Tag Archives: bill mohr

Books

Interlitq: the California Poets Issue (Part 1)

August 27, 2020 – 5:46 am

David Garyan is a poet who received his M.A. as well as his MFA degree at California State University Long Beach, and subsequently moved to Italy, where he is currently studying International Cooperation on Human Rights and Intercultural Heritage at the University of Bologna. He lives in Ravenna. Main Street Rag has published three of Garyan’s chapbooks, along with a full collection, (DISS)INFORMATION. A three-part poem, “Ravenna,” was published in Peter Robertson’s magazine, Interlitq:

http://interlitq.org/blog/2019/12/21/david-garyans-poem-ravenna-published-by-interlitq/

Garyan is the guest co-editor of a special feature issue of Interlitq, concentrating on California poets.

http://www.interlitq.org/californiafeature1/index.php

The following twelve poets introduce the project, which has just been officially published:

Rae Armantrout
Bart Edelman
David Garyan
Suzanne Lummis
Glenna Luschei
Bill Mohr
D. A. Powell
Amy Uyematsu
Paul Vangelisti
Charles Harper Webb
Bruce Willard
Gail Wronsky

TABLE OF CONTENTS

RAE ARMANTROUT
“Fox”
“Reliable Sources”
“Running the Numbers”

BART EDELMAN
“Whistling to Trick the Wind”
“How I Came to You”
“Footnote”
“Anyone But Barrymore”

SUZANNE LUMMIS
“Those Poets Who Write About Loss”
“Why I am Not the Los Angeles River”

GLENNA LUSCHEI
“Mourning Doves”
“Daughter-in-Law”
“Calving”
“The Fifty-Two Year Cycle of the Aztec Caldnear Stone”

Bill Mohr
“The Predicate”
“Turn Lane”
“Breaking Camp”
“Morning Wood”

D.A. POWELL
“Lost Bible”
“Mike the Band”
“24 Hours from Tulsa”

AMY UYEMATSU
“The Suitcase”
“Winter Friend, the Pine”
“To Tell the Truth”

PAUL VANGELISTI
“Almost Dancing”
From “Liquid Prisoner” (VII)

CHARLES HARPER WEBB
“Good with Balloons”
”Old Love Letters Becme Space Junk”
“When He Grows Up”
“Polar Air Invades LA – The Six O’Clock News”
“Blurb”

BRUCE WILLARD
“Flight Song”
“Coming and Going”
“Unhinged”

GAIL WRONSKY
“The difference between a jaded vision and an honest one is a nightmare”
“Myself am Hell”
“The Non-Self”

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Books

Bill Mohr reads at Tebot Bach: October 25

October 19, 2019 – 8:02 am

http://www.tebotbach.org/readings.html

BILL MOHR

will read new poems
as well as poems from THE HEADWATERS OF NIRVANA (What Books, 2018)

TEBOT BACH READING SERIES

GOLDEN WEST COLLEGE
Humanities 101
Huntington Beach, CA

Friday, October 25th, 2019
8:00 p.m.

Open reading sign up at 7:30 p.m.

FREE ADMISSION
and
PARKING IS FREE
Please ignore the sign directing you to the parking sticker vending machine.
The Tebot Bach audience does not pay for parking.

Directions:

FROM LOS ANGELES:

Take the 405 South
Exit Golden West (toward the ocean) Turn Right

NOTE: Please do not use the Entrance to the College on Golden West.

Rather proceed to EDINGER and Turn LEFT.

Proceed to the entrance to the college at the stop light. You will be facing the Nursing Building.

Continue until the road ends and turn RIGHT. The Service Road into the College is on your left.

Parking lots are on your right. Park in any convenient space close to the Service Road.

Humanties 101 is located up the walkway/service road into the college. It is the big pink building with floor to ceiling windows.

FROM SOUTH COUNTY:

Take the 405 North

Exit Beach Boulevard toward the ocean.
You will go under the 405.

Turn RIGHT at EDINGER.
Proceed to the entrance to the college at the stop light. Turn RIGHT.
You will be facing the Nursing Building.

Continue until the road ends and turn RIGHT.
The Service Road into the College is on your left.

Parking lots are on your right. Park in any convenient space close to the Service Road.

The Humanties 101 is located up the walkway/service road into the college. It is the big pink building with floor to ceiling windows.
Humanties 101 is located up the walkway/service road into the college. It is the big pink building with floor to ceiling windows.

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Books

Malibu Library Reading Postponed; Bill Mohr’s “Super Bowl” alternative reading

February 1, 2019 – 2:12 pm

Bad News; Good News: Malibu Library Reading Postponed until April
Good News: KPFK will broadcast “WHY POETRY?” with guest Bill Mohr on SUNDAY

Due to the series of storms that are heading towards California’s coastline this weekend, my reading at the Malibu Library on Saturday, February 2, has been postponed until April. The wildfires that scorched so much of the Santa Monica Mountains a few months ago have left Pacific Coast Highway, as well as many perpendicular canyon roads, vulnerable to mudslides. PCH, in fact, was briefly blocked by a debris flow during Thursday’s storm, which was a mild one compared to the two-plus inches of rainfall expected on Saturday. The forecast is for rain in the early a.m. on Saturday, that will then become rain buffeted by wind from 5 a.m. to noon. At mid-day, the storm is predicted to shift to “heavy rain/wind.” The reading was scheduled to start at 11 a.m., a point by which far too many roads might be less than desirable to be driving on.

Obviously, one could undertake such a trip, if necessary, but for those who want to hear my poetry, I would urge you to enjoy the alternative event that happens to be scheduled for this coming Sunday. Several months ago, Paul Lieber invited me to join him at KPFK’s studios to record a program of my poems and commentary. We had a lovely time talking about poetry and the edited broadcast is now scheduled for Sunday, February 3, 2019, at 4:30 p.m. For those of you who are as indifferent to the sports event called the Super Bowl, this broadcast provides the perfect chance to let your friends know how you have something far more interesting in mind.

In case anyone outside of Los Angeles County might be tempted to think that Ricardo and I were intimidated by the thought of the slightest shower on Saturday, here is the link to an update on the Southern California weather front:

‘Stay home’: Monster storm headed our way. Here are warnings, timing, expected impact

By HANNAH FRY, RUBEN VIVES and ALEJANDRA REYES-VELARDE

FEB 01, 2019 | 1:20 PM

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-storm-stay-home-alert-20190201-story.html

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Anthologies Autobiography Poetry

Mike (The Poet) Sonksen reads from “Poetry Loves Poetry”

February 11, 2018 – 11:36 am

Sunday, February 11, 2018

In terms of anthologies of American poets, perhaps no other year in the past century marked the appearance of three distinctively influential volumes, In the American Tree, The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets, and Poetry Loves Poetry: An Anthology of Los Angeles Poets, all published in 1985. I was the editor and publisher of Poetry Loves Poetry, and I certainly appreciate the attention that Mike (The Poet) Sonksen gives to it in a recent video. In addition to a brief excerpt from my introductory essay, Sonksen reads the poems of several poets who were featured in that anthology: Lewis MacAdams; Michelle T. Clinton; Wanda Coleman; and Michael C. Ford. He also highlights the presence of poets such as Suzanne Lummis and Laurel Ann Bogen in my collection, both of whom were part of the poetry performance troupe, Nearly Fatal Women. In addition to Charles Bukowski, Ron Koertge, Nichola Manning, and Charles Harper Webb as representatives of an emerging “Stand Up” school of poets, other poets I included were James Krusoe, Peter Levitt, Leland Hickman, Holly Prado, Harry Northup, and Eloise Klein Healy, all of whom also appeared in my earlier anthology, The Street Inside: Ten Los Angeles Poets. This earlier collection tends to get pushed to the side, as do Paul Vangelisti’s incredibly important collections, Specimen ’73 and An Anthology of L.A. Poets. One cannot fully appreciate Poetry Loves Poetry, however, unless one is familiar with all three of these earlier surveys of various communities of Los Angeles poets. It is worth noting, of course, that poets as well-known as Bert Meyers and Henri Coulette do not appear in any of these collections. The definitive survey of poetry in Los Angeles between 1950 and 2000 has yet to be assembled.

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Painting and Sculpture

Audri Phillips and “Robot Prayers”; “A Thought Has No Physicality”

November 20, 2017 – 9:37 am

Monday, September 20, 2017

I met the artist Audri Phillips well over a quarter-century ago, back when I was still living on Hill Street in Ocean Park. I myself was not a painter, but knew a group of painters who went around each other’s studios and critiqued each other’s work. Besides Audri, I remember that one of the artists was Richard Bruland, the former owner of BeBop Records. Audri eventually painted the image that went on my CD/cassette of spoken word, Vehemence, from New Alliance Records (1993), and I contributed to the poem that accompanied her first computer art project, “A Thought Has No Physicality” (1995). (Note: This can be found on vimeo, but my inclusion of the link in this blog post will not grant direct access to it; hence, my mere citation of this early work.)

Audri is still working as an artist, though she stopped working on canvas about a half-dozen years ago and now paints only on the computer. Linda and I attended one of her earliest full-length collaborations that included work painted on a computer in 2011. It was a theatrical event, “Migrations,” that she staged in a geodesic dome with some other musicians. There were moments in that event that were as full of soothing gracefulness as anything I have ever absorbed.

Audri is shutting down her studio in which she worked with paint and selling all of her canvases. As she concludes this part of her life, I wish to pass on to you a link to her most recent work, “Robot Prayers,” which I believe you will enjoy and savor enough that you will hope she can keep on working in this manner for decades to come.

www.robotprayers.com

backyardAmericana

http://www.studioarts.com/bio_audri_phillips

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Performance Poetry

Tribute by Bill Mohr to Bob Flanagan at Beyond Baroque

March 9, 2016 – 11:22 am

This video must have been shot at a memorial service for Bob Flanagan at Beyond Baroque, shortly after he died in 1996. The poem I read, “One Miracle,” was first published by Marvin Malone’s underappreciated magazine, WORMWOOD REVIEW (Vol. 36, number 2; issue 142). It subsequently was included in my collection of poems published by Brooks Roddan’s IF/SF publishing house, “BITTERSWEET KALEIDOSCOPE.” It was also translated into Spanish by Jose Luis Rico and appeared as “Un Milagor” in “Circulo de Poesia: Revista Electronica de Literatura” and in “PRUEBAS OCULTAS” (Bonobos Editores, 2015). “One Miracle” was also included as one of three poems in “WIDE AWAKE: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond,” edited by Suzanne Lummis (Pacific Coast Poetry Series: Beyond Baroque, Venice, 2015).

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