Poet Louise Robertson at Wild Goose Creative

This note came from Steve Abott with The Poetry Forum - charlie 

 

Friends,

Louise Robertson of Rewriting Ovid has put together a great literary event, “Page Meets Stage,” and generously made me a part of it.

I’ll be reading with Logic, a wonderful performance poet from Michigan, on Sunday, November 15, at Wild Goose Creative, 2491 Summit Street, less than a block south of Hudson Street near Rumba Café (where The Poetry Forum meets on Mondays). There’s a $5 cover, and (I humbly suggest) the event is well worth your presence.

It’s at 8 PM, and Logic and I will be reading and responding to audience questions and observations about varying aspects of poetry aimed at the eye and the ear. I hope you can be there, and please pass this along. It should be a wonderful evening of sharing different but complementary aspects of poetry.

And please forgive me for any duplicate emails.

Regards,

Steve

Poetry Forum Now at Rumba Café

Please forward this message far and wide

POETRY FORUM TO RE-OPEN

AT NEW HOME AT THE RUMBA CAFE

The Poetry Forum will resume its Monday night reading series January 26 at a new location, The Rumba Café, 2507 Summit Street, Columbus (just south of Hudson Street), with featured poet Kip Knott, who was scheduled to open our winter season January 5.

Our well-known poetry event lost its 25-year home when campus watering hole Larry’s closed its doors abruptly December 27.

The Rumba Café has become a popular spot for music in the north University area over the past 2 years, and we’re grateful that its management has been gracious enough to offer us the early Monday evening slot (before the acoustic singer-songwriters show up for 10 p.m. gigs, which may provide a nice cap to an evening of poetry).

Thanks to all of you for your support over the years, your words of support when all of us lost a community institution at Woodruff & High, your suggestions for optional venues, and –we hope—your continued presence to maintain the vitality of an open poetry community. We all look forward to seeing you on January 26 and in the ensuing weeks. Keep checking Poetry Calendar Columbus at www.puddinghouse.com for updated schedules for The Poetry Forum and other central Ohio poetry events.

Steve Abbott

Connie Everett

Rose M. Smith

Poetry Forum Looking for a home after Legendary "Larry's" Closes

Steve Abbott with The Poetry Forum of Columbus, sent this urgent note today. I am also sad about "Larry's" final closing. More than a campus bar, Larry's was an important, iconic site, part of my background, especially during its heyday during the tumultuous late 60s and early 70s. As he explains below, this sudden closing has caused the Forum to lose it's home of the past 25 years. Got any suggestions or ideas where the forurm can hold public readings? Let us know! - charlie

Friends,

The abrupt closing of Larry’s Bar on December 27, without the courtesy of notice to The Poetry Forum despite over 700 readings over 25 years, has forced us to cancel the series of readings scheduled to begin January 5 as we seek a new location. We have several possibilities that we’re looking into, and some may require shifting to another area of the city and/or to a coffeehouse rather than a bar. So it goes. The line turns.

We hope to have a new home and a revised schedule within 3 weeks. I’ll let you know what’s going on, and please forward this or pass word of our hiatus to friends, acquaintances and other possibly interested parties. (There’s a related story in today’s/Saturday’s/January 3 Columbus Dispatch.)

All of us at The Poetry Forum thank you for your past support and wish you the best for the new year.

Steve

mass suicide mass, another poem by steve ben israel from 1978 seems relevant today

for the past few months, steve ben isreal has been sending me a few gems from his vast collection of monologs and poems . There seems to be no pattern there, but every few weeks or months, I receive an email with one or two and little or no other comment. They, of course, speak for themselves.

This last one dates from 1978. Decades ago but it seems like yesterday.

For previous gems, check out: A New Steve Ben Israel Poem, "non violent executio...

-charlie




mass suicide mass – (for jonestown and ourtown)


what is common to us all
a case of the jones
of keeping up with joneses
cult is the tip of the culture

ah this collective guilt
of knowing what is being
done to us
by us

where was their individuality
asked all the waving flags

and our grandfathers
who said, if not me
maybe my son
grandsons still waiting
hiding of clock cloak
of worker
dreaming
that their 10,000 year old class
will be abolished

slow death
mass suicide mass
for those who couldn't keep
track of themselves
without their main man
in the midst of a
subverted subverted future
which clouds our love

yes there is a crack
in the reality
going to war suicide
going to chemical plant suicide
going to revolutionary suicide
going to build nuke plant suicide
not making a new world suicide
not demystifying suicide

audy murphy, remember him
uncle sam's no.1 son
congressional medal of honor winner
who died alone
because he couldn't find community

sgt york
alvin york
who gary cooper made
us love gun
and sgt york dying of cancer

the same year the new anti war
movement shook d.c.
the i.r.s. danced around alvin's bed
chanting
you owe us taxes
from the movie of your life
humphrey bogart would say
"taxes is a protection racket"

dylan don't follow leaders echoes
earlier hip chants
of how in the original moment
the people copped for the king
instead of themselves, the self
suicide the denial of the self
succumbing to the man's plan
and believing it to death
watch out for disciples baby

the guns creep in
the guns creep out
shouts the explorer to the new world
still
how heavy to fall in the new world
yes dreams have cracks in the
rainbow on the way to becoming human
only forward never dies

hey wait nine months
next time baby
it took 10,000 years
to make you baby

from the bottom tip
of argentina chile death locks
to the top of guyana
not so strange deaths
some will say
it was the howls and screams
from nicaraguan
argentinean
guatemalan
chilean
and brazilian torture dungeons
that made them nuts
conspiracy fact
can wisdom come
from death jones jim
something alive must
life demands it


steve ben israel 1978

A New Steve Ben Israel Poem, "non violent executions"

