Woodstock
Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, June 13th, 2015 at 2pm
Golden Notebook (Upstairs)
Andy Clausen
Pamela Twining
Poets Andy Clausen and Pamela Twining will
be the featured readers, along with an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society
& Festival meets at Golden Notebook (Upstairs), 29 Tinker Street on Saturday,
June 13, 2015 at 2pm. Note: WPS&F meetings are held the 2nd Saturday
of every month at Golden Notebook (Upstairs).
Note the venue - we will be at Golden Notebook (Upstairs) for this reading and
throughout 2015. Thanks Jacqueline, and all at Golden Notebook.
Golden Notebook (Upstairs)
29 Tinker Street
Woodstock, NY 12498
www.goldennotebook.com
845-679-8000
Woodstock Poetry Society & Festival as part of the Woodstock Arts Consortium
is sponsoring this poetry event as part of the Woodstock "Second Saturdays"
Art Events. For a full listing of "Second Saturday" events, see: www.artsinwoodstock.org.
The reading will be hosted by poet Phillip X Levine. All meetings are free,
open to the public, and include an open mike.
*
Features:
Andy Clausen - ANDY CLAUSEN has travelled and read his poetry all over North
America and the world. (New York, California, Alaska, Texas, Prague, Kathmandu,
Amsterdam etc.) He has maintained a driven intrepid lifestyle and aspired to
be a champion of the underdog. He has had many jobs of variegated nature studying
humanity and earning a living. He has written about his friendships with Allen
Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Ray Bremser, Janine Pommy Vega, Peter Orlovsky, and
many others of the Beat Generation.
He has lectured at many Universities and taught at The Jack Kerouac School of
Disembodied Poetics, at Naropa. He was co-editor of, POEMS FOR THE NATION, with
Allen Ginsberg and Eliot Katz (Seven Stories Press). He was an editor at LONG
SHOT Magazine. He has back packed around the world and has resided in over twenty
states and provinces.
For twelve years he conducted poetry workshops in the NY state prison system
for Incision Arts. In 1999 Clausen began teaching poetry in the schools under
the auspices of Teacher's & Writers Collaborative. Andy now resides in Woodstock,
NY, where he teaches, writes, and performs his work in the New York area, Colorado,
California and other venues.
Notable Quotes about Andy Clausen:
"I would take a chance on a president Clausen"
"The Future of American Poetry"
"The frank friendly extravagance of his metaphor and word-connection gives
Andy Clausen's poetry a reading interest rare in poetry of any generation"
~ Allen Ginsberg
“Andre Clausen is a true heart son of Allen Ginsberg and his own force
at that. The poems soar and rage, but ultimately reside in empathy and tenderness
for the woes and joys of the human realm. Clausen’s possessive oeuvre
is a reminder that poetry comes from the street and struggle, and not the confines
of academia and privilege. An innate delicate music and aspiration residing
here, in the poems, in the heart.”
~ Anne Waldman
“Heir of Jack Micheline’s golden horn, Neal Cassady’s torrential
energy…the great Whitmanic blue-collar orator poet of my generation.”
~ David Cope
"Possibly the best performance poet in the country." Al Simmons, The
Daily Californian
"Clausen is more exciting than Mt. St. Helens" Mikhail Horowitz, Kingston
Freeman.
Recent Books:
40TH CENTURY MAN (SELECTED VERSE 1996-1966) {dates not a typo}, Autonomedia
WITHOUT DOUBT, Zeitgeist Press 1990
THE STREETS OF KASHI, Roadkill Press 1994
FESTIVAL OF SQUARES, Shivastan Press 2003
TREK TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD, Zeitgeist Press 1995
SONGS OF BO BABA, Shivastan Press 2004
THE IRON CURTAIN OF LOVE, Long Shot Press 1984
EXTREME UNCTION, Litmus Press 1973
THE MERCILESS CHILL Pressure Press 2008
THE MEDICINE ISN'T WORKING Pressure Press 2012
GINSBERG, CORSO & ME, Pressure Press 2009
FROM THE BEAT, Pressure Press 2012
HOME OF THE BLUES: MORE SELECTED POEMS, Museum of American Poetics Publications
2013
ANDY CLAUSEN is the author of “Home of the Blues”, “40th Century
Man”, “Without Doubt”, “The Iron Curtain of Love”
among others. His bio is found therein.
His memoir, “THE LATTER DAYS OF THE BEAT GENERATION: A Firsthand Account”
will be published in 2015.
We Could
We could sing without drinking
it was possible
But it was impossible to drink without
singing the
Blues
Our only avenues of escape:
art-fame treachery
or against the law
We’d done enough hard work to see where
it’d
gotten the others
Folk would say why so bitter?
and we wouldn’t
answer
We wouldst rid the epic of slavery
for women
and all others
We’d smash the caste system
We’d put aristocrats to work!
sacrificing
this puny life
for the Infinite
Future
We’d give Shiva something else to do
You marveled the water doesn’t hurt itself
dashing the
rocks
This night is perforated with Otherside Light
the light of gypsy mountains
the light of eyes that know
enlightenment
is light
not
taken lightly
Alchuringa Light of Night & Day
where the
sidewalks of the diaspora
are
once again livid at the lyric tables
grinning
Blues for the long time Future
our own messiahs calling back from the grave
a laugh from
the Bottom
a pantheistic
ennoblement
venerating
houses & trees
as
much as teachings & miracles
We knew good & evil were a trap
yet we couldn’t
do as we
please
very long
our inventions of hell were worse
than what
others created for us
After all these years lust to avoid the easy
persuades
our swallow of fiery Shiva
We must try out the traps of our Nemesis
a fit so perfect
one would say it came
direct
from mother planet intelligence
submerging
in enzymes lymph hormones
igniting
the middles of our bodies
A moment unconscious of our shackles
We slaves to performing memorable vindicating
catalytic
catalectics
We who expose the false god
We who expose the falseness of gods
the gods of
shackling limits
Tsara pina pu nebu
the tribe of the Future
the children of Zaum
the children of the Broken Vow
“A Scratch across the Face of the Sky!”
