The (New) Reading Series at 21 Grand presents

Camille Roy & Clint Burnham

Sunday, November 15th

6:30pm | 5 USD

416 25th St, Oakland

Camille Roy is a writer and performer of plays, poetry, and fiction. Her two most recent books are CHEAP SPEECH, a play, from Leroy, and CRAQUER, from 2nd Story Books (both 2002). Her book SWARM (two novellas) was published by San Francisco’s Black Star Series with funding from the San Francisco Arts Commission. Earlier books include THE ROSY MEDALLIONS (poetry and prose, from Kelsey St Press) and COLD HEAVEN (plays, from O Books). In 1998 she was the recipient of a Lannan Writers At Work Residency at Just Buffalo Literary Center. She is a founding editor of the online journal Narrativity, and an editor of the anthology 'Biting the Error: Writers On Experimental Narrative', drawn from this site, which is forthcoming from Coach House in fall 2004. Her books and selections of her work are available online at http://www.camilleroy.com. She has taught fiction and playwriting at San Francisco State University and at the University of San Francisco, and has conducted a private workshop for six years.

Clint Burnham was born in Comox, British Columbia in 1962. In 1965 he moved with his family to Marville, France, and then, when Charles deGaulle removed France from NATO, in 1967 he moved to Lahr, West Germany. He then moved to Chicoutimi, and then Bagotville, in Quebec, in 1968. In 1970 he moved to Edmonton, Alberta, and two years later, after watching the Canada-USSR hockey series in a motel, to Goose Bay, Labrador. In 1975 he moved back to Alberta, to Cold Lake, then, as now, a Norad test site for cruise missiles. In 1978 he moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, and then, two years later, to Victoria, British Columbia, first to attend Royal Roads Military College and then, when he was discharged, to the University of Victoria, where he received a B.A. and an M.A., the latter for a thesis on the postmodern poetics of bpNichol and Robert Kroetsch. Clint then moved to Toronto to attend York University, where he wrote a dissertation on Fredric Jameson and, concurrently, a monograph on Steve McCaffery. Since 1995 he has lived in Vancouver. Other books include Be Labour Reading (poetry, ECW, 1997), Airborne Photo (fiction, Anvil, 1999), Buddyland (poetry, Coach House, 2000), Smoke Show (novel, Arsenal Pulp, 2005), Rental Van (poetry, Anvil, 2007), and The Benjamin Sonnets (poetry, BookThug, 2009). His art writing has been published in many gallery catalogues in Canada and Europe and in print and online venues including fillip, Boo, Canadian Art, artforum.com, and Camera Austria. He teaches in the department of English at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia.

From Glück/Mirakove, 10/18/2009













Photos mostly by Taylor Brady on the disposable camera. Click for larger images.

Bob Glück and Carol Mirakove

Sunday, October 18, 2009

6:30pm, 5 US Dollars

21 Grand

Carol Mirakove is the author of Mediated (Factory School), Occupied (Kelsey St. Press), and, with Jen Benka, 1,138 (Belladonna). She released the single "temporary tattoos" with the Dutch musician bates45 and she collaborates with the Lebanese DJ [IN]Head-Kay. Carol recently moved to Oakland from Brooklyn.

Robert Glück is the author of nine books of poetry and fiction, including two novels, Margery Kempe and Jack the Modernist and a book of stories, Denny Smith. Gluck edited, along with Camille Roy, Mary Berger and Gail Scott, the anthology Biting The Error: Writers on Narrative. Glück was Co-Director of Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center, Director of The Poetry Center at San Francisco State, and Associate Editor at Lapis Press. His poetry and fiction have been published in the New Directions Anthology, City Lights Anthologies,The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Best American Erotica 1996 and 2005, and The Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction. His critical articles appeared in bookforum, artforum international, Aperture, Poetics Journal, and Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors, and he prefaced Between Life and Death, a book on the paintings of Frank Moore. Last year he and artist Dean Smith completed the film Aliengnosis. Gluck teaches at San Francisco State University.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Lisa Robertson

it seems unbelievable
as when there is a tree and you try to hear it
and the sensation of behindness
into the midst of which you have been plunged
shows equilibrium as inimical to life

as when you mime what you perceive
like a voluntary intuition
that ripples from body to friend
if the will is a rhythm

as permanent gesticulation in uncertain scale
as reviviscent motor element
into the midst of which she has been plunged semiologically so
my organism hankers

She made her muscles into thoughts:
Especially her facial muscles liked
a well-stacked wood-shed


I do this because it’s more portable than sewing

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Micah Ballard

September 1, 2009

I enjoy cuts and scrapes, a little blood here, some there, but not just an overflow of anything. I prefer the particular in all things as long as there is an entrance out. I don’t like sprains and strains, things that inhibit movement. Those play on the mind too much and there is no escape. I also enjoy elegance, as much as the next, yet it has to be tailored to an alien wit, one unrehearsed, nonchalant and in command, that stays ahead of the notes while behind them. The question lies in the ability to lure and be lured. As in “our bodies give us away” or “when you have ghosts you have everything.” I shall leave out the Tupac Shakurs and David Bowies. Some of us prefer a saxophone to a handgun as others do a brush to a pen. That doesn’t mean we’re not all at the same dinner table. Those of the past remain at play with those present. There are so many rooms in this mansion I can’t remember the few I’ve been in save for what’s left on the page. I do know there have been others before and there will be those who come after, and we are all a part of one another. There are nights, weeks, years, where some of us arrive to the room late and others early, but we always meet for a toast at the crossing. One can’t hold the lantern all the time. Lately, I don’t even care what room I’m in and prefer not knowing how I got there. To be led in the dark, as it were, with only the flashing of this broken lighter. And to find one’s way, unknowingly, through the next wall, or down to the next hall. Whatever the case, someone will be waiting, if not, then it’s your turn.

