The Wake

Contemporary Art in Conversation:
Elizabeth Alexander and Kerry James Marshall
Oct. 13, 7:00 p.m.
The Walker Art CenterThe poet Elizabeth Alexander and visual artist Kerry James Marshal come together to discuss the written and visual representation of contemporary African American culture. Alexander writes about African American figurative painting, while Marshal creates intense canvases depicting the history of African American life. James Kakalios
Oct. 13, 7:30 p.m.
University of Minnesota
Physics Building, Room 150Superheroes obey the rules of physics too, and in his book “The Physics of Superheroes,” James Kakalios writes about the physical rules behind beloved superheroes. The book focuses on the physically accurate portrayal of superhero feats in comic books. Kakalios demonstrates how comic books are useful for understanding the world around use, while also having fun and exercising the …

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remember
when you read these words
she loved me once
the only thing
that gets me by
when I’m feelin low
and can’t get high
she loved meBoy’s Restroom Door, Champlin Park High School
I wish I would
have dumped him
when he was mean
to me because now
he’s in love with me
and I can’t. Women’s Restroom Stale, Blegen Hall

Youconfuse expression & performance
I speak, I am pouring
Out that which was internalized.
I do not seek your applause out
Of excitement & thrill, rather
Hushed oohs & ahhs, of understanding
By free will.
I am not dancing for your convenience,
You a dull, monotonous room,
Crowded mis-interpretations you
Treat the brave voice, as a cheap
Juke box whatever rusty nickel
Found, popped in, you’re seated
Listening for that blaring sound.
Most muffled words you have not
Considered but tantalized by this
Rhythm & movement, coming closer
Off the edge of your seat to hear,
And feel the melodic beat of:
Performance.
You are not listening to my soul,
Only the vibrato of the mike &
My parade do you know.
I am “simply reading”- as …

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Between Now and Then, Minnesota
Sept. 29, 6:00 p.m.
Mill City MuseumPhotographer Joanne Verburg will host this poetry reading featuring local writers Deborah Keenan, Gar Elliot Patterson, Patricia Kirkpatrick, Angela Shannon, Jim Lenfesty, and Michael Dennis Brown. The reading is inspired by Verburg’s work and will focus on the importance of our landscape. Raymond Federman
Oct. 3, 12:30 p.m.
University of Minnesota, Nolte HallFederman, a bilingual writer born in France, reads from his book “My Body in Nine Parts.” Although mostly known for his work in fiction, Federman has published poetry and translated others’ work. His writing engages postmodernism.
Shawn Wong and Ed Bok Lee
Oct. 7, 1:00 p.m.
University of Minnesota BookstoreTwo multi-disciplined authors come together to share their Asian American work. Shawn Wong has published fiction, poetry and essays, …

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if i knew
what the Spanish know
next door
i would have the ghost of a heart
playing guitar everyday
in son sweet man blowing downthey party
maybe god dances
maybe god takes off his clothes
wears a Halloween mask
and rubs 20,000 matchstick heads
until he is blood burst red
a heart where cholesterol is only matter
between the atoms
and blood is a Russian tank fleet
filled with petroleumthat is how I imagine
the party next door
radios falling from tables
bodies singing with pinball bodies
only to love and then love
and love again
with only the danger to be
heartbroken a million times
with only the limit to be
heartbroken every time
voy a la casa
necisito aprender

Men were thrown into a furnace and pulled out with a hook to be placed on the executioner’s block still alive. More often than not the flesh consecrated by the immolation was eaten.
Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share
MIT PressRoofs like baked cardboard sprawl above
the plastic factory cogs and dream catchers.
There are two ways to the bistro.
Take the one with the wide berth of Catholic Charities
to drink microbrew in panhandling forget-me-nots’ stead.
Besides this avenue’s quicker and
they’re vagrants and they’re lost.A stop in Kansas City with the black ones,
the garbage bags, the neck tattoos, the drug-land royalty
You step like an urchin through the warehouses
by the alleys to the rivers
where it suits you and you can drink from a bag.Jai, loiters at Palamino’s.
He’s left his …

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i want
to find this outAs if I couldhunt you down
spell you outthere must be sections
spaces
ways & means
for people
like
you & Idid I look all right
was my speech all wrong
drowning, drowning
In a sea of polite indecencies
I feel like I’ve fallen behindas if it were a race
or some other spiral
right out of timewill you
wait for me
can you bear to promise
the strangeness of
all of thatThe library, the library…