A Bootheel on the throat of my undoubted doubt!
A Shout into the monastery:
“Prepare to encounter the Scythians!”
Let the table jump!
Having killed ourselves;
Buddha Lives!
The Path deep as a trench
Piss on the ground of our ancestors
in Heaven
& Parinirvana
Tsara pina pu nebu
We are sentenced
there is no back to return to
We lick the Jewel in the Lotus
till it is
human
then
We eat God alive!
-Andy Clausen
*
Pamela Twining - PAMELA TWINING lives in Woodstock, NY, where she raised her
children and studied organic farming and healing with herbs. She has read her
poetry in many venues, alongside Andy Clausen, Jeff Poniewaz, Antler, Peter
Lamborn Wilson, Mikhail Horowitz, Anne Waldman, Thurston Moore, often accompanied
by Cosmic Legends. Over the years she has developed a very personal style, sometimes
tender and lyrical, sometimes brutally frank, resonating with the wisdom of
her partially Native American heritage. Her work has appeared in Big Scream,
Napalm Health Spa, The Café Review, Big Hammer, Poetrybay, Heyday! Magazine
and others. She is the co-producer, with Andy Clausen, of the annual Janine
Pommy Vega Poetry Festival. Her new book, entitled “Sun Moon Dance”,
will be released in 2015.
“Pamela is a poet of the highest order, a wonderful work.” ~ Donald
Lev, Home Planet News
“The poems remind me of Whitman, DiPrima, Emily D out of the attic, JP
Vega, Lenore Kandel, traditional Native American campfire verse, the Virasaiva
and Sufi poets, Hafiz in particular.” ~ Lee Buliay
“This is poetry that creates a world around itself. I felt the urge to
take my shoes and socks off. Certain I would feel wet sand between my toes;
waves of water rushing around my ankles, then receding, pulling me further in.”
~ Chris Wood, Heyday! Magazine
“Reading Pamela is to understand. To dance. To hunger. Beneath this pageant,
we are at once young and ancient, brave, fearful and victorious. Thank you,
Pamela, for your patient gaze and clear reporting.” ~ Marc Black
“After hearing this poetry, I’ve learned something new about Desire.”
~ Reed Bye
Recent Work:
“i have been a river…” Selected Poems of Pamela Twining; DancinFool
Press 2011
“utopians & madmen”; DancinFool Press 2012
“A Thousand Years of Wanting: the Erotic Poetry of Pamela Twining”;
Shivastan Press 2013
hollow bone
sometimes you have to stop the Music
and step into the Stillness
Breath the only sound
a Harmony
of Spirit joined with Life Force
Animated by the Terror and Ecstasy
of emergence from the womb
the first
fragile cry
announcing
this Incarnation to the Universe
No more
the silent muffled world inside the Waters
The dissonance of the heavens
comes un-muted to the tiny shell-like ear
Roaring like the Ocean, like the Storm
Howling winds, cacophony of the naked Stars
Surrounding encasing
Numbing
the gossamer skin of the Soul
Cries of Love and Desolation
radiate from the core of Remembered Light
There songs also are born
Tones belling sighing keening
from that Deepest place
And Breath, the reed,
gives Voice
as from a carved bone whistle
to those Songs of Loss and Yearning
Songs of Joy and Praise
for All That Is
-pamela twining
***
Developing 2015 Schedule all readings at Golden Notebook (Upstairs)
01/January 10th – Ken Holland; Perry S. Nicholas (postponed)
02/February 14th – Cheryl Rice; Glenn Werner
03/March 14th – Leonard Brown; Perry S. Nicholas
04/April 11th – Richard Parisio; Sabrina Miller
05/May 9th – Christian Ortega; Victoria Sullivan
06/June 13th – Andy Clausen; Pamela Twining
07/July 11th – Donald Lev; Lucia Cherciu
08/August 8th – Kathy Z. Price; Sharon Gannon
09/September 12th – Kenneth Salzmann; Susan Hoover
10/October 10th – Barbara Ungar; John Amen
11/November 14th – Marcia Slatkin; TBA
12/December 12th – George Wallace; TBA and Annual
Business Meeting
Also, why not become a 2015 Member of the Woodstock Poetry Society & Festival?
Membership is a nominal $15 a year. (To join, send your check to the Woodstock Poetry Society, P.O. Box 531, Woodstock, NY 12498. Include your email address as well as your mailing address and phone number. Or join online at: www.woodstockpoetry.com/become.html). Your membership helps pay for meeting space rental, post-office-box rental, the WPS website, and costs associated with publicizing the monthly events. One benefit of membership is the opportunity to have a brief biography and several of your poems appear on this website.