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
______________________

MLK DAY OF ACTION & LABOR'S NEWLY ELECTED AFL-CIO STEWARDS

For us in the labor movement, like most activists, MLK Day is not a holiday, it's long been a day of action.  This year, new elected curators of most of the unions in the U.S. get to show us how they will help us position ourselves for better jobs & healthcare, rights on the job, & civil rights for all workers, former workers, & potential workers.  Whether you are fan of John Sweeney or not, immigrant and LGBT civil rights had become, during his tenure as director of the AFL-CIO, central to the AFL-CIO mission.  This has not always been the case, and in fact its taken a concerted effort on every level of organization to undo the many early years of contracts with two-tired systems (for some member unions of the AFL this was the norm across the board), followed by a long period of blase/mere vocal support for growing numbers of workers, many of whom have been, sometimes without much reciprocation, vocal supporters of labor.  After the 1950s and due to the civil rights movement this began to change pretty dramatically.  And Sweeney's call to organize and galvanize support for both immigrant workers and the LGBT community--often one and the same group of workers and retirees--was, I think, rather radically implemented/organizationally designed by director of organizing, Stuart Acuff.  If this organizing was not visible to you, it was (and is) because of the immense uphill climb, the era of Bush and perhaps the most anti-labor administration in history, a time during which membership in unions (union density) was/is at its lowest point in U.S. history.  

I'm hoping that former assistant director of the AFL, now director (president) will work with other elected regional directors, union presidents, membership, and so forth, to ramp up this organizing fight, and make it part of a radical rethinking of the AFL-CIO's ten point plan, along with redoubling of efforts to a) put pressure on the Obama administration on all civil rights issues, i.e., detainee rights & Guantanamo, and b) to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and to get this Act passed with Card Check Neutrality inserted back into the bill.  

The latter is, perhaps at this point, a pipe dream.  And this is too bad.  Because Martin Luther King was murdered while marching at a labor rally for sanitation workers, and the union I used to organize with was one of that rally's co-sponsors.  That was also a time when union density in this country was nearly thirty percent.  It's time to ramp up some of the positive organizing foci that unions within the AFL adopted in reaction to Bush, but to keep those efforts up.  Otherwise density will remain at around thirteen percent, then eventually plummet.  

For now, a rather meek but "nice" post from the AFL-CIO on the occasion of MLK Day of Action (so-called in the labor movement):

Arlene Holt Baker: Without Jobs, Civil Rights an Empty Promise

by James Parks, Jan 15, 2010

Without good jobs, the gains of the civil rights movement are empty: Just as Martin Luther King Jr. fought to secure basic rights for all Americans, we must now fight for economic justice, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said.

Speaking this morning at the Martin Luther King Prayer Breakfast in Atlanta, Holt Baker said:

The freedom to sit at a lunch counter or in the Oval Office was won for us.

Now it is our time to win for the next generation the economic strength to take advantage of those freedoms. Today more than ever, we understand that without jobs, civil rights is an empty promise. And without good jobs, there is no real freedom.

The annual prayer breakfast is sponsored by the Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council.

Unemployment for African American workers stands at 16.2 percent and a staggering 48.4 percent for black youths. At the same time, Holt Baker added, too many of the doors that helped African Americans reach the middle class—good manufacturing jobs and government jobs that have provided good wages and benefits—are closed.

She said working people must demand that Congress enact the AFL-CIO’s  five-point planto save and create millions of jobs in the next year. Nowhere is immediate action more needed than among African Americans, who have been hit especially hard by the crisis, she said. The AFL-CIO plan calls for the government to create additional jobs in distressed areas for people who desperately need them.

The plan also includes job-creating measures, such as rebuilding the nation’s roads, schools and infrastructure, and lending Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds directly to small and medium-sized businesses via community banks.

Saying “the generation coming up now is at risk of doing less well than their parents,” Holt Baker reminded the audience that freedom fighters like Dr. King, Rosa Parks and the Rev. James Orange fought so we could leave our children a better life.

She quoted King:

It’s all right to talk about “streets flowing with milk and honey,” but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. This is what we have to do.

Economic justice also is the focus of the annual AFL-CIO King Day celebration in Greensboro, N.C., from Jan. 14-18. More than 400 union members will call on the White House and Congress for meaningful job-creation policies.

