November dis•articulations poem —Douglas Kearney

For our dis•articulations collaboration, Douglas gave Terry four writing prompts. Terry engaged in fevered writing with each of them and gave the results back to Douglas, who then used the words from that fevered writing to create this dis•articulations poem.

THE LIVESTOCK

we’ve places in our properties for them,
lots for growing them into lots more for us.
in the places, there, we can watch them,
our faces like hands having want. we, beaten

by a cooler outside, said they got a coat kind-of-
a-skin sewn up on their body until—beaten
by the cooler outside—we slip them out it
to wear it on us and so we

are we, for we wear their skin for us.

by our stove-like imagination,
in it, they are a wad of living Crisco,
Crisco shut up in them until we cook it
out them, them out it, into a pan, a cut of them
fried in it out a can and into our mouths,
ground inside our mouths turning us into we-
who-wear-wads-of-body-in-our-bodies
and the wad’s bodies on our bodies and so we

are we, for we cook to enjoy this insiding.

times, we’ve agreements with us
to think for them impassive bodies what they think
our love is like, so we spin answers out slashed mouths,
snipped tongues, the splatterings beaten out their they
in our lots for growing us out of them:

we say they may say we are universes gashing Earth

or baboons long ago hardened into clothes

or that by their brown livings we guarantee us
they want in our mouths, to be our coats,
to tiptoe their they through our imaginations,
graceful as, doting as mothers sewn to cries.

no no no no no—our love is nothing but goodbye.
and how we only want to love it all and so

all of them.

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November Collaborating Poet — Douglas Kearney

In November, poet Douglas Kearney with be collaborating with Terry Wolverton on dis•articulations poems.

Douglas Kearney’s third poetry collection, Patter (Red Hen Press, 2014) examines miscarriage, infertility, and parenthood and was a finalist for the California Book Award in Poetry. Cultural critic Greg Tate remarked that Kearney’s second book, National Poetry Series selection, The Black Automaton (Fence Books, 2009), “flows from a consideration of urban speech, negro spontaneity and book learning.” A collection of opera libretti—Someone Took They Tongues.—is forthcoming from Subito Press.Noemi Press will publish his collection of writing on poetics and performativity—Mess and Mess and—in late 2015. He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. His work has appeared in a number of journals, including Poetry, nocturnes, Pleiades, Iowa Review, Boston Review, and Callaloo; and anthologies, including Best American Poetry, Best American Experimental Writing, Wide Awake, and What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Poets in America. Raised in Altadena, CA, he lives with his family in California’s Santa Clarita Valley. He teaches at CalArts.

October Collaborating Poet—Ramón Garcia

In October, Ramón Garcia will collaborate with Terry Wolverton on new dis•articulations poems.

Ramón García is author of The Chronicles (Red Hen Press, 2015), Other Countries (What Books Press, 2010) and Ricardo Valverde (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), He has published poetry in a variety of journals and anthologies including Best American Poetry 1996, Ambit, The Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of US-Hispanic Literature, Crab Orchard Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Los Angeles Review, and Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas. A founding member of the Glass Table Collective, an artist collective formed in 2008, he is a professor at California State University, Northridge and lives in Los Angeles.

September Collaborating Poet — Donna Frazier

In September, Donna Frazier will collaborate with Terry Wolverton on new dis•articulations poems. This month is special, because Donna and Terry’s collaborations, which took place earlier, will appear as part of the exhibition, “Oasis,” curated by John David O’Brien, that opens at Descanso Gardens on September 13. Donna and Terry will be reading from their work at the Gardens on September 13 at 3 p.m.

Donna Frazier: Realized early that poetry is an oasis for a nonlinear mind flying about in a linear world. Fell in love with it. Spent time with great teachers like William Matthews, Marie Ponsot and Terry Wolverton. Is always writing and editing, much of the time for other people, but in the best moments for her own muses. Has published work in places like Mudlark and First Things. A collection of her dreamy and practical inspiration for writers is on her website at www.donnafrazier.com/news/.

August Collaborating Poet — Sesshu Foster

In August, Sesshu Foster will collaborate with Terry Wolverton on new dis•articulations poems.

Sesshu Foster has taught in East L.A. for 30 years. He’s also taught writing at the University of Iowa, the California Institute for the Arts, Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work has been published in The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, and State of the Union: 50 Political Poems. Winner of two American Book Awards, his most recent books are the novel Atomik Aztex and the hybrid World Ball Notebook.

July Collaborating Poet — Olga Garcia Echeverria

In July, Olga Garcia Echeverria will collaborate with Terry Wolverton on new dis•articulations poems.

Olga García Echeverría: Born and raised in East Los Angeles. Ultra Libra in love with the ocean and the clouds and the birds and the trees and the disappearing bees. Author of Falling Angels: Cuentos y Poemas (Calaca Press and Chibcha Press 2008). Teacher of English. Creator and destroyer of language. Splendid Spinster of the New Millennium who plans to joyfully spin words until her fingers turn to dust

 

June Collaborating Poet — Elena Karina Byrne

In June, Elena Karina Byrne will collaborate with Terry Wolverton on new dis•articulations poems.

A freelance teacher since 1982, Elena Karina Byrne is a visual artist, book reviewer, editor, lecturer, Poetry Consultant and Moderator for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, former 12 year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America and Executive Director for the AVK Arts Foundation. She is currently a Contributing Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, a reviewer for ForeWord Reviews, and Literary Programs Director for The Ruskin Art Club. In addition, Elena was part of the West Hollywood Book Fair’s Planning Committee and worked with Red Car studios editing several documentary film projects including, The Big Read, Muse of Fire and Why Shakespeare? Since 1991 Elena has organized or funded programs for the Museum of Contemporary Art, the University of Southern California’s Doheny Memorial Library, the Getty Research Institute at the J. Paul Getty Center, UCLA’s CAP/Center for the Art of Performance, Columbia University’s School of the Arts International Translation Project, CAFAM’s Poetry and Art Collaboration Series, The Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Metro Art live Poetry in Motion annual readings, and the renowned Chateau Marmont “Act of the Poet” series.

Elena received this year’s Distinguished Service Award from Beyond Baroque’s Literary Arts Center. She was the 2005 Poetry Co-Editor for The Los Angeles Review and one of three judges for the 2006 PEN USA Literary Award in Poetry. Her book reviews have appeared in Slope, Poetry International and The Journal.  Elena’s publications, among others, include, 2009 Pushcart Prize XXXIII Best of the Small Presses, Best American Poetry 2005, The Yale Review, The Paris Review,  American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, TriQuarterly, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Painted Bride Quarterly , Barrow Street, Volt, Antioch Review, Massachusetts Review, Verse, The Journal, Hotel Amerika, Pool, Crazyhorse, Prairie Schooner, Verse, Drunken Boat, The Offending Adam, Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes, Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics From California , Poetry Daily Anthology, and Spunk and Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language and Style.Books include: THE FLAMMABLE BIRD (Zoo Press/Tupelo Press 2002) and MASQUE, (Tupelo Press 2008) and SQUANDER (Omnidawn 2016); she just finished a book of essays, VOYEUR HOUR: Meditations on Poetry, Art and Desire.

May Collaborating Poet — Chiwan Choi

In May, Chiwan Choi will collaborate with Terry Wolverton on new dis•articulations poems.

Chiwan Choi is the author of two poetry collections, The Flood and Abductions. He is also a partner at Writ Large Press, a DTLA based press focused on experimentations in publishing.

March’s Collaborating Poet – AK Toney

In March, AK Toney will collaborate with Terry Wolverton to create new dis•articulations poems.

In a few words, A. K. Toney is a poet, writer, educator and performance artist. As a World Stage Performance Gallery alumnus he had the honor to be mentored by jazz great, community leader and founder of the World Stage Billy Higgins. Toney’s skills as a performance artist have taken him across the nation and abroad. His experience as a performance artist and educator has allowed him and his organization, Reading Is Poetry, to teach workshops with LA Unified schools, NAMI, and the Natural History Museum. Toney is also a contributing writer to KCET.
Website: readingispoetry.com
Twitter: @readingispoetry

February’s Collaborating Poet – Mike Sonksen

In February, Mike Sonksen will collaborate with Terry Wolverton to create new dis•articulations poems.

Equally a scholar and performer, Mike Sonksen, also known as Mike the Poet, is a 3rd-generation L.A. native acclaimed for poetry performances, published articles and mentoring teen writers. Following his graduation from U.C.L.A. in 1997, he has published over 500 essays and poems for a wide range of journals and websites. His first book I Am Alive in Los Angeles! has been added to the curriculum of several universities and high schools. His weekly KCET column, L.A. Letters, celebrates literary Los Angeles. Most recently in June 2014, he completed an Interdisciplinary M.A. in English and History from the California State University of Los Angeles. His next book, Poetics of Location, is forthcoming from Writ Large Press. Sonksen is now an Adjunct Professor at Southwest College and Woodbury University.