Jan Steckel's Blog: Horizontal Poet Sings Bidyke Blues - Posts Tagged "poems"

Happy New Year, friends! I'm thrilled that four of my poems appear in January's issue of the online magazine FULL OF CROW. It's the debut issue for FULL OF CROW's new poetry editor MK Chavez. The poems are "The Rose Grew Round the Briar,""Pretty, Wild," "My Jericho," and "Dance of the Perseids." Hope you enjoy them at http://fullofcrow.com/poetry/01/jan-s...

Thanks to Evan Karp for posting a YouTube video of the April 24 Lambda Literary Finalists reading at the San Francisco Public Library. Here’s the video of me reading four of my poems from The Horizontal Poet: “Dios le bendiga,” “Twenty Thousand Vaginas Under the Sea,” “The Rose Grew Round the Briar,” and “The History of our Love.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chWLAn...

Thanks to Marie Lecrivain of the Los Angeles Lit Zine poeticdiversity for reprinting my poem “Fourteen Crossings” from my book. The poem appeared previously in Red Rock Review. You can find it here:

http://www.poeticdiversity.org/main/p...

Picks for this week:

I’m attending Oakland poet Cassandra Dallett’s featured reading at Poetry Express at Priya Indian Restaurant in Berkeley tonight. I first heard Cassandra at Paul Corman Roberts’ and H. K. Rainey’s by-submission-only reading Anger Management at Viricocha in the Mission in San Francisco. My husband Hew Wolff will be the featured reader at Poetry Express next week, Monday, May 14. Bring a poem of your own to share, and get 20% off your delicious Indian meal if you’re there to hear poetry. 7-9 PM every Monday night, 2072 San Pablo Ave, (between University Ave & Addison St), Berkeley, CA 94702. (510) 644-3977

This Wednesday, June 9, Jeanne Lupton and I are going to hear my poetry mentor and friend Julia Vinograd featured at Sacred Grounds coffeehouse in San Francisco. Should be a terrific show. Jeanne and I will both read at the open mic, I expect. Open Mic signups begin at 7 PM every Wednesday night, with readings from 7:30 to 10 PM. 2095 Hayes Street, San Francisco, CA 94117. (415) 387-3859

Next weekend, Saturday, May 12, I’m going to Works in Progress, a Women’s Open Mic in Piedmont, a neighborhood of Oakland. I’ll be one of several readers at this bimonthly womens’ reading, but the most exciting action for me this time is singer-songwriter/looper Irina Rivkin’s beautiful, complex music. Shar Bacchus will play recorder. Contact me for details at jmsteckel at aol dot com if you want to go.

Hope to see you around!

Warmly,
Jan

Joie Cook was a San Francisco performance poet and a friendly acquaintance of mine. I heard her read a few times and had one glorious dinner with her, her husband David, and a few old beaux of hers, during which we polished off an entire pitcher each of margaritas and mojitos. We staggered onto the street arm in arm, pledging eternal love, mad admiration, etc., and never saw each other again.

Joie died Sunday night at her Oscars-watching party. Among those with her were her husband David and her friend and former love Richard Stone. Ill with complications of hepatitis C, Joie had made herself DNR (Do Not Resuscitate), so 911 was not called. Within an hour, her daughter Jessika arrived to be with her mother's body and take her place among the bereaved.

Zeitgeist Press, DesertedX and Manic D Press published Joie's poetry. I loved Joie's poems and personality. Her life was a magnificent performance.

Here are some links to poems of Joie's:
http://rustytruck.wordpress.com/categ...
http://www.sfheart.com/sfpoets/joie_c...

Here's a poem I wrote for Joie a few years ago. It first appeared in The Eloquent Atheist.

Joie’s Poems

She’s eating hummingbird hearts
for appetizers, drinking the Salton Sea
for a cocktail. She’s doctor bitch to you,
matey, so look seaworthy.
Inch-long nails, vinyl skin, elbow hicky,
teased hair with a dyed pink streak.
She’ll take that plunging neckline,
let the girls out to say hello.
She’s thinner than a flimsy excuse,
frailer than tornadoes,
richer than creosote,
inimitable, indescribable, delicious.
I’d give my supernumerary nipple
for a taste of that. She makes us rise
like bread, a fish belly-up, the sun.