The Eights--Launch, Celebration, Reading on 14 June in PARIS at 8pm

 

Every year going back quite a few now, it has been essential to my friends and I to remember the PLAY in art, and to let go of the ego and the eye and make poems together. This project was inspired by The 3:15 Experiment published by The Owl Press in 2001 which collected together writing by Bernadette Mayer, Danika Dinsmore, Lee Anne Brown and Jen Hofer. When my friends--Lisa Pasold, Barbara Beck, Michelle Noteboom and I--read that book, we decided to add a twist to the idea of knowing we were all writing at the same time: we wrote at the same time (our first time at midnight) for 10 days, but then we gave these writings to each other (we call these our "pre-writes"). From these pages of prewrites, we make--what we call "orchestrate"--poems. Most often, we have each supplied 4 poems of some sort to the collections which we then have self designed into chapbooks and then thrown public parties from friends who gather, share food and drink, and listen to a little reading linked to the time of the original writing--that first being, Midnight! I still remember the candelabra at Lisa Pasold's house and our lovely friends who came out to share with us the pretty first object we had made together. 

Now we have moved well around the clock. And this year it was the turn of the 8. Most of us wrote 8, or oddly 7 or 9 (poets can't count, or refuse to, rather!) We have been ordering and laying out our chapbook and Friday night we will be at Lisa's place putting the final touches into this year's cover. We have, in the past, stencilled, sewn, patched, staple-bound, wrapped and strung in a variety of ways our A5 sized "DoItYourself" editions; This year, we have added a twist and the binding will come from a new direction. Should be fun. Hope you can join us. We do host our events at a private house, and ask anyone who attends to treat this like a neighborhood potluck--bring some food to share, or / and drinks. In recent years we have also associated a cocktail creation with our reading events. To save us from over imbibing, we did NOT choose to make a cocktail containing 8 ingredients! The base this spring will be whiskey and the rest is for you to sample this delectable concoction sur place Saturday. 

Cost of our chaps? We sell them at cost. All the labor and the time are our gift to you--and each other! 

And, because the 8s allowed me to go look at a LOT of great octopus images, here is another invite image for you: 

Photos thanks to FabFunky: get that blue and white octopus print at https://www.fabfunky.com/products/octopus-8-blue-nautical-print-coastal-art?variant=48004608524608 The second image is on Pintrest
 

THE FOURS by Barbara Beck Jennifer K Dick Michelle Noteboom and Lisa Pasold

The Fours: out today! 

 

 

The 8th, and newest, chapbook in the collaborative 8-hand series by Barbara Beck, Jennifer K Dick, Lisa Pasold and Michelle Noteboom.

We shall brunch-read in celebration of this very YELLOW thus bright for summer newest installment in this project.

Process and history note: 

Born out of the 3:15 experiment, having decided to take a twist by all writing each year for 10 days at same time what we call "prewrites". This is basicallythe step where the 3:15 experiment by Lee Ann Brown, Bernadette Mayer, Jen Hofer and Danika Dinsmore stopped. They then gathered their shared writings from the same time together, each author in their own zone. We wanted to overlap the work somehow. SO, we decided to take the pre-writes as base material. 

So, once completed, we give this naked, unedited material to each other. Then, using the writings of all 4 of us, we each "orchestrate" from that 4 new poems, adding, subtracting, rearranging, playing across our four voices, thoughts, observations from a shared time though while we were in different spaces. Language from all of us, which arose in a shared time, coalesceses into these poems. 

Then, in our annual, each time a bit different design--to match some element of the project--we make our DoItYourselfEditions chaps for the celebratory brunch sortie where we share the fruits of our collaboration with any and all of you who are around. That celebration is nigh--as in, FOURs so 4pm today!

The history of these: We began with THE MIDNIGHT POEMS (and an evening of cocktails with brief reading at midnight). We have also done The 13s, The Solstice poems (21), Aquatic 7s, The Elevens, High Noon, and a hors séries one for an Art Show by Kate Van Houten "of a certain order". More to come!