I am rerunning this previous item to include "non violent executions" , a new piece sent here just this past week. Steve was an original member of the legendary, seminal Living Theatre. Please search my blog for previous articles about Steve Ben Isreal. -charlie

Award winning actor, performer, social commentator, poet, raconteur, and all-around good guy Steve Ben Israel sent three vignettes below. Steve is often heard delivering wry, relevant commentary on NPR. In this photo, (taken by Fernando Leon) he accepted an Obie award.

I met Steve at an all-night diner in the lower east side of NY city, several years ago, introduced by my long-time friend Stan. We talked, dank coffee, schmoozed, listened to his fabulous tales and enjoyed it enough to consider the evning memorable.


non-violent
executions

in the revolution
we will execute
only the system
with a new way
of being alive

it won't be necessary
to kill people anymore
even the torturers
the ones who
did the dirty work
of chasing angels
will be allowed
to live and build

for they are the dead
to be raised
and they the dead raised
will be profoundest homage
to those they have harmed

we will walk naked
in the world
as the sun gently
touches our cocks and cunts
humming a tune so beautiful
that the dead poets
will come in their graves
and forever be at peace


steve ben israel

brooklyn

flunked out of high school
went back in the summer
and passed all 3 subjects
amazing, teachers must be
nicer in july and august
what now,18 years old now what
some friends out in k.u.
in kansas write me and say
come out here and I write
them back are you kidding
with my grades" they say
write them anyhow
and I do and they write
me back and say
are you kidding with your grades
but they give me a three month
trial period of three credits
in english

so I make my way to the land
of thank you and come back
and there in english I am asked
to write a paper on
henry david thoreau's walden pond
now reading and writing it down
was always tough for me
and still is, but I do it
and hand it in
a week later the papers
are marked and ready
the teacher is holding up
two papers in front of the class
he says this first paper shows
remarkable insight in to walden pond
but I am not quite sure what language
he wrote it in this other students paper
is grammatically perfect but I don¹t know
what he read,now the first paper was mine
a lot of red on yellow legal
and he hands it to me in front of
the entire class and I take the heat
hoping that the bell is going to ring
so I can go out and talk to a tree
who I know will tell me I am really ok
the bell rings so I make my way to
the door and the teacher says
steven can I see you for a momment
sure and I make my way to the front
of the class and the teacher says
steven ah are you a foreign student
and I say no I am from brooklyn

steve ben israel


not my real uncle

she invited me over to dinner for lisa bauer
at her uncles house in west berlin
she said he wasn't her real uncle
he a berlin police captain hid
seven jews in seven different houses
along with her mother and brother
for four years he provided food
medicine and security
they were hiding they were hidden
they were hidden they were hiding
the last day of the war
she emerged to the sunlight
and then raped by a drunken
russian liberator in the midst
of her joy and then stabbed
in her breast
later she became a pianist
and teacher and was a bright light
in a city with a wall around it
I went to her uncles house
for dinner along with the others
who called him uncle
every month he cooked dinner
when I met him he said" just call me uncle"
now that's an uncle

steve ben israel





star wars 1999


I won't be waiting on line and I don't need any tickets
because star wars is playing everywhere, especially on CNN
the military home shopping channel and every half hour,
James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, says,"this is CNN"
and I won't be picking up any action figures to this" new phanto menace"

because I remember April 29,1975 our sons first birthday,
and he's asleep and he doesn't know it when suddenly
he's awakened by another baby crying 6,000 miles away coming out
of the tv because I'm watching the NBC special "the evacuation of Saigon

the next picture was of the parents of the last American soldier
to die in that Vietnam war and they were both holding back their tears
as the father say's,"my son gave his life for his country"
I held our son even closer and realized how precious that moment was

a few years later a friend of mine says,"have you seen the
new star wars movie yet?" and I said "not me, pops, the last thing
I want to do is see a movie with the word war in it'

but that changed very quickly, when all of a sudden our son said
'daddy, daddy, we have to go see star wars, everybody I know
has seen star wars, we have to see star wars"
so we went to see star wars.
and I actually saw all three of those modern day swashbuckling
intergalactic sagas of good guys verses bad guys
and, actually the movies played for years on our son's floor
I was always avoiding stepping on luke Skywalker, princes laya,
Darth Vader,Han solo, Jaba the hut, chubacka the wookie,Yoda
r2d2 and cp30. I once spent an hour and a half on my knees
trying to find Yoda's cane and screamed out,"I found it, I found it,
I found Yoda's cane"

but know our son is twenty five and I think this time, together
we are going to skip this phantom menace
and go to the peace vigil out the 42nd street library
hoping that we are going to be joined by the liberals
and the conservatives the democrats and republicans
the left and the right because too many parents have cried
in this century for the children they have lost

steve ben israel 1999

Steve Ben Israel in a recent performance

Here's a new Youtube entry of a recent performance by Steve Ben Israel. Very hilarious. I'm especially grateful for his commitment to "cherrrr…". Don't know what that is? Check out the clip and find out. -charlie

