PhillySound: new poetry

The PA Ballot Access Coalition recommends voters: (1) strongly consider voting for third party or independent candidates in whatever offices you can, (2) if you are going to vote for a Democrat or a Republican vote for them as a write-in instead of voting for them where they appear on the ballot, and (3) where there isn’t a desirable third party or independent candidate, strongly consider writing-in “NOTA” (i.e. None of the Above) instead.


I thought these were really good recommendations, and thought that everyone should read them/do them. After all, this is supposed to be a democracy, so let's start acting like we're ready to fight for that value.

stridently yours,
cathleen miller

on saturday: oct.28th: 8pm: chapterhouse cafe and gallery: 620 S. 9th st. chapter and verse: 5: features: Eric Baus; Will Esposito; Laura Solomon; Jessica Lee White
bios below:





Eric Baus is the author of The To Sound (Verse Press/Wave Books). A new chapbook, Tuned Droves, is forthcoming from Katalanche Press. He currently lives in Philadelphia where he edits Minus House chapbooks.



Will Esposito is a member of PhillySound, an editor of Angelina Jolie Poetry, and the author of Friedrich Schiller Von Von (forthcoming from Katalanche Press) and The Students of Prose and Conduct. He lives in Philadelphia and can be reached at will.esposito@gmail.com.



Laura Solomon was born in 1976 in Birmingham, Alabama, and spent her childhood in various small towns across the state before moving to Georgia at sixteen. She studied at the University of Georgia and University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her publications include the books Bivouac (Slope Editions 2002) and Blue and Red Things (forthcoming: Ugly Duckling Presse 2007), the chapbook Letters by which Sisters Will Know Brothers (Katalanche Press 2005), and Haiku des Pierres / Haiku of Stones, by Pierre Converset, a translation from the French with Sika Fakambi (Apogee Press, 2006). Laura's poems have been translated into French, German, Italian, Slovenian and Spanish, and have appeared in journals throughout North America and Europe. Currently, she lives in Philadelphia.



Jessica Lee White's poems have recently appeared in Poetic Language (www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com). She holds BAs in English and Spanish from Temple University, where she served for two years as president of the undergraduate feminist alliance. She currently works with Hispanic clients at a disability law firm, and her writing continues to reflect a strong attentiveness to both women's issues and the Latino community.

Frank Sherlock just e-mailed me the WORLDWIDE PRESS FREEDOM INDEX OF 2006, and WOW, look how far down that list the United States is! Click HERE and see for yourself!

Kathryn Pringle sent me to this AMAZING Ecological Footprint Quiz. It's VERY easy to take, and will surprise you! IF EVERY AMERICAN KID TOOK THIS! What? Well, I think it could make an impact, get everyone thinking about our consumption. Click HERE and see for yourself!

THANKS FRANK AND KATE!
--CAConrad

The amazing Heather Fuller sent this for us to read! Click HERE!
--CAConrad

Magdalena Zurawski e-mailed me to PLEASE LOOK AT DEMOCRACY NOW today! Of course I've been SO INCREDIBLY BUSY e-mailing with people all over PA to help see what the HELL we can do about this LATEST pre-election scam the 2-party system is trying to force on us, that I've had NO time to watch DEMOCRACY NOW, or anything else.

THANK YOU MAGDALENA for letting us know! At a time when EVERY SINGLE major source of news is acting like this terrible mark against Democracy ISN'T HAPPENING, Amy Goodman steps forward to make sure the REAL stories of the REAL news gets told!

Here is an interview she conducted with Betsey Swan and Michael Berg! She let's us in on the RECENT DRAMATIC events in Delaware when Green Party candidate Berg was BARRED from the debates, but showed up anyway, and DEFIANTLY walked on stage. Here's part of that exchange from Delaware:

HARVEY RUBENSTEIN: I'm asking you, Mr. Berg, to please leave the stage. If you want to make a spectacle of yourself, I understand that, but we're ready to start.

MICHAEL BERG: I think you're making a spectacle of democracy.

FOR THE FULL TRANSCRIPT CLICK HERE

MICHEAL BERG AND SO MANY OTHER BRAVE PEOPLE ARE DOING EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO KEEP HOPE, PLEASE JOIN IN ON THAT!

TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW, SPREAD THE WORD!
--CAConrad

A web of concerned folks across Pennsylvania is growing as word gets out about what has happened with the upcoming election. Word is spreading how Casey FIXED the election with the help of lawyers and judges, JUST LIKE BUSH DID IN 2000! Both the Republicans and the Democrats will use the muscle of this fascist system of government to push away ANY 3rd party contenders!

