The nucleus of the Library of Congress was forged in fire. In 1815 Congress purchased Thomas Jefferson’s personal library - then the largest private book collection available in North America - to replace the congressional library destroyed when the British burned the U.S. Capitol the previous year. Jefferson’s collection would serve as the core of the Library of Congress for the next thirty-five years, until catastrophic fire again struck the Capitol on Christmas Eve 1851, destroying two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson’s original collection. Reconstructing this landmark collection provides fresh insights into the mind of Thomas Jefferson, the world of the Enlightenment, and the nature of collecting in the eighteenth century.

Mad Swirl –Johnny Olson is the editor-in-chief of Mad Swirl, and the host at Mad Swirl Open Mic night at Absinthe Lounge. When Johnny is not nurturing his love/lust-child, Mad Swirl or painting, he savors the time swirling around with his fellow mad ones. MH Clay is Mad Swirl’s new poetry editor and a huge advocate on all that is Mad Swirly. He’s a poet, writer, musician and general mad man. Swirve, aka Chris Curiel, Tamatha Curiel, and Gerard Bendicks, is a poetics, avant-garde person/instruments-sound-space group from Dallas.

Here’s a video of the performance (videographer: Peter Orozco):
[See post to watch Flash video] ]]> http://www.wordspace.us/mad-swirl-night/feed/ http://www.wordspace.us/destiny-lane/ http://www.wordspace.us/destiny-lane/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:33:41 +0000 admin http://www.wordspace.us/?p=330 Destiny Lane is a poet that writes from her soul. She connects words that resonate with thoughtfulness. Her work is spiced with sultry soliloquies that flow fluidly off her tongue while dripping with steaming hot passion leaving the imaginations of audiences moist and wanting more.

November 29, 1941 - November 23, 2009

Jack Myers taught and directed the creative writing program at Southern Methodist University. He served on the Board of Directors of the Writer’s Garret, with his wife, Thea Temple, as its Executive Director.

Jack was a past Vice-President of the 15,000-member Associated Writing Programs,  taught creative writing in the low-residency Vermont College MFA Program in Writing and in 2003 was named Poet Laureate of the State of Texas.

His work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in hundreds of literary journals, from Esquire and The Nation to POETRY and The American Poetry Review. His book of poems, As Long As You’re Happy, was a National Poetry Series selection by (Nobel Laureate poet Seamus Heaney) for 1985. He has been granted many fellowships and awards for his work: among them, two from both the National Endowment For the Arts, and two from the Texas Institute of Letters.

A Memorial Celebration for Jack Myers will be held on the campus of Southern Methodist University, Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 3 PM in the Hughes-Trigg Theater. A reception (in Ballroom West Central) will follow at 4:30 PM.

Rachel Levitsky’s second book, Neighbor is just out from Ugly Duckling Presse. Levitsky’s first full length volume, Under the Sun was published by Futurepoem books in 2003. She is the author of five chapbooks of poetry, Dearly (a+bend, 1999), Dearly 356, Cartographies of Error (Leroy, 1999), The Adventures of Yaya and Grace (PotesPoets, 1999) and 2(1×1)Portraits (Baksun, 1998). Levitsky also writes poetry plays, three of which (one with Camille Roy) have been performed in New York and San Francisco. Levitsky’s work has been published in magazines such as Sentence, Fence, The Brooklyn Rail, Global City, The Hat, Skanky Possum, Lungfull! and in the anthology, 19 Lines: A Drawing Center Writing Anthology. She founded Belladonna–an event and publication series for avant-garde poetics in August 1999. A past fellow of The McDowell Colony and Lower Manhattan Community Council, she teaches at Pratt Institute and lives steps away from The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

Rosalyn Story lives in Dallas. Her first book, And So I Sing: African American Divas of Opera and Concert (Warner), inspired the PBS documentary Aida’s Brothers and Sisters: A History of Blacks in Opera, in which she appeared as featured narrator. She has written on music and art for Essence, Emerge, American Visions, Stagebill, Opera News, and The Crisis magazines. A full-time classical musician, she plays violin with the Fort Worth Symphony. More Than You Know is her first novel.