February 10, 2008

Hank Lazer & Laura Feldman

Spare Room presents...


Hank Lazer

Laura Feldman


Sunday, February 10th, 7:30 pm


New American Art Union
922 SE Ankeny

$5.00 suggested donation


Hank Lazer's books of poetry include The New Spirit (Singing Horse, 2005), Elegies & Vacations (Salt, 2004), and Days (Lavender Ink, 2002). He is a Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where he is also an administrator serving as the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs. With Charles Bernstein, he edits the Modern and Contemporary Poetics Series for the University of Alabama Press. Lyric & Spirit: Selected Essays 1996-2008, just out from Omnidawn, will be available at the reading.

Laura Feldman has published two chapbooks, Café Songs (Apetulous Press, 1984) and Prosthetic Landscapes (Full Deck, 2002). She was one of the founding members of Spare Room, and has been a percussionist with the Mambo Queens, a singer with the Afro-Cuban performing ensemble Omo Iré, and a percussionist with the Lions of Batucada Samba band in Portland.


an excerpt from "6" (in The New Spirit)


soul upon waters    soul in air    soul goes thinking

scribe sky    soonest mended    shut eyes    embrace shining after-image

verb without complication

            that state of being

        air bubbles

rise to surface    & burst    as we are lived

bells toll

            each quarter-hour arrives    departs

        reaches the surface

against that face

        bursts    bell-toll absorbed    within recurring sky


—Hank Lazer


How To Write About Africa

1. Maribou stork next to Peace Corps office in Kampala

2. Patricia’s pig

3. Road to district office

4. Catholic church in Bujuni Parish. My house down below

5. My front door

6. Back of my house with my book and Jack fruit --two of my favorite past times

7. My first housekeeper Agnes burning my storage pot for water

8. Chapati maker in Karuguza, the nearest trading center

9. Nyamugura Primary school

10. You were burned up other in it. As you meant as it was meant. You make peace with your destiny on these roads. Muzungu how are you?

11. Pupils of St. Thereza’s slashing the compound under the direction of Sr. John Mary

12. One of the shops in Karuguza

13. Not an unusual way for folks to travel

14. Kitaba Primary School

15. Some of my friends in town

16. Find the Colubus monkey

17. Road to St. Luanga Kikaada primary school. On the way back it rained and it took me two hours to go 4 kls. on my bike

18. Daren and her friend coloring

19. A typical family shamba (farm)

20. Me and Jenny one of my language trainers

21. St. Olivia’s Speech Day which happens at the end of the term when the parents come to see their children perform

—Laura Feldman