November 2, 2003

Chris Daniels & David Abel

Sunday, November 2, 2003, 7:30 pm
Mountain Writer's Center
3624 SE Milwaukie (5 blocks south of Powell Blvd.)
Portland, Ore.

Suggested donation $5


About the readers:

Chris Daniels was born in NYC in 1959, dropped out of high school, never bothered with college, and has lived (and worked a great many jobs) in the SF Bay Area since 1980. A musician and poet, he now focuses his energies on the translation of lusophone poetry. A large selection of his translations of Fernando Pessoa appeared in Crayon #3; his extraordinary versions of Josely Vianna Baptista's poems, On the Shining Screen of the Eyelids, were published this year by Manifest Press; and just out is rattapallax 9, a special issue on New Brazilian and American Poetry, with many translations by Chris. He detests apparatchiki even more than apparatchiki detest poetry.

David Abel works as a freelance copyeditor and bookdealer in Portland. He is a founding member of Spare Room, and the editor/publisher of envelope. Recent live works include the videopoem/tableau "Frozen Sea" (at the Collaborative Poetics Festival), the installation/performance "Permanent Red" at the Modern Zoo (with Tim DuRoche), "Dr. Selavy's Dream" in the Richard Foreman mini-festival at Performance Works NW; and appearances with the sound poetry ensemble JJ Mad. Recently published works include the poem "Threnos," designed and sewn on a thirty-seven-foot ribbon by the artist Katherine Kuehn, and the long collage essay "Conduction," which appeared in "Conduit," an exhibition catalogue devoted to the work of Anna Hepler.


MINIMA MORALIA

i've done it all with words

now i want to do it all with nothing


1984: YEAR 1, ORWELLIAN ERA

while mortals
accelerate uranium
the monarch
immortal
for a day
elaborates its
cyclamen flight

Haroldo de Campos
(trans. by Chris Daniels)


THE PRESENT

Since nothing lasts forever,
life ought to be a breeze--
but it isn't that simple.

My friend at the South Pole
(which won't stay put)
writes from the future

of ancient ice, that today
is harder to imagine
than fourteen billion other days

without rain. He says
nothing of the kind.
You could almost see him

squinting at the muttonbird horizon,
almost feel my hand
when the stormbird calls.

David Abel