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Salt water ledge
consternate and contemplative
in its own worldRevealing
playing cops and robbers
devils advocate or cherub innocenceYou’ll be her kicking dog
enraged valley above her dark orbs
tonight’s sweat and consideration is none too sweet

A child finds Nod
when the sun takes leave
and fiends of twilight
their games do weave.The peppermint man
with the roll-up face
and moon rock eyes
and hair of lacecreeps in the shadows
on the ceiling at night,
watching over babes
and keeping out of sight.Ne’er is he weary
in wake of scaries,
even when faced
with blightful fairies, though the fairy lord
wields a hunger, savage
as his minion droves,
what rape and ravage.But now is the calm
with the night soothing dark
while the stars, in peace,
shimmer and spark.Then half past the hour
of the sabbat’s birth,
comes carried on wind
a stygian mirth.The most hellish of sprites
arrive with a crack
to harvest the youth
for their lord’s nightly snack.They gather above
the pure vestal spread
and hum …

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I came to Bret Easton Ellis’s reading at the University of Minnesota Bookstore carrying sizable assumptions. This man wrote an entire novel about a character baring the same namesake as his own, a Wall Street serial killer (American Psycho), and debauchery at all levels. I assumed the drug addled, sexual fervor lore surrounding Ellis would expose itself and make for a memorable reading. I was right. But I was also wrong. I assumed these things about the man, about Ellis, and they mainly appeared in his fiction. He did warn the audience about his subject matter saying, “If people are going to freak out, I don’t care.” The sections he chose to read of his new novel, “Lunar Park,” were submerged in pop culture references and sexual folly. A direct quote concerning oral sex: “swallowing …

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When the levee breaks down
and the dead come floating
through the living room,
looking like a modern day Bosch,and the oil gets ferried by a Swift boat captain,
sailing through a desert of Elysian Fields,and the tap water runs like a Lethean stream,
from Itasca all the way down to the Gulf,and a cry sounds out like a terrifying wind,
waking up the empathetic child in our hearts,calling: What should I do? And what does it mean?
And how many people are waiting to die?We hear the answer falling
with the beating of the rain, saying:
Send your god to the mouth of the flood.

Roommates are like caterpillars…. Don’t see the connection? I hadn’t either until I started to think about how for the past three years, I have shared my life with Molly, my roommate. Now, after those three completely ridiculous, yet entirely enjoyable (ok, maybe not entirely enjoyable) years, we are going our separate ways, transforming, if you will, into two separate butterflies from one cocoon. Still not convinced? Read on…Consider the caterpillar. The caterpillar minds its own business day in and day out – eating whatever milkweed it encounters on its slithery path. The caterpillar’s priority is to eat as much milkweed as possible, until it is large and full enough to wrap and transform. When the time comes, the fuzzy creatures wrap themselves and form a …

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As soon as the idea of his death had dimmed, a hand
paused inside a pumpkin, cupping the flesh, and whispered
silently to roots through the flat spines of seeds.
Oh! the red valves that were held down by soft organs, – the
murmur of the dirt accepting its pale box.
In the dusty alleyways white linen was hung on fire escapes, and
drunks rose with their whiskey brides in piles of cardboard as princes
in relief.
An unadorned kite was released into the air. Ripe tomatoes fell into open
baskets amongst the rows.
In the rattling silence of the old room, a man guffawed into the
medicine cabinet, tossing lusterless pearls into a black bag.
A stitch was cast on, and down the street, a body danced
with orange limbs, …

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“I am scared in this city,” my mother
told my father, “when you leave
me with myself. We work apart, we errand
apart, we have different cars. But in this city, I am
in this city,
still
with you.” “In days, when we are with our separate
selves,” my father said, “I hold this city close to me. I pull it in walking on
its sidewalk—scratching its back in my shuffled strides. Walking on, I come to the bus stop, and I stop to sit with you. The bench forms
to my body; feeling you as I wait for the bus
to pull in.”“Now when you leave,
when you have left
me,” my mother said, “this city is a stranger to me.
I …

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She strides the streets pounding
the ground with her feet.
Her arms are strong, waving taxis
to us with neon echoing off her.She wears her stripes like a cheetah,
sturdy and locked in her skin.
She hands me her coat
in her city, and I’m different.I wear her coat and I’m different.
I’m lost in Chinatown,
telling people I’m from Portland,
Olympia, Pittsburgh, Denver.
Start myself over with anyone who asks.I wear her coat and I’m different.
It’s heavy. The cotton gets inside me,
changes my skin to something stronger.