Archive for Che Elias

7/28 A Hellbender Reading w/ Mark Spitzer, Lea Graham, & Co. @ EEBX

Posted in Events, Video with tags , , , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2016 by 6GPress

THURSDAY, JULY 28th…

Mark Spitzer has a new book out from Anaphora Literary Press about the wonderful hellbender, North America’s largest salamander!

Hear Mark read from his epic poem along with poet Lea Graham & local Six Gallery stalwarts Che Elias, Karen Lillis, John Thomas Menesini, & Don Wentworth… or risk the wrath of the hellbender!

Hellbender reading

UPDATE:

As animal names go, “hellbender” is a pretty good one. So if Mark Spitzer’s book-length poem about North America’s largest salamander (which can grow to more than 2 feet long) is titled Glurk! (Anaphora Literary Press) instead, it’s for reasons you’ll have to learn for yourself when the Arkansas-based author reads at East End Book Exchange. Tonight’s reading, backed by music made on the custom-made stringed instrument called The Electric Hellbender, also includes words from New York-based poet Lea Graham and local luminaries Che Elias, Karen Lillis, John Thomas Menesini and Don Wentworth. Bill O’Driscoll 7 p.m. 4754 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield. Free. 412-224-2847

Pittsburgh City Paper

7/15 The Trouble With Poets @ Filmmakers; 7/16 With a Deepening Presence Launch Party @ Irma Freeman Center + BE Quarterly Zine Release & Artist Round-Up @ Percolate

Posted in Events, New Releases with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 4, 2016 by 6GPress

THIS WEEKEND…

you have plenty of poetry options, including two chances to catch the great Don Wentworth & grab a copy of his new book With a Deepening Presence. On Friday,

Tom Weber’s film “The Trouble With Poets” comes to Pittsburgh Documentary Salon. Tom is an Erie-based filmmaker and former faculty member at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Featuring live performances by poets Bigg Wash, Kim Noyes, Don Wentworth and Bob Ziller. Program starts at 7 pm sharp and admission is FREE (please bring a snack or bottle of wine to share).

Then,

This Saturday, July 16th, at the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, from 7:30 to 9:30, is the launch of With a Deepening Presence. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Presence will be sold at the special reading price of $8.

Reading will be Kristofer CollinsChristine Starkey, Che EliasScott Pyle, Rosaly Roffman, Bart Solarczyk, Bob Ziller and myself [the great Don Wentworth]. Food and drinks (water, beer) will be provided. 

With a Deepening Book LaunchDon says,

The Filmmakers reading will be a general overview of my work. The launch reading will focus on the new book and a raft of all new poems never performed before. So, two nights, two very different readings.

UPDATE: Short List rectangle!

Saturday afternoon, more troublesome poets, including master of mischief Scott Silsbe, will perform at this BE Quarterly event. Via Joan Bauer & Kelly Andrews…

BE Quarterly Zine Release and Artist Round-Up

featuring Gopalakrishnan, Grieshober, McDermott, Silsbe, Tutolo & Williams!

Percolate Art Gallery

317 S. Trenton, Pittsburgh, PA 15221

Dream City Art Walk

Saturday, July 16, 2016

1:30-4:00PM

In celebration of BE Quarterly’s recent release of “Issue 3… Finally!”, we’ll be rounding up Wilkinsburg-local contributors from the zine’s first three issues to perform at Percolate Art Gallery from 1:30 to 4pm as part of Wilkinsburg’s annual Dream City Art Walk on Saturday, July 16th! Bobbi Williams’ Dream Theater will perform at 1:30, and the readers’ performances will start a bit after 2:00.

Kamala Gopalakrishnan is a queer poet who has called this city her home since 2013. In April of this year, she received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh, where for three years she studied under acclaimed poets Yona Harvey, Terrance Hayes, and Dawn Lundy Martin, among others. She is among the poetry finalists for Best of the Net 2015. This reading will feature poems from her first collection, Public Fruit, in which she explores themes of vulnerability, assimilation, and hindu mythology.

Taylor Grieshober writes from her lovely home in Wilkinsburg. Her latest story can be found in Burrow Press Review.

Sharon Fagan McDermott is a poet and musician who teaches literature at a private high school in Pittsburgh. She has published three chapbooks, including Alley Scatting (Parallel Press, University of Wisconsin) and Bitter Acoustic, winner of the 2011 Jacar Press chapbook competition, chosen by poet Betty Adcock. Fagan McDermott was a 2001 recipient of a Pittsburgh artist award and a 2002 love” published by Jacar Press (NC).recipient of a PA Council on the Arts award. In 2005, she was awarded the Bellet Excellence in Teaching in the Arts and Science award from the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has been published in many anthologies and literary journals including Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and Eclectica Magazine (online.)

Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit and now lives in Pittsburgh. His poems and prose have appeared in numerous periodicals including Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He is the author of two poetry collections: Unattended Fire and The River Underneath the City. He was also a finalist for the Cultural Weekly’s 2014 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize.

Meghan Tutolo is an artist with some writing degrees and two cats with smooshy faces. She romances olives and pasta for a living. Otherwise, she can be found sleepless, painting, writing, doodling, grading, playing music (horribly), and coffee drinking. Meghan’s publications include everything from product labels to ads to poems. Her first chapbook Little As Living (2014) was published by Dancing Girl Press.

