Danny Shot and Tina Kelley Reads at The Newark Arts Festival
Curated by: Dimitri Reyes
Featured Artist(s): Tina Kelley, Danny Shot, paulA neves, Dimitri Reyes
Poet #1 will begin by reading a poem, where poet #2 will have to recite a poem based on one of the themes from Poet #1. Poet #3 will have to recite a poem based on a theme from poet #2 and so on.
Audience participation will also be encouraged!
CavanKerry Press Authors Around the Internet!
CavanKerry Press Reading
Invitation to Walt – for Occupy Wall Street – Danny Shot
From Camden come, rise from the dust
fly to Zuccotti Park with your shaggy beard
and your old school hat come see what’s happened
to your home and your beloved democracy.
Let’s grab a beer or eight at McSorley’s
your old haunt, where 19th-century dirt clings
to chandeliers, let’s reminisce and plan
our trek through New York’s teeming streets
before we saunter to the Bowery or the Nuyorican
where exclaimers and exhorters still sling verse
of hope and despair to hungry crowds who
still believe in the power of the word.
We need your sweeping vision, Walt,
to offer our children more than low expectations
of life sat in front of screens or held in gadgets
that promise expression, but offer convention.
Let us not see America through rose-colored
blinders, but as it is, an unfinished kaleidoscopic
cacophony created by imperfect human hands,
beautiful in complexion, ghastly in reflection.
This new century has been cruel and unusual,
the ideology of greed consuming itself in a spasm
of defeat engineered by merchants of fear
and postmillennial prophets of doom.
We need to recognize healthcare
and education as basic human rights,
we need to restore the dignity of work
as well as the dignity of leisure from work.
We need to get off our flabby asses
to dance as if nobody is watching, to howl
to stir shit up, to worry the rich
with a real threat of class warfare.
We need to take back our democracy, from the masters of Wall Street,
banks too big to fail, insurance deniers, education profiteers,
from closet racists, and self-appointed homophobes,
the unholy trinity of greed, corruption, and cruelty.
Walt, give me the courage to not be scared
to offend, to tell the truth which is:
most Republicans are heartless bastards
more willing to sink our elected head of state
to protect the interests of the moneyed
than do what’s right for the greater good.
They are the party that has impeded progress
and sucked the joy out of any forward movement
for all my 54 years and they’ve only gotten more sour,
they scare me with their fascist posturing
while most Democrats are frightened
as usual to betray the welfare of the rich
(Historians of the future will laugh at us).
Yet, we’ve come so far in so many ways,
call it evolutionary progress if you will
though there’s so much work left undone.
We need a revolutionary spirit to unfold.
It’s time for us to dream big again
of democratic vistas and barbaric yawps
of space travel and scientific discovery
where we protect our glorious habitat
and build structures worthy of our dreams.
Imagine America based on empathy and equality
where we lend a hand to those in need
unembarrassed to embrace our ideals.
Walt, we’re here, citizen poets for change
across the United States and we believe,
we believe, call us dreamers, call us fools,
call us the dispossessed, your children lost,
our hopes on hold, left no choice but to stand
our backs against the corporate wall
ready to fight for what we’re owed,
for what we’ve worked, promises bought and sold.
Let your spirit rise, old Walt Whitman
take us with you to another place and time
remind us what is good about ourselves
basic decency that’s been forgotten
May your words guide our daydreams of deliverance
let the hijacked past tumble away
let the dismal present state be but a blip
may the undecided future begin today
let us become undisguised and naked
let us walk the open road . . .
Fore more of Danny’s fabulous work…
Danny Shot Elaborates…
It is difficult to write about my poems because I’ve always believed that the poem should speak for itself. Then again, I’m not one to turn away from a challenge and this is a challenge indeed. Winter Clouds in Hoboken (p. 6) began as a haiku and grew from there:
Seagulls peck French fries
off a white Mercedes Benz
on Washington Street
While I am proud of myself for writing a haiku, there is something inherently unsatisfying (to me) about haiku. The spirit of this poem was influenced by my friend Jack Wiler’s “The Hoboken Poem.” I too wanted to write a Hoboken poem, but it didn’t come to me for years. Then I wrote the simple haiku, and thought okay, what is it that differentiates us in Hoboken, in New Jersey, from New York? As a Jersey poet, I must admit that I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to New York poets. Part of this comes from the fact that we are easily dismissed by New Yorkers as “Jersey Poets” with all the implied connotations that come with the epithet. Even a cursory glance at the names of poets from the Garden State will show that we can hold our own with the literary heavy hitters of any place. “Winter Clouds” is an attempt to bring a touch of Hoboken street life to the world.
Winter Clouds in Hoboken
are different than New York City clouds
occasionally cumulus, lately ominous,
biblical in fact. New Jersey is not a place but
a state of mind according to my Brooklyn students,
the last frontier between irrelevance and extinction.
Everything you think it is, and more.
New Jersey is whole lotta place(s). My place is Hoboken
where neighbors share home-brewed coffee
the morning after Sandy flooded basements
in apocalyptic power surge, then darkness.
Where brass bands carrying statues fire cannons
in honor of obscure Italian saints though the midday streets.
Graffitied walls proclaim PK Kid is alive, Viva!
Not art to be sold in galleries across the river.
Where an empty parking space is a conversation starter
and a drunk girl cries next to a smashed cell phone
on my stoop two weeks before Saint Patrick’s Day,
a pool of green puddled at her feet.
Where we pretend we invented baseball
where everyone’s grandma dated Sinatra.
Where the poets drink like poets
and are ignored like poets.
Where the ends justify the ends
and happy hours last all night.7
Seagulls peck French fries
off a white Mercedes Benz
on Washington Street
The clouds are different
here. They just are.
Grab your pre-order copy today!
Danny Shot explains a favorite poem
The Whole Mess… Almost
– Gregory Corso
I ran up six flights of stairs
to my small furnished room
opened the window
and began throwing out
those things most important in life
First to go, Truth, squealing like a fink:
‘Don’t! I’ll tell awful things about you!’
‘Oh yeah! Well, I’ve nothing to hide… OUT!’
Then went God, glowering & whimpering in amazement:
‘It’s not my fault! I’m not the cause of it all!’ ‘OUT!’
Then Love, cooing bribes: ‘You’ll never know impotency!
All the girls on Vogue covers, all yours!’
I pushed her fat ass out and screamed:
‘You always end up a bummer!’
I picked up Faith Hope Charity
all three clinging together:
‘Without us you’ll surely die!’
‘With you I’m going nuts! Goodbye!’
The Beauty… ah, Beauty–
As I led her to the window
I told her: ‘You I loved the best in life
…but you’re a killer; Beauty kills!’
Not really meaning to drop her
I immediately ran downstairs
getting there just in time to catch her
‘You saved me!’ she cried
I put her down and told her: ‘Move on.’
Went back up those six flights
went to the money
there was no money to throw out.
The only thing left in the room was Death
hiding beneath the kitchen sink:
‘I’m not real!’ It cried
‘I’m just a rumor spread by life…’
Laughing I threw it out, kitchen sink and all
and suddenly realized Humor
was all that was left–
All I could do with Humor was to say:
‘Out the window with the window!’
I originally was going to choose “Marriage,” the Gregory Corso poem that made me fall in love with poetry in the first place, but it was a bit too long for this space. “The Whole Mess … Almost” serves as an Ars Poetica for Corso, listing the ingredients that he likes to incorporate in his poetry. Of all the Beats, Corso is my favorite, no small thing considering how deeply influenced I am by the gang. I had the privilege of being friends with him, and I can report that in our relationship he was kind, patient, and generous, something that can’t be said by many who knew him. Most importantly, what I admire about his poetry in general, and this poem in particular is his mid-twentieth century romanticism, sense of humor, simplicity of title, and surreally imaginative wordplay. After all, in these difficult times, all that’s left is humor.
— Danny Shot
An Evening With CavanKerry Poets
CavanKerry, a not-for-profit literary press, aims to expand the reach of poetry to a general readership by publishing works that explore the emotional and psychological landscapes of everyday life. Come enjoy recent work by publisher and poet Joan Cusack Handler, “…whose verse memoir, Orphans…tackles the big subjects – family history, aging parents, Irish Catholicism, belief and unbelief, and her own impending mortality – with a fierce, wrenching fearlessness” (poet Elizabeth Spires). She is joined by poet Tina Kelley, reading from Abloom & Awry (2017), which poet Pattiann Rogers says “presents the unrestrained curiosity and imagination of childhood in exquisite language without exaggeration or sentimentality. ” Also reading is Danny Shot whose book, Works, is due out in 2018, and whose poetry has appeared in Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. “Danny’s work highlights the joys of human life, while also tearing away sheets of denial to confront modern political and social hypocrisy…” (poet Eliot Katz).
Another question for National Poetry Month
It’s poetry month and we asked our community to answer 3 important questions, one of them being…
What is the poem you’d give to someone living in your town 100 years from now?
Here are some of the answers we got.
Richard Jeffrey Newman
Poet
I am astonished at their mouthful names–
Lakinishia, Chevellanie, Delayo, Fumilayo–
their ragged rebellions and lip-glossed pouts,
and all those pants drooped as drapery…
-Patricia Smith, “Building Nicole’s Mama”
Jack Ridl
Poet
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life…
-Willian Stafford, “Ask Me”
Teresa Carson
Poet, Associate Editor, CavanKerry Press
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine…
-John Keats, “Ode on Melancholy”
Holly Smith
Teacher
Ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and children of the state,
I am here because I could never get the hang of Time…
-Terrance Hayes, “Lighthead’s Guide to the Galaxy”
Danny Shot
Poet
The Hoboken Poem
By Jack Wiler
Hoboken, city of light.
Hoboken, a bump on the river.
Hoboken, four guys on a corner in guinea
tees gold chains and they’re all the mayor’s friend;
hey they work in his office.
Hoboken, elections every day.
Hoboken, opportunity around every corner.
Every corner a danger.
No stop signs.
No sign of anyone stopping.
Every taxi paused at every corner.
Hoboken, one taxi fare
2.25 cheap.
Hoboken, a bus every minute.
Hoboken, a train every ten.
Hoboken, burning.
Every building on fire.
Children falling from the windows.
Mothers running into the street.
Hoboken, even the fire houses on fire.
Hoboken, burnt.
Hoboken, rising and falling
burning and smoldering.
Hoboken, every factory closed.
Every park full.
Every man a king.
Every one works at the Board of Ed.
Hoboken, unlimited overtime.
No end to the money you can make.
Hoboken, home of baseball.
Hoboken, only one baseball field.
Hoboken, the first fly ball over the Elysian Field,
the first smoking fastball,
the first frozen rope drops just beneath the Maxwell’s sign,
the drop of coffee lands on the ball,
the fielder slips, the factory closes, the sign goes dark,
the children run in the street till well past eleven.
It’s Hoboken,
the fires are out, the factories are closed,
the sign is dark, the world is quiet,
the sun is setting.
Hoboken, good to the last bitter drop.
Hoboken, city of light:
city of paused taxis,
city of beer and fires and children in the street.
Hoboken
the factories closed, the lights out
pauses mid day.
No election today.
No overtime today.
No games are scheduled.
The children leave the house at nine in the morning dressed
as spooks and demons and march down the street.
Ragamuffins in a ragamuffin town.
A raga then for Hoboken.
A last song for a lost town.
Hoboken
taxis waiting for the children to pass.
This Sunday: Something Old, Something (New) Jersey II
About two years ago Hoboken poet Danny Shot, now poet in residence at the Hoboken Historical Museum, and I hatched a plan to run a reading to celebrate the 350th birthday of New Jersey in 2014. I remember the two of us sitting in a bar and trying to come up with a name for the event. Since we had already decided to mix the work of iconic (old) and contemporary (new) poets, we were playing with “Something Old, Something New.” Suddenly Danny said, “’Something Old, Something New Jersey’and we’ll put Jersey in parentheses.” Once we found the name of the reading, we found its format: ten contemporary NJ poets reading the poems of iconic NJ poets and their own poems. We also decided that two of the readers would be “living legends” who would read only their own work. With support from the Hoboken Historical Museum, CavanKerry Press, and a grant from the NJ Historical Commission, we set out to put on a show.
Danny and I will be the first to admit that we had no idea how successful the reading would be. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in April, an overflow crowd turned up to hear ten poets read poetry. Let me repeat that: on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in April an overflow crowd turned up to hear a poetry reading. We were exhausted, elated and gratified by this response. Right after the reading finished, Bob Foster, the executive director of the Hoboken Historical Museum, said to us, “Let’s celebrate NJ’s birthday every year with a reading.”
So here we are, getting ready to celebrate New Jersey’s 351st birthday with Something Old, Something New (Jersey) II. Not only have we invited a new group of contemporary NJ poets to read but we’ve also chosen a new group of iconic poets to honor. We hope you’ll join us on Sunday, April 19 at 3pm. It’s sure to be one hell of a reading!
-Teresa Carson, Associate Editor
"Thus Spoke Baraka" from Danny Shot
Danny Shot, who has been working with me to put together the Something Old, Something New (Jersey) reading at the Hoboken Historical Museum on April 6, is a poet, high school teacher, former publisher of Long Shot Magazine and good friend to CavanKerry Press and me. As he says in the opening paragraph, “Amiri Baraka was a controversial figure and people seemed to either love him or hate him. ” So why did Danny love him? read on. -Teresa Carson, Associate Publisher
Thus Spoke Baraka
The man went out with style. The funeral was on Saturday, January 18 at the Symphony Hall in downtown Newark. The morning couldn’t decide what it wanted, going from thick heavy snow to a drenching rain and back again. At least 3,000 people came to say their goodbyes during a four-hour service complete with actors, poets, musicians, firefighters, bagpipers, drummers, politicians, workers, communists, community organizers, friends, and family. You can see it on YouTube. Obviously, Amiri Baraka was a controversial figure and people seemed to either love him or hate him. I loved him (though I sometimes did not agree with him). Here’s why.
I met Amiri Baraka in 1982. He along with his wife Amina was doing a poetry reading at Rutgers with a portion of the door money going to Long Shot, a literary magazine founded by Eliot Katz and myself around that time. Cheryl Clarke, who at the time was in charge of the student center, went with us for a pre-poetry dinner at a New Brunswick restaurant. Eliot and I brought a big bottle of chianti; you know the type, with wicker around it. Cheryl Clarke lit into us, “Don’t you know that Amiri Baraka is a well known Muslim. Muslims don’t drink alcohol, don’t you know that?” I felt horrible for the obvious faux pas. When Amiri met us in front of the restaurant, he looked at the bottle in my hand, “What’s that you got there? You brought something to drink? Thank God, I’m thirsty.” That’s where our friendship began.
Over the next thirty years there are so many memories, many of them centered in his house in Newark at parties including a wide range of luminaries. I’ll never forget the drunken conga line at his fiftieth birthday, with me clasping the hips of actress Ruby Dee and doing my best to follow her rhythm. Or dancing (awkwardly) in the basement to jazz greats Archie Shepp and Max Roach.
Amiri always thought I was more politically committed than I was. He called me a cultural worker (which annoyed me) for being a poet and an inner city high school teacher. At times he could be amazingly undogmatic. Sometime in the early 80s I told him that I was thinking of voting for Millicent Fenwick for NJ Senator. My reasons were simple, or more accurately, simplistic. I was going to vote for her (a Republican) because she was a character in my favorite comic strip Doonesbury. Amiri was shocked at my reasoning, “You’re going to vote for a cartoon character? What the fuck?” He went on to explain that Frank Lautenberg was a good man, and that there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans and that our votes do make a difference, as a matter of fact it is the one thing in America that is equal, and that each of us has exactly one vote, and that to throw it away would be foolish and disrespectful. I was chastened. I can proudly say that I’ve voted in each election, big and small, since then.
Amiri could be infuriating. In 2002, Joel Lewis and I drove down to the Dodge Poetry Festival, which at the time was held at Waterloo Village. For whatever reason, we got there late. The first person Joel and I encountered was Amiri, sitting alone but surrounded by reporters in the pub/food hall. “Mr. Shot,” he called out, “Come join me for a beer” (we were drinking buddies after all). He went on to introduce Joel and I as “young Jewish-American poets.” Joel and I were mystified, after all I guess we were Jewish, and I guess we were younger than Amiri, but neither of us identified ourselves that way. Of course, later we found out that he had just read his inflammatory Somebody Blew Up America poem and was using us to prove to the world that he indeed had Jewish friends. I felt manipulated and was pissed. I wrote a poem entitled 4,000 Jews Can’t Be Wrong, which begins with the following lines:
Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day?”
Thus spoke Baraka
poet laureate of the garden state
having found these facts on the internet
and sure enough it’s there.
I sent a copy to Amiri, who responded: “Good. Good poem. Get it out of your system. I’m not going to apologize. The lines you find troubling are part of a larger landscape. Don’t get hung up on the small stuff.” I was still pissed, but figured what the hell.
Over the next decade I saw Amiri here and there, at readings in New York, at the Dodge Poetry Festival, now in Newark. In 2010, my 22-year-old son Casey and his friend Eric were amazed when Amiri called me over to an outside table at the Dodge Poetry Festival to join him “for a beer.” The boys delighted in hearing him talk about Newark politics and his dislike of Mayor Corey Booker, and his own son’s ambitions in Newark politics. He reminded the boys how important it was to stay involved, and of course to vote.
A week after he passed, I went to pay my respects to Amina and the family at their Newark house along with Nancy Mercado, Miguel Algarin and David Henderson. The house was warm, packed with people, music, food, beer, sad but good spirits, and the two bottles of chianti I had brought along. Rest in Peace Amiri Baraka…
— Danny Shot
“Thus Spoke Baraka” from Danny Shot
Danny Shot, who has been working with me to put together the Something Old, Something New (Jersey) reading at the Hoboken Historical Museum on April 6, is a poet, high school teacher, former publisher of Long Shot Magazine and good friend to CavanKerry Press and me. As he says in the opening paragraph, “Amiri Baraka was a controversial figure and people seemed to either love him or hate him. ” So why did Danny love him? read on. -Teresa Carson, Associate Publisher
Thus Spoke Baraka
The man went out with style. The funeral was on Saturday, January 18 at the Symphony Hall in downtown Newark. The morning couldn’t decide what it wanted, going from thick heavy snow to a drenching rain and back again. At least 3,000 people came to say their goodbyes during a four-hour service complete with actors, poets, musicians, firefighters, bagpipers, drummers, politicians, workers, communists, community organizers, friends, and family. You can see it on YouTube. Obviously, Amiri Baraka was a controversial figure and people seemed to either love him or hate him. I loved him (though I sometimes did not agree with him). Here’s why.
I met Amiri Baraka in 1982. He along with his wife Amina was doing a poetry reading at Rutgers with a portion of the door money going to Long Shot, a literary magazine founded by Eliot Katz and myself around that time. Cheryl Clarke, who at the time was in charge of the student center, went with us for a pre-poetry dinner at a New Brunswick restaurant. Eliot and I brought a big bottle of chianti; you know the type, with wicker around it. Cheryl Clarke lit into us, “Don’t you know that Amiri Baraka is a well known Muslim. Muslims don’t drink alcohol, don’t you know that?” I felt horrible for the obvious faux pas. When Amiri met us in front of the restaurant, he looked at the bottle in my hand, “What’s that you got there? You brought something to drink? Thank God, I’m thirsty.” That’s where our friendship began.
Over the next thirty years there are so many memories, many of them centered in his house in Newark at parties including a wide range of luminaries. I’ll never forget the drunken conga line at his fiftieth birthday, with me clasping the hips of actress Ruby Dee and doing my best to follow her rhythm. Or dancing (awkwardly) in the basement to jazz greats Archie Shepp and Max Roach.
Amiri always thought I was more politically committed than I was. He called me a cultural worker (which annoyed me) for being a poet and an inner city high school teacher. At times he could be amazingly undogmatic. Sometime in the early 80s I told him that I was thinking of voting for Millicent Fenwick for NJ Senator. My reasons were simple, or more accurately, simplistic. I was going to vote for her (a Republican) because she was a character in my favorite comic strip Doonesbury. Amiri was shocked at my reasoning, “You’re going to vote for a cartoon character? What the fuck?” He went on to explain that Frank Lautenberg was a good man, and that there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans and that our votes do make a difference, as a matter of fact it is the one thing in America that is equal, and that each of us has exactly one vote, and that to throw it away would be foolish and disrespectful. I was chastened. I can proudly say that I’ve voted in each election, big and small, since then.
Amiri could be infuriating. In 2002, Joel Lewis and I drove down to the Dodge Poetry Festival, which at the time was held at Waterloo Village. For whatever reason, we got there late. The first person Joel and I encountered was Amiri, sitting alone but surrounded by reporters in the pub/food hall. “Mr. Shot,” he called out, “Come join me for a beer” (we were drinking buddies after all). He went on to introduce Joel and I as “young Jewish-American poets.” Joel and I were mystified, after all I guess we were Jewish, and I guess we were younger than Amiri, but neither of us identified ourselves that way. Of course, later we found out that he had just read his inflammatory Somebody Blew Up America poem and was using us to prove to the world that he indeed had Jewish friends. I felt manipulated and was pissed. I wrote a poem entitled 4,000 Jews Can’t Be Wrong, which begins with the following lines:
Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day?”
Thus spoke Baraka
poet laureate of the garden state
having found these facts on the internet
and sure enough it’s there.
I sent a copy to Amiri, who responded: “Good. Good poem. Get it out of your system. I’m not going to apologize. The lines you find troubling are part of a larger landscape. Don’t get hung up on the small stuff.” I was still pissed, but figured what the hell.
Over the next decade I saw Amiri here and there, at readings in New York, at the Dodge Poetry Festival, now in Newark. In 2010, my 22-year-old son Casey and his friend Eric were amazed when Amiri called me over to an outside table at the Dodge Poetry Festival to join him “for a beer.” The boys delighted in hearing him talk about Newark politics and his dislike of Mayor Corey Booker, and his own son’s ambitions in Newark politics. He reminded the boys how important it was to stay involved, and of course to vote.
A week after he passed, I went to pay my respects to Amina and the family at their Newark house along with Nancy Mercado, Miguel Algarin and David Henderson. The house was warm, packed with people, music, food, beer, sad but good spirits, and the two bottles of chianti I had brought along. Rest in Peace Amiri Baraka…
— Danny Shot
The many poems in Danny Shot’s pocket
Danny Shot writes:
I always carry a few poems with me, well because I teach a few classes and I don’t like to repeat myself.
This year’s collection will include:
Jack Wiler’s “Poetry For Fun and Profit” and “For Levi”
Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song”
Pedro Pietri’s “Telephone Booth #508”
Bukowski’s “Style”
The many poems in Danny Shot's pocket
Danny Shot writes:
I always carry a few poems with me, well because I teach a few classes and I don’t like to repeat myself.
This year’s collection will include: