On Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 6:30 p.m., Poetry & Art in the Museum of the Living Artist hosts another poetry/visual art combination slam for writers, artists and performers. This is a winner-takes-all poetry competition with a slight twist: Performers who bring and show visual art connected in some way to their poetry will earn extra points. Performers may also use (and are encouraged to use) artwork hanging in the museum's current exhibit. Simply pick a painting, and we'll display it front and center for the audience while you read. Winner takes home $300.

What is Poetry Slam? Here is the official word from Poetry Slam, Inc.: A poetry slam is a competitive event in which poets perform their work and are judged by members of the audience. Typically, the host or another organizer selects the judges, who are instructed to give numerical scores (on a zero to 10 or one to 10 scale) based on the poets' content and performance. 

Signups start at 6:30 p.m., but performers can pre-register at poetryandartsd@gmail.com. Due to the number of participants in our first slam, this time we will put all names in the hat for lottery and take ONLY 18 performers! Top three finishing poets will be considered for a full feature in the Museum of the Living Artist. Come on down and slam, judge or simply enjoy the show!

Entry is $5, free for members. Event takes place at SDAI/MOLA, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park. Contact Michael Klam at mkklam@gmail.com, 619-957-3264 or 619-236-0011 for more information. To learn more about Poetry Slam, visit www.poetryslam.com. Visit the museum Web site at www.sandiego-art.org. And for further information, visit Puna Press at www.punapress.com. Poetry & Art is looking for volunteers!

The San Diego Slam Team makes history! Read about it here:

collectivepurpose.blogspot.com

Ant Black's New CD

The recordings flow in song, samples, R&B, hip-hop, and spoken word, 72 minutes of Ant Black s mind delivered with purpose. Special guest voices interweave with his own to pay homage to his inspirations, from Langston Hughes and KRS-One to marriage, grits and God.

The poet cracks away at the current administration, its policies of deceit, perpetuated racism, war, and No Child Left Behind.

He exposes the ugly side of pop culture TV, the reality show booty shaking hip hop honeys,  The Flavor of Love, sex, drugs, family drama, and running from the cops.

It s a little bit of everything, life experience and politics,  says Ant Black. Because life experience is based on the political landscape of wherever we are. 

He says that listeners will notice a lot of maturity since his last CD. Instead of attacking social problems and ranting, there is a lot more story-telling and skepticism and offering of solutions,  he explains.

It is more beneficial to tell the story of the people who have not been heard than to go on the attack,  he says.

Over the last few years, Christopher Wilson, organizer and host of the San Diego Poetry Slam and coach of the 2008 SD slam team, has witnessed the live and recorded work of hundreds of the best national and regional performers. Ant Black s new CD,  he says confidently, is by far the best in terms of professional quality and content. You will listen over and over again. 

A pre-release show takes place on Thursday, Aug. 21 at Elevated in Eveoke Dance Theatre on University Ave., North Park, 9 p.m. CDs, regularly $15, will be on sale for $10, and Elevated, according to Ant Black, has some surprises in store.

--Michael Chung Klam (Reprinted in part from the August 20 edition of San Diego CityBeat)

3rd Annual San Diego City College International Book Fair Events

7 - 9pm, Friday, Oct. 3, 2008

Saville Theatre, San Diego City College Campus
1313 Park Blvd. (*Note: The theater is on campus just off of C Street between Park and 15th.)

Featuring:
Poet Jimmy Santiago Baca
Writer Marisela Norte

10am - 7pm, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008

Saville Theatre, San Diego City College Campus
1313 Park Blvd. (*Note: The theater is on campus just off of C Street between Park and 15th.)

Featuring:
NPR News Analyst Juan Williams
Poet and Author Carolyn Forché
Poet Li-Young Lee
Writer and Editor of The Baffler Thomas Frank, author of What s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
Authors Robert V. Hine with Mike Davis
Novelist Helena María Viramontes
Novelist Reyna Grande
Melinda Palacio, editor of Ink Byte
Jennifer Silva Redmond, editor-in-chief of Sunbelt Publications

Other San Diego City College International Book Fair events

7pm, Thursday, Sept. 25
Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park

Fotoaktion! A film by Perry Vasquez

Doris Boris  Berman is the subject of Fotoaktion! a documentary film that traces her evolution from teen-age Austrian pop star to avant-garde photographer and San Francisco art noise diva. Fotoaktion is the term Berman used to describe the interactive events she first staged as an art student at San Francisco City College in 1981. Her fotoaktion idea has its roots in the Happenings of the 1960s and even more specifically in the movement called Vienna Aktionism that occurred during the same time. The film follows Berman and Perry Vasquez, who produced and directed the film, as they prepare to collaborate on a fotoaktion at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Vasquez first met Berman in 1981 while he was producing Nihl Magazine at Stanford University where he published her photos and assisted her at her early fotoaktions. Along the way, the film also takes us on a mini-tour of the San Francisco 80s underground art world through a series interviews and archival videotape. In one segment we see Berman directing a fotoaktion performance. The performance, complete with primitive video editing effects, captures the experimental iconoclasm and spontaneous spirit of the times. Artist/musician Walter Alter, Berman s partner in crime on a variety of projects throughout the 80s, also appears in the film. Crackling with creative energy and verve, Fotoaktion! is a candid and revealing portrait of Doris Berman as a young punk rock performance artist and the world around her.

