Oh, Bernice!

A Sunnyside Smorgasbord

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:57:33 -0400

In addition to our Brooklyn Buffet, we here at Oh, Bernice! also offer you a Sunnyside Smorgasbord: Stefanie Lipsey will host readers Willa Carroll, Leila Ortiz, Tyler Rivenbark, and Sweta Srivastava Vikram. So if you don’t see us in Brooklyn, see us in Queens at Cafe Marlene at 7:30pm tomorrow, May 18th. Bring a bib.

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Willa Carroll, winner of Narrative Magazine’s Third Annual Poetry Contest, and a nominee for a Pushcart Prize, is a writer and performing artist. Her work has been published in Tin House, 5 AM, Narrative, Mary Magazine, Tuesday; An Art Project, Stone Canoe, and Readings for Writers (Edition 12) She’s a contributing poetry editor for Swink Magazine. While earning her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars, she was awarded a Liam Rector Scholarship. She’s performed in numerous multimedia works at NYC venues such as St. Mark’s Church, The Kitchen, P.S. 122, among others. She collaborates with her husband on projects that bridge filmmaking and literature. Video readings of her poems are online in Narrative.

Leila Ortiz is a poet and social worker from Park Slope, Brooklyn. Her poems have appeared in The Ledge and Stone Canoe, and she is currently an MFA candidate at the Queens College Creative Writing and Literary Translation program. Leila also likes to sing and dance.

Originally from North Carolina, Tyler Rivenbark is a graduate of the MFA program in Playwriting at Queens College where he is now a professor. His short plays, including Frogs; or How to Fail at Business, How They Played Games and Fell in Love, and Joe, have been produced with such theatre groups as Left Hip Productions, Abingdon Theatre and the Short Play Lab. His one-acts, (Silence) and Inside the Rain both premiered at Dixon Place experimental theatre. His full-length plays have had readings at The Actors Company Theatre, Playsmiths and First Foot Theatre. In 2009 he was a writer-in-residence at the Louis Armstrong Archive, a residency he now oversees. Recently he was commissioned by the Poetry Society of America to adapt the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of poems, Thomas and Beulah, for the stage. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild. When not working on plays he can be found playing music around the city: www.myspace.com/mygoodname.

Sweta Srivastava Vikram is an award-winning writer, two times Pushcart Prize nominated-poet, novelist, author, essayist, columnist, and educator whose musings have translated into four chapbooks of poetry, two collaborative collections of poetry, a book-length collection of poetry, a novel, and a nonfiction book of prose and poems. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, literary journals, and online publications across seven countries in three continents. A graduate of Columbia University, she reads her work, teaches creative writing workshops, and gives talks at universities and schools across the globe. Sweta lives in New York City with her husband.

A Brooklyn Buffet

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:55 -0400

In honor of Oh, Bernice! taking the stage at Lit Crawl BK, I decided to compile some random, food-related facts about the readers. (Because, who wants to read about their credentials, am I right?) The one thing they have in common? They all have never heard of Supermarket Sweep.

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Rajiv Mohabir has been hit in the face with such foodstuffs as cake, eggs, pepper sauce, and coffee. (Hopefully not all at the same time.) He still looks for restaurants that give crayons and color-in place mats.

John Reid Currie has been hit in the face by an alligator, and lived to tell the tale. He describes his typical holiday meal with his family as “argumentative, with a noticeable lack of fiber.”

Deborah Fried-Rubin is not a sandwich herself. Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy? Can she bake a cherry pie, darling Billy? You’ll have to come ask her yourself, Darling Billy, and you better ask nice. She isn’t a bakery, either.

Hoyt Jacobs is attempting to eat the world’s largest gummy bear. (You’re welcome, America.) He thinks sandwiches are gross and, therefore, is sub-human.

Peter Vanderberg is both a lover and a fighter—of breakfast-time barbarians. He has a sandwich named after him that is comprised entirely of beefcake and beefsteak.

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This buffet of readers will be presented to you by Jolie Hale, who when eating children knows that “The only good child is a batter-fried child.” (Possible slogan for Soylent Green?) Catch your dinner companions this Saturday at Last Exit 136 Atlantic Avenue, at 7:15PM. Come, listen, educate these readers (after the reading) on the finer points of supermarket-related gameshows.

Get ready, Brooklyn. red-lipstick: Decomposerdoll aka Sara...

