Oganizing 101 in the Bay Area, Labor Day Weekend

NYU - adjunct profs, research & teaching assistants go to Central Booking, NYC

UPDATE:

Taken from the comments field of this post, from Sara Larsen, one of the organizers of the event. Go to the link here, & keep the organizing conversations going! Thanks, Sara.  Message in full:

david,

thanks so much for this post!

i just wanted to let everyone know that the talks from the Labor Day event are up at our blog www.labday2010.blogspot.com

there was alot of discussion about how to move forward, both with the multiple conversations about poetry and labor in general, as well as concrete, collective actions going forward. 

i want to invite as many writers who are interested to please join the conversation and/or collective actions/projects that may emerge.

meantime, 
with love,

sara

LABOR & POETRY, OR: THE POETICS OF ORGANIZING. Please let me know how this shook out if you attended this important Bay Area Event. Taken from Thom Donovan's blog Wild Horses of Fire, you can find these and more fleshed out details (entire press release). Poem in honor of forging this connection to come in another post. For now, a pre-written one, later in honor of, with the attached condition that I act on it in some way pertaining to supporting our global on-life-support labor movement:

Writing Work

to Tim Shaner & Kristen Gallagher

If dis-ability is work

Then I'm writing

On the clock, no

Compensino. Never

Didn't have a job

So this is my job 

At present it stands

To reason—

a) I have a hole in my mouth (2nd mouth)

  that says "no over time" (2nd word conceded)

  24/7 and I sleep a little during it.

b) I have a creditor on my back who calls

    at ridiculous hours. There's a machine that keeps pro-

    noun sing my name "Wow-lack" and so 

c) When they say if you're you

    keep listening I don't and this

    takes work.

 d) There's a premium on alienation

    in the poetry ghetto. I'm used

    to it but also 

    binding arbitration 

    and that one year the EFCA

    wasn't a congressional watering-

    down-hole. So I keep asking:

    will this do? lateral pro-motion

    from kitchen to desk over-looking

    a baseball diamond, where at night

    older kids go to skateboard and fuck

I am very excited to see reports from this gathering in the Bay Area, which features poets/writers discussing labor practices, histories, and conditions. 

Labor Day Event Details
Agenda for Sunday, September 5, 1:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Studio One Art Center, 365 45th Street, Oakland

1:00 - 3:30 p.m.

Welcome

Group I
Pam Lu
 (text read by Erika Staiti)
Steve Farmer
Jason Morris
Lauren Levin
Brandon Brown
 


(15 minute break)

Group II
Rodrigo Toscano (text read by Suzanne Stein)
Cedar Sigo
Chris Daniels (deputized by Pam Lu)
Dana Teen Lomax

Open Discussion

Break -- 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

4:30 - 7:00 p.m.

Group III
Laura Moriarty
David Brazil

Andrew Joron

Vanessa Place
 


15 minute break


Group IV
Sara Larsen
George Albon (deputized by Stacy Szymaszek, text read by volunteer)
Samantha Giles (deputized by CA Conrad)
Kevin Killian

Open Discussion
______________________