Jennifer K Dick texts on THE END OF NOW

The weirdest writing project I have participated in? The End of Now a very exciting, engaged group reflecting on collaborative artististic and curatorial processes. On the BRIDGES part of the site, you click words to see "stars" with my texts in them. Origins of this?: A group of researchers asked me to take their piles of dossiers and reflections about their projects and sort of "make poems". Which I did. And (rarer than rare for an author) I got some money for doing this. I also participated in a lot of conversations about the making of the site, which is visually lovely but still hard to navigate. The unfortunate side of things is that as the work went on and people grew tired, I was never informed that the work had been published in the visual play site format we had been struggling with. This form that we had worked on for awhile together. SO, no where on this site, or around these poems, is it revealed that this is my writing. But it is. And it was a lot of fun to work with them on this. And I hope you will therefore enjoy these random "stars"

So, find a constellation in the BRIDGES section of the website: https://theendofnow.org/bridges/topics/. Open a star by clicking on it. Read ad hoc the bits and bobs which emerged a few years ago from this project. But also I had fun hyperlinking back through elements of the project and previous projects and to other videos and texts and art pieces that were part of our ongoing dialogue at the time. So enjoy the work by others these small bits of text spiral out to!

Video Readings and Projects

Here are a few links to recent videos of me reading:

 

1) April 2020: In lieu of reading in Ypsilanti, MI, I made an in-quarantine reading of ASM (Arctic Shield Mission) with background sounds. This is from SHELF BREAK, a manuscript in process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__KKaL4v2WQ&feature=youtu.be

2) In lieu of reading in Athens, GA at Avid Books, I made this in-quarantine reading of Timber Hitch, a poem which appears in Jacket2 HERE. This poem is also from SHELF BREAK, a manuscript in process. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSpWjrk8rbc

3) A reading by my of my translation of the amazing poet Virginie Poitrasson. Here we are on stage for the Paris Lit Up launch in Fall 2015. https://youtu.be/5L8TBT5MplE

4) A snippet from the middle of salon house reading in New Orleans, LA at the end of February, before Lisa Pasold and I set off on the road across the south reading and doing workshops. Filmed by Bremner Duthie. (this gets a bit better sound quality wise towards the end). I am reading an extract from LILITH: A Novel in Fragments (Corrupt, 2019). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVGD0a2yqMU&feature=youtu.be

5) A section of LILITH: A NOVEL IN FRAGMENTS (Corrput, 2019) recorded in lieu of reading on the 19th of April in Athens, GA though only posted up online in April 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWlvbLyjhrM

6) Participation as filmer in LE FILM DES INSTANTS / THE FILM OF MOMENTS, collaborative project orchestrated by Frank Smith where 52 people filmed 1 minute from their windows on 29 March 2020 during set times to make this 12-12:53 film. : on VIMEO at: https://vimeo.com/404007303

OLDER VIDEOS:

7) A not-new reading video, but for your interest for anyone who has not seen it, made by Lisa Pasold in 2017. Radial. At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhFqjW0hruw

8) I am also one of the voices and poets reading during the film LE MOULIN, by Gilles Weinzaepflan. My reading part begins at 8m50. I am reading an extract of the poem Collectif: that appears in my forthcoming book THAT WHICH I TOUCH HAS NO NAME (Eyewear, Oct 2020):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjd83luhmtw&t=37s 

9) LECTURE pour remue.net en français: https://remue.net/Nuit-remue-11-Jennifer-K-Dick

10) Reading at the Tears in The Fence poetry festival, Fall 2014. Introduction by David Caddy. Filmed by Tom Kiziewicz and Georgie McGregor, Produced by Andrew Henon with thanks to Somerset Film. In this video I do calm down a bit after those first few nervous minutes. I read the poems "Animal Logic", "The Memory Machine", taken from by book CIRCUITS (Corrupt, 2013) and a selection of CERN poems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJp1qq8hf3Q

11) Also: film of my installation in Basel at the SBB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmye8THGxww&t=75s

5 Poems by Jennifer K Dick in Women Poetry Migration a Theenk Books anthology

Now out, containing 5 of my poems from my forthcoming Eyewear, London, UK book That Which I Touch Has No Name (2019) is the anthology Women: Poetry: Migration (Theenk Books, 2018). Each poetry selection is followed by a mini essay by the author, such as one found in the great experimental poetry anthology a few years back edited by Etter, one of the poets in this collection which is here edited and prefaced by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa.

The book "women: poetry: migration [an anthology]", 326 pp., ISBN 978-0-9883891-6-8, $25.00 USD, is edited by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, featuring poetry and accompanying essays by 50 women living in a country other than that of their birth, and it is now on sale.  

I am thrilled to find my work next to poets I have LONG admired, such as Rosmarie Waldrop, Norma Cole or N Nourbese Philip as well as friends whose work I continue to admire greatly, such as Donna Stonecipher, Jody Pou, Barbara Beck, Adeena Karasick, Yuko Otamo and MANY others I will hope you will go and discover for yourselves!

Visit the publisher's website to order, theenk Books: http://www.therepublicofcalifornia.com/theenk/theenkBooks.htm.  For a list of the contributors, please visit the website.  Inquiries: theenkbooks(at)twc.com
What some readers and Critics have had to say about this anthology:

"Exile (to echo Edmond Jabès) is a fundamental condition of poetry.These 50 poets make diaspora home ground. They are the lightning rods of a non-national poetry of “between” that pushes against nativism through sheer aesthetic exuberance and necessity of innovation." -- CHARLES BERNSTEIN

"Women : Poetry : Migration is a superb, refreshing anthology.  As nationalism and the rigidity of territorial and linguistic boundaries, under challenge, erode, this anthology of poetry by women provides a wide-ranging and innovative look at this migratory time in the writing of poetry.  Migratory in terms of place and the changing nature of location, undergoing challenge and redefinition in terms of gender identity, and in transit as a polylingual consciousness and multilingual ways of writing become more and more evident.  My congratulations to the editor for her vision, imagination, and persistence, and to the women who have contributed such remarkable writing to the anthology." --HANK LAZER

"Jane Joritz-Nakagawa has undertaken a remarkable editorial task in bringing together avant-garde women poets who are also migrants.  If, as Susan Suleiman wrote, the avant-garde woman poet is doubly marginalised, then these poets are in a triple lock of marginalisation.  Yet, as the anthology demonstrates, this can be a source of strength and transformation, which gives them a centrality, not only in their own lives, but in the cultural development of their adopted country.  Indeed, some of these poets have played a crucial role in shaking up mainstream poetics."--FRANCE PRESLEY

"“on google earth I write down my name” writes Ania Walwicz in this ecstatic anthology, women: poetry: migration. With sharp eye and ear, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa has gathered arresting, often experimental, poetry by women living outside the lands of their birth. These are poems where the “trans” – translation; transculture; transformation –inhabits the unsettling language of identity and location, with multiplicity, cosmopolitanism and the “push and pull” (Bella Li) of writing desire. Every page offers shifts of imagery or perspective as witness to embodiment, alterity, and hybridities of language. In the plural worlds of the poets, we hear how border crossing constructs a life (Fawzia Afzal-Khan) and “utopianism” always “goes wrong” (Donna Stonecipher)." --ANNE ELVEY

“Where am I going? I am getting there.”  Amanda Ngoho Reavey’s words might serve as a motto for this wide-ranging, transnational anthology, which gathers 50 women poets who live in countries other than the ones in which they were born.  This premise is the spark for an explosion of aesthetic experimentation that both maps and crosses boundaries of gender and nation.  From the shuttling between Japan and Canada, Vietnam and Australia, or Zimbabwe and the United States, the authors gathered here elucidate a poetics formed in process."--TIMOTHY YU

"My response to this collection is subjective as I was once someone who lived and wrote for a while outside of my native land. In women: poetry: migration, I could relive the excitement of pleasurable dislocation I felt some of the time I lived abroad. For instance, I liked experimenting or “deconsecrating” one language with another language to “make it clearer” (Jody Pou) and discovering through writing “what I don’t know” (Tsitsi Jaji). That being said, this collection is open to any reader who is engaged by thoughtful, sensual, humorous and political ideas.  In her essay in this anthology, Rosemarie Waldrop concludes, “If the poem works…it will set off vibrations in the reader, an experience with language — with the way it defines us as human beings.” I certainly felt the reverberation of language(s) as I read the poems and essays in this collection. It’s up to us as readers what we do next." --DEBORAH RICHARDS

