Party Friday!

MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial Day - I have no family, only memories of my dead: my father's blackened nails, caught in a printing press (he never complained); my mother, a bookkeeper at a canning factory, always handing out paychecks to the workingmen first; my sister, who fought workplace discrimination against her mental illness, and won; my niece and godchild, a psychiatrist and the upwardly mobile pride of her working class grandparents. Their Russian immigrant accents, their war and labor camp survivor insistence that anything could be fixed except death. I thank my family for my privileges of education and culture - the museums, the theater, the opera and ballets they sent me to, although they never went themselves, conserving funds, always working. I remember them today, and always.

COME TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Bios of My Birthday Readers!

I am thrilled to be celebrating my birthday May 31 at Unnameable Books with readings by Steve Dalachinsky, Ron Kolm, Dean Kostos, Stephanie Strickland, and Michael T. Young. Here are their bios below.

Poet/collagist STEVE DALACHINSKY was born in Brooklyn in1946. His book “The Final Nite” (Ugly Duckling Presse - 2006) won the PEN Oakland National Book Award. His latest cds are “The Fallout of Dreams” with Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach (Roguart 2014), “ec(H)o-system” with the French art-rock group, the Snobs (Bambalam 2015) and the book/cd “Pretty in the Morning with the Snobs”(Bisou Records – 2019). He is a 2014 recipient of a Chevalier D’ le Ordre des Artes et Lettres. His recent books include “The Invisible Ray” (Overpass Press – 2016) with artwork by Shalom Neuman, “Frozen Heatwave”, a collaboration with Yuko Otomo (Luna Bissonte Prods 2017) and Black Magic (New Feral Press 2017) and The Chicken Whisperer (Positive Manets – 2018). His newest book “where night and day become one – the french poems” (great weather for MEDIA 2018) received a 2019 IBPA award in poetr

Ron Kolm's latest collection of poetry is Welcome to the Barbecue. He is an editor of the 6th Unbearables anthology, From Somewhere To Nowhere: The End of the American Dream and a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin magazine. He is the author of Divine Comedy, Suburban Ambush, Night Shift and A Change in the Weather. He's had work in Flapperhouse, Great Weather for Media, the Resist Much / Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance anthology, Maintenant, Live Mag!, Local Knowledge, The Opiate and the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Ron’s papers were purchased by the New York University library, where they’ve been catalogued in the Fales Collection

Dean Kostos is a poet, translator, anthologist, and memoirist. He is the author of eight books. His collection, THIS IS NOT A SKYSCRAPER won the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, selected by Mark Doty. He was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation grant. His memoir, THE BOY WHO LISTENED TO PAINTINGS, will be released this fall.

Stephanie Strickland’s 9 books of print poetry and 11 co-authored digital poems have garnered Brittingham, Sandeen, di Castagnola, and Best of the Net awards. She has been granted National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships. Her digital poems have been shown at the Library of Congress and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Strickland’s work in print and multiple media is being collected by the Rubenstein Library at Duke University. How the Universe Is Made, a volume of New & Selected Poems, has just been published. http://stephaniestrickland.com

Michael T. Young’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was long-listed for the Julie Suk Award. His previous collections are The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost and Transcriptions of Daylight. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award for his collection, Living in the Counterpoint. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals including The Los Angeles Review, One, The Smart Set, Rattle, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. His poetry has also been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac.

CHOICE WORDS: WRITERS ON ABORTION KICKSTARTER

I'm proud I'm in #ChoiceWordsanthology from @HaymarketBooks, 1st major literary anthology on #abortion. Today launches @Kickstarter campaign to support the book. Please donate & spread the word! #oneinfour#reproductivejustice #reproductiverights

CHOICE WORDS ANTHOLOGY

COME TO MY BIRTHDAY READING 5/31

COUNTDOWN: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE MONDAY!

New Dispatches from the Poetry Wars

Full disclosure: I am a contributing editor
https://www.dispatchespoetrywars.com/

MONDAY!

STRUDEL AND MOVIES

In Nazi Germany there were brilliant movies and groundbreaking art, not to mention delicious strudel and heartstopping sports. And there was money to enjoy them all. Yes, somewhere Jewish families were being separated and sent to camps, and the chancellor became the Fuhrer and attacked the press and controlled the judiciary, but this all seemed like it would pass any day and the opposition would soon rise . . And how bad could things be with such delicious strudel and movies?

Constitutional Crisis

Another blow to the separation of powers from the proponents of the unitary executive, or the philosophy behind Trump's expanding article 2 powers: Emmet Flood, Trump's attorney, argued in a letter today that the president's advisors work for him, and "not for the people" (that is, we taxpayers who pay their salaries). Therefore, Trump may forbid these advisers to testify before Congress. With the executive's defiance of lawful congressional subpoenas and its wholesale annexation of the judiciary in the person of AG Barr, who will "supervise" the 14 investigations referred by Mueller much as he did the Mueller report, we are galloping headlong toward an authoritarian government. We should be in the streets about this.