Fotoaktion! was directed and produced by Perry Vasquez, co-directed and art directed by Andi Brandenburg and edited by Akira Chan. Fotoaktion! is the first film project collaboration with City Works Press. ( (Perry Vasquez is an artist living in San Diego since 1987. He has been a designer and art director for the Stanford Chaparral, Wet Magazine and Nihl Magazine. His paintings, motor oil drawings and popjects have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States. His latest project is a documentary film entitled Fotoaktion! about the Austrian photographer Doris Boris Berman. He lives with his wife Rondi and son Trey.

11:15am - 12:35pm, Monday, Sept. 29
Room D121 on the City College campus

Maurice Jardine will read from his memoir, "Waves of Recovery."

Maurice Jourdane grew up in southeast Los Angeles, witnessed the hard life of farm workers in Delano during law school, helped ban the crippling short-handled hoe, stopped California from labeling mentally retarded Spanish-speaking students who scored low on an English-administered intelligence tests, was a superior court judge in Monterey County, and recovered from a nearly fatal auto-oil truck collision. In the words of the publisher Floricanto Press, Mo's life reads like a Greek mythic tale in which the hero suffers and endures moral and physical endurance in his quest, his now legendary legal fights and successes against the powerful California growers and agricultural interests. This biography is a testament to human strength on behalf of justice for Latinos. The success of César Chávez's civil rights movement and union organizing efforts cannot be fully understood without knowledge of the life and sacrifices of Maurice Jourdane, El Cortito. His legal successes, at great personal costs, solidified Chávez's leadership and prepared the way for the consolidation of the Farm Workers' Union, and ultimately for the farm workers to prevail against the powerful political and economic interests of the California growers. Never Say Die means exactly that. Jourdane was a young civil rights attorney representing farm workers and their children. César Chávez believed that growers tried to kill him. With the strong support of friends and family Jourdane takes on an adventure that begins with him near death in a car embedded in the side of an oil rig in the San Joaquin Valley, to Stanford Hospital, to his home near Santa Cruz, and back to the fields fighting for farm workers and their union. He followed César Chávez's motto: Sí se Puede.  ( (Playwright and author Luis Valdez said, "Waves of Recovery is a powerful account of the struggle for justice for farm workers in the face of brutal, violent opposition by growers and Agribusiness. A true story, written in the fast paced style of a novel, it is an astonishing testament of the life and death fight for survival of its uncompromising author who fought and almost died for what he believes; then incredibly came back, signaling through the flames to learn to see, walk and talk again, and to finally pen this remarkable book. Written with true honesty and courage, it is nothing less than inspiring." Gloria Alvarez, Managing Editor, Eastern Group Publications, Inc. said, "Mo Jourdane's chronicles his struggles and triumphs, and what it means to overcome personal tragedy while working to bring justice to farm workers." Marjorie Cohn, President, National Lawyers Guild, described Waves of Recovery as, . ..a gripping tale of courage and compassion. Overcoming polio and a near-fatal accident that left him permanently disfigured, Jourdane was sustained by his uncommon courage and the compassion of his friends and the farm workers he defended. Terry McDonell, Editor, Sports Illustrated Group, said , I first knew Maurice as a surfer and a brilliant lawyer, then as the victim of a horrific accident, and now as the author of a remarkable book about courage. In Waves of Recovery he tells his own story of coming back from the loss of everything short of his life-career, family, vision, memory and the ability to even speak. His fight back is inspiring on every level a human being can hope to understand about the meaning and importance of life. That's why he's back on waves and in the courtroom.

11:15am - 12:35pm, Tuesday, Sept. 30
Room D121 on the City College campus

Patricia Santana, author of Ghosts of El Grullo, and Danalee Buhler, author of Running from Coyote: A White Family Among the Navajo, will read from their books.

