Wordspace Calendar of Upcoming Events
London Calling…East Dallas!
Joey Cloudy & Opalina Herebia-Salas & IChat with Ali Abdolrezaei from London
Joey Cloudy co-edits the poetry magazine Death List Five (Voice of the Lunatic Fringe) with his wife, poet Jolee Davis Cloudy. He is the incendiary Anti-Poet, constantly changing hats according to the needs of survival. He has been described as the Prince of Darkness and champion of the best in New Underground artists. Joey is the author of HOWL, A Hundred and Eight Poems for Allen, TRAMP, and On Women.
Opalina Herebia-Salas “does nothing but dream to drink and smoke the holy spoken word and bite away all broken chords.” She is co-founder of DFW Open Mics and has been a guest on Mandrake Society Radio in 2007. Rattling Keys and Broken Chords, (Propinquity Press) is her most recent chapbook. Opalina is married to poet and artist Carlos Salas, with whom she owns the bookstore, Cliff Notes.
Ali Abdolrezaei was born in northern Iran in 1969. He is also trained as a mechanical engineer. In 2003 he had to flee Iran due to the serious scrutiny and censorship of his work and has lived in London ever since. He has published 12 books of poetry, including From Riskdom, Shinema, So Sermon of Society, Improvisation, This dear cat, Paris in Renault, You Name this Book. Nearly all well known poets and critics of Persian poetry have written about Abdolrezaei’s poems.
Hosted by Laney Yarber
Suggested donation: $5
Candy
Candy is a poet that has a huge presence on stage with her voice and choice of words that are righteous to the hearts and minds of the audience and raunchy and raw when necessary. She is no stranger to poetry and performing on stage for she has been writing and performing for ten years and she has represented the city of Dallas on the national level in poetry competitions for three years. With a candid, sassy yet sexy performance style, Candy is known for lighting up venues with the air of eroticism and leaving audiences cold with appealing truths about the error of one’s ways and what is needed to make a difference.
Rachel Levitsky & Rosalyn Story
Please let us know how many people to expect - click here to tell us. Thanks!
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.
Flesh Eating Poetics/Get Real!
Matt Henriksen is the author of the chapbooks Is Holy (horse less press, 2006) and Another Word (DoubleCross Press). Some recent poems appear in Realpoetik, Raleigh Quarterly, Front Porch, The Cultural Society, and Handsome Journal. He co-edits Typo, an online poetry journal, and publishes Cannibal Books, a book arts poetry press. From 2005 to 2008 he curated The Burning Chair Readings in Brooklyn and now hosts irregular readings throughout the country. A special feature of Frank Stanford’s unpublished poems and fiction, selected by Henriksen, will appear in the upcoming issue of Fulcrum. He lives and teaches in the Ozark Mountains.
Gayle Bell is the witty and observant voice of the bus stop, political movements, the bi-sexual, the African American woman you’ll never convince that there’s no conspiracy, but who loves you anyway. She has several chapbooks of poetry and currently teaches an ongoing workshop in erotic poetics.
Hosted by Laney Yarber
Suggested donation: $5
Reception in partnership with University of Texas at Dallas for Stanley Fish
New York Times blogger Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and Duke University. He is the author of 10 books. His new book on higher education, Save the World On Your Own Time, has just been published.
Linda Jones
Linda Jones is an award-winning journalist who has written extensively about the lifestyle and culture of people of African descent in the US and abroad. She is author of “Nappyisms: Affirmations for Nappy-Headed People and Wannabes!” Linda is also owner of ManeLock Communications, a writing service and is producer of Finding Your Inner Scribe, writing workshops and literacy projects.
Collaborative Works
Caesar Hernandes & Desmene Statum, Chris Zimmerly and IChat with G & H from Denver
Caesar Hernandez is a Fort Worth writer and videographer using spoken word and text. His videos are witty, thought provoking and beautiful.
