Category: Poetry

Funky Wordsmyths Program at Legler Regional Library

4/9/2019

Monday, May 20th (6:00-7:30 p.m.)
Meeting Room, 2nd Floor
Legler Regional Branch
115 S. Pulaski Rd.
Chicago, IL 60624

free and open to the public, all ages

Join Keith M. Kelley, the principal founder and Artistic Director of The Funky Wordsmyths, as he recounts what some might call his band's revolutionary mission. This dynamic spoken word band performed their "hard hittin blak poetry n muzik" from the '90s to the early 2000s. The Funky Wordsmyths delivered their social commentary in the traditions of both African griots and their predecessors such as The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron and Chicago's own Oscar Brown Jr., featuring some of Chicago's finest poets and musicians. This extremely talented and colorful cast of characters rallied behind Kelley's vision to unapologetically tell their stories through words and music.

This program is presented by Borderbend, in partnership with Legler Library, as part of a program series at the Legler Regional Branch of the Chicago Public Library system.

Anti-Violence, Social Justice and the Arts Program at Legler Library

3/12/2019

Monday, April 8th (7:00-8:30 p.m.)

Legler Regional Library
Meeting Room (2nd floor)
115 S. Pulaski Ave.
Chicago, IL 60624

free and open to the public, all ages

You're invited to come to a program focused around anti-violence, social justice and the arts at the Legler Regional Library -- with a roundtable discussion, poetry workshop and performance. This involves a collaboration with Borderbend and Peace Warriors.

This program is presented by Borderbend, in partnership with the Legler Regional Library, as part of an ongoing series at the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library system.

Above: North Lawndale High School
Peace Warriors Training

Celebrating Black History Month -- with Chicago Arts

1/8/2019

Monday, February 25, 2019 (6-7:30 p.m.)

Legler Public Library
Meeting Room (2nd floor)
115 S. Pulaski Rd.
Chicago, IL 60624

free and open to the public, all ages

You’re invited to come to our inaugural program at Legler Regional Library -- celebrating the arts in Chicago during Black History Month. Our program begins with a roundtable discussion about some highlights about great African American artists – including poets, musicians and visual artists – who have contributed to the rich tapestry of Chicago history and culture. Then we transition to a text-and-image workshop during which participants create mixed media pieces with poetry and collage. This program features talks by Chicago artists Sharon Bladholm and Spencer Hutchinson.

This program is presented by Borderbend, in partnership with the Legler Regional Library, as part of an ongoing series at the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library system.

photo: South Side Community Center

dachi-dacago

8/13/2016

Sunday, October 30th (5 p.m.)

Gallery Chicago
760 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60642

free and open to the public

You're invited to come to dachi-dacago, a collaborative arts event with mail art, poetry performances, DADA100 cut-up maker, improbable portrait-making, movie tracing machine, and more. Participants include the Bay Area Correspondence School, Read/Write Library, Janina Ciezadlo, Keith M. Kelley, Penelope Rosemont, Vittorio Carli, Charlie Newman, Andrew Oleksiuk, Duane Vorhees, Dan Godston, and special guests.

Dachi-dacago happens during DADA Chicago, a group show that celebrates DADA's Centennial. DADA Chicago features artworks by Schlecter Duvall, Eugenio Granell, Gale Ahrens, Betsy Boemmel, Janina Ciezadlo, Dennis Cunningham, Devin Cain, Laura Corsiglia, Rikki Ducornet, John Duda, Ruti Eckstein, Alexandria Eregbru, Krista Franklin, Paul Garon, Beth Garon, William Cropper, Guy Girard, Ken Hirte, Joseph Jablonski, Michael James, J.J. McLuckie, Sheila Nopper, Tom Palazzolo, Nancy Joyce Peters, Penelope Rosemont, Ody Saban, Ron Sakolsky, Enrico de Santiago, Winston Smith, Helene Smith-Romer, Patrick Turner, Marian Wallace, Joel Williams, Karol Baron, Gabriel Bein-Aime, Artur do Cruzeiro-Sexas, Carlos Cortez, Herr de Vries, Maurice Greenia, Tatsuo Ikeda, Tristan Meinecke, Jacinto Minot, Franklin Rosemont, Sylla, and Venita.

DADA Chicago is organized by the Chicago Surrealist Group, the Friends of DADA, with other outstanding works and contributors.

Links:

Erasures & Vispo / Chicago as Grist

8/8/2016

Monday, August 22nd (6:00-7:15, 7:30-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

all ages, free & open to the public

You're invited to join us during our last meetup for the summer term, when we explore erasures and vispo inspired by Chicago. We'll be using found texts and images, making creative connections between objective and subjective responses to aspects of Chicago's identity.