As silly as you may think it sounds, A WRITE-IN campaign can change the world, RIGHT NOW, if we choose to do so! We have been STRIPPED of our ability to vote for Green Party candidates in the state of Pennsylvania with regular booth voting procedures, but we can still write their names in!

Any American who would back a system saying that we cannot have a 3rd, or 4th, or more choices, is an American content with tyranny, and opposes REAL democracy!

I've received ALMOST A HUNDRED e-mails from complete strangers since I first started posting about Casey's VOTE FIXING campaign against the PA Greens. And it's because two people tell two people, and so on and so on.

Those of us who want change must make change, even when it looks like we've had our tools to make change taken away.

Ian Keenan has been writing on his blog today and so have thousands of others. Green Party staff who EXHAUSTED themselves getting the extra signatures they needed to put Romanelli on the ballot in PA are now working 24/7 to get EVERYONE to consider writing Carl Romanelli IN when voting for PA senate!

The elections are drawing closer, and we have to spread the word about what has happened, and WHAT WE STILL CAN DO! The ABSOLUTE blackout from the mainstream media about this COUNTRYWIDE VOTE FIXING is nothing short of terrifying, if you let it sink in.

LET'S SAY NO FUCKING WAY, TOGETHER!
CAConrad

THE NEW ISSUE OF SHAMPOO IS NOW ONLINE!
--CAConrad

Juliet Patterson's first book, The Truant Lover, was selected by Jean Valentine as the 2004 winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and was recently published by Nightboat Books. She is the recipient of a SASE/Jerome fellowship in poetry, a 2004 fellowship with the Institute for Community and Cultural Development through Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, and a fellowship from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Bellingham Review, Bloom, Conduit, DIAGRAM, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New Orleans Review, The Journal, Washington Square, Verse and other magazines. She teaches poetry and creative writing in Minneapolis through the College of St. Catherine, Hamline University, The Loft Literary Center and the Perpich Center for Arts Education. She has worked with children teaching at John Hopkins University with the Center for Talented Youth and as a volunteer educator with the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, United Cambodian Association of Minnesota, the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. She lives near the west bank of the Mississippi in Minneapolis and edits poetry for Konundrum Engine Literary Review with Rachel Moritz.

Mytili Jagannathan is a poet living in Philadelphia. She’s been actively involved in the community arts work of the Asian Arts Initiative over the past nine years, currently participating in ongoing efforts to help the Initiative and its co-tenants secure a new home before their imminent displacement by the expansion of the Convention Center. Mytili is the author of the chapbook Acts (Habenicht Press) and her poems have appeared in Rattapallax, Combo, Interlope, Mirage#4/Period[ical], and Xcp: Cross-Cultural Poetics. She's given readings across Philly, most recently as part of the 2006 Asian Arts Initiative's Artist Exchange exploring gentrification; as well as in New York at the Diasporadics Festival, the South Asian Women's Creative Collective, and the Frequency reading series; in DC at the In Your Ear series; and in San Francisco at Small Press Traffic. She has received an emerging artist grant from the Leeway Foundation and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Many thanks to Blyden Potts for getting back to me when trying to sort out the details of what has happened with the Romanelli case.

One thing he says in reference to what Ian Keenan sent is, "The essence of this is correct, except I believe the lawyer fees that Romanelli has been saddled with are more on the order of $100,000 rather than $1 million."

He then goes into a very lengthy summary of what happened with those signatures gathered throughout PA for Romanelli's inclusion on the PA mid-term ballot. It's long enough that I would rather PROMISE to forward that email to you if you contact me at CAConrad13@aol.com rather than posting it here. Thanks, and don't hesitate to ask me to forward this to you, and I can also forward any subsequent emails as they come in from other Green Party staff. --CAConrad

...very disturbing article Inside the Secret World of White Supremacy ... thanks Heather, and, YIKES! --CAConrad

In an attempt to sort through all the conflicting information available about what has happened to Romanelli, I directly contacted members of the PA Green Party. Traci Confer sent this e-mail to share with everyone. Her closing sentence before signing off rings in my ears. See for yourself, and many thanks to Traci for all she does, and for sharing this information with us, CAConrad
-------------

What Ian Keenan quoted is very accurate. "Lack of interest" was certainly NOT accurate!

67,000 signatures was a staggering number of signatures to collect - most years we need to get 20-25,000, and think that's a lot. The state calculates the signature requirement as 2% of the votes cast for the highest vote-getter in the last state-wide election. The courts say that judicial retention elections (as in 2005) don't count. Casey was the highest vote-getter in 2004 with a record-setting 3+ million votes.

