Poesia Para La Gente is back!!!!
Avenue 50 Studio proudly presents…
POESIA PARA LA GENTE
(poetry) on demand
…of a different kind!
benefiting PARA LOS NINOS
and also, join us for the launching of
LIBROS PARA LA GENTE
“Poetry on Demand” has become a popular form of delivering poetry to the masses, an alternative to book publishing, and for some – another way to make a buck. We’ve decided to take it a bit further. Inspired by the Marshall McLuhan equation, “The medium is the message” I began to wonder what would happen if we changed the medium on which a poem is written and eventually delivered. While we intend to write a personalized “message” in the form of a poem, the non-traditional way of how we will pass/deliver this “message” to our audience (including the environment in which it’s created) will undoubtedly influence how the message is perceived. It’s my belief that this will create a lasting connection at the moment we make the exchange of the donation for the poem.
Please join us in this experiment! Bring something for us to write a poem on, bring a memory, a story, and a dollar – for PARA LOS NINOS!
Also, join us as we launch LIBROS PARA LA GENTE, the newest addition to Avenue 50 Studio/Poesia Para La Gente. Also inspired by McLuhan, and loosely based on Abbie Hoffman’s philosophical approach outlined in “Steal This Book.” Rather than use his Survive!Fight!Liberate! approach, we’ve embraced a 3-point evolutionary plan of Inspire! Enrich! Liberate! to encourage the community to take ownership of their literary rights by providing access to “good” books, in “public” spaces, free of charge – delivered via shopping cart. Beginning November 30th Libros Para La Gente will be a permanent component of the Poesia Para La Gente event programming. Be the first to check out our non-traditional shopping cart of books. Read an excerpt or a poem in public, then take it home with you!
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Saturday, November 30 | 12PM
FEATURING poetry/haiku/limerick written/read on demand
for a minimum $1.00 donation (but no one will be turned away)
by:
Iris De Anda
Brandon Brown
DM Collins
Yago S. Cura
Peggy Dobreer
Bill Friday
Sean Hill
June Kim
Brooke Lundgren
Karineh Mahdessian
Typewriter Poetry (Billimarie Robinson)
F Albert Salinas
Elena Secota
Kelly Grace Thomas
Urban Voodoo
Daniel Austin Warren
Yazmin Monet Watkins
MEDIUMS include:
post-its, index cards, tablets, butcher paper, typewriters, led, ink – felt tip and beyond, leaves, book covers, old newspaper, cardboard, your body, wood, records, rocks, paper , (no scissors), pages from old books, photos, bones, beautiful 100% cotton paper, mailable postcards
AND MORE…
PLUS OPEN PEN (open mic if you’d like to read as well)
All languages welcome!!
hosted by:
JESSICA CEBALLOS
Photographer: Luke Gattuso
Those who donate can have a picture taken with their poem to be posted on the Poesia Para La Gente Facebook page, to be used for a future project to be published!
FOLLOW US LIVE by using the hashtag -> #PPLG #LPLG #PLN
at
Pershing Square
532 Olive Street
Downtown Los Angeles 90013
VIA Metro Purple/Red lines @ Pershing Square Station
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What is Poesia Para La Gente?
Poesia Para La Gente (Poetry for the People) is a program that brings poetry to the people of the community, in non-traditional places. Some of these places have been affected, in one way or another, by economical hardship or various forms of social stigmas. All locations are unique in providing a safe setting for uninhibited artistic expression and intercommunication, where there often is none. By providing a welcoming non-traditional, unique, and one-time-only public platform for sharing the power of the spoken word, we hope to stimulate intercultural understanding within the diverse population of the greater Los Angeles area.
Poesia Para La Gente is a program of the Avenue 50 Studio’s literary programming.
/www.facebook.com/
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What is Libros Para La Gente?
Libros Para La Gente hopes to encourage the community to take ownership of their literary rights by providing access to “good” books, in “public” spaces, free of charge – delivered via shopping cart. Beginning November 30th Libros Para La Gente will be a permanent component of the Poesia Para La Gente event programming.
