short Fiction short story contest. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, and is working on her first novel.
Kim Gek Lin Short: is the daughter of a Scots-Irish geophysicist from the midwest and a Straits-Chinese tenpin champion from Singapore. She is the author of The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits (Tarpaulin Sky Press), and the chapbooks The Residents (dancing girl press) and Run (Rope-a-Dope Press). Her next book, China Cowboy, will be published by Tarpaulin Sky Press in 2011. She lives with her family in Philadelphia.
from, Haunted Forest
V. Notorious Nest Raiders
After it happened, I
wanted to write
love letters to everyone
around me. But they ended
up being love letters
of doom. It was
too hot & too much
had happened. We
were silhouetted in the after
burn or afterglow.
from, Haunted Forest
IV. A Wild Sweet Rippling
A cautionary miss, cautionary
tale, all dressed up &
smelling of strangers, in the pines, in
the pines. He fondled her
anklebones, mistook her
hair entirely & caught, mid-
swarm, her shuttered face
bloomed.
He crowned her, poppies & pepper-
berry. Taught her to sleep
under trees, skirts spread, to trap
mythical beasts. Waiting
for anything is its own kind
of fever. Or undoing. Your slow
road to ruin.
from, Haunted Forest
III. Melodies Were Their Ammunition
In the forest the wolves
were small & there was
small music. If wolves are like
dogs, then. A cloud howling
to the moon, a wolf singing, a singing
wolf. High swing & belly
tickle. Fists full
of fur & we all fall.
from, Haunted Forest
II. Sometimes Pleasing, Sometimes Not
In a fairytale, when you
think you’re out of the woods
you’re not. I see a saw. Slide
the hide. Go round
the merry. Path
of needles, path
of pins.
I walked on knives
to get here & now
my feet are maps. In case
I forget. How
I got here.
from, Haunted Forest
Series in progress, written after the artwork of SJ Hart.
I. We Changed the Story, We Solved the Problem
These are the fables I reconstruct
as the birds sing
about the murder. Mystery
& then goodnight.
Remember, I too
am a monster. See here
my avatar of chaos.
reading at Zinc Bar this Sunday, May 16
On Sunday, May 16th, I’ll be reading at Zinc Bar in the East Village with the lovely Pattie McCarthy, whose new book, Table Alphabetical of Hard Words is now available from Apogee Press.
fin de siecle reading at La Tazza in Philadelphia
For nearly fifteen years, we have been mistaken for eachother in several cities, including at a reception following Pattie’s reading at the culmination of her MA at Temple in the late 90s (when someone complimented me on her reading), & at my own reading at Chapterhouse Cafe in Philadelphia this winter (when someone thanked her for my reading). It is entirely possible that reading in the same place at the same time could cause some sort of tear in the space-time continuum. Or maybe a tesseract.
You wouldn’t want to miss that.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
6:30pm – 9:00pm
Zinc Bar, 82 W 3rd St.
from “Red, Requiem”
The White Girl (floating poem)
Your undaughter is born during a thunderstorm
a hurricane a nor’easter at the ocean a pop-up
blizzard in late March & April is the cruelest
month & she is born during a full moon a blue
moon a hunter’s moon a harvest
moon & you name her something
mythological or archetypal or Gaelic or after
your favorite doll & she is called Ariadne or
Jane or Fionnoula or Blythe & you take her to
the museum the library the playground Paris
Coney Island the Four Seasons in maryjanes
starched eyelet for high tea & she wears pigtails
wears bangs wears striped tights wears knit
cardigans & she knits or paints or writes plays
or playacts & plays the cello the piano sings
in a choirloft sings around campfires at girl
scout camp sings at bonfires on the beach
at night under fireworks & she loves peanutbutter
pickles olives softshell crabs coffee icecream ice-
skating body-surfing Shakespeare & you sing to her
hush little all the pretty little horse & cart turn over
the ocean beyond the sea & read to her Little Red
Riding Hood Little Women Little House on the
Prairie Bridge to Terabithia Narnia & when you
send her into the deep dark woods you arm her you
armor her she has a knife in her basket a needle in her
basket a bottle of wine a loaf of bread a spool of thread
a silver bullet & still & yet & everafter.
Calypso Soup
Green Aisle Grocery, our neighborhood’s teeny but awesome boutique grocer (local milk in glass bottles; local produce, cheese, butter, meats, honey; things for which the twins go ga-ga, like quail eggs) carries Zursun Idaho Heirloom dried beans, which are really the cat’s pajamas. I’ve been working my way through the selection, & today’s sunshiney but chilly weather (after days of raw & rainy grey) seemed the perfect time to try out their Calypso beans.
Zursun Idaho Heirloom dried Calypso beans
The boys like that the beans resemble Orcas, & proclaimed it “Vegetarian Orca Soup.” Cooked, the Calypso beans have a creamy, potato-y flavor & smooth texture. After rinsing & sorting 2 cups(ish) of the dried beans overnight (covered by a few inches of water), drain the beans & get on with the base of the soup:
Saute 4 chopped onions in a big pot (this is where the cast iron dutch oven comes out) in several glugs of olive oil. Throw in 4-5 chopped celery stalks, a few chopped carrots, 3-4 chopped red bell peppers, a cup or so of frozen corn kernels (Trader Joe’s has great frozen roasted corn, which works perfectly here), as much crushed & chopped garlic as you like (in this case, a whole head, because garlic is your friend). Salt as you go, a bit at a time, to help the vegetables sweat off their juices. Throw in a bay leaf or two (just remember to remove before serving), a tablespoon or two of ground cumin, a dash of cayenne pepper, some crushed oregano. When everything is slightly soft & the onions are translucent, add a can or box of chopped tomatoes with their juices. Add the beans, & enough water to cover by an inch. Turn up the heat, bring it all to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for an hour or two, uncovered, until the beans have gone all velvety, adjusting spices to taste, just enough heat to leave a little throat-tickle. Not as heavy as chili — brighter, lighter, but still brings the heat. Serve with cornbread or tortilla chips.
