Listen & Be Heard Network  

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 from 8-9:30pm PST. Three rounds of open mic. The lightning round (30 seconds) and spotlight round (five minutes) will feature several designated poets who signed the open mic list ahead of time at Listen & Be Heard Poetry CafeThe third round will be for poets who are listening to call in and share one poem. Hosted by Martha Cinader Mims.

Scheduled to be featured on the 19th are Alicia Jones, Don Hagelberg, Adam Gottschalk and DDE. . Please read our blog for more information. Others interested in being featured can still sign up for the show on August 26.

If you would like to be featured for a future Listen & Be Heard event pleasesign the Open Mic List at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe. Our features for the first two rounds on the 26th: 

Dana Teen Lomax is the author of Curren¢y (Palm Press), Room (a+bend press), and the co-editor of Letters To Poets: Conversations About Poetics, Politics, and Community (Saturnalia Books, 2008). She is working on Q, a series of home movies about raising a daughter on prison grounds, and on a book of poems with the working title Shhh! Lullabies for a Tired Nation.

Bill Vartnaw was born and raised in Petaluma. He moved to San Francisco and established Taurean Horn Press the following year, 1974. To date, Taurean Horn Press has published fourteen books, including his own In Concern: for Angels (1984). THP published 13 issues of OR magazine from various Bay Area Open Readings & 2 issues from Folsom Prison Poetry Workshop, 1976, before he collapsed. Bill received M.A. in Poetics from New College of California, 1991. His work has appeared in various literary magazines over the last 35 years. Co-edited with Geri Digiorno, Petaluma Poetry Walk Anthology/Ten Year Anthology in 2007. Suburbs of My Childhood is expected to come out in 2008 (Beatitude Press).

Olivia Johnson is an inspiring single mother who resides in Oakland California. Her life experiences from childhood to adulthood have strengthened her spirit to never give up even though life dealt her a bad hand. She hopes that her personal thoughts and poems can help those with similar experiences strive to be successful even though they feel forgotten. Her advice is simple: Rise to the top and strengthen your individual spirit. Take the negative examples, and use them as tools to build a palace of success that will shine from the mountaintops. Life isn’t always kind and sometimes it takes a harsh tone from within to move us into the right direction in life. Thanks, Olivia.

Gerald Schwartz, who has studied with Irish-American poet John Montague,as well as with Joseph Brodsky has worked in collaboration with the performance ensemble Solomons Ramada,( now Faking Trains) as well as with The Maud Baum Dance Company, drummer/percussionist Mike Lopez and sound-designer/guitarist Damian Catera. Work out or forthcoming in Northeast Corridor, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry Salzburg (AUS), The Skald Review(Wales), FLIM and POTEPOETZINE (on the Web). In 2001 he represented the Adirondacks by climbing Mt. Marcy and reading his poem Rondeau as part of the Poetry On The Peaks program for the United Nation's International Year of the Mountain. His multimedia work, consTELLations, was performed in Chicago 2006 at the International Conference on the Inpiration of Astronomical Phenomena as part of the Adler Planetarium's 75th Anniversary. He also reviews for RAINTAXI, Web Del Sol and Jacket on the Web. His ONLY OTHERS ARE: Poems was released in 2003 by LEGIBLE PRESS (NYC). WORLD was released as a chapbook by Furniture Press in 2004, (Baltimore). He has work included in Under The Rock Umbrella: Contemporary American Poets 1951-1977 (Mercer University Press, fall, 2006). Book of Tells will be released as a chapbook from Finishing Line Press in the fall of 2007.

Our features for the first two rounds on the 19th are DDE, Don Hagelberg, Alicia Jones and Adam Gottshalk.

DDE is a 24 year old poet currently stationed in Germany who has been writing since the 9th grade. What started as a one month anniversary gift for a girlfriend has now been a great source of pride. Always writing about his personal experiences or feelings on issues, much of his poetry can be related to by many people from many backgrounds. Although only performing in coffee shops in the states, in Germany he has been a part of a small comedy/poetry group at the military posts in the area that he works at, as well as being invited to several slams in Germany. “Forward and up, the only two directions I know how to go”

Alicia Jones: I am currently 24 yrs. old. and I have two grown men ages of 4 and 5. I love them with all my heart everything I do is for them. Originally from Lubbock, Tx but I currently reside in California. . All my life I am a live walking, talking, big beautiful ebony individual and proud of it. Poetry is my passion, my enjoyment, a fantasy into another world. I have been writing since I was in the 7th grade. I get emotional, explicit (with still good taste), erotic, sad, joyful, etc. I believe in making people feel my words and see an image.

DON HAGELBERG participated in the 1960’s Civil Rights movement. While manager of San Francisco’s The Precarious Vision Coffee House, he co-wrote AN ARTISTS LIVING COOPERATIVE helping to promote Communes. Imprisoned in 1964-1965 for refusing induction, he never seemed to be able to complete any college course with satisfaction unless it was Creative Writing. He created and hosted LIVE POETS, a two-hour radio program broadcast on a Bay Area listener-supported radio station in the 1970s. A founding member of the BAY AREA POETS COALITION, he edited their first monthly publication, POEMPHLET, later re-named POETALK. In 2000 Don asked the BBC that they broadcast THE KALEVALAin English. They did: in installments. The broadcast pleased him because many international listeners heard the epic poem.

Adam Gottschalk lives in Portland Oregon, his favorite American city outside of New York, which is his hometown. He has been writing poetry and performing spoken word for more than 20 years. His poetry has appeared in several literary journals; he was a featured performer at the 1998 Seattle Poetry Festival and the 2001 St Petersburg Times Festival of Reading. Adam is also a brutal editor (for hire), a playwright, a graphic designer (of some 12 years), a trained singer, and is on his way to becoming a professional natural perfumer. Adam considers natural perfumery his final frontier as an artist. Adam is never ever satisfied (except with food).