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:02:01 -0400

Get ready, Brooklyn.

red-lipstick:

Decomposerdoll aka Sara Dunn - A New Addition To The Family, 2012 Paintings: Acrylics on Red Paper

Bernice Eats Brooklyn!

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:00:54 -0400

We show no mercy. Oh, Bernice! is polishing their silverware as they take their reading on the road to Brooklyn, as part of Lit Crawl BK.

Jolie Hale hosts team of hungry all-stars, ready to gobble up Cobble Hill:

Rajiv Mohabir
John Reid Currie
Deborah Fried-Rubin
Hoyt Jacobs
and Peter Vanderberg

Part two of the Oh, Bernice! double feature happens Saturday May 18th at Last Exit. (136 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.) Mashed potatoes beware!

May, Baby, May

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:01:00 -0400

May is here and maybe you’ll spend it with the likes of Oh, Bernice! on Saturday May 18th, when we’ll be hosting not one, but two readings. (It’s a bi-borough double feature!) First up, is Sunnyside:

Stefanie Lipsey hosts an evening worthy of Tom Selleck’s moustache:

Willa Carroll
Leila Ortiz
Tyler Rivenbark
Sweta Srivastava Vikram

The action starts at 7:30 PM in the usual place—the Cafe Marlene. (41-11 49th Street, Sunnyside, NY.) Be there!

You're Missing It!

Mon, 13 May 2013 19:07:19 -0400

Right now, as you read this text.

Tonight is the memorial service for one of the last true bohemians, poet and actor Taylor Mead, who died recently. I’m stuck at work, kicking myself. But, if you’re free, you should head down to this event, which celebrates his legacy.

- JR

bobholman:

The address is the same. 308 Bowery
The look is not
Come one and all
To Taylor’s boite

For the Love of Taylor Mead (1924-2013)

Taylor Mead, a poet, actor and exuberant bohemian who collaborated with Andy Warhol in the 1960s to nurture a new approach to making movies — sometimes spontaneously, always inexpensively (hand-held 16-millimeter cameras sufficed) and brashly experimental (one film consisted of an hourlong shot of Mr. Mead’s bare posterior) — died on Wednesday in Colorado. He was 88.”

Come celebrate the oft-storied life and “brilliant downtown zen” poetry of this quintessential New York figure.

6 - 9 pm, May 13

http://nyti.ms/12ke5I3

May-days

Thu, 09 May 2013 18:47:23 -0400

April is certainly over. (Goodbye, cruelty. Hello, Love.) And so is my month as the official Oh, Bernice! blogger. (I’ll give you a moment… Let it all out.) I want to thank everyone who came out to Cafe Marlene in April and made that night so special. I’m handing the reins back over to the very capable Brian Kim, seen here with a smoking baby:

(This is how we will combat Bloomberg’s second hand smoke laws.) You’ll still catch posts from me, now and then, but 2013 is, and always will be, The Year of Kim. And, together, we’ll take you through The Oh, Bernice! Double Feature, coming up in May, and on to the end of June.

Brian has a very fun blog called Criterion Collection As Haiku, where he chronicles his journey through some of the most respected films in world cinema. You should check it out.

- John Rice

poetsorg: Not sure what to read at the beach this summer? We’re...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:06:38 -0400

poetsorg:

Not sure what to read at the beach this summer? We’re pretty sure you would like one of these:

The Collected Poems
by Ai
Bringing together thirty years of poetry across eight books, this first complete edition of Ai’s work reveals her mastery of the dramatic monologue.

Quick Question
by John Ashbery
Despite his nerves and his remembrances, Ashbery’s rollicks show that he’s still one of our youngest poets at heart.

red doc >
by Anne Carson
This book finds Carson once again blurring the lines of prose and poetry, and challenging both genres within a single poem.

88 Sonnets
by Clark Coolidge
This welcoming embrace of the mind’s ghosts and dalliances amounts to a remarkable intimacy in Coolidge’s latest collection.

Senegal Taxi
by Juan Felipe Herrera
Herrera takes on Sudanese injustice in this latest collection of monologues, transcripts, and prose poems, telling the story of three children as they try to escape a ravaged village.
Lake Superior
by Lorine Niedecker
Written in the spare style that typifies her work, Niedecker’s poem was the distilled product of a road trip she took with her husband Al Millen in 1966.