Participants also will honor the four trailblazing students whose sit-in at the Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter 50 years ago ignited a nationwide effort that resulted in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Thomas Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, will speak on civil rights priorities in 2010.

Political Action Planning & UC Strike Testimonials

Please join me, if your schedule allows, in going to this important talk below.  It involves all of us: those of us paying higher tuition, and who now have trouble paying for school, and faculty who, because of budget cuts, lose their jobs.  

In today’s, January 7, 2010 New York Times, Governor Arnold Schwarznegger’s chief of staff, Susan Kennedy said, “Those protests on the UC campuses the tipping point. Our university system is going to get the support it deserves.” Kennedy made these comments immediately after Republican Governor, Schwarznegger proposed cutting money for California prisons and putting the money saved into higher ed. Right now, 11% of the California budget goes to prisons,  and 7.5% goes to higher ed.  He proposed that at least 10% of the state budget go to California universities and colleges, and no more than 7% be used for prisons. This shows the value of militant protest and a growing  student movement with faculty and staff and community support to stop and reverse the budget cuts. Let us in Washington State learn from our brothers and sisters in California. 
Come here two leading activists in this movement, Wed., January 13th!

OCCUPY EVERYTHING!

Fighting Austerity on California Campuses

Wednesday January 13, 2010

The Evergreen State College, Seminar II, E1105

 

10:00am Presentation to Political Economy and Social Movements; Race, Class and Gender(all are welcome)

1:30pm Public Presentation-Sem 2, E1105

California is the tenth largest economy in the world and one of the states hardest hit by the current financial crisis. Although the effects of the crisis continue to be felt in real terms by those living in the state, there has been little to no resistance against the financial system responsible for the crisis and the concurrent austerity regime that is decimating social programs including public education.

The public universities of California have emerged as a possible front for confronting the restructuring that has arrived with the crisis. Faced with a 32% student fee increase, thousands of layoffs and pay cuts, students and workers have begun to organize on a mass scale to fight back. Amongst the repertoire of tactics, occupying buildings has shown to be one of the most effective, providing a fresh praxis for a new and contagious movement that has quickly spread across the state.

Come hear stories from this important struggle and watch video from some of the pivotal moments during the last months of 2009. We will focus on lessons learned and future strategies as well as provide space for discussion of possible connections with local organizing efforts connected with budget cuts and tuition increases at TESC.

Political Action Alert - Budget Cuts & Organizing

In today's, January 7, 2010 New York Times, Governor Arnold Schwarznegger's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy said, "Those protests on the UC campuses the tipping point. Our university system is going to get the support it deserves." Kennedy made these comments immediately after Republican Governor, Schwarznegger proposed cutting money for California prisons and putting the money saved into higher ed. Right now, 11% of the California budget goes to prisons,  and 7.5% goes to higher ed.  He proposed that at least 10% of the state budget go to California universities and colleges, and no more than 7% be used for prisons. This shows the value of militant protest and a growing  student movement with faculty and staff and community support to stop and reverse the budget cuts. Let us in Washington State learn from our brothers and sisters in California. 
Come here two leading activists in this movement, Wed., January 13th!

OCCUPY EVERYTHING!

Fighting Austerity on California Campuses

Wednesday January 13, 2010

The Evergreen State College, Seminar II, E1105

10:00am Presentation to Political Economy and Social Movements; Race, Class and Gender(all are welcome)

1:30pm Public Presentation-Sem 2, E1105

California is the tenth largest economy in the world and one of the states hardest hit by the current financial crisis. Although the effects of the crisis continue to be felt in real terms by those living in the state, there has been little to no resistance against the financial system responsible for the crisis and the concurrent austerity regime that is decimating social programs including public education.

The public universities of California have emerged as a possible front for confronting the restructuring that has arrived with the crisis. Faced with a 32% student fee increase, thousands of layoffs and pay cuts, students and workers have begun to organize on a mass scale to fight back. Amongst the repertoire of tactics, occupying buildings has shown to be one of the most effective, providing a fresh praxis for a new and contagious movement that has quickly spread across the state.

Come hear stories from this important struggle and watch video from some of the pivotal moments during the last months of 2009. We will focus on lessons learned and future strategies as well as provide space for discussion of possible connections with local organizing efforts connected with budget cuts and tuition increases at TESC.