So it's because of Casey that we had to collect that many, AND because of Casey that we were kicked off the ballot.

It wasn't just our Senate candidate who was forced off the ballot - our Governor and Lt Gov. candidates were challenged as well. They couldn't face the risk of bankruptcy if the judge was unfavorable, so they withdrew.

Just so you know why running state-wide candidates is important to the Green Party...

According to PA election law, a minor party has, in the last state-wide election, a candidate getting at least 2% of the vote. If we don't run state-wide candidates, then we can't get 2% of the vote, so we do not count as a "party". That means we'll no longer be listed as an option on voter registration forms and we'll lose the ability to nominate candidates in Special Elections without having to collect signatures.

I could complain at length about the Dems determination to invalidate signatures on any little pretext (even when the signer was clearly a registered voter), and about the inadequate search capabilities of the voter database that we were forced to use, but I would sound very bitter indeed.

It is experiences like this signature challenge that reveal that the government views democracy as an enemy.

Traci Confer
(One of the many who worked on the signature defense.)

Ian Keenan responded to yesterday's post that Romanelli was taken off the ballot for lack of interest. (THANK YOU IAN!) The creepy news is as follows:

"In Pennsylvania, Carl Romanelli, Green candidate for U.S. Senate, was removed from the ballot after collecting nearly 95,000 signatures to meet a 67,000 signature requirement. Democrats or Republicans are required to collect 2,000 signatures. The Democratic Party took Romanelli to court and convinced a judge that there were enough invalid signatures to disqualify him. The judge, later backed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, is forcing him to pay nearly $1 million in Democratic Party lawyers' fees.

'The right to present evidence and a defense is basic in America. Even murderers are given a day in court. After seven weeks, I was not. Yet, the court wants me to pick up the tab,' said Romanelli."

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE!

I'M WRITING ROMANELLI IN! And I've JUST sent several e-mails to Pennsylvania Green Party to have this information verified. This is EXACTLY the kind of shit they pulled on Nader and LaDuke back in the 2000 presidential election!

I'M SO PISSED OFF!
CAConrad!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ron Silliman just alerted me to the news (where have I been?) that Carl Romanelli was taken off the ballot for lack of interest. It's back to Santorum and Casey, which means I'll vote, but not for Pennsylvania senators this time around. Crap! --CAConrad

Cathleen, I HEAR YOU! This is a tough, touchy election for Pennsylvanians.

Did you read what Frank posted? With the link to the Stephanopoulos interview with Bush? (THANKS for that Frank) Besides the REMARKABLE admission from Bush that yes, it's looking like Vietnam, at one point Stephanopoulos asks Bush if he thinks this November's election is a referendum on Iraq. The president's answer is not that interesting, more parrot-speak about WHO will secure this nation? WHO will continue to help the economy to grow? Blah blah. But he DID also say, "I'm not on the ballot. This set of elections is much different from a presidential election year."

Besides the skull-numbing DUH, like, Mr. President, we KNOW you're not on the ballot, he is not just sounding stupid this time, I believe he's trying his best to distance himself from the very tenuous republican ticket this mid-term.

It's too late though, I think, for that distance to be made. The black and white hats have been handed out. And every single campaign ad I've seen for a democrat shows the republican STANDING beside Bush. It's the perfect, damaging pose at this point.

But in Pennsylvania WHAT TO DO? I'm not buying the white hat of Casey. Mary Kalyna and I were just talking about this quandary last night, much like we've all been talking about this for months now. As bad as Santorum is, frankly, I just can't stomach Casey.

YOU'RE SO RIGHT CATHLEEN, neither candidate really hits my values either. SHIT! I've made up my mind to vote for Carl Romanelli, who is of course WAY outside the known world of media blitz, but he's the ONLY person in Pennsylvania running for US Senate that won't make me vomit at the voting booth. And I agree with his statement, "The only wasted vote is one that is not cast with your values and beliefs behind it. Let's stop wasting our votes on candidates that serve interests other than ours."

After voting for John Kerry I promised myself I WOULD NEVER AGAIN vote out of fear. My vote for Ralph Nader was far more honest four years prior.

Look, I KNOW THAT I TOOK PART in the fund raiser for Philadelphian's Against Santorum, and while Casey's name was never once mentioned at that event, it was very clear to me that we were all BASICALLY raising money for this spin-off Casey campaign. And that irritated me. And I was going to raise the question at the microphone, but as Mary Kalyna can vouch for this, the audience was so ridiculously hip and snarly that I just wanted to read my little fucking poem and get the fuck out of the fucking building!

The thought of being actively part of something anti-Santorum made me pro-Casey, but that's because SEEMINGLY INTELLIGENT people in this country (shocking how many of these people I actually know) STILL insist we need to work within the bounds of this 2-party mess. And maybe THERE WILL BE a democrat running for president in 2 years who will not make me vomit at the voting booth. I FELT DISGUSTED WITH MYSELF VOTING FOR KERRY!

But NOW, VERY SOON, in Pennsylvania, BECAUSE we're so driven to live with 2 parties, we're left with these ROTTEN men. Truly ROTTEN men. I canNOT vote for Casey because he wants to do the most despicable thing imaginable, and that's to send MORE TROOPS into Iraq! You couldn't FORCE ME to vote for him after I heard him say that that's what's on his agenda. Send more troops? That's madness. Absolute madness. At a time when the president is finally FINALLY admitting that this is a horrible situation, Casey wants to send more troops. Excuse me, to be exact, he wants to send in more "special forces," whatever that means. As though three years into this fucking war we FORGOT to send in some "special forces" only Casey knows about. He's nuts.

No more troops, special forces, or whatever. If that's MY priority, my choices are Santorum, which of course won't happen, or Romanelli. The fact is, Romanelli stands for SO MANY things that correspond with my values that to NOT vote for him would feel like cheating myself, and my values.

If you're interested in the other GREEN PARTY candidates of PA click here.

CAConrad
P-FUCKING-S! This is SO GREAT! I LOVE the campaign photograph for Green Party candidate Dodie Rippon-Lovett, she's LIKE Joan Crawford's twin sister! SEE FOR YOURSELVES LADIES AND GENTLEMAN BY CLICKING HERE! I LOVE HER! SHE'S OLD HOLLYWOOD AND WANTS CLEAN AIR, CLEAN WATER, AND NO MORE WAR, SHE ROCKS! SHE'S FROM THE 108TH DISTRICT! WHERE IS THAT!? I WANT TO BE THERE! I WANT TO MOVE THERE! WHERE IS SHE!? SHE'S AMAZING! 108 IS MAGIC AND SHE'S MAGIC AND THE WHOLE WORLD ... THE WHOLE WORLD, I LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT, BUT SHE'S GREAT! GOOD POLITICS AND GLAMOUR CAN GO TOGETHER, THEY CAN GO TOGETHER, THEY CAN GO TOGETHER! THEY CAN! YES THEY CAN! I'M GOING TO SEND HER CAMPAIGN SITE PAGE TO LADY BUNNY RIGHT AWAY! I THINK LADY BUNNY WILL WANT TO HELP HER CAMPAIGN AS MUCH AS I DO!

I looked at the ACLU "Voting my values" campaign, and the thought that came to me was "what if my values are not represented by any of the people running for office?" Conrad, I think you and I had this conversation regarding the Casey/Santorum non-choice, and I am still left with the question of what to do when we're being convinced to vote between the lesser of two evils.

I'd like to open a discussion about what we really can do. I want to vote my values, and I bet you do too, but what is the responsible action in this time of political extremism and either/or thinking?? I don't want my vote to be a joke, nor do I want to simply hand it to someone because he's not as bad as the other guy (and I do choose my pronouns thoughtfully here...).

We need a revolution, and we need it now!

Thanks for listening.
Cathleen

CAConrad is interviewed by Ben Malkin for Rustbuckle.





- Frank Sherlock






Jen Benka & CAConrad at Bowery Poetry Club.
Photo by Stacy Symaszek

Check out a recent review of Jen Benka's a box of longing with fifty drawers on Saint Elizabeth Street.




- Frank Sherlock

Quicksand

There
Is
A
Road

In
Sadr
City

Called
Vietnam
Street *


Source:
*Christian Parenti, The Freedom: Shadows and
Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, p. 192

_________________________________________________________________

Bush: Iraq "could be" Vietnam all over again.


- Frank Sherlock

See the ACLU site for more. --CAConrad

Paradise can be seen through imagined holes in the wall.

Bansky in the West Bank.

- Frank Sherlock

When I read with Shanna Compton and Buck Downs recently in Baltimore for Michael Ball's series, I was fortunate to get some talk-time in with Heather Fuller. She's someone I always want to have more time to talk with, but THIS TIME we actually had real time. Somehow we got to talking about what it was like growing up where the KKK has its roots dug in. She sent me an e-mail to follow the conversation with THIS MAP. And as she suggests, make sure to check out "OTHER" when you're in there looking around. CAConrad

Mehmet Tarhan was RELEASED from prison earlier this year! But now, NOW!!!! Mary Kalyna of the Global Women's Strike has informed me of the following (More later as it unfolds...CAConrad) :

Conscientious Objector Mehmet Tarhan sentenced to 25 months of Heavy Imprisonment

13-10-2006

Commitee of Conscientious Objection

Human Rights Association Istanbul Branch Sivas Military Court overruled General Board of Appeals’ decision on Mehmet Tarhan and adjudicated the case on 10/10/2006. Conscientious Objector Mehmet Tarhan received a sentence of 25 months heavy imprisonment for each of the charges.