Partially Kept
by Martha Ronk
Throughout her ninth collection, Ronk calls upon language to reconcile the space in which the body ends and nature begins.

Sorry Was in the Woods
by Michelle Taransky
Unlike Frost, who stopped himself from entering the woods out of fear, Taransky’s latest sends her headlong into darkness and deepness.

Meme
by Susan Wheeler
Much like memes themselves, which operate by means of refrain and repetition, each of these poems begins with a stock phrase that will ring familiar to most who grew up in America in the last fifty years.

Fall Higher
by Dean Young
Like Whitman, Young is a wandering poet whose tongue refuses nothing in its desire to taste the multitudes.

Summer reading (already?!) from the Academy of American Poets. What’s on your list?

Photo

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 10:02:06 -0400

Blood Oranges and Bleeding Hearts (Or, Why You Should All Love Jenna Telesca)

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:01:06 -0400

John: Tell me about the last time you were cruel.

Jenna: I try to be kind.

And she is. So don’t forget to come to Oh, Bernice this Saturday to tell her so.

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Jenna Telesca is a reporter and a short story writer. Podcasts and blood oranges are her current obsessions. She is founder of the Oh, Bernice Writers Collective.

"I’ve got a poem in my pocket for you."

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:50:21 -0400

“I’ve got a poem in my pocket for you.”

- - Oh, Bernice!

(Happy Poem In Your Pocket Day!)

Sachiko Clayton, Cat Lover

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:01:00 -0400

John: Tell me about the last time you were cruel.

Sachiko: I denied my cat string time a couple of nights ago.

How could you, Sachi? To donate string to Sachiko’s cat, come to Oh, Bernice this Saturday at 7:30 with yarns in tow.

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Sachiko Clayton is a poet and translator from Queens. Her writing explores cultural-hybridity, homeland and handmade objects. She is also a research librarian at the New York Public Library.

Rivenblog

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:47:35 -0400

Bernice’s own Tyler Rivenbark wrote a guest post on Newtown Literary’s Queens Blog about our reading series. You should check it out:

http://newtownliterary.org/2013/04/16/queens-literary-heroes-oh-bernice/

It’s a great summation of what we do. Groovy language for a groovy scene.

The Certain Cruelty Of Aracelis Girmay

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:01:21 -0400

Aracelis has two books of poetry published and, therefore, doesn’t need to be subjected to my wacky questionnaires. But, I assure you, she is cruel. She once bit her own teeth.

Her work is beautiful in it’s lyric grace and sincerity. It’s almost cruel to subject an audience to this kind of talent. To get a better sense of her work, you should read this short prose piece, a rumination on poetry, she posted on the Poetry Society of America website, after the publication of her first book, Teeth, which includes her poem, “Snail, or, To a House.”

See her read along with a whole lineup of talented writers at the Oh, Bernice! reading Series, this Saturday at Cafe Marlene in Sunnyside, Queens.

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Aracelis Girmay, is an Assistant Professor of poetry at Hampshire College. She received her B.A. from Connecticut College and an M.F.A. in poetry from New York University.

Aracelis Girmay’s collage-based picture book, changing, changing, was published by George Braziller in 2005. Her first book of poems, Teeth, was published by  Curbstone Press in 2007, and her second poetry collection, Kingdom Animalia, was published by BOA Editions in October, 2011.

Girmay has taught community writing workshops with young people for the last ten years. During  this time, she worked with the ACTION Project, a teen arts and social justice program in the Bronx founded by Hampshire College alum Tanya Gallo. Girmay has also taught at Queens College and is currently on the faculty of Drew  University’s low residency M.F.A. program. Most recently her work has centered on metamorphosis in relation to cities and bodies.

Her current interests in poetry include poetry of the Americas, contemporary African American poetry, and poetry of the “political imagination.” She is also deeply interested in the work of the metaphor as trope, invention, socio-cultural record—and as a transformational practice of “seeing” that informs one’s understanding of the earth, among other possibilities.

"I’m sorry I can’t go to Oh, Bernice! but I saw your event [on Facebook] and it made me..."

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:30:40 -0400

“I’m sorry I can’t go to Oh, Bernice! but I saw your event [on Facebook] and it made me feel bad that I was missing it.”

- - Kimiko Hahn

If Kimiko Hahn feels bad about missing Oh, Bernice! just imagine how you’ll feel if you miss out. Save yourself the pain and come out to Sunnyside this Saturday.