If we strive to become aware of the unanticipated consequences of our dreams, we can influence the direction those consequences take, making the world around us better than it was before,
thereby enabling it (and us) to reach our potential…
The idea was inspired by and created with the help of DT•LAB – an experiment, a performance micro-space, a creative hangout, an alchemist laboratory, and a bookstore …with a new address coming soon.
www.facebook.com/DTLAB1
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What is Para Los Ninos (For the Children) ?
Para Los Niños is a nonprofit organization that has worked for more than thirty years to create academic success and social well-being for children. Through early education centers, charter schools, and wellness centers, we offer high-quality education integrated with family supports, mental health services, and community engagement opportunities to thousands of children living in at-risk neighborhoods in Los Angeles county.
www.paralosninos.org
www.facebook.com/
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ABOUT THE FEATURES:
JUNE KIM: Writing poetry is a romantic engagement with herself gliding her into the unexpected. Raised three children, currently residing with her daughter. Her first submissions recently published in “The River Muse”.
YAZMIN MONET WATKINS is an internationally touring spoken word poet and actress based out of Los Angeles, CA. She has performed everywhere from the Bahamas to London to Paris to New York to California and several places in between. A few of her college shows include Harvard, UCLA, Howard, UC Santa Cruz and she has opened for the likes of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and Les Nubians. She is the author of “Love Without Limits: The Bi-Laws of Love,” a collection of poems that emerges in the queer literary world under the self-coined – poetography genre- a piece of art that combines both poetry and photography. ‘Love Without Limits’ explores Watkins’ journey through love, sexuality, religion, heartache, and the eventual discovery of self-love. Her poetry explores the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, religion, sexual violence and identity. You may find more information about her at her website, www.yazminmonetwatkins.com or visit Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks or Barnes & Noble Nook to purchase her e-book online. Watkins believes in the power of peace, love, laughter, freedom and empowering others through art.
Daniel Austin Warren writes like a musician and plays music like a writer. As bassist/vocalist of Corey, Daniel entertains semiotext(e) theory. However he recently renounced communism after some bearded Maoist snuck back into a friend’s house to sleep in their bathtub.
If D. M. Collins had proper rhyme skills, he could have been a rapper (hey, even his initials are D.M.C!). But somehow those skills became twisted, perverted even, and now he’s a limerick expert, possibly because of his Irish ancestry or maybe because he really feels for that man from Nantucket. You may know him as the New Music Editor of L.A. RECORD, where he reviews records and interviews folks like Chuck D and the Flaming Lips. But he also hosts the monthly Rrose in a Prose Literary Salon in Echo Park, DJs some mean psych rock, and recites fiction and poetry over the music of bands with odd names like “Cardoo” and “Loopool.” If you see him coming, run away fast. www.nuclearraysfrommyhalog
Karineh Mahdessian learned English by reading Nancy Drew books and watching Married with Children. She has a great affinity for really large earrings. She enjoys tacos from highland park taco trucks. She will challenge anyone to a thumb wrestling match. anytime. anyplace. She always has her chess set riding around in the trunk of her car. And she is absolutely in love with haikus.
Peggy Dobreer’s first book of Poetry, In The Lake of Your Bones was released by Moon Tide Press in 2012. Peggy is widely featured and published, and she hosts First Friday’s at the Rapp to celebrate the diversity and character of Literature, Music and Dance in LA. If you have a project that needs a dedicated poet, teacher, host, speech maker, or an organizer who lives on both sides of her brain, you should give her a call atwww.peggydobreer.com
Elena Secota was born in Transylvania, Romania and studied acting at The Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, in London. Elena’s love for poetry is expressed in her volume, Poems by the Sea, a collection of 72 poems and 140 color photographs. She enjoys reading her poetry throughout the Los Angeles area and was featured at Beyond Baroque, Cobalt Cafe, The Last Bookstore, Feral Fusion at the Amsterdam Cafe, Sweet Noise: A Soap Box Nation, Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore, Writer’s Row, Indelible Ink, 100 Thousand Poets for Change and The Ding Dong Lounge in Manhattan, NY.
Hosting the Third Friday Salon, each Friday of the month, at The Rapp Saloon in Santa Monica, Elena sees poetry as a universal language for an awakened consciousness and compassion. http://
Iris De Anda is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. She has been published in Mujeres de Maiz Zine, Loudmouth Zine: Cal State LA, OCCUPY SF poems from the movement, & online @ La Bloga. She is an active contributor to Poets Responding to SB 1070. She performs at community venues & events throughout the Los Angeles area. She hosted The Writers Underground Open Mic 2012 @ Mazatlan Theatre & 100,000 Poets for Change 2012 & 2013 @ the Eastside Cafe. Her book CODESWITCH: Fires From Mi Corazon will be published in 2013. Follow her story @ www.irisdeanda.com
Brandon Brown was born in Birmingham, AL, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA, where he is burrowing his way into the poetry scene. When he is not writing and/or reading his work, you can find him working at a rehousing program for families experiencing homelessness. Brandon is a 2014 PEN Center USA Poetry Fellow, and you can follow him atwww.twitter.com/
UrbanVoodoo…The name in itself sparks so many ideas in the minds of folks… Through his poetry he sets the record straight. UrbanVoodoo is the combination of two distinct ideas, Urban in terms of the inner city which bred my style and Magic which the sound is designed to create City Magic. He is affectionately called Urb by his friends, he is original from New Orleans, Louisiana home of the Spicy Creole Culture that has permeated the urban sound for decades. Urb is merely a branch off that same tree. He writes concrete. There is no imaginary man holding the microphone here. He was raised in two distinct localities where the cultural norms are as different as Denmark and Hamburg are to each other, even though the two countries are both European. He was raised in California and Louisiana. He grew up in a very stable tribal environment in his 9th ward locality of NO and eventually he was raised by the hardened streets of INGLEWOOD, CA. where childhood is often eclipsed by reality and dreams are like the yearning for true freedom. Urban Voodoo is a product of those dreams. UrbanVoodoo was recently nominated for best spoken word album of the year in the Spoken Word Billboard Awards held in Michigan a couple months ago and he was also featured in Spoken Vizions Magazine 2012 Fall Editionhttp://
Kelly Grace Thomas’s life has been a love affair of all things literary since the beginning. This self-proclaimed word ninja keeps busy as a poet, novelist, screenwriter, author of children’s books, adventurer and educator.
In her free time she enjoys writing quotes on post-it notes, buttery chardonnays and asking people “if you could swim in anything what would it be and why?” She believes in flip-flops, laughter, and the ocean’s ability to heal any and all aspects of the soul.
This South Jersey native whole-heartedly agrees with the Kerouac quote, “ I have nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” Only her confession, often in the form of lyrical confession, comes with a side of sarcasm and double helping of neurosis.
Brooke Lundgren is a teacher, writer, and mathematician. She graduated from UCLA in Economics and is a student of life. Brooke is a founder of Creative Community Centers. http://
Bill Friday, Fictionary… 8 Megapixel Artist… Bloody Awful Poet, is a recently-published bender of Words, Voice, and Stuff. He is a former internet talk show host, and long-time Citizen Journalist. Currently, Bill is a part of the Writer’s Room for a television pilot in pre-production. He communicates with the outside world through his own little web territory (www.billfriday.com), and in other social media hang-outs like Twitter (@FridayOnFriday), and Facebook (facebook.com/
Yago S. Cura is an Argentine-American poet, librarian, translator and fútbol cretin. He is the co-author of Odas a Fútbolistas (Hinchas, 2010), a collection of odes to legends of fútbol, co-written with Abel Folgar. He publishes Hinchas de Poesía (www.hinchasdepoesia.com), an online literary journal of Pan-American writing, and is proprietor of Hinchas Press. Yago has had poetry published in Lungfull!, LIT, Exquisite Corpse, PALABRA, Skanky Possum, Versal, 2nd Avenue, New Orlean’s Review, Tidal Basin Review, U.S. Latino Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, La Fovea, and COMBO. He moderates a Spanglish poetry blog, Spicaresque (http://
Me, Jessica Ceballos! Who am I? My bio says a writer who dabbles in music and photography. I say I’m a poet that uses music and photography as a disguise. I host poetry readings at Avenue 50 Studio, Beyond Baroque and on the streets of this city I call ours. I’m me, and I’m also equal parts family, friends, Los Angeles and memories of far away lands. Poesia Para La Gente is one of my favorite things in the world…so join us! I’d love to write you a poem. XO
www.jessicaceballos.com