Please join us, Sunday, September 20, 2009 as we welcome

LISA ROBERTSON & MICAH BALLARD

416 25th St, Oakland

6:30 pm || 5 USD

LISA ROBERTSON was born in Toronto and lived for many years in Vancouver, before moving to France, and then California. Her first book, XEclogue, was published in 1993 by Tsunami Editions; Debbie: An Epic, and The Weather followed, from New Star (co-published by Reality Street in the UK); then The Men (Bookthug, 2006) and Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip (Coach House 2009). A book of essays, Occasional Works and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture, was published by Clearcut (USA, 2003) and Coach House. R’s Boat will be out with University of California Press in 2010. She has been the recipient of the Relit Award and the bp Nichol Chapbook Award, and has taught and held residencies at the Kootenay School of Writing, California College of the Arts, University of Cambridge, Capilano College, University of California Berkeley, University of California San Diego, American University of Paris and the Naropa Institute. She is currently working collaboratively on sound and video-based projects.

MICAH BALLARD was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and has lived in San Francisco since 1999. Recent books include Negative Capability in the Verse of John Wieners, Bettina Coffin, Evangeline Downs, Parish Krewes, and the collaborations Death Race V.S.O.P. and Easy Eden. He is co-editor for Auguste Press and works for the MFA in Writing Program at USF. From 2005-07 he curated small shows for the Lew Gallery.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Laura Moriarty

NON TONAL

Dreams a rule
Words not mine
Not a body of beliefs
Melancholic dusty waltzes
But a knowledge of techniques
Technique of knowledge
Imagination overcome
Beautiful nightmare
Opposed to genius
Letters not addressed suggest
New sound or new personality
Deathsick moon
While remaining virtually unperformed
Arousing resistance
Every innovation destroys
What it produces
The bonds of a by-gone esthetic
Floated into the non tonal
Speech becomes music
With no other aim than comprehensibility
Blacks the sun
Textures rent by incompatible elements
Speech versus music
“I feel the air from another planet”
Not a technique but a passing phase
Uncataloged dissonance
Pierrot lunaire
Growing up with the same influences
Emotional revolution
Or a different place and time with the same mind
Having abandoned tonality
We create language not style
With an almost somnambulist sense
Bravely to plunge
“Free” composition and sublime banality
The green horizon
Makes the past accessible to the new feeling
Laughs, spits, hisses, makes animal cries
Maid of the sky
Complains if you do this you are not “free”
To do that
A new geological formation
Serial universe
Obvious musicality
Or universes
Remix ensemble
Not a single thing
Or will be

Please join us Sunday, August 23 as we welcome...

Clark Coolidge and Laura Moriarty
with two short films by Brandon Downing


LIVE! ONE NIGHT ONLY!

21 GRAND, 416 25th Street, Oakland

6:30 pm 5 USD

CLARK COOLIDGE is an American poet born in Providence, Rhode Island. Often associated with the Language School, his experience as a Jazz drummer and interest in a wide array of subjects - including caves, geology, bebop, weather, Salvador Dalí, Jack Kerouac, and movies - often finds correspondence in his work. His books include Alien Tatters, Mesh, Mine, The Crystal Text, The Rova Improvisations, On the Nameways and many more. Coolidge grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and has lived, among other places, in Manhattan, Cambridge (MA), San Francisco, Rome (Italy), and the Berkshire Hills . He currently lives in Petaluma, California.

LAURA MORIARTY’S A Semblance: Selected & New Poetry 1975-2007 came out from Omnidawn Publishing in 2007, as did An Air Force, a chapbook from Hooke Press. Her long essay poem A Tonalist is forthcoming from Nightboat Books next spring. Other recent books are Ultravioleta, a novel, from Atelos and Self-Destruction, a book of poetry, from Post-Apollo Press. She has taught at Mills College and Naropa University among other places & is currently Deputy Director of Small Press Distribution. She is findable on-line at A Tonalist Notes and related blogs.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Vanessa Place

Tribunal de Grande || Instance de Marseille la

9 Septembre 77 || Parquet du Pro

cureur de la || République N^o || Le Procureur

de la République près || le Tribunal de Gran

de Instance de Marseille, || à Monsieur Maitre Gou

dareau Avocat au || Barreau de Barsielle

J’ai l’honneur de vous faire || connaître que sui

vant décision de || Monsieur le Président de

la République, || le recourse en || grâce du normé Ha

mida DJANDOUBI a || été rejeté.

En conséquence, l’arrêt de la || Cour d’Assises

des Bouches-du-Rhône qui a || condamné à la peine

de mort Hamida || DJANDOUBI sera ram

ené à exécution le || SAMEDI 10 SEP

TEMBRE 19| |77 à ||4 heures 15

Je vous adress || la présente no||tification

pour vous permettre d’||assister votre client.

Veuilles agréerer, mon || Cher Maître, l’assur

ance de ma par||faite considé||ration. LE PRO

CUREUR DE LA || RÉPUBLIQUE, || Valéry Giscard

d’Estaing

Please join us on Sunday, July 19, 2009 as we welcome

Vanessa Place and Peter Culley

LIVE at 21 Grand
6:30pm | 5 USD | 416 25th St Oakland, CA

VANESSA PLACE is a writer, lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press.

PETER CULLEY was born in Sudbury, Ontario in 1958 and grew up on RCAF bases in Holberg, British Columbia, Cold Lake, Alberta, Dana, Saskatchewan, Clinton, Ontario and for four years in Ayr, Scotland. He has lived in and around Nanaimo since 1972 and now lives in the former coal-mining town of South Wellington, beside the main line of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. His books include Hammertown, The Age of Briggs & Stratton and To The Dogs (Arsenal Pulp Press).