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INCOMING
28 June 2008. Performanceworks Northwest Benefit Performance.
verse. chorus. bridge.
(instruction: Improvise a bridge between here and there)
for Gallery Homeland's Scratching the Surface Saturday and Sunday, July 22-23, 4 PM. Just north of the Hawthorne Bridge on the Eastside of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon.
The albatross and the anodyne necklace.
RECENT
May 2008. Spare Room Reading Series.
April 27. Research and Development (Radon, DuRoche, Jason DuMars) at the White Eagle.
May 1. First Thursday at Chambers Gallery (207 SW Pine). Research & Development (that's Radon DuRoche and Jason DuMars).
April 26. Read at Bold-Sky (w/ TdR) on bill with Dan Raphael (who killed it) and Christopher Luna at invitation of Sage Cohen who has good thing going up there on N. Miss at Bold-Sky.
April 15. POETLAND. Hosted one of the zillion readings Dan Raphael organized for this one-day-only event. Ours was at Rake Gallery. TdR and I did some new work, modified verbal "dances" based on more Marinetti. V. exciting. Trevino Brings Plenty, Paul Ash...it was a good time.
January 17, Tim DuRoche and I were featured at Portland Jazz Jam at Mississippi Pizza. Lucky to have Dennis Ciazza on bass. Had only heard him straight up before...he was amazing, as far out as you want to go.
3 November. Our collaboration with Doug Theriault and Nobu Ozaki with Jason DuMars at Red and Black's Paxselin Presents series, is reviewed in a chewy and delicious way by artist and writer TJ Norris, on his weblog Is it Art?. Thank you, TJ. And thank you to Doug, Nobu, and Jason. And thanks Mary Sue Tobin for the invitation. Let the games begin.
25 October. Sat in for a couple of poems at the Portland Jazz Jams session at Mississippi Pizza before Dan Raphael blew the roof off the place. I love that guy. TdR negotiated rhythm and openness in a beautiful way for the couple of interrelated pieces from the Fireplace Road suite.
24 October. Interviewed on Artstar Radio show on KPSU by artist, gallerist, and fashion superstar Eva Lake. Find archive here for a limited time. Be warned, the second half of the interview concerns poem, the first half: fashion. Because Eva Lake and I are like that.
12 August. Richard Foreman Festival at PWNW with Tim DuRoche.
14 August. Some Angels Wear Black: Selected Poems by Eli Coppola, A Posthumous Book Release Party at Reading Frenzy. A reading to celebrate the life and work of Bay Area poet, Eli Coppola. Local authors Chris Cottrell, Trevino Brings Plenty, Lisa Radon, Dan Raphael, Emily Riley, Doug Spangle, and Michael Walsh read selections from the posthumously published Some Angels Wear Black, edited by David West, with an introduction by Michelle Tea (Manic D Press, 2005). Thanks to the readers.
23 May. The Poetry Shock Troops, which is to say TdR and I, go to DaVinci Arts Middle School to blow the doors off pre-existing notions of poem. We perform and have the kids of Felice Atesoglu's morning and afternoon core classes (6th through 8th graders) make instant(-ish) poems.
5 March. In the galleries of the Portland Art Museum, read the poems of one of Portland's cultural fathers, equal parts political radical and desert-loving nature poet. Charles Erskine Scott Woods was pals with Childe Hassam, and so with curator Margeret Bullock we tag-teamed gallery talk and poem. It was a ball.
15 February. Talk to 4th/5th grade class at The Emerson School about performing poems. Try to convince them to join the forces of good to eliminate bad poetry readings. Lately seems I'm doing more talking about poetry than either making poems or reading them.
24 January. Tim DuRoche and I perform for the students of The Emerson School (a charter elementary school).
12 December. Read at Mountain Writers Center for Spare Room Reading Series with Seattle's Doug Nufer who is a card. Love his novel in which each word can only be used once. Think he may be a genius.
10+11 December. Tim DuRoche and I perform "Aqueous (E)vent No. 1" at Fete du Penta, the benefit variety-show for Cydney Wilke's Penta: Five Elements, Five Seasons. Mike Barber's Cliff's Notes version of Penta (in a bathtub) was brilliant.
17 October. Interesting. The closing event of the Portland Design Festival in honor of Mayor Vera Katz and her efforts to "fuel the creative economy of Portland." On the outer rim of the Memorial Coliseum, there were fashion shows, dancing girls, political comedians, ... and an experimental poet and drummer duo...us.
28 August. We phone it in. A recording of our "(De)composition, Poem for Erasure by a Drummer" is played at Spare Room's gigantic 2004 Sound Poetry Festival.
21 August. Richard Foreman Festival benefit performance for PerformanceWorks Northwest. With one week to make a piece out of a zillion pages of Foreman text, at the second-to-last-minute we marry Richard and Gertrude Stein and Lawrence of Arabia. Molly who is nine, performs with us and is a rock.
7 August. Tim and I perform for Jonathan Little's Urban Vibe show on Portland Community Media, first pre-recording a set, then standing in on the live show for a no-show poet. Thanks Jonathan and to David Valdez for hooking us up.
27 June. We did a set at the Subterranean Beat Revival at the Rabbit Hole (hosted by Chris Cottrell). Tim DuRoche played drums+little instruments, comme d'habitude, Jonathan Blakeslee was on contrabass (thank you Jonathan!) plus Michael York on saxophone.
2 July. Sound Poet Paul Dutton cancelled last minute for the Various Artists' Words(Sounds) in Freedom gig at Disjecta's Million but Arrington DeDionyso, Scott Rosenberg, and from Italy, Jacopo Andreini did a short but virulent set of trios and solos. Yeah. mARK oWEns and Ashley Edwards, subset of the performance group JJMAD, did a Kurt Schwitters piece and their "Alphabet Soup Poem" in which each audience member reads his or her cup of alphabet soup aloud. TdR and I did new work. Million is a perfect black box just right for these kinds of performances. Thank you Mr. Suereth.
21+23 April, TdR and I do a performance/workshop at Franklin High through Literary Arts Writers in the Schools. It was a blast. We had the mix of drama and English students take a piece of "October in the Railroad Earth' and make a poem or performance out of it. They surprised.
12 April at 7 PM, I read at Dan Raphael's long-running "I Love Poetry" reading at Borders in downtown Portland with Mr. Doug Spangle. And National Poetry Month is kicked off fabulously.
The March Rhizomatica 3 hightlights were Linda Austin's improvisation with floor mat, the Jonathans' improvised set, and grand concepts.
March 19, TdR and self did Kevin Sampsell's Word Circus with his Haiku Inferno, Crystal Williams, and many other folks at the (new and improved) Liberty Hall.
Spare Room/Passages Marathon Reading of Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons and Ted Berrigan’s The Sonnets at Kalga Café was a blast (I loved having words of Gertrude in my mouth). Joseph Bradshaw, Matt Marble, David Abel, Ashley Edwards, Maryrose Larkin.... Also: water in shiny copper cups.
More of me reading not my poems: for Listen To The Reed, read translations of 13th century Persian poet Rumi (w/ David Abel) at Reed College in February
email lisaradon@variousartists.org