POETRY AND JAZZ NIGHT AT EXHIBIT [A]
Tonight, Exhibit [A] hosts a night of wine, poetry, and jazz featuring five poets and one Jazz band. Sets will go back and forth between the poets and band.
Location:
Time: 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Poets:
Anna Badua
Jeff Epley
Kevin Patrick Lee
Marianne Stewart
Paul Kareem Tayyar
Jazz Band:
Japanese Gameshow
featuring
Ryan Rost
Mark Massey
Tom Cunningham
Matt Lesser
THE HUMP READINGS SERIES UPON US AGAIN…
If you’re near Long Beach tonight, head to The Hump Readings. This month’s featured readers are Joan Jobe Smith and Fred Voss and will be hosted by the lovely and sometimes TRAffIK contributor Ana Badua Margrave
If the names, Joan Jobe Smith and Fred Voss, sound familiar– and you are not familiar with their body of influential work– you may perhaps recall them being mentioned by Clint Margrave (also a sometimes TRAffIK contributor) in his column (‘The Sun Always Rises’) Waxing Literary in L.A. –“Poetry for People Who Pay Rent”
The Hump Readings occur at:
The Borders at the Pike (101 South Pine Ave. Long Beach, CA)
There will also be an open reading. Get there by 6:45 to sign up.
“Fred Voss, a machinist for 32 years, has had three collections of poetry published by the U.K.’s Bloodaxe Books. He is regularly published in magazines such as Poetry Review (London), Ambit (London), Atlanta Review and Pearl, and has twice been the subject of feature programs about his poetry on National BBC Radio 4. In 2008 he was featured at The Ledbury Poetry Festival; in 2011 he and his wife, poet Joan Jobe Smith have been invited to read at the University of Pittsburgh. His latest book, HAMMERS AND HEARTS OF THE GODS from Bloodaxe Books was selected by UK’s leading Socialist newspaper, The Morning Star, as one of the Top Ten Books for 2009. In 2011 he will be featured poet in a hardbound limited edition of DWANG (London, England).
Joan Jobe Smith, founding editor of Pearl and Bukowski Review, has published 17 books of poetry + her personal War & Peace To Me (for the arduousness of its exhaustive creation): Joan’s Own Good 4 YOU Cook Book (www.pearlmag.com). Before receiving her MFA from UCI she worked 7 years as a go-go girl–the minimum sentence for committing a felony or bad luck for breaking a mirror, sharing a stage with Ike and Tina Turner, Goldie Hawn, Jim Morrison and Dick Dale. A Pushcart Prize honoree, she’s published extensively in the UK (notably the Pow Wow Cafe, a finalist for the 1999 Forward Prize–the UK equivalent of the US Pulitzer) where she’s performed 7 reading tours with her poet husband, Fred Voss, traveling from Scotland, London, Aldeburgh, Hull, Liverpool to Cornwall. In 2011 Sequin Soul is forthcoming from Chance Press and World Parade Books plans to publish Dancing in a River of Stars.”
The Hump Readings featuring Clint Margrave and Anna Badua
This second installment of The Hump Readings Poetry Series is Wednesday, August 18 featuring TRAffIK Contributors Clint Margrave and Anna Badua!
Click here for more info
Location:
Borders Downtown Long Beach at The Pike
101 S. Pine Ave.
WHERE WE’RE HEADED: TOMORROW NIGHT!
Tomorrow Night (Friday June 4th, 2010) is the Issue 2 Release for Beggars and Cheeseburgers (www.beggarsandcheeseburgers.com)
Beggars & Cheeseburgers is a quarterly art/poetry magazine that is focused on print media. Poetry, short stories, photography, painting, etc.
TRAffIK contributors Anna Badua and Clint Margrave are among the talent included in this issue.
Cheap Date: Recession-Proof Romance
I decided to launch the first blog from the so-called romance capital of the world Paris, even though I had my doubts.
Our first night did not go well. After an amazing dinner, my husband C. and I had a huge blowout. I found myself storming out of a French hipster bar and huffing down cobblestone rues in the Latin Quarter alone. I rolled my eyes at couples with their arms around each other or riding bikes down the street- what a stupid cliché city! The second night it happened again, this time after a carafe of vin. But he held my hand with an iron grip to make sure I didn’t have any more ideas of fleeing into foreign territory. To people sitting outside of brasseries with their chairs facing Montparnasse Blvd, we probably just looked like another couple c‘est la vieing the night away.
The third day, I knew I had to make a change for the sake of my relationship (and this article). We decided to go to the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. We took the RATP (3.20 euros) to the Butte of Montmartre where you must walk flights and flights of stairs to reach the basilica. After the third flight up, my face was damp with sweat, I thought “shit, breath-taking view is literal.” When we reached the top, I’m not sure if it was the light-headedness or the sun’s orangy rays beaming onto thousands of Parisian rooftops, but my LA knees weakened. I grabbed C.’s hand. We walked around dodging the souvenir shops until we found the majestic white Sacre Coeur. It was swarming with tourists- mostly families with children not old enough to be shellacked on Spring Break. For respite, we walked to the Place de Tertre for a drink. We sat at a beautiful historic art nouveau cafe, Le Jardin Cafe (13 euros). We drank, munched on peanuts and talked about Toulese-Lautrec & Picasso. Afterwards, we decided to head back to our hotel for a dinner not under budget.
In the crowded metro, someone played the accordion and C. kept an arm around me until our stop. We walked to our hotel holding hands. He showed me the cafes Hemingway used to hang out at and Montparnasse Cemetery where our favorite philosophic lovers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir are buried. This time- I was afraid to let him go.
Paris seizes your heart, a coup de coeur, they would say. You fall in love. Again. And again. There are so many fabulous things you can do in Paris for under 40 euros—whether it’s grabbing street food and sitting in a jardin or going to one of the many incredible museums like Musee d’Orsay or Le Centre Pompidou and sharing a carafe of vin. But, whether you’re in Paris or in LA, most importantly, a cheap date should prove to you that money can’t buy you good company.
Via her monthly column, “Cheap Date,” Anna Badua will give us some ideas on how to stretch our money in this economic recession via her own firsthand experiencea. Her focus will be on presenting options for dates in the LA area budgeted at $40 and under. She will also mix it up every now and then by adding special editions of “Cheap Date” that will include ”Super Cheap Dates” of $20 and “Splurge Dates” with a budget of $60.
Anna Badua has recently published or forthcoming work in Chiron Review, Beggars & Cheeseburgers, and Spot Magazine. She also advises and writes curriculum for a leading west coast design institution.