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Amy Lawless
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Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists
Call for applications: The NYFA Immigrant Artist Project is pleased to announce the call for applications for the 6th Cycle of our flagship Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists. The 2012 Mentoring Program will pair emerging immigrant artists with artists from the NYFA Fellowship Program. Our NYFA Fellows will act as one-on-one Mentors to their Mentees for a period of six months. They will help them in gaining broader access to the New York cultural community by sharing ideas, advice, and resources. Mentors will also guide Mentees in achieving one or more specific goals and objectives. This year’s cycle will take place from April to September of 2012. Along with the services and resources of the overall Mentoring Program, we are pleased to offer five Van Lier Fellowships this year! This award will provide eligible Mentees with a modest stipend and added professional development support. This is a competitive program that is free of charge to accepted participants. The first five cycles of the Mentoring Program were highly successful with participants advancing in their careers and forming lasting bonds with their Mentors and other participants. This program is accepting applications for the following areas: Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design**, Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts, Crafts/Sculpture, Digital/Electronic Arts, Nonfiction Literature, and Poetry. If you're eligible, apply! Here's a link to the application. Continue reading
Posted Dec 18, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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I've always relied on the kindness of strangers....to buy me presents [by Amy Lawless]
Posted Nov 29, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Violi Reissue
Posted Nov 7, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Six Non Lectures
I was delighted to be invited to participate in Six Non Lectures. The evening will be a surprise in many ways. Check it out! It look fun in that terrifying, surprising, enlightening way! Please come out! Here are the details. Read on! -AL Friday, September 16 · 8:30pm - 10:30pm PS 122 9th Street and 1st Avenue New York, NY In collaboration with THIS RED DOOR @ PS122, "Six Non Lectures" will feature six contemporary poets lecturing on topics they have arbitrarily selected for each other and are non-experts in; each lecturer will have only 48 hours prior to the event to receive and prepare their assigned topic. The lecturers will read alphabetically: Adam Fitzgerald Simone Kearney Amy Lawless Eileen Myles Roger Van Voorhees Joe Weil Each lecture will last approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Light boozing will take place and be highly encouraged. BYOB. ~~~ MEET THE POET LECTURERS ~~~ Simone Kearney’s poems can be found in Post Road Magazine, Elimae, Maggy, Sal Mimeo and Supermachine. She was a recipient of the Amy Awards from Poets & Writers Magazine in the fall of 2010. She works as a lecturer at Rutgers and Pace University, and writes for the Thierry-Goldberg Projects gallery in the Lower East Side. She is also a visual artist, and lives in Brooklyn. Amy Lawless is the author of Noctis Licentia (Black Maze Books 2008) and a four poem pamphlet from Greying Ghost Press. Her poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in No, Dear, Leveler, LIT, Catch Up Louisville, Forklift, Ohio, and Hail Satan! Contemporary Writing and Images from Hell. She has been named a 2011 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow. She was born and raised in Boston but lives in Brooklyn. Eileen Myles was born in Cambridge, Mass. in 1949, was educated in Catholic schools, graduated from U. Mass. (Boston) in 1971 and moved to New York City in 1974 to be a poet. She gave her first reading at CBGB's, and then gravitated to St. Mark's church where she studied with Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley and Bill Zavatsky. In 2007, she published Sorry, Tree (Wave Books) the latest of more than a dozen volumes of poetry and fiction including Chelsea Girls, Not Me, Skies, and Cool for You. Her most recent book is The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art, published by Semiotext(e) in 2009. Joe Weil has three chapbooks, and three full length collections of his poetry out there, the first chap book introduced by the late harvey Pekar, and the most recent full length book, The Plumber's Apprentice, put out by New York Quarterly. Weil also plays piano and has composed works for and played with the jazz saxophonist Sweet sue Terry, as well as Vick Ruggerio, lead singer and key board player of The Slackers. He currently teaches at Binghamton University and is married to the poet Emily Vogel. http://www.thisreddoor.com/ For more information, check out the official facebook event page here. Continue reading
Posted Aug 29, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Unicorn Evil Records: A Short Interview with Guy Pettit [by Amy Lawless]
Posted Jun 17, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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“You have to learn to write a different kind of poem”: An Interview with Dan Boehl [by Ben Mirov]
Posted Jun 16, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Ben & Amy Read Chapbooks: Lazy Summer Video Review Edition [by Ben Mirov and Amy Lawless]
Posted Jun 5, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Recently in Poetry [by Amy Lawless]
Posted Feb 26, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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LIT Magazine #19 Release Party
Posted Feb 17, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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MIKE TYSON'S AMERIKKKA by Brandon Johnson [presented by Amy Lawless]
Posted Feb 9, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Video from the Dean Young Benefit [by Amy Lawless]
Posted Jan 26, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Shout Out to Frederick Seidel and Marc Maron [by Amy Lawless]
Why isn't ANYONE talking about the Frederick Seidel poem in the New Yorker in the January 10, 2011 issue? Why does it have to be me? I barely showered today. I was at the liquor store at 3:45 pm. I'm not camera ready! To preface:....I know as a woman I'm supposed to be all mad and signing petitions about how there are barely any articles written by women in the New Yorker. I totally get that. I totally do. Women ROCK and should be featured more in magazines that sit on coffee tables but are barely read. But this poem by Seidel is fucking phenomenal. It was brought to my attention by my friend James who emailed me because it reminded him of me and I'm a half-blown narcissist (as are we all, except those of us who are full blown narcissists). So i read it because I'm so "busy" that half the time my New Yorkers just sit on my coffee table (especially if all the articles are written by men *wink*... So i read the Seidel poem and I love Ooga Booga. Doesn't everyone? If you don't, there's something missing from your life. You just don't realize you love it yet. What's great about "Rain" is that it not only is a poem about our current world (Forget journalism! I just read a poem perfectly distilling 2010!): Greece's stone filled pocket suicide, and the obsession with Twilight. I mean that's basically last year, eh? The other beautiful thing about it is that it's written in longish lines that all rhyme, but because I'm a little thick today I didn't even notice that until the fourth and last stanza. Here are a few choice lines from "Rain": It's the recession. It's very weird in New York. Teen vampires are the teen obsession. Rosebud mouths who don't use a knife and fork. Germany at first won't save Greece, but really has to. It's hot in parts of Texas, but rain drowns Tennessee, people die. It's the euro. It's the Greek debt. Greece knew It has to stop lying, but timeo Danaos, they're Greeks, Greeks lie. I mean it's really daffy, but it's lovable daft. The last stanza holds some of the most heavy-handed end rhymes since Daddy (LOL), but sometimes we want to end with a bang and not a whimper. (Pour your heart out Tom Eliot!) Also, why aren't more poets listening to the WTF with Mark Maron Podcast? Marc Maron, a Jewish comic who is constantly in a state of self-doubt and disrepair, interviews comedians twice a week. Wait wait stay with me. I know you may not like comedians. Dude i know. What's more annoying than someone who's trying to make you laugh? But these interviews aren't really that different from talking to your poet friends. I mean what's the point of life? We poets create poems. They write jokes. There's this "THING" we do that we aren't sure why we do it (we certainly aren't getting... Continue reading
Posted Jan 14, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Ben & Amy Read Chapbooks: Holidaze Edition by Ben Mirov and Amy Lawless
