July 8, 2012
Sarah Bartlett, Chris McCreary & Jenn McCreary
Sunday, July 87:30 pm
Open Space Cafe
2815 SE Holgate
Portland, OR
$5 suggested donation
Sarah Bartlett lives in Portland, OR. She is the co-author of two chapbook collaborations: Baby On The Safe Side Publishing Genius 2011) and A Mule Shaped Cloud (horse less press 2008). Her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in: iO, Eleven Eleven, Phantom Limb, Heavy Feather Review, Spork, Sixth Finch, NOO, inter|rupture, Jellyfish, Filter, New Delta Review, Burnside Review, Raleigh Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Chris McCreary's most recent books of poems is Undone : A Fakebook (Furniture Press, 2010), and a new chapbook, Elseworlds, is forthcoming from Cy Gist Press. His reviews and interviews have been published in venues such as Rain Taxi and The Poetry Project Newsletter, and his short fiction can be found online at BlazeVOX. Along with Jenn McCreary, he co-edits ixnay press, a tiny Philadelphia-based poetry press.
Jenn McCreary is the author of :ab ovo: (Dusie Press, 2009), & of several chapbooks, most recently Odyssey & Oracle (Least Weasel Press, 2011). A new full-length collection, & now my feet are maps, is forthcoming from Dusie in 2012. She lives with her family in Philadelphia where she co-edits ixnay press with the writer Chris McCreary, wrangles twins, & charms snakes.
Sunday Is A Series Of Hands
When they toss leaves off
the roof, they hit the ground
like dead bodies.
I put the thud in my chest
for later when I'll need it.
The clouds have taken over
a monotonous haul.
Your telescope is a metaphor,
and anyway, you can't use it here.
Don't you feel it?
Every broken thing just arrived
completely healed for the day.
In this diorama, you are
the tree and I am the same tree.
We are making a stand.
Miracles are rarely solvent.
Every day, a woman
inside the darkest shrine
rubs sacred dirt on her
sorest parts, gets up to leave.
The sounds she creates
while praying make a mouse
jealous. It starts to eat
through the wall.
Sarah Bartlett
Lectures in the Everdark
I dress in the half-
light & then it's empty porches,
the sleepy
baristas. Dark roast, yes,
even headlights as synecdoche & yet
I'm Still Life w/Donut
in search of
better verb. Something there is
that doesn't love
pentameter, & how my thesis
turns specter when cross-
hatched at its seems. Tenebrism,
Emma says,
for want of hot chocolate. More coffee I
auger. Mont Blanc on the
blackboard, first frost
on the quad.
Chris McCreary
Poem For My Daughter
for Kirsten Kaschock
Your undaughter is born during a
thunderstorm a hurricane a nor'easter at
the ocean a pop-up blizzard in late March
& April is the cruelest month & she is born
during a full moon a blue moon a hunter's
moon a harvest moon & you name her
something mythological archetypal Gaelic
after your favorite doll & she is called Ariadne
Jane Faye Blythe & you take her to the
museum the library the seaside the
playground Paris Coney Island the Four
Seasons in maryjanes & starched eyelet for
high tea & she wears pigtails wears bangs
wears striped tights wears knit cardigans &
she knits paints writes plays playacts & plays
the cello the piano the guitar & sings in
a choirloft sings around campfires sings
at bonfires on the beach at night under
fireworks & she loves peanut-butter pickles
olives coffee ice-cream ice-skating body-
surfing Shakespeare & you sing to her hush
little all the pretty little horse & cart turn over
the ocean beyond the sea & read to her Little
Red Riding Hood Little Women Little House
on the Prairie Bridge to Terabithia Narnia &
when you send her into the forest you arm her
you armor her she has a knife in her basket a
needle in her basket a bottle of wine a loaf of
bread a spool of thread a silver bullet &
still & yet & everafter.
Jenn McCreary