Ali, a graduate student of environmental science at UC Berkeley, and Tim, a collective member of Inkworks Press, are both active participants in the California student/worker movement and are currently organizing in the Bay Area.

(In the morning class, the presentation on California will be followed by a lecture by author John Duda about the Wobblies Free Speech campaign in Spokane, WA)

for more info, contact, Pete Bohmer ex. 6431. There will also be an organizing meeting with the speakers and interested staff, faculty, students and others to discuss strategy for here.Contact me for the time and place if interested. 

No Rainbow Stickers on Machine Guns

In an earlier post about anti-war protests in the northeast & kari edwards' activism, I briefly mentioned CA Conrad's accompanying (the protests, at that time) petition "Gays Against Gays in the Military."  He sent it to me as he was heading out the door to join others on the picket line, & I'd haphazardly made reference to what is an important stance that many of us within the LGBT "community" have towards the knee-jerk (and class-oriented) making of repealing Don't Ask/Don't Tell one of basically two centers of LGBT activism (gay marriage being the other). Who, asks Conrad on behalf of so many of us, should want all our time, energy, and activism dollars going to demanding the right to join some of the most oppressive institutions--war and state-sanctioned love-as-ownership?  Thousands upon thousands of gay, bi- & lesbian men, women, & transgendered people are being slaughtered both here in this country (just google "hate crime" & "homosexual" to get a sense of the crisis) and abroad.  Thousands of gay Iraqi men, notes Conrad, are being slaughtered by the U.S. military & its vassal government right now. 

A petition is only a petition, one could say.  But as many of the signatories note, it's an important start.  So many activists unsettled by the direction LGBT activism has taken in the past several years (hijacked, one might argue, by middle-class Neo-Liberals, gay & straight, who want so badly to be considered "normal") have, as I have on occasion, clammed up on who and how we want to be (we, meaning all of us as an interdependent society) for fear that too much apparent splintering within an already accosted minority might appear as weakness, thus would further damage us or set us back.  This is only to a very small point an understandable quietism, if as tactical concern, and if one considers the reactivity of its core. But I'm very glad Conrad, among many other activists in different ways, has it right and is not afraid to speak up here.  Please, if you believe in equal rights, sign this petition.  Equal rights means not only the right to love and affirm that love, e.g., but the right not to be shot and killed, or occupied and violated.

CALL FOR ACTION

As forwarded to me by the editors at Agni:

A message from Anthony Appiah, President, PEN American Center ...

 

 

We're sure you've been following the news about our PEN colleague in China , Liu Xiaobo, who has been detained for over a year in Beijing and is facing subversion charges for his writings. On Friday, Liu was indicted, and we have learned that he may be tried as early as Monday, December 21. If he is convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

 

Even if you have already signed our petition, or sent a letter, we are asking you now to flood the Chinese government's e-mail boxes with appeals calling for Liu Xiaobo's immediate release. You can do so by using PEN's new, user-friendly software at www.pen.org/freeliu just fill in the few required fields, amend the letter if you wish, and hit send.

 

Please also pass this on to your friends, family, and colleagues, and urge them to take action.

 

For more information on the latest developments in Liu's case, and to read PEN's press release about the indictment, please visitwww.pen.org/liuxiaobo.

 

Your voice matters to the Chinese government.  Please help us free Liu Xiaobo now.

 

Thank you.

 

Sincerely,

 

Anthony Appiah

President, PEN American Center

Fond Memories, & the Fight Goes On

     

How I wish I was still an organizer at local 2110, UAW.  Tho I was employed as a lead organizer for the international UAW, I worked out of the 2110 offices in NYC, was based there for seven years, helping organize teachers, office professionals, museum workers, bank tellers.  It was an intense seven years of organizing, bargaining, & etc.  Right now, 2110 has 3 outstanding organizing campaigns, campaigns in which the employer is STILL fighting our efforts to SIMPLY AND FAIRLY NEGOTIATE FOR BETTER PAY AND BENEFITS.  Visit Local 2110 and sign petitions in support of Columbia University Teaching & Research Assistants; New York University Teaching Assistants & Lecturers; and the New York Tenement Museum Workers.  All have met fierce resistance, especially teachers at private universities, who, thanks to the Bush administration, have been stripped of legal protections.  Not their right to form a union, but basic protections that all workers USUALLY have in the private sector: freedom to join a union WITHOUT REPRISALS.  Just go to "our workplaces" in the main menu bar, and look at the right-hand column, "organizing campaigns."  Click on those & then take action.  

                                         

                                            Columbia teachers strike: 2004

                                                                

                                                              Columbia teachers strike, 2005

             

Hey, look, it's Eliot Spitzer and...me 

(I still don't care if he paid for sex)

                                             

                                                          

                                            labor day parade

   

PRESS 2009-2010

PRESS, a series devoted to the intersection of engaged experiments in text arts and left political movements, is rolling on. Wheelhouse Magazine & Press, in conjunction with The Evergreen State College its literary journal editors, is happy to announce three upcoming guests for this year's series:

David Buuck (Oct, 2009)

CA Conrad (March, 2010)

Kaia Sand & Jules Boykoff (Feb, 2010)

Eleni Stecopolous (TBA)

Sarah Mangold (TBA)

PRESS Poets Theater Week (June 2010)

Lydia Davis is also coming to read, tho Wheelhouse is only donating some of its services, and not co-sponsoring the event.

These amazing people above have agreed to visit, make a ruckus, create some beautiful things on the heels of a visit by David Buuck last month (see post below).  I announce this now, with dates yet to be firmed up, as I want to cross-reference PRESS with another important post by CA Conrad at PhillySound.

Here, Conrad writes about finding the HUMAN BEING in himself amidst the continued oppresive violence that those of us in the queer "community" are enduring.  And I say "enduring" here as epithet; so much of our middle-class, latent neo-liberal calls to action pivot around gay marriage and equal rights to join the military and kill people, occupy them, who, as Conrad points out, include gay Iraqi men, who are being slaughtered without hardly a word about it in the news, among activist groups, etc.  Yet, what to do with this anger?  How "to find peace," not in a quietist sense, but in the way that kari edwards, remarks Conrad, as well as Thom Donovan, did in xer last book, Bharat Jiva.  To find the human in oneself, to ground oneself in a sense of love for, if not those who oppress, than the possibility within them, to realize their humanity.  Which is a call to action, to alliance--alliance between the labor movement, the anti-war movement, the LGBT rights movement, etc.  A really amazing post that takes a hard look at edwards' work, at its own frustrations and desires to live or feel otherwise.  The paradox does not resolve here, opening the floor for us to ask more questions, to ask in the form of acting, through collective reimagining of who we want to be, and how we want to be, or: a radically renewed activism. 

Colombians Mourn Colleagues Killed in Past Two Months

by James Parks, Nov 24, 2009

When 14 Colombian trade union members were in the United States for a training program, they were unable to forget just how dangerous it is to support unions in their home country. During the two months they were here, four of their colleagues were assassinated.

In a memorial service at AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., yesterday, we joined the Solidarity Center and the Colombian workers to honor those who were killed and to reaffirm our determination to fight for workers’ and human rights in that country.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler told the group:

We want our Colombian sisters and brothers to know that as we fight for basic trade union rights in this country, we are totally dedicated to their struggle to organize and collectively bargain in an atmosphere free of fear, terror and violence.

Shuler noted the AFL-CIO has recognized the courage of the Colombian union movement by presenting the 2008 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award to Colombian human rights activist Yessika Hoyos.

The Colombian workers participated in the Trade Union Strengthening program sponsored by the Solidarity Center, with funding and support from the U.S. Department of Labor. As part of the program, the Colombians joined union organizers on the ground for three weeks. They worked with organizers from AFSCME, TCU/IAM, North Shore (Mass.) Labor Council, Sacramento Central Labor Council and the Teamsters. TCU/IAM, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters also provided training for the Colombians.

Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists. At least 34 trade unionists have been killed this year in Colombia, with 10 deaths in the past eight weeks alone.

Wheelhouse Action Alerts

Just got in the mail No Gender, Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards.  On first read through I'm stunned by the depth & warmth of this book--it is, as is edwards' work, a necessary read for anyone interested in anything.  Order it here from Belladonna Books, or here from Litmus Press; the two collaborated to co-publish the volume.  Here you'll also find Bharat jiva, edwards' last collection.  Another, longer post on this book as I get to know it more intimately.

---------------

From the AFL-CIO & Students Against Sweatshops: Sign the Letter Here

"Justice for HEI Workers

On October 30, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the HEISheraton Crystal City hotel, alleging unfair labor practices including allegedly interrogating, threatening, and coercing pro-union workers and firing union leader Ferdi Lazo for his union activity. HEI has not yet answered the complaint, but will presumably deny the allegations, and the NLRB has set a January date for a hearing.  Students have joined workers in their fight because the owner of theSheraton Crystal City, HEI, receives hundreds of millions of dollars in university endowment investment. Send the message below to university administrators and HEI to stand in solidarity with Ferdi and his coworkers who are fighting for their right to organize!"

----------------

Rob Halpern has just published his incredibly intricate essay on Baudealaire's late prose poems & the high capitalist commodity. Find it here.  CB's "poeme en prose" is generally considered one of the prose poem's "beginnings" - & here Halpern deconstructs this genre-history by delving into the form's transgressive import within the context of commodity & broadside.  Beyond the politics, density, & extraordinarily fine argument here, Halpern's question of poeme en prose's form circles around the status of (degraded) lyric in the era of high (& late capitalism).  Besides, one of my interests in writing a particular section of my forth. book, Occultations, is in whether and how the poem can matter, and uses as starting point the lyric masquerading as prose poem, & conversely--alternating & responding to one another (if that is possible) within the section of the book.  So, thanks to Halpern (#^&(*!&!!) I'm now having to entirely rethink this section.  Oh well, it was certainly worth the read.  This is an essay to teach if yr a teacher, now.

NO PUBLIC OPTION - SURPRISED?

The Senate Finance Committee this afternoon approved what one panel member called “a down payment” onhealth care reform. By a 14-9 vote, the committee approved a bill that Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) says is ”a down payment and…the start of reforms.”

Joining all 13 Democrats on the committee was Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

The committee bill, crafted for the most part by Sen.Max Baucus (D-Mont.), provides important insuranceindustry reforms and improvements in how health care is delivered and paid for with a focus on quality over quantity.

Yet, the committee bill taxes workers’ health care benefits through its tax on certain premiums. It also does not include a public health insurance plan option that would give workers a choice between private insurance and an affordable, quality public option.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says a public insurance option is essential for cutting costs and “will keep the feet of the insurers to the fire.” He said he will fight for that when the bill moves to the floor.

The next step is to merge the bill with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee legislation that includes a public option and doesn’t tax workers’ health benefits. That could be on the Senate floor later this month. House action likely will come soon after the Senate moves.

Cantwell says she expects opposition from the insurance industry to grow even stronger as reform moves closer to passage. She notes the health insurance industry spent more than $263 million in lobbying in just the first six months of this year.

The Baucus Elegy

--Found Language from Speech Outlining Healthcare Plan, on Senate Floor, Oct 7 2009.  Sent to Sen. Baucus Oct 12 2009,—

from Prefab Eulogies

 

Dear Madam Secretary 

 

I believe that with AHFC

I think I can speak for every Senator

 

We have a strong alternative (SA) to universal healthcare (MARX)

This bill will provide (TBWP):

If I were the president, I would be very concerned

 

SHOP, and with approval from HHS,  MARK, and with approval

from MARK, TC!

TC will be provided to all parents (AP) who fall below FPL

Part D (PARTD) will receive aid through (RAT) PDP

 

Now is not the time to open the border to receive Canadian beef

 

While CHIP will go untouched through (GOT) 2013

Then, FLP eligible customers (FLPEC) will be eligible for EPSTD and be designated by MARK

As FLPECEPSTD

Moreover, FPLECEPSD will RAT AHCD, which will be increased by 2011

Moreover, HSAs will be significant for most significant illnesses (MSILL)

 

The Senate is a remarkable institution.

 

Unless FLPECEDPSD CHIPS are immigrants or undocumented workers (IMOU)

MARK will also form COOPS, which can further offset (FOFF) AGI

AHFC, MS encourages states to form USPSTFs, as recommended by ACIP

PQRI will be strengthened by 2011

MARK will encourage (WE) HHS members to be primary care providers (PCP) f

For about 5 years (5yrs) after which time the program will be phased out (AWTPWPO)

FLEX will likewise be encouraged to donate their services (LED)

And then be phased out (ANBPO)

We believe, MS, that with AHFC and its MARK we’ll be able

To save billions of dollars yearly (BODY)

 

Don't worry about your health care.

 

I yield the floor (IYTF)

 

*This bill is supported by UGH

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/