{declare it COLD! but a pitch nonetheless}

hello all!

if you're curious about what I've been off doing for the past year, have a warm coat and the time and inclination to wander down to Rockefeller Plaza around lunchtime or after work, take a look at thisschedule and come check out one of the Declare Yourself! shows.

we're performing right by the skating rink. the starred performances are ones where I'll probably be performing more; our "solo" sections flip-flop by day, but everything's in a constant state of flux. I'll post any changes to the schedule at www.martyoutloud.blogspot.com,assuming blogger starts working consistently again.

Thursday 10/28
11:35 am (Live 4-minute performance for MSNBC, unless we get bumped again)
12:15 pm (regular 40-minute show) *
6:15 pm

Friday 10/29
12:15 pm*

Tuesday 11/2
12:15 pm

Wednesday 11/3
12:15pm*
6:15pm

Thursday 11/4
12:15pm*

Friday 11/5
12:15 pm

*** it being Rockefeller Plaza, the crowds are largely tourists and local businessfolk, so it'd be great to see a familiar face out there.

otherwise and in addition, be sure to come by the Bowery Poetry Club tonight for louderTRIBUTE: Awake at the Wheel -- 10 p.m., $7, hope to see you there!

and of course, don't forget to swing by Bar 13 any and every Monday.

{new poem + plug}

this might be an extension of the last one I posted, perhaps a conversation. hoping to find time to work on this after the Declare Yourself show and before 13 tonight. speaking of which, great stuff happening poetry-wise this week: scroll past the poem for details!

skinned

the corpses of gnats litter the bed
little commas, everted birthmarks
the sheets are dirty with it
and us half sexual half dead, arms
and legs akimbo, brushing

we fell on each other like overripe fruit
and they found us, all pulp and tossed
rind, exposed / our mouths hot
halved pomegranates, all
seeds running / humid logic
of lips, we asked for this

bruise, crossed ourselves
with apricot hands and husked flesh
back to pith, this sin called the insects
from their nests with its sweet slow rut
and they came, their thin wings nothing

under these hands, a carnival of slapping,
laughter at the massacre, their persistence,
their sheer numbers, what does it mean
when the animals think you’re rotting
even as you crush them one by one by one

*****************

TONIGHT! Corinna Bain & Morris Stegosaurus at Bar 13's louderMONDAYS show

I've known Corinna since she was a 17-year-old shaky-handed just-started-writing has-great-potential reader in Worcester Massachussetts who fed the Morrigan spaghetti and let us crash on her couch. NOW she is a phenomenon. Her work has simply exploded in all gorgeous ways, and I can't wait to see her read tonight!

I've known Morris since I helped boo him off the stage at the Green Mill (you're allowed to do that there.) Since that time, he has convinced me that (a) we were right to refuse to listen to him then and (b) he has so much more to give to the world of poetry and the world at large than that one-legged prostitute piece -- and he's finding more new and exciting ways to let that other poet out every time I witness him.

So join us tonight at 13 Bar/Lounge
7 p.m
35 E. 13th St., Union Square
$5 ($4 for students)
2-for-1 drinks all night
open mic + featured poets + open slam

who knows, I might even slam again

***

ALSO, on Wednesday, join the louderARTS Project as we present
Awake at the Wheel: a louderTRIBUTE

10 p.m.
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery @ Bleecker

Please join the louderARTS Project as we pay tribute to the poets whose work keeps us awake and vibrating to the world -- whose poetry saves our lives.

New York's best performing poets will be covering the poems of Yusef Komunyakaa, Sharon Olds, Martin Espada, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, and Adrienne Rich. Reading on this night will be Elana Bell, Oscar Bermeo, RogerBonair-Agard, Jayme Del Rosario, SabrinaHayeem-Ladani, Syreeta McFadden, Rachel McKibbens, Lynne Procope, Marty McConnell and Rich Villar. We will also beintroducing the louderARTS Awake at the Wheel Prizefor Poetry (www.louderARTS.com/awake).

Hosted by Fish Vargas
$7 Cover
http://www.louderarts.com/awake
http://www.bowerypoetry.com

********

and finally, we've reached the final weeks of the Declare Yourself! tour, and what better place to do that than New York CITY! here's the schedule of shows, all taking place at Rockefeller Plaza (aka Democracy Plaza, until November 5, no comment.)

it's chilly out there, and chock-full o' tourists and bizness folks, so it'd be lovely and warming to see some poetry-appreciating faces.

here's the schedule!

mon oct 25th: noon
tues oct 26th: 6 pm
thur oct 28th: noon and 6 pm
fri oct 29th: noon
tues nov 2: noon
wed nov 3: noon and 6 pm
fri nov 5: noon

***

well, that's all for now. have to go find something warm to wear!

{new & exercise}

to the present and future ones

each time you have him
even just for dinner, a drink
something quick at noon
he returns to me sweeter

/ he comes back, the shiny ends
of his fingers finding mine,
finding me, coddles this body
its eggs, its comfort

I know days you do not touch him
must seem oceans, horizonless --
do not make his cock your anchor.
I haven't. even at your center

he is a wrong compass, your
magnetic north a gorgeous
moment; but a moment.

do not think this a competition
or that I say this to hurt you;
when he comes home from you,
mouth of cigarette, hands of wine,

he travels three rooms to kiss me
before taking off his coat.

***

exercise: take a poem written directly to someone (for example, Anne Sexton's "For My Lover, Returning to His Wife" http://plagiarist.com/poetry/582/ that spawned this one) or with multiple characters and write a new poem in the voice of one of the characters from the poem.

***

I don't like the title. suggestions?

I may also make it longer. but then it'll probably be in sections, like everything I write these days. sigh.

{new}

sincerely, Susan.

1: the sketch

Susan says

black man.
plaid shirt.
toboggan-style hat.
about 40.
brown eyes.
average height.
red light, unlocked door, handle, shut up and drive. voice? average.

like that?

some beard, no, not much, some
the cheeks, yes, now I see
meaner
more lips

2: poet thinks she knows

if only you'd been able to imagine him better.
I, for example, could conjure at least
thirty-two men from the one who showed up
on the porch, at dance recitals, in the park
where my friends went to smoke
and mock the freshmen.
showed up like the Playboy
on your uncle's coffeetable,
one minute life's a stroll
on a straight road, Time Magazine,
Popular Mechanics, Steve laughing
on the swingset, Becky showing off
her wrists, then there he is. blue
nubby sweater, next to a tree,
watching. you don't forget the eyes,
don't stumble over the voice, the doorbell,
is your mother home, holding the screendoor closed
between you, lousy scrim, thinking one.
two. three. four. five no, yes, um,
the shower. listen: I have killed him
more times than we ever met, Susan.
you don't forget, Susan, when he takes it all
away from you, you couldn't do it
could you, imagine a monster
like that.

3. Susan's reply

tell me
about monsters. you've got one?
how about a mirror. how about your dad
with a gun between his knees, bad aim but the hole
in his gut kills him anyway, your brother
dangling from a rope before your preschool face
/ or the new father, a lap of dynamite
asking to be licked, I'm alive.
this one, that, point until your fingers fall off.
I miss my kids but I've stopped wanting to die.

4: FBI

characteristics of a homicidal mother

in her twenties
grew up or lived in poverty
under-educated
history of either physical or sexual abuse or both
remained isolated from social supports
depressive and suicidal tendencies
experiencing rejection by a male lover at the time she murdered

inability to define her boundaries as separate from her children
becoming trapped in enmeshment with her children

(Judge allows photographs showing
the brothers discolored and decomposing
/ will not allow several photos showing the full effects
of the nine-day submersion on the boys)

may view child as a mere extension of herself
rather than as a separate being. suicidal inclination
may be transformed into filial homicide

5: sigh

but you made him up. held your babies' heads
underwater nine days, blaming all the black men
in Union. but what do I know. thirties, over-educated,
grew up in relative comfort

but I've seen the photos. their little arms, legs, cloth
sloughing from skin decaying from bone / they wore
no shoes

where did they think they were going, Susan? how
could you send them alone?

6. that night

so sad. I've never felt
so alone. the road just
kept going, bridge, stopsign, go,

they were fussy
(one diver reports a small hand
against a window)

they were all going to leave me, it was all
going wrong. can't you see
I couldn't leave them

7:

lots of people live in hideous boxes, no light,
not even a tunnel

one friend says, I can't have kids because then
I won't be able to kill myself

a 1995 study by the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children
reports that mothers who murder their children
dispose of the bodies
in a distinctively womb-like manner,
some in water, some meticulously wrapped
in plastic

did you watch the car go down?

8:

the softest sound, a sucking, the water
puckering like a mouth, Mazda red
as a nipple I guess

someone called the emergency brake
a gun I pulled. I was in that car,
I tell you. in the backseat,
kissing them goodnight.

postscript: personal ad

I am 31 years old. I am looking to meet new people, and, hopefully, become friends. I enjoy reading, working puzzles, and writing. I love rainbows, Mickey Mouse, the beach, the mountains, and waterfalls. My favorite color is navy blue and my favorite flower is the daisy. I am a Christian and I enjoy attending church. I consider myself to be sensitive, caring, and kind-hearted. I'm currently serving a life sentence on the charge of murder. I have grown and matured alot since my incarceration, but I will always hurt for the pain I've caused so many, especially my children. I hope to receive letters from those who are not judgmental, and who are sincere. I look forward to hearing from new people and, hopefully, finding new friends. May God bless each one of you!

Please write me at:
Susan Smith #221487
Leath Corr. Inst.
2809 Airport Rd.
Greenwood SC 29649



***

notes:

Based on information from news reports and crimelibrary.com, “Susan Smith: Child Murderer or Victim?”

Post-script is nearly the full text from a personal ad Susan Smith placed in 2002, eight years after confessing to having drowned her two children.(www.smokinggun.com/archive/susansmithad1.html)

{by any other name}

I've been thinking about the nature of identity and name lately, the rub between what we're called and who we are, were, could be. the ritual of the woman surrendering her name at marriage, trying to divorce myself from the immediate feminist recoil at the idea, trying to honor the new names of women I love who have decided for this reason or that to embrace the notion of... see, I almost said becoming property of the husband. but not that, I assume, I assume it is what? a joining? but why her? why not a joining of the two, a meld or hyphenation (I know, the complexity,) but I know not one man who has given up his name. I know one who changed it legally to incorporate his wife's surname, but his for all public purposes remains unchanged.

maybe to remove it for a moment from the marriage quagmire: naming the self, the changing name. trying to rope identity into these letters, this sound, or release it therefrom: was I ever going to be a poet as Martha McConnell? was that combination of letters just to the left or right of the person who'd leave the stability her cancer self craves for this sprawling, stumbling life of art, and somehow the shift to Marty aligns some of the dark matter they say now constitutes most of the universe so that here is where I land? so far from a Des Plaines where Brooklyn was a movie set, an unreality, and certainly Trinidad nothing more than a footnote in a geography text I hadn't yet read?

and the rub is more and less than that: I've been looking at information about Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party," a massive art installation from the early 70's that features a plate for each of 39 women from history or mythology, plus 999 other names embroidered around the piece, and wondering about the power of reciting these, wondering about whether these women feel trapped in the embellished lettering of the names they were assigned and that haul them still into our consciousness, decades or centuries gone.

this may be the next book, this idea of what would they say. to each other, to the fabric, to the 400 anonymous women threading their names into cloth and manufacturing symbols onto plates. but what a project. how many voices, the 39 plus the 999, how to get any of it right.

so off to research, and to maybe leave this apartment before the sun goes down today. I have to perform for middle-schoolers this evening, and I can't imagine what I have that would be appropriate and not bore them to death. why do I say yes to these things.

oh, oh, I'm re-reading Heather McHugh's book "Shades" -- listen to this:

Earthmoving Malediction
by Heather McHugh

Bulldoze the bed where we made love,
bulldoze the goddamn room.
Let rubble be our evidence
and wreck our home.

I can't give touching up
by inches, can't give beating
up by heart. So set the comforter
on fire, and turn the dirt

to some advantage -- palaces of pigweed,
treasuries of turd. The fist
will vindicate the hand,
and tooth and nail

refuse to burn, and I
must not look back, as Mrs. Lot
was named for such a little --
something in a cemetary,

or a man. Bulldoze the coupled
ploys away, the cute exclusives
on the social mall. We dwell

on earth, where beds
are brown, where swoops
are fell. Bulldoze

the pearly gates:
if paradise comes down
there is no hell.

{by any other name}

I've been thinking about the nature of identity and name lately, the rub between what we're called and who we are, were, could be. the ritual of the woman surrendering her name at marriage, trying to divorce myself from the immediate feminist recoil at the idea, trying to honor the new names of women I love who have decided for this reason or that to embrace the notion of... see, I almost said becoming property of the husband. but not that, I assume, I assume it is what? a joining? but why her? why not a joining of the two, a meld or hyphenation (I know, the complexity,) but I know not one man who has given up his name. I know one who changed it legally to incorporate his wife's surname, but his for all public purposes remains unchanged.

maybe to remove it for a moment from the marriage quagmire: naming the self, the changing name. trying to rope identity into these letters, this sound, or release it therefrom: was I ever going to be a poet as Martha McConnell? was that combination of letters just to the left or right of the person who'd leave the stability her cancer self craves for this sprawling, stumbling life of art, and somehow the shift to Marty aligns some of the dark matter they say now constitutes most of the universe so that here is where I land? so far from a Des Plaines where Brooklyn was a movie set, an unreality, and certainly Trinidad nothing more than a footnote in a geography text I hadn't yet read?

and the rub is more and less than that: I've been looking at information about Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party," a massive art installation from the early 70's that features a plate for each of 39 women from history or mythology, plus 999 other names embroidered around the piece, and wondering about the power of reciting these, wondering about whether these women feel trapped in the embellished lettering of the names they were assigned and that haul them still into our consciousness, decades or centuries gone.

this may be the next book, this idea of what would they say. to each other, to the fabric, to the 400 anonymous women threading their names into cloth and manufacturing symbols onto plates. but what a project. how many voices, the 39 plus the 999, how to get any of it right.

so off to research, and to maybe leave this apartment before the sun goes down today. I have to perform for middle-schoolers this evening, and I can't imagine what I have that would be appropriate and not bore them to death. why do I say yes to these things.

oh, oh, I'm re-reading Heather McHugh's book "Shades" -- listen to this:

Earthmoving Malediction
by Heather McHugh

Bulldoze the bed where we made love,
bulldoze the goddamn room.
Let rubble be our evidence
and wreck our home.

I can't give touching up
by inches, can't give beating
up by heart. So set the comforter
on fire, and turn the dirt

to some advantage -- palaces of pigweed,
treasuries of turd. The fist
will vindicate the hand,
and tooth and nail

refuse to burn, and I
must not look back, as Mrs. Lot
was named for such a little --
something in a cemetary,

or a man. Bulldoze the coupled
ploys away, the cute exclusives
on the social mall. We dwell

on earth, where beds
are brown, where swoops
are fell. Bulldoze

the pearly gates:
if paradise comes down
there is no hell.

{awake at the wheel -- get it?}


Awake at the Wheel: The louderARTS Poetry Prize
www.louderARTS.com/awake

Deadline: February 1, 2005
Prize: $500 + reading with honorarium + publication in Rattapallax Magazine
2005 Judge: Laure-Anne Bosselaar

The louderARTS Project is proud to announce our first annual poetry prize, Awake at the Wheel.

As an organization dedicated to uniting the various worlds of poetry (writing and performing, traditionalist structure and slam form, study and action, personal and political, solitary and collaborative, genre-specific and genre-bending), in a way that is both altruistic and personally and artistically evolutionary, we seek poetry thattakes the kind of risks that keep us "awake at the wheel" – in other words, aware and vibrating to the world around us. Poetry, in essence, that saves our lives.

The poem that wins this contest will be one that shifts the air in the room where it's read. That rattles the atoms of a reader or listener. That breaks through the ordinary in its craft and expression in such a way that we are awakened to a new possibility, any new possibility.

For guidelines and contest details, go to www.louderARTS.com/awake or send a SASE to The louderARTS Projectattn: Prize CommitteePO Box 1247New York, NY 10276-1247
Submissions must be postmarked NO LATER THAN February 1, 2005.

The winner will be announced April 10, 2005 at http://www.louderarts.com/. The top three poems (winning poem plus two honorable mentions) will be published in Rattapallax Magazine (http://www.rattapallax.com/.) The author of the winning poem will be invited to perform at 13 Bar/Lounge, the home of excellent writing and performance in NYC since 1998, and provided an honorarium for the engagement.

Direct all questions to awake@louderARTS.com. No electronic submissions will be accepted.

{slouching toward Bethlehem to be born}

on three hours of sleep
one in a hotel bed
one on an airport floor
one on an airplane

the debates. sigh. how much I want someone to SAY something.

The Second Coming
-- W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?