Commitee of Conscientious Objection arranged an immediate press conference concerning Military Court’s decision with the participation of anti-war activists in the meeting hall of "Human Rights Association Ýstanbul Branch" on 13/10/2006 at 13.15. The following days Commitee of Conscientious Objection will take the case back to the Military Court of Appeal.

Regards

Human Rights Association
Ýstanbul Branch
Commitee of Conscientious Objection

Soon you will be hearing more about PHILADELPHIA SUPERNATURAL CITY POETRY WORKSHOPS where I take groups into the subway to write a collaborative poem on the floor of moving cars IN THE VIBRATION, then up to the feet of William Penn's statue atop city hall for a 360 view of where words kaleidoscope back at you INTO you AS they ARE you! We'll be eating and drinking all through workshop, discussing how what we ingest helps or hinders our experience with making poems, hoping to find newer and NEWER understandings about ourselves, to understand the best food for the best poems. We'll be using 9 different gem stones to toss onto a Philadelphia map to grip a new understanding of location-poem-gem, the properties of gem to location. At Logan Circle Fountain we will meditate Reiki Energy onto one another and write another collaborative poem. We'll investigate the INCREDIBLE trees of the city, and how touching them, being with them taps into poetry. We'll go to Benjamin Franklin's first library to create INSTANT poems with random book choices from the shelves. SO MANY OTHER THINGS WE WILL DO! Also we will work on drafting a missionary statement we will help form around aiding EVERYONE we know to be as creative as possible, as THIS is what we have GOT to GET to in order to make the Real Changes needed in this disintegrating world we all Love SO FUCKING MUCH! Missionaries for self actualization, for the TRUE FUCKING GIFTS each human being has within! Poetry as one of the best weapons in a fascist regime!

As an aside...
Last night I dreamt that there was a poetry library in Philadelphia, and Cathleen Miller (the AMAZING Cathleen Miller) was the librarian. But she was more than a librarian, she was the keeper of an extraordinary door, I mean literally a door with living coral and crustaceans bubbling on its surface. And everyone seemed to be enjoying the library. When I asked Cathleen if we could have a Chocolate Conservatory she seemed happy about the idea, and what I remember of the dream fizzles out in that conversation for the new CHOCOLATE wing. Oh, and I was wearing sandals, which I never wear, which makes me suspicious of everything now, but, no less happy. Learning to be suspicious and happy at the same time might be the real lesson of the dream.

SEE YOU TOMORROW AT ROBIN'S! Click HERE for details!
CAConrad

Shannon and Kevin of She Hates Me turned my saturday around at the book festival. as much as i dug the absurd setting of the Collingswood High School cafeteria they really should be playing quality venues 'round the globe. keep in mind that they do parties & take advantage of it before they're too booked! check out their site & spread the word, utilize connections, share the joy...




hassen

Click HERE for this event Jaime Earnst told me about...CAConrad

Night Flag presents Joseph Massey & Dorothea Lasky

Wednesday October 11
Robin's Books
108 S. 13th Street
Philly 7pm sharp

Joseph Massey lives in Arcata, California. His five chapbooks are Minima St. (Range), Eureka Slough (Effing Press), Bramble (Hot Whiskey), and Property Line (the hot new release from Fewer & Further Press).

Dorothea Lasky is originally from St. Louis and currently lives in Philadelphia., Her poems have appeared in Boston Review, Phoebe, 6x6, Crowd, and Carve, among others. She also edits the Katalanche Press chapbooks series, along with the poet Michael Carr.

See you there.

- Frank Sherlock

Sharon Mesmer's new blog...(posted by CAConrad)

...for all the hard work you put into making that POETRY BUS reading come together yesterday! That was amazing! CAConrad

Click HERE (posted by CAConrad)

THIS FRIDAY in Philly CLICK HERE

THIS SATURDAY in Baltimore CLICK HERE

THIS SUNDAY in Philly CLICK HERE

ONE and TWO (posted by CAConrad)

Read HER LETTER HERE!

See you tomorrow at the POETRY BUS!
--CAConrad