Bring your musical instruments, art supplies and notebooks. These workshops are interactive and multidisciplinary. We have supplies and equipment on hand that workshop participants can use -- including pencils, pens, paint, a piano, other musical instruments.

Location: Mozart Park is in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. It's on the north side of Armitage Ave. -- several blocks east of Pulaski Rd., just south of Dickens and Shakespeare Streets. Our workshop series happens in the room to the left of fieldhouse lobby; some workshop sessions may happen outside in the park, weather permitting.

Transportation & parking: Mozart Park can be reached by public transportation (such as the #73 Armitage Ave. bus, and not far from the Logan Square and Western Ave. stations on the CTA's blue line. Mozart Park has a parking lot on Armitage, east of Avers.

Registration: Click here or here to register for the fall term at the Chicago Park District website.

Additional info: You can contact us by clicking here (if you have questions about this workshop or to RSVP). Click here to find out more about Borderbend's arts workshop series at Mozart Park.

Armitage Arts: Summer City in a Garden

4/3/2016

Saturday, June 25th (1-4 p.m.)

Mozart Park
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

free and open to the public

Mark your calendars! Borderbend presents "Armitage Arts: Summer City in a Garden" at Mozart Park. This Night Out in the Parks event features music, poetry, fiction and an arts workshop, with--

Regina Baiocchi -- poetry
Alpha Bruton -- visual art
Andrew Change -- poetry
Lou Ciccotelli -- drums
Jon Hey -- piano
Tanner McSwain -- fiction
Kenyatta Rogers -- poetry
Valerie Wallace -- poetry
Alex Wing -- upright bass, guitar
Dan Godston -- cornet

Weather permitting, "Armitage Arts: Summer City in a Garden" will take place in front of the Mozart Park fieldhouse. In the event of inclement weather, we'll be inside the fieldhouse. Stay tuned for more details!

Our Next Workshop: Kenneth Fearing

6/29/2015

Monday, July 6th
(6:00-7:00, 7:15-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

all ages, free & open to the public
all ages, free & open to the public

You're invited to come to our next workshop, which is inspired by Kenneth Fearing. Poet/novelist/essayist Kenneth Fearing was born in Oak Park in 1902. More than fifty years after his death in 1961, he remains one of the most original & under-appreciated Chicago-born writers. He published numerous pulp stories, seven collections of poems and eight novels, including The Big Clock (1946), a thriller that helped to define the genre of film noir when Paramount adapted it in 1948. Few of his works remain in print today, probably because of his radical politics. In the 1930s, he was one of the most respected poets of the Popular Front and a founding editor of The Partisan Review; in 1950 he was called before HUAC. In response to the question, “are you a member of the Communist Party?” he is said to have replied, “Not yet.”

Fearing's poems and novels are machinic assemblages—big machines made of words—that critique the mechanization and mediation of white American society. In Clark Gifford's Body (1942), he uses multiple narrators to describe a futuristic version of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, which leads to a proletarian/capitalist civil war. The raid is conducted not on an armory, but a radio station, reflecting Fearing's belief that broadcast media was the most important weapon in modern America. In Loneliest Girl in the World (1951), he employs multiple narrators—including a rudimentary computer—to ask what might become of romance in a bureaucratic, post-human society.

Come to learn more about / debate / be inspired by Kenneth Fearing. We will use Infernal Machine Poetics (IMP) technology to further our understanding of one of our region's most engaging political artists.

Bring your musical instruments, art supplies and notebooks. These workshops are interactive and multidisciplinary. We have supplies and equipment on hand that workshop participants can use -- including pencils, pens, paint, a piano, other musical instruments.

Location: Mozart Park is in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. It's on the north side of Armitage Ave. -- several blocks east of Pulaski Rd., just south of Dickens and Shakespeare Streets. Our workshop series happens in the room to the left of fieldhouse lobby; some workshop sessions may happen outside in the park, weather permitting.

Transportation & parking: Mozart Park can be reached by public transportation (such as the #73 Armitage Ave. bus, and not far from the Logan Square and Western Ave. stations on the CTA's blue line. Mozart Park has a parking lot on Armitage, east of Avers.

Registering for Chicago Portraits & Arts Journeys: Click here or here to register for the summer term at the Chicago Park District website.

Additional info: You can contact us by clicking here (if you have questions about this workshop or to RSVP). Click here to find out more about the Chicago Portraits & Arts Journeys workshop series.

Links:

Armitage Arts: Summer Edition at Mozart Park

4/25/2015

Wednesday, June 24th (6:30-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

free and open to the public

The Borderbend Arts Collective presents “Armitage Arts: Summer Edition,” a Night Out in the Parks event at Mozart Park that includes an interdisciplinary performance with poetry, music and projections, as well as interactive arts-making activities for all ages. The poets include Janina Ciezadlo, Steven Schroeder, Elizabeth Marino, Charlie Newman and Wayne Allen Jones, and the musicians include Adam Zanolini (flute, saxophone, djembe, electric bass), Angel Elmore (piano, clarinet), Dan Godston (cornet, pixiphone) and Lou Ciccotelli (drums).

“Armitage Arts: Summer Edition” is part of an ongoing series that is part of a community-building initiative along W. Armitage Ave; other “Armitage Arts” programs have included the 2014 Armitage Arts Festival, as well as events at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center and Rosa’s Lounge.

This program is presented as part of the Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks with the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Arts programming in neighborhoods across the city advances the goals of the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Cultural Plan.

Funding for this program is also being provided by Poets & Writers. Support for Readings & Workshops events in Chicago is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Links:

Our Next Workshop: Ken Nordine and Howard Levy

4/12/2015

Monday, April 20th
(6:00-7:00, 7:15-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

all ages, free & open to the public

You're invited to come to our next workshop, which is inspired by Ken Nordine and Howard Levy. We will:

Talk about their work, including their connections to Chicago;
Make music and create text-and-image collages inspired by work by Nordine and Levy.

Bring your musical instruments, your poetry, your art supplies! These workshops are interactive and multidisciplinary. We have supplies and equipment on hand that workshop participants can use -- including pencils, pens, paint, a piano, other musical instruments.

Location: Mozart Park is in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. It's on the north side of Armitage Ave. -- several blocks east of Pulaski Rd., just south of Dickens and Shakespeare Streets. Our workshop series happens in the room to the left of fieldhouse lobby; some workshop sessions may happen outside in the park, weather permitting.

Transportation & parking: Mozart Park can be reached by public transportation (such as the #73 Armitage Ave. bus, and not far from the Logan Square and Western Ave. stations on the CTA's blue line. Mozart Park has a parking lot on Armitage, east of Avers.

Registering for Chicago Portraits & Arts Journeys: Click here or here to register for the spring term at the Chicago Park District website.

Additional info: You can contact us by clicking here (if you have questions about this workshop or to RSVP). Click here to find out more about the Chicago Portraits & Arts Journeys workshop series.

Links:

"Will Ken Nordine Ever Grow Up?" by Adam Langer (The Chicago Reader, 7/12/1990)

Wide Weird World of Shorty Petterstein (Henry Jacobs MP3s on WFMU's Beware of the Blog)

"'Word Jazz' pioneer Ken Nordine's career gets a closer look at film festival" by Christopher Borrelli (Chicago Tribune, 10/9/2012)

Our Next Arts Workshop: Margaret Walker, Haki Madhubuti, Carol D. Lee, and Sterling Plumpp

3/31/2015

Monday, April 13th
(6:00-7:00, 7:15-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

all ages, free & open to the public

You're invited to come to our next workshop, which is inspired by Dr. Margaret Walker, Dr. Haki R. Madhubuti, Dr. Carol D. Lee, and Sterling Plumpp. We will:

Talk about their work, including their connections to Chicago;
Make music and create text-and-image collages inspired by work by Walker, Madhubuti, Lee, and Plumpp.

Bring your musical instruments, your poetry, your art supplies! These workshops are interactive and multidisciplinary. We have supplies and equipment on hand that workshop participants can use -- including pencils, pens, paint, a piano, other musical instruments.

Location: Mozart Park is in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. It's on the north side of Armitage Ave. -- several blocks east of Pulaski Rd., just south of Dickens and Shakespeare Streets. Our workshop series happens in the room to the left of fieldhouse lobby; some workshop sessions may happen outside in the park, weather permitting.

Transportation & parking: Mozart Park can be reached by public transportation (such as the #73 Armitage Ave. bus, and not far from the Logan Square and Western Ave. stations on the CTA's blue line. Mozart Park has a parking lot on Armitage, east of Avers.

Registering for Chicago Portraits & Arts Journeys: Click here or here to register for the spring term at the Chicago Park District website.

Additional info: You can contact us by clicking here (if you have questions about this workshop or to RSVP). Click here to find out more about the Chicago Portraits & Arts Journeys workshop series.

Links: