SOME CHANGES TO THE MAY LINE-UP! LOOK AND LEARN!I haven't seen a line-up this strong since the first year of the Smoking Grooves tour, y'all.
Here's what's up:
May 1: We had to take an L on tonight, as the Palmer was closed due to the May Day protest...rest assured, all of our featured perfomers will still be coming through in the next 60 days!
May 2: GREEN takes over DA POETRY LOUNGE! That's right; once again, the Green flavor takes its place on the largest open mic stage in Los Angeles...the award-winning Poetri will be hosting the first half...Slim and Joshua will be hosting the second half, Jedi will be spinning, and a cast of Green regulars will take the stage and rep our ragtag crew to the fullest! That's 9 PM to midnight at the Greenway Court Theater, 544 Fairfax Ave, in Hollywood! Get there early, because this place gets crowded!
May 3: It's that kind of week; RATPACK SLIM is a featured poet at Poetronigirl's "Acoustically Speaking" at the Room 5 Lounge, 143 N La Brea, on the second floor, LA, 90036! 21+, and the fun starts at 8PM!
May 8:
DAVID FEWSTER brings his OG "Diary of a Suicidal Homeless Alcoholic" flavor to the Green stage, just the way we like it...
"Poet, musician, and bon vivant, David Fewster was the recipient of a 2003-2004 Tacoma Arts Commission grant for his book 'Diary of a Homeless Alcoholic Suicidal Maniac & Other Picture Postcards.' His work has also appeared in the anthologies 'Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza 94' and 'Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader.'"
.AND--we are pleased to host the second semi-final slam bout for
ELEMENTS; six local poetic powerhouses duke it out for two rounds of heat, hosted by one Ratpack Slim and tunes as always spun by DJ Jedi! From the page to the stage, it'll be a hot night!
May 15: From the Bay Area, a group of poets you will KICK yourself if you miss--
PROLETARIAT BRONZE! The lethal combination of Jason Bayani, Jaylee Alde and Mesej 1 will make you laugh, swoon, think, cry...these are some of my favorite writers on the planet right now. Miss this at your own peril.
May 22:
POETRONIGIRL kicks her originally scheduled May 1 performance on this evening, and I hear tell that she'll be bringing some of that "Acoustically Speaking" flavor with her! Come see one of the pioneers of the LA spoken word scene right here at the Palmer!
May 29: We will be holding our first qualifying SLAM to assemble
GANG GREEN, the slam team that will be the goodwill ambassadors at the Western Regional Poetry Slam at Big Sur this summer! And--in the tradition of Extreme Championship Poetry, our version of slam...the official ECP Gang Green Title belt will also be on the line! Who will win the first sanctioned Gang Green title? It's anybody's game!
Plus: we have a musical guest in the form of
A.G.L.S.--this cat writes some atmospheric, powerful stuff, and he'll be accompanied in part by Joshua and Slim in varying capacities. Think Radiohead meets Rahzel, and that's what kind of night it's gonna be...!
So, you know--see you at the Palmer and beyond!
--Slim, Jedi, Joshua, and Mikecheck
3:15 POETRY FIESTA at GREEN!Monday, April 24, Danika Dinsmore and Gwendolyn Alley, editors, with
contributors Jen Hofer and Dawn-Marie Oliver, will perform poems from "between sleeps: the 3:15 experiment 1993-2005"...!
From their press release:
In case you don't know yet, The 3:15 Experiment is an
exercise exploring hypnogogic and hypnopompic states
(between waking and sleeping) which challenges writers
to move outside the confines of their daily
consciousness and provides insights into a collective
nightime mind. From 1993-2005, a shifting menagerie of
poets scattered across the globe engaged in a unique
writing experiment: to write every August at 3:15am,
whereever they were and whatever they were doing.
between sleeps compiles texts from contributors from
every year of the experiment.sounds like a hoot and a holler! Be there at the Palmer to check out this totally cool, totally unique performance!
--Slim, Jedi, Joshua and Mike
NIKKI SKIES at GREEN!Once again, Green fam, we had a kick-ass Monday at the Palmer, with Crystal Irby breaking down poems and stories about her mom and black people and all of that. Sam and Lara hit a one-two punch of raw emotion. Jedi is mad inspired these days (and is about to debut his newfangled deejay technology on that ass this week..). Bottom line? National Poetry Month is shaping up real nice-like for the denizens of the Palmer Room on Mondays...
And this week, we are pleased to welcome poetess and griot extraordinare
Nikki Skies! I've known Nikki for a minute now, and she's been underground for a few, but now she's back with a vengeance. From her bio: "
Nikki Skies is a performer / writer originally from Kansas City, Mo. Under
her organization, moody moon Entertainment, she had dedicated the mission of
her art to educate and entertain. Her One Woman theatre show entitled,
"These Civil Rights of Mine", received extraordinary reviews in the Los Angeles theatre community.
Skies most often frequents venues as a poet performing works from her books, "Collected Colors" and " Taboo Tongue".
Skies also hosts several literacy and educational workshops for young people
and is a motivational speaker. She studied her B.A. in Theatre at Grambling
State University and her M.F.A. in Film at Howard University.I'm out of town this week, but Jedi and Joshua will hold it down for me--come for Nikki Skies, stay for the drink specials!
See you at the Palmer,
Slim, Jedi, and Joshua
P.S. April 24th...who says Green doesn't mix the lit with the slam?
Danika Dinsmore and Gwendolyn Alley, editors, with
contributors Jen Hofer and Dawn-Marie Oliver, read and
sign "between sleeps: the 3:15 experiment 1993-2005"
CRYSTAL IRBY rocks the house this week! Buddy Wakefield was MAGIC, people. Much thanks to all who came out to see him.
Things are going strong into April, and the hits don't stop as this next Monday we feature a former member of the 2004 Los Feliz Slam Team and 2005 Hollywood Slam Team (teams that your host was also most familiar with), a poet who had a nice little bit of face time in the documentary "Sp!t", a Grand Slam Champion...why it could only be Green's favorite tag team timekeeper, CRYSTAL IRBY.
Crystal's poems are personal and honest, delivered with poise and fire. Sickness kept her off of the Green stage a while back, but now it's time for her to bust out a whole set for y'all. Come out to support Crystal as she brings the Palmer Room some class (for once).
PLUS: Joshua and Slim perform Saturday, April 8th, along with other hot poets like Bridget Gray, George McDonald, Robert Carroll, and Kamou Daood, as part of the 2nd Annual Performance/Poetry Festival at HIGHWAYS Performance Space, 1651 18th St. Santa Monica CA ( ½ BLK NORTH OF OLYMPIC), For reservations, please call 310 -315-1459...! It's $15, or $25 if you wanna stay later and see the midnight Love/Sex show, with equally hot poets including Rachel Kann, Jaha Zainabu, Bridget Gray, and on and on.
So then. We await your arrival at the Palmer Room with open arms.
--Slim, Jedi and Joshua
BUDDY WAKEFIELD at GREEN!BUDDY WAKEFIELD is the two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion (2004 and 2005) featured on NPR, the BBC, and HBO's Def Poetry Jam. In 2004 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals thanks to the support of anthropologist and producer Norman Lear then successfully defended that title at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands against the national champions of seven European countries with works translated into Dutch.
In 2005 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship title again and has gone on to share the stage with nearly every notable performance poet in the world including Derrick Brown, Saul Williams, Sage Francis, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Ani DiFranco in hundreds of venues internationally from Comedy Central's Hudson Theater and Scotland's Oran Moore to San Quentin State Penitentiary and CBGB's.
In the spring of 2001 Buddy left his position as the executive assistant at a biomedical firm in Gig Harbor, WA, sold or gave away all he owned, moved into the small town of Honda Civic, and set out to live for a living, touring every major poetry venue in North America through 2003. He still tours full time while managing The Bullhorn Collective (a talent agency founded by Wakefield), made up of 30 of the highest ranking Slam Poets and most accomplished performance poets alive.
and we've got him, folks. This Monday at the Palmer.
BE THERE!!!
--Slim, Jedi, and Joshua
