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

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 Collins, Christine Starkey, Che Elias, Scott Pyle, Rosaly Roffman, Bart Solarczyk, Bob Ziller and myself [the great Don Wentworth]. Food and drinks (water, beer) will be provided. 

Don 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.

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…

3/26 Jason Baldinger, Jim D. Deuchars, Richard L. Gegick, & Lori Jakiela @ EEBX; Scott Pyle & Don Wentworth @ Percolate

THIS SATURDAY, 7PM…

Saturday Night March 26 we’ll be celebrating, that right just plain old celebrating, no special occasions or homecomings, although I heard this spring thing is pretty great. There will be three excellent local poets to entertain you in the person(s) of Lori Jakiela , Jim Deuchars, Rich Gegick and Jason Baldinger. This is event is free, The event is byob. The event is comfortable in both heels and flats. Hope to see yinz there

The following is biographcal information for those that are interested:

Jason Baldinger has spent a life in odd jobs, if only poetry was the strangest of them he’d have far less to talk about. Somewhere in time, he has traveled the country, and written a few books, the latest of which are The Lower 48 (Six Gallery Press) and the chapbook The Studs Terkel Blues (Night Ballet Press). A short litany of publishing credits include Blast Furnace, B.E. Quarterly, Lilliput Review, Green Panda Press, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Glass Block and Fuck Art, Let’s Dance. You can also hear audio of some poems on the bandcamp website by just typing in his name.

Jim D. Deuchars is an American poet born in Waukesha, WI. He currently resides in Pittsburgh, PA. His poetry has been called “a special brand of doggerel, nonsense and fufaraw”. His performance style has been described as “like Gallagher, but with poems instead of watermelons”.

Richard L. Gegick is from Trafford, PA. His short stories and poems have appeared in various magazines. He’s a waiter, and writes mostly about being a waiter.
Chat Conversation End

Lori Jakiela is the author of the memoirs Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe (Atticus Books), Miss New York Has Everything (Hatchette) and The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious (C&R Press), as well as the poetry collection Spot the Terrorist (Turning Point) and several limited-edition poetry chapbooks. A new chapbook, Big Fish, will be published in April by Stranded Oak Press.

Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Rumpus, Brevity and more. Her essays have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize many times, and she received the 2015 City of Asylum Pittsburgh Prize, which sent her to Brussels, Belgium on a month-long writing residency.

She has also received a Golden Quill Award from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, was a working-scholar at The Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and was the winner of the first-ever Pittsburgh Literary Death Match.

She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, the writer Dave Newman, and their children. A former flight attendant and journalist, she now teaches in the writing programs at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and Chatham University, and is a co-director of Chautauqua Institution’s Summer Writing Festival.

&…

4/27 Traveling Souls Closing Exhibition @ Percolate

TODAY at 5PM in scenic Wilkinsburg,

Don Wentworth reads from his forthcoming collection Yield to the Willow & Bob Ziller reads from his translation of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo’s Almost Dreams. Visual art by Ziller & Samir Elsabee, belly dancing by Jemeena.