Bobbi Williams is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, activist and visionary. Williams holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts in Playwriting and Acting from Carnegie Mellon University and Moscow Art Theater School. Williams has received a BFA in directing from Point Park College and has attended the National Theater Institute and the Academy of Natural Healing NYC. Ms. Williams is an international artist, healer, shaman and performer. Some of her directing work has taken her to the United Nations, the Apollo Theater and the Joseph Papp Public Theater, to name a few. On July 16, she will be leading “Improvisation Lab Presents: Dream Theater,” a fun session of astral travel as she and her talented students build solidarity and connection by exploring dreams through improv.

BE Quarterly is a hand-bound, multi-genre periodical arts and literature zine that gathers the work of talented Pittsburgh artists and is run out of Biddle’s Escape Coffee Shop in Wilkinsburg, PA.

Click.

If you still like poetry after all that, you may be eligible to apply for an unpaid internship here at Six Gallery. Beef up your resume &/or criminal record! The exciting world of small press publishing awaits…

5/26 To My Divine Spark/Gloom Hearts & Opioids launch @ Classic Lines

Posted in Events, New Releases with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 25, 2016 by 6GPress

TOMORROW…

To My Divine Launch

3/30-4/2 2016 AWP Conference & Book Fair @ Los Angeles Convention Center & JW Marriott Los Angeles

Posted in Events with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 28, 2016 by 6GPress

Provided we make it there intact, Six Gallery Press will be representing at #AWP16 this weekend. Sharing scenic table 558 will be 6GP scribblers Daniel McCloskey (A Film About Billy), Elwin Cotman (The Jack Daniels Sessions EP, Hard Times Blues), & Robert Isenberg (Wander), plus Jess Simms of nascent literary institution The Haven.

In addition to books by this sick crew, we’ll have recent selections from Ally Malinenko, Che Elias, Joseph Musso Jr., Chuck Kinder, Don Wentworth, & Jason Baldinger, plus a selection of hits from the back catalog.

We’ll also have books by a duo of fellow Pittsburgh small presses, Low Ghost & Coleridge Street, featuring the poetic stylings of Adam Matcho, Scott Silsbe, Bob Pajich, & John Grochalski, PLUS the Good Noise! anthology by Thrasher Press, featuring even more Pittsburgh poets writing on musical themes.

Feel free to visit us & buy all the books so we don’t have to lug them all home on the Greyhound!

3/18 A Pervasive Solace book launch @ Classic Lines

Posted in Events, New Releases with tags , , , , , , , on March 10, 2016 by 6GPress

THIS FRIDAY…

A Pervasive Solace launch

Toad Suck Review reviews Of Tire & Anonymity by Che Elias

Posted in Reviews with tags , , , on December 1, 2015 by 6GPress

A straightforward review that makes sense of the work in question:

I gumshoed the room
Che Elias built recently
Of Tire & Anonymity

In the center, like a shower drain,
stood a stone and mortar well
A damp bucket hung from a frayed rope
Ghosts moaned from below

Light began to rain through the ceiling
The floor beneath me was a parade
of chalk outlines
One looked like me then, but not like me now

The ghosts below began to scream
Light poured, and water flowed
under the door to prism it
The chalk bodies washed away,
save a few prism-aimed,

laser-pointed ghost wombs

The water was soon pouring
When the flood breached the lip of the well
Ghost wombs gave birth to bones, and

The room became a whirlpool
I clung to the well’s wooden posts
Skeletons swam passed, diving
toward the screams

that wouldn’t drown

When the bones dissolved into the darkness,
the screaming ended
I imagined boney-breaststrokers
swimming into wailing apparitions
Then lying back down in a parade of graves

The water finally receded, and I shook like a dog
I left the room and found
my yellow crime scene tape
I even slapped
an “Enter at Your Own Peril” sign on the door

for my colleagues

-JJ McNiece

7/31 Of Tire & Anonymity launch @ Classic Lines

Posted in Events with tags , , , , on July 29, 2015 by 6GPress

THIS FRIDAY…

Che.flyer (1)

Of Tire & Anonymity by Che Elias

Posted in New Releases with tags , , on May 28, 2015 by 6GPress

Aaand Che has a new book…

West Virginia poet (long resident of Pittsburgh) Che Elias’s new poetry collection is out, and it is an arresting offering. Titled Of Tire & Anonymity and published by Six Gallery Press, it is his first in a number of years. Anyone who has read Elias’s work is aware that it is idiosyncratic and visionary and unlike anything anyone else has ever done.

4/13 Renee Alberts, Michael Begnal, Che Elias & Kevin Finn @ Amazing Books

Posted in Events with tags , , , , on April 12, 2014 by 6GPress

TOMORROW, the mysterious Che Elias emerges from the shadows for his first reading in quite a long time, along with Renee Alberts, Michael Begnal & the ubiquitous Kevin Finn – an all-star cast of Pittsburgh poetry legends! Listen to the words, buy the books & stock up on Amazing Books brand Bookdarts – my pick for 2013 product of the year.Yeah, should be "PRESENT". Obviously I didn't make the flyer.