EcONVERGENCE FOLLOW-UPS

Pre-script: One of the most important (and by "important" I mean honest, full, and resistant and lovingly so) conversations about the use value of poetry, and the stakes of being HUMAN, that I've come across online--it's up at PhillySound.  A conversation between CA Conrad and Dale Smith.  Rarely do I find an online conversation to be intimate, or "life-giving."  Let's face it: all this blogging is usually a bunch of bullshit if it isn't something for which this artifice SHOULD have been designed: alerts to people about interesting things.  Anyway.  Please read.

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So, I'd meant to do this earlier here, but, hardly at the computer as of late for myriad reasons...  

For those of you who were not able to get to EconVergence (judging by the size of the crowd, most of you at least on the west coast did), there are a couple of places where you can go for some fairly thorough write ups.  I'll say here that Jules Boykoff and Kaia Sand did an incredible job working poetry into the conference--from the main reading event to some amazing panels--and so my deep thanks to them for their hard work seeing that EconVergence was just that much more vibrant.  And the conference as a whole, as far as I could tell (with so many things going on and so little time to be able do anything other than catch glimpses) was energized and energizing, with most reports coming back as extremely positive--a good, important start for an integrated reup of left activism in the region and beyond.  

Go here, to Nonsite Collective for my write up, and write ups from others, including Kaia Sand, Rob Halpern, and David Buuck.  Nonsite's blog is set up as interactive and self-organizing, and the write ups are meant as jumping off points for further discussion, especially as EconVergence relates to larger discussions on the difficulties bringing "activists" and "artists" (so-called) together in non-traditional ways.  

(For below, in both cases you'll have to scroll down a bit--or, as recommended, read the newer stuff first as you work your way to the discussions!)

Go here, to PhillySound, for a wonderful discussion (recursive interview style) between Frank Sherlock and CA Conrad, who cover their experience of EconVergence (and wow: they seemed to have gone to as many panels, workshops, etc as anyone at the conference).

Doubtless there are other places online one can find coverage of the work being done at EconVergence as well as the work that has come out of it.  Important conversations insofar as we have a lot of work to do.

CALL TO AXTION: ECONVERGENCE POLITICAL POETRY EVENT

Please join us for an evening of poetic work.  Please spread the word. Free to the public.

(click on the image to enlarge & to email it / print it out)

This poetry event, coordinated by Kaia Sand and Jules Boykoff, will feature several poets, including David Buuck, Jen Benka, Evergreen alumnus Rob Halpern, Carol Mirakove, Frank Sherlock, CA Conrad, Jonathan Skinner, as well as a host of Portland-area writers.  Where: Sea Change Gallery, 625 NW Everett Street, Portland When: Friday, October 2, 2009 / 9:30pm

The artists at Econvergence are working within a long tradition that presupposes art to have use value beyond itself, as contiguous with, complementary to, and at times critical of, dominant forms of left political protest.

For a full schedule of events during Econvergence, please visit their website here.

http://www.econvergence.org/

DAVID BUUCK @ EVERGREEN PLUS MORE!

                         above: david buuck auctions off the gulf war

David Buuck Reads @ Evergreen

Tuesday Oct 6, 2009

7pm - Library Underground*

David Buuck is author of The Shunt (Palm Press, 2009), and several multi-genre booklets. He was contributing editor at Artweek (2003-2009) and co-founder and co-editor of Tripwire, a poetics journal (1998-2004).  He is founder of BARGE, the Bay Area Research Group in Enviro-aesthetics. His performances, readings, and installations have been shown throughout throughout the United States.   Buuck currently teaches writing and is a freelance editor and critic.

For BARGE Updates, click here.

*This is a PRESS Event, Co-Sponsored by Slightly West, Wheelhouse Magazine & Press, and The Evergreen State College.

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David Buuck's reading / performance night is also made possible by ECONVERGENCE, a weekend of discussions & actions dedicated to social, economic, and environmental justice. Several artists, including Buuck, will be giving & performing work.  The conference is in downtown Portland.  Please come.  For your sake.  For ours.  

Kaia Sand & Jules Boykoff have organized the poetry events.  Of particular note:

THE ECONVERGENCE POETRY EVENT

(SEE POST BELOW)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 9:30pm

SEA CHANGE GALLERY

And:

Frank Sherlock & CA Conrad's PACE.  

Saturday, Oct 3rd.  

What is PACE?  From NONSITE COLLECTIVE's website:

PACE as poetics is a function of poet-activist community extension. It began thousands of years ago. It begins again and again as poets engage in guerrilla street actions, sharing with strangers in public space. These acts are “guerrilla” simply because these encounters have become unconventional methods of poetic exchange. Practitioners operate outside of the larger structures of universities, reading series, and publishing houses that function as museums of poetry. If it is to be seen as resistance today, the enemy is Mediated Life, the alienation assurance company that has flooded the culture with fraudulent policies that promise smiles through spending. 

Just as Pierre Joris refers to a nomad poetics as a hit & run war machine, PACE employs these strategies using improvised tools most suited for each situation.

                                                      The unflat

                              world somehow continues

                                                   to operate on

                                    a modular grid 

      Its architects

           are limited to reactionary

      responses despite their dominant claims 
 

It is not a group of member-poets to be nominated and/or expelled by committee, but a rhizomatic process that nominates and expels continually, when community extension starts and stops. At once inside and outside. States within a state. An Asger Jorn knot, appearing as “a devil's street map”, experienced with a consistency despite twisted turns. 

The poem's potential as a lo-fi economic production is what makes it an attractive form for generative community extension. While McKenzie Wark warns that “art finds itself recruited into the prototyping of fascinating consumables”, it's true that poetry is the least commodifiable of art forms. A certain  American talk-poet believes this is so because poetry is like gay marriage... no one knows what it really is. That's fine. The culturally fatigued could use a little sorcery.  

The old social order operates in secret locations and tyrannical states with almost no press (Press? What press?) since the days of '99. There are opportunities to communicate between Miami Models and Minneapolis Eights in creative ways, with human interactions that remain free of commercial interruption. There are poems, discussions, and drifts of random encounters that exist as a co-created experience.  

ECONVERGENCE: Spread the WORDS

(CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE, PRINT AND/OR PASTE INTO EMAIL)

Please come to the ECONOVERGENCE POLITICAL POETRY EVENT (Friday Oct 2, 9:30pm, Sea Change Gallery), part of the amazing ECONVERGENCE - a conference coordinated by artists and activists in and around the Northwest, dedicated to having dynamic discussions & coordinating political actions on urgent social, economic, and environmental justice issues. Kaia Sand & Jules Boykoff have coordinated the poetry events, which culminate in this reading/event.  

I'll post the full schedule as soon as I get my hands on it. Many good panels & events from Oct 2-5, including Frank Sherlock CA Conrad's PACE.  So, should be quite a weekend.

On Oct 6th, that Tuesday evening (7pm), David Buuck & others (official announcement coming soon) will read at Evergreen.  A PRESS event, sponsored by Slightly West, Wheelhouse Magazine & Press, and The Evergreen State College. 

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!