Desmene Statum, a poet gypsy from Alabama, has been in Dallas, Texas for 10 years. She has published two chapbooks, Coagulation and Two Fisted Whiskey Love Songs and featured in DL5, Voice of the Lunatic Fringe, Mad Swirl VI The Blue Issue. She has been influenced by Octavio Paz, Allen Ginsberg, Rumi, and Rilke. Dez takes the ride of life at full speed hoping to find the poem that saves her soul. She has performed in galleries, bars, and festivals all over DFW. Dez enjoys doing freestyle poems with her good friends and never met a cowboy she didn’t like.
Chris Zimmerly is a local poet, former open mic host, songwriter and musician. “Hootenanny Now!”
G and H are Texas natives, veteran travelers, live-word poets, and members of the sub-cult electro-pop band Sci-Fi Uterus. They were active performance poets in the pre-Slam Deep Ellum scene and collaborated with a community of multi-media artists in the late eighties’ Cowtown underground. For the last 20 years, G and H have found beat bucolic bliss in the mythical farming community of Gowanda, Colorado—home of the avant-garde juggernaut Grant R Productions.
Hosted by Laney Yarber
Suggested donation: $5
Militant X. Amerikkkan
Militant X. Amerikkkan is a lyricist, performance poet, writer, musician, and activist based in Dallas, TX. He also is one of the organizers and hosts of the Dallas Poetry Slam and has coached several Dallas poetry slam teams that compete at the National Poetry Slam annually. For over 25 years Militant has performed his poetry at poetry slams, open mics, arts festivals, and at private gatherings. In 2002, he authored his first book of poetry, No War, No Peace. His work has been featured in two anthologies devoted to arts, literature, poetry and culture, Taj Mahal Review’s Cyberwit’s International Journal and Voyages of World Poetry. Additionally, he was featured on satellite radio, in the Dallas Observer and his work can be found in many online sites and independent papers. Militant has recorded two full length CDs of poetry, Rogue State of Mind of an Original Terrorist and Amerikkka Can Do Better.
Andrew Osborne and Peter Gurnis
Andrew Osborn teaches literature and creative writing as a professor of English at the University of Dallas. His chapbook, Plato’s Aviary, was selected by Robert Hass as co-winner of the 2002 Aldrich Poetry Competition. His poetry has appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Bat City Review, the Blanton Poetry Project, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Notre Dame Review, and Southwest Review, where it received a 2008 Morton Marr Poetry Prize.
Peter Gurnis is the author of the Body of Liberties from Burning Deck press (1987). Over the years he has published poems in 26, Beloit Poetry Journal, Colorado Review, First Intensity, and Ploughshares. In 2004-5, he received a year-long fellowship from the Howard Foundation and completed a book-length poem Berlin and Eden.
Ongoing Programs at Wordspace
Salons
Held in private homes throughout the year, these private, members-only events allow supporters to meet local and national writers and artists in an intimate setting for conversation, readings and panel discussions. Located in Lakewood and North Dallas.
Paperbacks Plus Reading Series
Held in partnership with our friends at Paperbacks Plus bookstore (6115 LaVista), this series features exciting new voices on the Dallas’ literary scene. Donations are suggested.
Please see above for the latest listings.
Writing Workshops
On occasion visiting writers with a national profile will hold small, one-day classes usually focusing on both aspects of the writing craft and on the business of writing. Past instructors have included the novelists James Kelman, Janice Galloway, Ben Fountain and David Searcy. Students submitted manuscripts up to twenty pages in length for reading/comment by instructors, and all manuscripts were discussed and analyzed in class. Instructors led discussions on the business of fiction from getting an agent to selling books. Please see our above for upcoming offerings.
Northwood Literary Festival
WordSpace proudly co-sponsors this dynamic gathering of poets and fiction writers that takes place on the campus of Northwood University every fall.
Lambert Commons on the Northwood University’s 400-acre campus, located at 1114 West FM 1382, Cedar Hill Texas - about 25 minutes from downtown Dallas, just off Highway 67 South — the Joe Pool Lake exit.