Kimiko at The Strand, Tonight @7PM

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:01:23 -0400

Bring your beach umbrella and your snorkel, Kimiko Hahn is going to be at The Strand tonight as part of a celebration for the tenth anniversary of the PSA Chapbook Fellowship. All the cool kids will be there.

http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/events/nyc/#psa_chapbook_reading_at_the_stra

$10 for general public,$5 for PSA Members.

Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway

Brian Kim Is An Onion

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:01:08 -0400

John: Tell me about the last time you were cruel.

Brian: I don’t know if this was actually cruel, but I felt cruel doing it: There’s a student in my Intro to Creative Writing class who, for the first four or five weeks, really wasn’t putting much effort into her assignments. To give you a hint: Her characters’ names were Jack & Jill or Ted & Ned. It felt like she spent the least amount of time possible on her stories. So after a few weeks of this, I asked to speak with her after class. Once all the other students had left, I told her that I was worried she wasn’t putting an effort into her assignments. She didn’t say anything, she just kind of nodded her head slightly. I said that she wasn’t in danger of failing, but that I wanted to see her participate more in discussions and try harder with her in-class and outside-of-class assignments. I could see her eyes were starting to tear up. Quietly, she said, “I know I can do better.” I said I was glad to hear that, that I was looking forward to seeing her improved work. She nodded once more, then left before she could cry in front of me. And that not-seeing-her-cry-but-knowing-she-was-going-to-cry-very-soon look made me feel really cruel.

Join Brian in a good cry this Saturday at the Oh, Bernice! reading series.

———-

Brian Kim, resident lefty, writes short fiction. He graduated from the MFA program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College, where he now teaches as an adjunct professor. He was a 2011 writer-in-resident at the Louis Armstrong House Museum Archive. His longtime publishing goal has been to get something on McSweeney’s.net, an endeavor that is still in progress. In the meantime, he’s been making his way through half of the Criterion Collection. Follow his progress at criterioncollectionashaiku.tumblr.com.

Both Sides of Rejection

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:00:59 -0400

Speaking of the Newtown Literary blog, you should check out this post from Editor-in-Chief Tim Fredrick called “Both Sides of Rejection”:

http://newtownliterary.org/2013/03/08/both-sides-of-rejection/

It’s good insight for all you writers out there. (Myself included.)

Meet Audrey Dimola

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:01:22 -0400

John Rice here, blogging in preparation of hosting for this month’s edition (4/20/13) of the Oh, Bernice! Reading Series. As a way to best get to know the readers, I asked them all the same question.

Tell me about the last time you were cruel.

Audrey: In my dreams I often wind up as a town-smashing dragon - pretty cruel to all those dream-townspeople. As penance, in my waking life I save spiders instead of smooshing them. YOU’RE WELCOME.

We’re welcome, indeed.

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Audrey Dimola is a journalist, editor, poet, and arts event curator born in Astoria/Long Island City, Queens where she (proudly!) still lives. She has performed at Bowery Poetry Club, Brooklyn Museum, and the NY Aquarium, and her articles, poetry/prose, and photos have been published in print and online. Audrey is the author of “Decisions We Make While We Dream,” an original collection of work spanning 2000 to 2012, and in 2013 she founded “Nature of the Muse,” a Queens literary series playing with themes of inspiration and on-the-spot creation. She loves to explore and lives by these words: stay wild, stay grateful. http://audreydimola.com/

And, if you really want to get to know Audrey, you should check out the entry she wrote about her reading series for the Newtown Literary blog http://newtownliterary.org/2013/03/28/discover-nature-of-the-muse-in-lic/ which focuses on the idea of live, improvisational writing.

Follow The Travelling Typewriter

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:30:37 -0400

Don’t worry, you’re not hallucinating: that typewriter is travelling—

as part of Queens Writes! weekend festivities. Gabriel Cabrera of Newtown Literary will be rambling around the borough of Queens with his magic typewriter, this Saturday April 13th, as a fundraiser for the journal. Anyone who can spare a dollar can type a line, culminating in one long group poem that will be published in the upcoming issue of NL.

http://newtownliterary.org/travelingtypewriter/

Interested? (I know you are.) Follow the link for more information, or follow Gabriel on Twitter @GabesTypewriter for live updates.