Patricia Santana was born and raised in south San Diego, the eighth of nine children of Mexican immigrants. She earned her bachelor's degree at the University of California, San Diego, in English and Spanish Literature, and a master s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. Santana s award-winning stories have been published throughout the United States in literary journals such as Puerto Del Sol, RiverSedge, Chiricú, and San Diego Writers' Monthly. Her stories have also been included in Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Fiction and as required reading in college classes. Her novel Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquillity was selected as a Best Books for Young Adults 2003 by the American Library Association and was San Diego Magazine's Book Award winner in fiction for 2003. Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility was also the 1999 winner of the Chicano/Latino Literary Contest. Patricia Santana has been a guest speaker at many book clubs and colleges including Sacramento and San Diego State University, University of California San Diego and Grossmont College. Santana is the chair of the foreign languages department and professor of Spanish at Cuyamaca College, in El Cajon, California. She lives in San Diego. Danalee Buhler s first book, The Very Best Child Care and How To Find It: Birth to Three Years Old (Prima Publications 1989) was the first book to focus on non-parental care of infants and toddlers. It was chosen as a Literary Guild Selection. Following the book s release the author spent several years volunteering on behalf of children and families in Portland, Oregon. The author co-chaired a Governor s committee responsible for the distribution of grants to organizations working with children and families. She also authored the start-up grant proposal for Portland s first Child Care Resource and Referral organization. Born in Texas in 1951 and raised on the Navajo Indian Reservation the author s latest book, Running From Coyote: A White Family among the Navajo, chronicles her childhood years on the Navajo Reservation in Northern New Mexico. While living on the reservation the author s family was allowed to adopt two young Navajo boys. The author, her four sisters, two Navajo brothers, parents and her maternal grandfather returned to the white world in the summer of 1962. The racially mixed family struggled to deal with the emotions of the civil rights movement sweeping the country. Following the release of Running From Coyote the author returned to the Navajo reservation where she met Navajo family members of her youngest brother. She has been the guest lecturer for the UCLA 2-hour brown bag lunch speaker's series for their American Indian Studies Program; participated in the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and hosted a reading at San Diego s central library.

11:15am - 12:35pm, Wednesday, Oct. 1
Room D121 on the City College campus

Sam Quinones will discuss his books Antonio s Gun and Delfino s Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration and True Tales from Another Mexico.

Quinones grew up in Claremont, California, and attended UC Berkeley. He has been a journalist for 21 years. He spent 10 years (1994-2004) living in Mexico as a freelance writer, and is the author of two books of non-fiction about Mexico. In Mexico, he traveled far and wide, visiting all the major immigrant-sending states, and writing prolifically about Mexican immigration.He spent time with gang members and governors, taco vendors and Los Tigres del Norte. He wrote about soap operas and lived briefly in a drug-rehabilitation clinic in Zamora, while hanging out with a street gang. He did the same with a colony of transvestites in Mazatlan, with the merchants in the Mexico City of Tepito, and with the colony of relegated PRI congressmen known as the Bronx. In 1998, he was awarded the Alicia Patterson Fellowship, one of the most prestigious fellowships in U.S. print journalism, for a series of stories on impunity in Mexico  including one about a lynching in a small town. He published his first book in 2001. True Tales From Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and the Bronx (Univ. of New Mexico Press) is a collection of non-fiction stories about contemporary Mexico that grew from his reporting on the country.His second book of non-fiction stories --Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration-- was published in 2007. The S.F. Chronicle Book Review called him "the most original American writer on the border and Mexico out there." He returned to the United States in 2004 and now works for the Los Angeles Times, covering immigration-related stories and gangs.

11:15am - 12:35pm, Thursday, Oct. 2
Saville Theatre on the City College campus

Body of War, a film by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro.

Body of War is an intimate and transformational feature documentary about the true face of war today. Meet Tomas Young, 25 years old, paralyzed from a bullet to his spine - wounded after serving in Iraq for less than a week. Body of War is Tomas' coming home story as he evolves into a new person, coming to terms with his disability and finding his own unique and passionate voice against the war. The film is produced and directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, and features two original songs by Eddie Vedder. Body of War is a naked and honest portrayal of what it's like inside the body, heart and soul of this extraordinary and heroic young man. Go to: www.bodyofwar.com for more on this incredible film.

All Events are FREE and OPEN to the Public! For more information on the San Diego City College International Book Fair, go to www.sdcitybookfair.com.

The Rubber Rose (or www.myspace.com/therubberrose), 3812 Ray Street.

T.M.I. Open Mic:  Word-performance show for homos, lesbos, transfolk, feminists, queerpunx, polyamorites and more! www.myspace.com/tmiopenmic  $5 to $7 donation/All Ages."