Posted Dec 22, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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Ben and Amy Read Chapbooks
Posted Nov 1, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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State of the Franco [by Amy Lawless]
Posted Sep 30, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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Ben Mirov's GHOST MACHINE [by Amy Lawless]
Posted Jul 28, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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"The Heart is Green from So Much Waiting" by Sampson Starkweather [by Amy Lawless]
I picked up an amazing chapbook by Sampson Starkweather at AWP in Denver way back in April called The Heart is Green from So Much Waiting. I only got around to reading it two weekends ago, and it was stunning. Daniel Magers' Immaculate Disciples Press in Brooklyn, NY produced this handmade book, and what can I say? From its poems to its layout, to its hand-sewn binding I was impressed! Each poem is titled with a roman numeral, and each poem roughly fits into the theme of the "super hero." What I liked about these poems is that they're smart and yet also very near to the memories of our [we who grew up into the 1980s] now-fatal childhoods--the voice these poems are written in is familiar, casual, and smart. The co-mingling of the near--playing with toys, fifth grade, the way power was held in our imaginations as we played with our superheroes when we were kids, and the deflation of not holding any such superpowers any more...once we grow adult and reality sets in. My favorite poem is reproduced here (with permission of its author): LXXIV Invisibility is easy; if I could have 1 super power it would be fucking you, or maybe to be you, fucking me. I’m speaking of own(h)ership, the betweens and in- sides, the 2 tiny indecisions of the thighs, the boundary of to-know, sacrilege, tougher than water, another thing to be broken. Inside, we’re all made of laughter and exploded feathers— in the 5th grade, Ms. Lawson pulled a crow from my hair, which, on being found out, thrashed and cried and explained its fear of being an animal of white snow, of disappearing into the blank endlessness of thinking, which is why I scream with a skull full of excrement and a wish to kiss the livid throat, the crow that cries from being found. Super heroes never had to deal with ideas like these, so it’s with this radio lodged in my neck that I set my frequency to suffer, extract in increments of night, any memory until I’m alone with the would-be trees, black forest of vespers and pure thought, I resettle into someone else’s shadow and in order to feel closer to you— touch myself. What does it mean to turn green? I can't help think of Superman and his kryptonite, but I'm sure some nerd would mention the Green Lantern, and some other references I was too busy playing "Barbie Whorehouse" to pick up on.... Heh heh! The final poem in The Heart is Green finishes on an evocation of the rain muse, i guess: "Rain, sing me into this ocean." And there, it ends with what can only be transformation [drown? die? blank page? growing up?]-- hell, what's the difference?Thank you Sampson, for writing such an exciting, spellbinding chapbook! The Heart is Green from So Much Waiting is available here.: http://immaculatedisciples.blogspot.com/ . Hurry now. There were only 150 printed! Continue reading
Posted May 31, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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Belle of Brooklyn at the Belle of Amherst's House [by Amy Lawless]
Posted May 18, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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Peas cannot be eaten with ease.
Amy Lawless, Age 8.
Happy Mother's Day [by Amy Lawless]
Hey Kids! I thought I'd offer a Happy Mother's Day note on my mother, or "Mama" as I affectionately refer to her, or Carol Lawless as the world affectionately and legally refers to her. My elder sister Molly dug up this photo of our mater, matron. (I'm not even using a thesaurus!) In this p...
Happy Mother's Day [by Amy Lawless]
Posted May 9, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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Thanks Jennifer!
Xo
Shout Outs: GLORY HOLE | THE HOT TUB [by Amy Lawless]
I recently read a really awesome split book by Dan Hoy and Jon Leon called "GLORY HOLE | THE HOT TUB," published by Mal-O-Mar. The book is a beautiful square, pleasing to hold with simple (how you say....?) colored line art on each side for each author's half of the book. Think of a 45 rpm r...
