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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
 
   
 
 

Borderlands: Poetry On the Edge today 2-4pm

May 18th, 2013

Three faces have I – foto Smith

Poet Louise Robertson and I are reading today down in Mansfield at Borderlands: Poetry On the Edge, Main Street Books 2-4 pm: facebook.com/events/182212025266698/.

A week from today Lady and I are the featured readers at the Gamut Gallery in Minneapolis, MN (data to follow tomorrow).

Main Street Books is at 104 North Main Street, Mansfield, Ohio 44902, (419) 522-2665

From Face Book:

Borderlands is a poetry reading series composed entirely of Ohio writers. This month’s reading features Louise Robertson and Steven B. Smith.

Louise Robertson lives, raises her kids, works, and is involved in the poetry scene in Central Ohio. She holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from George Mason University.

Robertson’s publication credits include many small press journals (including a feature set of 6 poems in the Jan. 2011 Pudding Magazine), a couple anthologies, one chapbook produced by a reading series, and a law school newspaper. Additionally, Pudding House Publications published her chapbook Teaching My Daughter My Language. She runs Rewriting Ovid Publications, a very small press with a growing set of high quality authors.

A passionate advocate for the presences of live poetry, she has organized and helped organize numerous poetry events such as the Writer’s Block First Draft show, the Poetry Forum at the Rumba Cafe, and the Women of the World Poetry Slam.

Robertson’s awards include, more recently, the 2009 and 2007 Columbus Arts Festival poetry award after having placed 3rd in the 2006 Columbus Arts Festival competition. She also placed 2nd in the 2006 William Redding contest. She won an honorable mention in the 2005 contest from Perigee. Her most prestigious academic award was the 1992 Mary Roberts Rinehart award. She took 3rd in the 1991 Virginia Downs competition. She also received the Mary Cotton Fellowship and a general academic fellowship while getting her MFA.

Steven B. Smith is a poet, memoirist, photographer, blogger and collage/assemblage artist who makes his home in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. He’s been writing poetry for nearly five decades, and for more than twenty years he published the famed “Artcrimes” journal. He created a massive online art/poetry archive at agentofchaos.com, and a wide array of his poetry and collages have been published in the critically acclaimed book “Zen Over Zero: Selected Poems 1964-2008″ (The City Poetry Press). Smith and his wife Lady have traveled the world extensively, creating and living art in places like Croatia, Morocco, and Mexico, while blogging about the best, worst and most unique bits of their journey at walkingthinice.com. They’ve also collaborated on a book about Smith’s life entitled “Stations of the Lost & Found — A True Tale of Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Outsider Art, Mutant Poetry, Underground Publishing, Robbing the Cradle, and Leaving the Country,” published in 2012. For more information on Smith, read his bio at agentofchaos.com/bio.php. Check out his musical collaborations at >reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.


Poet – foto Smith

 

Be excellent to each other

May 18th, 2013

Lately I keep thinking about the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” In the movie, they find out that in the future they are worshiped and the whole of future society is based on them. The motto of the society is “be excellent to each other.”

I love 80s expressions like “excellent” and “awesome.” I love thinking about the hearty innocence and doggie gusto of Keanu Reeves. Yeah, he’s kind of bland, but he’s still *excellent.*

I am on a quest. My quest is to be as excellent as I can be in all the little nooks and crannies of the Thomas’s english muffin of my life, the big, most excellent, vegan-butter-and-raw-honey-whole-wheat-toasted english muffin of my life, the english muffin of my life that is delectable yet leaves one wanting more life to live!

So for the past two years I’ve been beating myself over the head with activist efforts without letting myself have the teensiest toe-dip in the actual tangible parts of what it is I would affect positively with my activism.

That’s changed recently. I am working on tangible, immediate results in addition to abstract work.

There are two things we’re picking up: volunteering at the APL doing dog-walking and working on protecting the watershed. So rather than only sitting and talking, Smith and I are out there doing fun stuff and getting exercise and being with each other, helping save the world and being and feeling excellent.

Volunteering at the APL is such a joy–to be with the dogs in the field, being so happy, witnessing happiness. Their walks of temporary freedom also temporary respite for me. It is so nice for the dogs to have the walks–they are treated well and they get out quite a bit, but even so the majority of their time is in the little cages.

I have noticed, though, that some of the dogs who are more shy or who have some physical problems (like Dozer, a sweet, blind dog) have been there for probably quite some time. One dog doesn’t like a leash, so I don’t think she gets to go out very much at all unless someone really pushes her. I’ve been working on a relationship with her and have just sat in her cage to work on keeping her social but she won’t even let me pet her yet.

It makes me think that when I adopt a dog, if that happens in the future, I will adopt one that is shy or has some kind of physical issue, because it will help prevent animals with these problems from having to stay too long cooped up.

This morning we’re going for orientation on the new watershed volunteer gig. This is kind of neat because it’s a new project for the Cleveland Metroparks, a new watershed program in Parma. The more I read the more I read about new programs for reclaiming and restoring the health of land, and I am so enthusiastic about being a part of this, putting my hands into the loam of it, seeing stuff grow and be protected and secure.

~ Lady


 

caffeine & cannabis

May 17th, 2013

That ole debbil weed – foto Smith

Since I’m not toking past few days for next few days or weeks, I’ll write of past, a.k.a. the golden haze. (still doing two cups of strong Costa Rican cowboy pan coffee though)

Defy, Get High

Caffeine and cannabis
what a great way to start the day

Like an afterglow henhive in yesterhaze oldtown
where savedface rosebuds manifest

I’m laughing with you
even though you’re not laughing

— Smith, 5.17.2013


Lucky green – foto Smith

 

from Genesis to apocalypsim

May 15th, 2013

Relativity – foto Smith

An odd one, recorded yesterday.

Low-slow easy-going-nowhere almost-vocal floating through a junkyard of outer space sound.

Click here to hear or download free: Statement, Mix B

Statement

Let us take this world that is rather round
And topsy turvy turn her upside down
Then all the oceans which cover her face
Would soon drain off into outer space

Without the water it’s a bouncy ball
Drop it out the window and watch it fall
How it falls so fast how it hits so hard
Bouncing in pieces all over the yard

From the Genesis to Revelations
And evolution through all its stages
From the flood down through apocalipsim
We’re fighting for a better system

Take a stick and stick the world on top
My goodness what we have is a huge lollipop
But o alas what’s the use of it all
I can’t take a lick cuz my tongue’s too small

— Smith, 5.14.2013

Music, mix and recording by Peter Ball; worfds and vocal Smith.

Sixty-some more musical collaborations at reverbnation.com/MutantSmith.


Innerlight – foto Smith

 

Out at the in-laws #3

May 13th, 2013

flow surfing – foto Smith

Out at the In-laws 3

Old piano rumbles
forgotten fingers stumble
fumble for the flow
light licks flick leaf wind trees
kitchen voices two room silence
shadow spackles window
sun slats wall
melody off
low
slow
unfamiliar film noir edge
until finally “Für Elise”
Beethoven’s beauty
slides like soundtrack
to foreign flick
as I look about for my script
camera, director
sure I’m in a set piece
peace by piece imparting
pardoning my probe

— Smith, 5.12.2013


Piano Lady – foto Smith

 

 
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