Elevated has relocated to Eveoke Dance Theater's new North Park studio located at 2811 University Avenue.  More info to come.  Here's the web site: http://www.collectivepurpose.org/Elevated.html

San Diego Writers, Ink is permanently on 13 Street in the Arts Center.  Upcoming events (at the The Ink Spot and around town) include The New Poetic Brew Open Mic Poetry Reading.  Hosted by Eber Lambert. One poem or 3 minutes, you choose. Third Tuesday of each month. Sign-ups start at 6:30 pm. Rebecca's Coffeehouse is located at 30th & Juniper in South Park.

For more info, contact:

Judy Reeves

Executive Director

San Diego Writers, Ink

sandiegowriters.org

judyreeveswriter.com

Books:

A Writer's Book of Days

Writing Alone, Writing Together

A Creative Writer's Kit

The Writer's Retreat Kit

Sushi
Performance and Visual Art is moving back into its former space downtown.  Sushi will still put on shows all around town, too. For a complete schedule visit www.sushiart.org or call 619.235.8466.

Emma and the Buddha Frog by Michael Klam (www.punapress.com). Edited by Jennifer Chung Klam, the new book has illustrations by David Lonteen, Ron Moya and Emily Larlham. Emma and the Buddha Frog features poems and short stories about everything from my surfer children, Emma and Hank, to genetically engineered super bowl cheese to Bushcon's war on thinking.

Bluestocking Books FIRST Monday of each month at 7pm Monday Montage - Join Curran Jeffries, Kris, & Tom reading original as well as favorite poetry and prose out loud amidst the stacks. You can read too, or come just to listen and refresh your mind. 3817 5th Ave., Hillcrest.

Check out Mark Freeman's movie:  "Poetry Live(s)".  Now on DVD, $25. The Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers Series at SDSU - Screening April 9 at 7pm with live performances.

The Psalmist Hour.  The Psalmist Hour has relocated to Deeper Life Christian Bookstore, 5555 University Ave.  They describe their events as the place to be for live entertainment and a great time. "It is a great place to meet new people, enjoy phenomenal performers, or just chill out."  815.6550.

Pequin seeks submissions (prose, 1,000ish words):  http://pequin.org

Damn Good Writing is looking for your poems and artwork for online and print publication: "The editors of Damn Good Writing invite submissions of fiction, poetry, short plays, literary nonfiction, and art in traditional and experimental styles.  Writers and artists who currently live in San Diego County comprise half of what is published.  First serial rights only.  We respond promptly, but do not comment or offer suggestions.  We pay in copies.  Please check out full submission guidelines.

Submit your work to Quay, A Journal of the Arts. From the editors: "We are shaping our creative collection, so, at this time, we will only say that we are interested in fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction, poetry, art, short plays or monologues and multi-media pieces. Our goal is to publish three issues a year, online and in print.
     Spring Issue: submissions in January and February
     Summer Issue: submissions in May and June
     Fall Issue: submissions in September and October

Thanking you in advance,
the Staff of Quay
Jennifer Pattison Rumford, editor
Theresa Edwards, poetry editor
Kathy Chenault, nonfiction editor
Betsy Self Elijah, memoir editor
Matthew M. Quick, fiction editor
Lloyd Noonan, playwright editor

Head over to The Other Side Coffee House on Wednesday nights, 4096 30th St., San Diego, CA 92104 - (619) 521-0533, Say What? Open mic @ 8:45.

Kimberly Dark, supreme ruler of the universe and all around epic poet/mom/friend, has a new Web site.  She is terribly far away on a beautiful island in the sea.  Come back soon!

Al Howard and the K23 Orchestra on YouTube.  Al's thoughts on war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3vRnG4gkT0

Jimmy Jazz on MySpace and YouTube.  Holy Crikey! 

The Vessel is an open mic in San Marcos, CA, held the 1st and 3rd Friday of every month with the vision to bring the Artist closer to the People and bring the People closer to the Artist. Every 1st and 3rd Friday night there is a gathering held at the Canvas Cafe that has a featured artist, food, drinks, DJ, live band and open mic. 

The Hunter's Moon 2007 of the Pregnant Moon Review is live.

New poetry by Kelly Braden, Anna Bristow, Brett Staggs, and Shane Townsend. See for yourself at www.pregnantmoon.com

Visit Seretta Martin's new Web site for more info about BARNES & NOBLE PRESENTS P  o  e  t  r  y  s  e  r  i e  s  2007 at Hazard Center @ 163 & Friars Rd. East, San diego - 619-220-0175.  Hosts: seretta martin, Co-Host: Jackleen Holten and Media Support from matt potter. Feature poets followed by Open Mic on 3rd Monday & occasionally other dates.  Web: web.mac.com/serettamartin, Email:  wordsoup@juno.com. 

Sept. 1

Monday Night Montage