Shout Outs: GLORY HOLE | THE HOT TUB [by Amy Lawless]
I recently read a really awesome split book by Dan Hoy and Jon Leon called "GLORY HOLE | THE HOT TUB," published by Mal-O-Mar. The book is a beautiful square, pleasing to hold with simple (how you say....?) colored line art on each side for each author's half of the book. Think of a 45 rpm record, but each side is a hit, and each side is by a different artist. Lennon/McCartney if you will, only these two guys don't have to write in the same house with the other guy's wife hanging around caterwauling..... Though that would be kind of a fun experiment... But I digress. Most poets' egos would not allow them to split a book. The man may want it but the ego wouldn't allow it, but these two poets are above that. Hell they're in their own worlds. Jon Leon's work reminded me of Frederick Seidel's masterpiece "Ooga Booga" (which you have to read if you haven't already) in the best of ways. No, it didn't cop Seidel's vibe. No it didn't steal Seidel's essence, but it served me with such a high MPH of personality and West Coast-ery, I lost my breath half way in. Leon lives in California. No, not that one! The one in the Carolinas. Get it, McFly? It's called LIVING IN CALIFORNIA IN YOUR MIND. And no, I'm not high. But I wish I were. Here's a piece from "The Hot Tub" that explicates my point, daddy. Lazy as I am, I chose the one aptly titled "CALIFORNIA": CALIFORNIA I'm standing on the corner of Martin and McDowell. I pinch my crotch as a limo rolls past. A bank of fluorescent lights accentuates the whole thing. In my head I'm rolling back the years. I go into a vacant building that's empty, pop some batteries into my Walkman, and dance myself to tears. When I walk outside there's a train. I get on it. See? This guy literally can be anywhere in the world and he's in California. Masterful. Flip this bitch over and it's just as good! A glory hole is when a guy is in a bathroom and there's a hole in the stall and he..... Oh [blushing], you know that already. Dan Hoy is the guy who came up with the phrase "hate on life" and you've been following his work since 2004. I know that's a lot to take in, so just think about that over the weekend. Dan is intensely best friends with personae poems. The personae of Dan Hoy. I thought there was a difference between the narrator in his poems and Dan Hoy the man, until I became friends with him and realized how intensely honest these poems are. Dan's poems will make you STOP hating on life, and that's the point. Here's the titular poem from his debut book. GLORY HOLE I eat steak every day because it's them or me. The masterpiece is the frame I hang around my neck and shove... Continue reading
Posted May 7, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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Shout Out Tuesday: Hissa Halal [by Amy Lawless]
Posted Apr 6, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold" [by Amy Lawless]
Ah, the Omega, my last day of guest blogging at The Best American Poetry. Thank you, Stacey and David for allowing me to be me here for seven days! I had the time of my life. I'd like to leave you with a poem my friend Maggie Wells wrote and sent to me while she was living in Paris last year. I understood this poem to be an account of an ex-patriot's observations near Notre Dame de Paris. I post it here with her permission. Mass We met for Mass at Notre Dame under the clouds of the French, inside the cold roll of Le Seine. Our bones needed God. Our bones had been hitting the bones of others under the skirt of skin, so many bones in collision; the soft whisper of God was the necessary cartilage. The center of the skeleton is actually the forehead. Applying Holy Water here, just in the center, just an index finger dab, will allow God in. He will seep in there, whisper to the skull first. The shoulders will slump with white swirling air, the gut free of the fist grabbing at it, kneading it like Challah. Should the Holy Water drip to the tip of the nose, you will not breathe God. God can only breathe you, and he will only sing to your bones, play them like a harp to match his perfect pitch. Kneeling was the only choice. It was the place the body lead us towards, our eyes avoidant of each others, our chests always pointing in opposite directions. The royal blue streaming from our hearts outward was never intertwined. When it was pale, it was more fluid. The darkness of the color has sent the expulsion into a rage. Kneeling is for God and Sex and speaking to children. Kneeling is for prayer, for keeping the body still, allowing the electric royal blue its force uninterrupted with gait or saunter. The ceiling of the church rained black gold; it stuck in our hair—covered us like northern snow. There is no reason to speak under black gold, in this place, surrounded by the humming glow of candles in circular dances with the dead and the living. When the procession comes, the smell of bodies and sage also arrives. The smell of flesh under robes, le fleche d'or, the wetness of it in battle with the smoke yet in harmony with the booths wherein humanity pulls off at least one mask and slaps it against the wall. The smack of mask can be heard under the choir swells, coming from nowhere we are allowed. When the church falls quiet of Earthly noise, a priest sweeps the stone floor of the masks that were removed, he does this in private, telling no one of the sadness he collects. -Maggie Wells OK so I don't know about you but I'm sick of being indoors! I know you're all so inspired by my blogs you just want to sit in one place... Continue reading
Posted Mar 20, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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Friday Is Fun Day [by Amy Lawless]
Posted Mar 19, 2010 at The Best American Poetry
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