Three poems by Steve Ben Israel - Actor, Social Commentator, Poet

Award winning actor, performer, social commentator, poet, raconteur, and all-around good guy Steve Ben Israel sent three vignettes below. Steve is often heard delivering wry, relevant commentary on NPR. In this photo, (taken by Fernando Leon) he accepted an Obie award.

I met Steve at an all-night diner in the lower east side of NY city, several years ago, introduced by my long-time friend Stan. We talked, dank coffee, schmoozed, listened to his fabulous tales and enjoyed it enough to consider the evning memorable.

Please enjoy three short poems below told with a bit of New York irony, followwed by two short Youtube videos showcases.
--------------------------
brooklyn

flunked out of high school
went back in the summer
and passed all 3 subjects
amazing, teachers must be
nicer in july and august
what now,18 years old now what
some friends out in k.u.
in kansas write me and say
come out here and I write
them back are you kidding
with my grades" they say
write them anyhow
and I do and they write
me back and say
are you kidding with your grades
but they give me a three month
trial period of three credits
in english

so I make my way to the land
of thank you and come back
and there in english I am asked
to write a paper on
henry david thoreau's walden pond
now reading and writing it down
was always tough for me
and still is, but I do it
and hand it in
a week later the papers
are marked and ready
the teacher is holding up
two papers in front of the class
he says this first paper shows
remarkable insight in to walden pond
but I am not quite sure what language
he wrote it in this other students paper
is grammatically perfect but I don¹t know
what he read,now the first paper was mine
a lot of red on yellow legal
and he hands it to me in front of
the entire class and I take the heat
hoping that the bell is going to ring
so I can go out and talk to a tree
who I know will tell me I am really ok
the bell rings so I make my way to
the door and the teacher says
steven can I see you for a momment
sure and I make my way to the front
of the class and the teacher says
steven ah are you a foreign student
and I say no I am from brooklyn

steve ben israel


not my real uncle

she invited me over to dinner for lisa bauer
at her uncles house in west berlin
she said he wasn't her real uncle
he a berlin police captain hid
seven jews in seven different houses
along with her mother and brother
for four years he provided food
medicine and security
they were hiding they were hidden
they were hidden they were hiding
the last day of the war
she emerged to the sunlight
and then raped by a drunken
russian liberator in the midst
of her joy and then stabbed
in her breast
later she became a pianist
and teacher and was a bright light
in a city with a wall around it
I went to her uncles house
for dinner along with the others
who called him uncle
every month he cooked dinner
when I met him he said" just call me uncle"
now that's an uncle

steve ben israel





star wars 1999


I won't be waiting on line and I don't need any tickets
because star wars is playing everywhere, especially on CNN
the military home shopping channel and every half hour,
James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, says,"this is CNN"
and I won't be picking up any action figures to this" new phanto menace"

because I remember April 29,1975 our sons first birthday,
and he's asleep and he doesn't know it when suddenly
he's awakened by another baby crying 6,000 miles away coming out
of the tv because I'm watching the NBC special "the evacuation of Saigon

the next picture was of the parents of the last American soldier
to die in that Vietnam war and they were both holding back their tears
as the father say's,"my son gave his life for his country"
I held our son even closer and realized how precious that moment was

a few years later a friend of mine says,"have you seen the
new star wars movie yet?" and I said "not me, pops, the last thing
I want to do is see a movie with the word war in it'

but that changed very quickly, when all of a sudden our son said
'daddy, daddy, we have to go see star wars, everybody I know
has seen star wars, we have to see star wars"
so we went to see star wars.
and I actually saw all three of those modern day swashbuckling
intergalactic sagas of good guys verses bad guys
and, actually the movies played for years on our son's floor
I was always avoiding stepping on luke Skywalker, princes laya,
Darth Vader,Han solo, Jaba the hut, chubacka the wookie,Yoda
r2d2 and cp30. I once spent an hour and a half on my knees
trying to find Yoda's cane and screamed out,"I found it, I found it,
I found Yoda's cane"

but know our son is twenty five and I think this time, together
we are going to skip this phantom menace
and go to the peace vigil out the 42nd street library
hoping that we are going to be joined by the liberals
and the conservatives the democrats and republicans
the left and the right because too many parents have cried
in this century for the children they have lost

steve ben israel 1999