"This anthology edited by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa is more than a poetic fact. It is a political fact because it presents to the public poets displaced from their countries and in a real conflict with theircultures. Perhaps this is the definition of poetry: art in conflict with language and origin. Jane Joritz-Nakagawa offers to the reader double exiles: the exile of the tongue and the full "exile" of the female voice in patriarchal societies. Joritz-Nakagawa, in the words of the Brazilian modernist poet Oswald de Andrade, reinstitutes the "matriarchy of Pindorama." It is a work of breadth and rigor, which deserves all attention and applause. As contributor Safaa Fathy says: “I write about what I lost.” Migrating is at the center of being a poet; the book also answers the question of what poetry is. And maybe this is the gain that Joritz-Nakagawa’s anthology brings."--REGIS BONVICINO

New Poems online now by Jennifer K Dick and Travis Cebula in BlazeVox17

It is with pleasure that I direct your attention to the fabulous new issue of BlazeVox Magazine--the Fall 2017 edition, issue 17. And I am extremely pleased that editor Geoffrey Gatza selected 4 poems I co-authored with another BlazeVox poet, Travis Cebula. We wrote these poems together in a little café in the marais in Paris (Etoile Manquante) last summer during his visit, working off of a theme for a reading we then did at Spoken Word Paris series. Having never collaborated on writing before, our first attempts were shakey as we located a way to hear our two voices and lines. But the outcome of that morning, revised in various ways since, gave way to these poems and I hope that you will enjoy them. 

Travis Cebula and Jennifer K Dick direct PDF link:

http://www.blazevox.org/BX%20Covers/BXFall2017/Jennifer%20K%20Dick%20&%20Travis%20Cebula%20-%20Fall17.pdf

The BlazeVox 17 home link:

http://www.blazevox.org/index.php/journal/

 

Here is the BlazeVox 17 Table of Contents for all of the authors and their exciting work:
Poetry

Alan Isaacs	Jennifer K Dick & Travis Cebula
Alicia Cadena	John Meyers
Ana Shaw	Justin Rogers
Anna Kapungu	Katie Howes
B.J. Best	Linda Worden
Bert Barry	Marc Carver
Brianna M. Fenty	Mark DuCharme
Brittany Stenfors	Mark Young
Bushra Khan	matthew harris
Clarice Sometimes	Maya D. Mason & Thomas Fink
Courtney Prather	P. K. Pierson
Daevid Glass	R. S. Stewart
Dani Blackpool	Rich Murphy
David Rushmer	Robert Gibbons
David Wyman	Samantha Lacey
Emmitt Conklin	Sandy Coomer
Erik Fuhrer	Sarah Valeika
Irene Koronas	Seth Howard
J. Mulcahy-King	Shadiyat Ajao
Jade Homa	Úna Nolan
Kevin Ryan	Zoe Guttenplan

  Fiction

Burger Bar — Clive Gresswell
From the Other Side — Marianela Valverde Varela; translated by Erin Riddle
The Uncertain Light — Kelle Grace Gaddis
Paul’s Prospect — Scott Reimann
Ugly Words — Melissa Reynolds
Other People’s Houses — Joseph E. Lerner
Cliff Dwellers — Janet Mason
Pikachu’s Patchouli — Shelli Margolin-Mayer
 A — Rebecca Rodriguez
Creature in the Sky — John Paul King
High Speed Junk — Christopher S. Bell
The Art of Falling — Dian Parker

Text Art & Vispo

R. Keith                                     Visual poetry
Zinnia Plentitude                    Bracing for Impact
Sacha Archer                            Speech Bubble Collages
hiromi suzuki                           purification

New Video now online of me reading "RADIAL" 

extract of a longer text, written during the Collectif 2: Documenta / Spaghetti Western trip to Tuscania last summer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhFqjW0hruw

Filmed beautifully by Lisa Pasold in her casa, Paris, Dec 2016. 
Lisa Pasold, Canadian author, is doing a series of short films of her friends reading. This is the third in the series--do go check out the others as well: 
1) by American author Cecilia Woloc
2) by  Canadian author Megan Burns

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhFqjW0hruw This text, along with others written as part of this project, will be published online soon with the Collectif's work.

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