CALENDAR UPDATES

July

July 9
West Coast Poetry Festival, Featured Reader on the Foreign Exchange Stage
3:30 pm @ Simon Fraiser University, Vancouver, BC

July 12
Seattle Poetry Slam, Featured Reader
8:00 pm @ The Mirabeau Room, 629 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle, WA

July 18
The Washington Artists Health Insurance Forum
6:15 pm @ the Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave, Seattle, WA
The Sea Monster Lounge
10:00 pm @ 4401 Wallingford Ave N, Seattle, WA

July 19
The Seattle Poetry Slam, Bumber Slam Preliminary Bout
8:00 pm @ the Mirabeau Room, 629 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle, WA

July 22
IKEA Renton River Days
6:15 pm on the Main Stage @ 1055 S. Grady Way, Renton WA

July 25
Fantasia Coffee House
9:00 pm in Bellingham, WA. Please visit www.poetrynight.org for more information!

July 26
Seattle Poetry Slam, host for the open mic. Tara Hardy of Bent will be hosting the slam portion of the evening. This is the queer poetry slam!!!
8:00 pm @ the Mirabeau Room @ 629 Queen Anne Ave N.

July 31
Capitol Hill Block Party, the Vera Stage @ 4:40 pm
Please visit http://www.capitolhillblockparty.com/ for more information.

July 31
Poet Populist Nominee Reading at the Seattle Public Library
2-3:30 pm @ The Seattle Public Library, Downtown Branch

August

August 1
The Salmon Slam
8:00 pm @ Café Deux Soleil, 1144 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC

August 2
Seattle Poetry Slam Fundraiser for the National Poetry Slam in ABQ, New Mexico
8:00 pm @ the Mirabeau Room, 629 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle, WA--$10 cover

August 6th
Anacortes Arts Festival
5:25 pm-5:50 pm @ Poets at the Port Warehouse, Anacortes, WA

August 9-14
National Poetry Slam
ABQ, New Mexico

September

September 5
Bumbershoot @ Bumberslam
8:15 pm-10:15 pm @ the Bagley Wright Theatre in the Seattle Center, Seattle, WA

September 9-11
Ferngully Retreat workshop presenter; Healing Is A Political Act (HIAPA) Creative Recovery Workshop series in Vancouver, BC
Please go to www.ferngullyretreat.com for more information!

September 19
Vancouver Poetry Slam, Featured Reader
8:00pm @ Café Deux Soleil, 1144 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC

September 20
Café Momart
8:00 pm @ 4362 Main, Vancouver, BC

October

October 15
Richard Hugo House panelist for Persona and Culture
Please visit http://www.richardhugohouse.com/ for more information.

November

November 3-6
SpeakEasy
Anchorage, Alaska (details to be announced)

November 9
University of Puget Sound
1500 N. Werner St., Tacoma, WA

November 11-13
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center (details to be announced)
104 17th Ave S, Seattle, WA

The Seattle Weekly June 20, 2005

pg. 46

MIXING BOOKS AND BOOZE
In Seattle, Poetry is the new rock 'n' roll
by Neal Schindler

"...The real news is that lately, Synchronicity is more the rule than the exception. At Queen Anne's Mirabeau Room, a bar that frequently hosts DJ's, performance poet Karen Finneyfrock emcees the Seattle Poetry Slam every Tuesday night. A recent edition featured Christa Bell, one of this year's candidates for Seattle's Poet Populist. Bell performed a number of sensual, musical works, including a "sound poem," a spellbinding composite of rythymic muttering and singing. Her poetry is as theatrical as it is literary, and sometimes is both sexually graphic and loud...

renton river days

so i was invited to perform at an "arts festival" last night but didn't get any details, since i TRUSTED the friend who set up the show. note to self...never do that again...turns out the "arts festival" was renton river days, which is like a low budget county fair without the rides. so there i was, five minutes before i went on, trying to figure out how to edit incest and female circumcision for a family audience. and there they were, the audience, in all its suburban glory, so innocent and unsuspecting. i felt like the one eyed evil aliens in war of the worlds.

the slam team spent the night at my house last night...we were all talking big sh-- about staying up 'til the break of dawn writing and rehearsing our group pieces...yeah...that happened...we ended up going to the dopest sushi happy hour in the universe! one that i discovered but that matt keeps trying to take partial credit for because he HAPPENED to be walking down the street with me when i found it! (men are always tryna put their flag on somethin'!)

tell me, how is it possible to spend $60 on happy hour food???? everything was so cheap and yummy we just kept ordering and ordering and ordering and ordering and ordering and ordering-multiplied by 10). i survived the enormous peer pressure placed on me by my team mates to drink (i only drink at communion) and then we walked back to my house where matt saved robby's drunkass life several times by holding him back from jumping out the window. the belltown partypeople excited him a little too much. then we watched dodgeball for like, 20 seconds before we all zonked out...GREAT WORK GUYS!

this morning, after coffee and a very solid ten minutes of writing, i came back home and slept until this very second...so nothing has really happened yet...not even any interesting dreams to report about...soooooo....more later...christa

full moon in yehmaya

mohagany browne slanguistics:

"quit act'n light skin'ded" -- stop being upity, i.e. "hightoned"
"kick rocks!"-- beat it, or, "you're getting on my nerves"
"i'ma stab you in the eyeball!"-- 1) stop mess'n with me 2) are you joking? 3) ok, i've had enough of you.

oakland's own (by way of brklyn, new york) mohagony browne, womanist poet extraordinaire, was in town on tour for about four days and she's about as much fun as can fit into my 450 sq ft studio apartment...lol...we kept taking notes on each other and threatning to expose all our wierd artsy quirks by way of blog! i won't do that, but i will say that she's the red bandana'd gangsta to my pink hippie bubble, my new favorite evil twin. she had me constantly grasping my pearls, eyes stretched unbelievingly, mouth O'ed in shock.

after receiving a standing ovation for her amazing performance at the seattle slam and after being thwarted in her attempts to spy on the seattle slam team (we'll be competing against her in abq, new mexico, august 9-13), mobrowne packed up her poems, my favorite purple shawl, and a picture of the green tara and left this morning for a festival in denver.

even though she took up all the space in my bed, hogged all the covers, AND slapped me around at night (she says she was sleeping, that it was totally unconscious and that she wasn't expressing latent agression towards me-matter of fact! she called it free shiatsu massage!), i'm still having abandonment issues...(sniff...sniff...)

YOU AND ME
WILL NEVER PART
(maki-da-da!)
YOU AND ME
US HAVE ONE HEART
(maki-da-da!)
AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN, AIN'T NO SEA
(maki-da-da!)
KEEP MY SISTA 'WAY FROM ME!
(maki-da-da!)

-the color purple

how to attract hummingbirds and butterflys

I

have you ever been kissed by a hummingbird?

it’s like
the thrill of a baby’s mouth on your
nipple

like
having your clit held between thick
african lips

it’s
a puppy bringing you to orgasm with it’s tongue

or

god
on her knees
suckling your toes

but if
the fuscia and dragon lily, monkey flower
and honeysuckle
if the coral bells and lilacs
are the only ones
defined by
the garden,
it’s soil and roots,
it’s temperatures and aphids

if
with a whirr and a hum and a
pimped out flashing of wings
the lover moves on to other
landscapes
other blossoms

with newer buds or
sweeter nectar

did the lilac's moment really happen?
can one memory, in a story of two ever
prove itself?

and
hummingbird kisses are like this
too

an iridescent blur between betrayal and love
a movement so quick
it teaches lightening
how to flash

fire
how to ignite

tears how to
strangle

A RUSHING MIGHTY WIND

following is my first attempt at creating a sound poem:


A RUSHING MIGHTY WIND

Dedicated to my father, Pastor Joesiah Bell, Sr.

Him
Built of tree trunks and boulders
Who never bowed to
No one
But burst into rivers
When wa
ter
fall
ing
with
God

1st Movement -Approach
(hum) Take Me to The Water" or Nobody’s Fault But Mine (Nina Simone versions)
(moan) Take Me to The Water or Nobody’s Fault But Mine

2nd Movement – Whispering/Beseeching (asking permission to approach)
Speaking in tongues improvisation, quiet whispering- 60 seconds
End with hallelujah

3rd Movement – Giving Thanks
Speaking in tongues improvisation, giving thanks - 30 seconds
End with thank you Jesus

4th Movement - Prophesying
Speaking in tongues improvisation, prophesying -30 seconds

5th Movement – Begging for Mercy
Speaking in tongues improvisation, begging for mercy- 30 seconds

6th Movement – Shout’n (get’n happy)
Speaking in tongues improvisation, shout'n/get'n happy – 30 seconds
End with yes lord!

7th Movement - Resolution
Speaking in tongues improvisation, resolution – 30 seconds
Gradual fade to silence

west coast poetry festival

just returned from the west coast poetry festival in vancouver/bc where jack mcCarthy, karen finneyfrock and i were invited to read on the foreign exchange stage...karen, who is one of my all time favorite poets, gave an amazing reading of mostly new work, and jack was, as usual, in top form. it was organized by sean mcgarragle of vancouver and it was magnificently done!

one poet who really stood out for me was a man named christian bok (last name pronounced "book") who is a sound poet, a style i hadn't heard of but will very shortly be experimenting with in my own work...based on what i experienced, sound poetry is performance poetry that is composed of made-up words and syllables or real words read in random order with certain emotionl and/or rythymic inflection.

christian writes it all down, and reads from the page but it seems like it could be done just as well as improv. i suppose that writing it down contextualizes it as literary.

what i like about it is it's potential to tell stories and express emotion without using words. for instance, he dedicated one piece to rumsfeld and used a series of nonsensical words mixed with made-up syllables and delivered in a grunting german accent that was immediately evocative of the nazi's.

it reminded me of speaking in tongues, of spirituals and gospel songs composed entirely of runs. it reminded me of imani uzuri's haunting, if vocally spastic, interpretation of "strange fruit" by billy holiday. it also reminded me of a song that i heard jazz legend etta james do once that was about five minutes of moaning and wailing and grunting and crying and then at the end the verse, "i'm feeling uneasy" added to interpret the song for the listener.

i spoke with christian after his reading and he told me that sound poetry is a 100 year-old tradition and i thought, but didn't say, that it is probably older than that on this continent and it probably has indigenous and/0r black african roots...but then, i think colored folk invented everything...more later...cbell