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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 )
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Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
Thursday, May 23rd, 2013
small piece of Lady’s art – foto Smith
We’re driving to Minneapolis for Saturday’s poetry and memoir reading and one-night art show.
Here’s the Gamut Gallery’s press release.
WANTED: AN EVENING WITH OUTLAW WRITERS
LIVE READINGS IN THE GAMUT GALLERY STUDIO
MINNEAPOLIS–May 25, at 8:00 p.m. 2013, Christopher Shillock presents four poets, direct from the underbelly. Self-confessed art criminal “Smith” and his domestic partner in crime “Lady K,” will read from their new book “Stations of the Lost and Found: A True Story of Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Outsider Art, Mutant Poetry, Underground Publishing, Robbing the Cradle and Leaving the Country.” This memoir of Smith’s journey from lawless provocateur to known Cleveland artist, brings the authors’ crime spree all the way to Minneapolis. Here they will be aided and abetted by two local literary miscreants and works from a great outlaw writer of history, François Villon.
Tabatha Predovich and Christopher Shillock have created a musical, literary adaptation of some of Villon’s fifteenth century poems; Shillock will read his modernized, artistically translated lyrics. Also in accompaniment to the authors’ readings, Smith and Lady K will show their “assemblages,” which are mixed-media, found-object works on canvas. These visual pieces were inspired by the same themes the artists were driven by in their writing.
Steven B. Smith has been a poet for 50 years, artist 49 years, publisher of ArtCrimes 28 years, editor of AgentofChaos.com, 11 years, WalkingThinIce.com blogger 8 years, ReverbNation.com/MutantSmith singer & lyricist 3 years. Public radio’s WCPN reports Smith as “one of the 70′s artistic renegades and anti-establishment types who proudly wore the banner of criminal and terrorist: Smith is something of an underground legend in the Cleveland art scene.” (September, 2012). He’s also called “the ultimate insider of outsider art” (Northern Ohio Live, 2005). “funny and poignant, but with rough edges worthy of a tetanus shot.” (Scene, 1996); “equal parts artist, poet, publisher, eccentric, gadfly. lightning rod, underground cultural icon” (Deep Cleveland, 2006)
Kathy Ireland Smith, a.k.a. Lady K, is a poet, publisher, artist and surreal photographer from Northeast Ohio. She and her husband Smith spent 31 months of traveling in 10 countries on 3 continents from 2006 – 2009, you can follow their adventures at WalkingThinIce.com. Kathy is also founder and editor of The City Poetry (www.thecitypoetry.com), a cutting edge art and poetry zine based in Cleveland.
Paul Singleton is the author of “The Punk Rock Bible”, a work-in-progress posted on www.tcpunk.com under the pseudonym vishnu666. He drives a cab in Minneapolis and made himself indispensable to the early punk scene in Minneapolis.
Scott Vetsch was a member of the Minneapolis All-Star Poets. His book “Hauling Ass: Cab Driving Poems” was featured in the program “Streets of Minneapolis” He is the son of the notorious “Ma” Vetsch.
Christopher Shillock is a poet, philosopher and radical, whose 80′s activism “led him to the losing side of every factional dispute.” He attended Haverford College, received a MA in Philosophy from CUNY in 1972 and studied comparative lit. at the U of M. He writes in three languages, translates poetry in seven. Shillock now lives the creative life as radical act. He received a Verve Grant in 2003 and continues to work in various media, locally and around the world. http://tcbard.blogspot.com/
François Villon hails from Medieval Paris. He went to the gallows three times and received a pardon every time (France really respects its poets).
-The Smiths’ Book is available here: https://www.createspace.com/3903652
-Tickets are sliding scale $5-10, no one in need turned away
Gamut Gallery
1006 Marquette Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55403
(612) 701-8272
the two of us – foto Smith
Posted in Art, Photography, Poetry | No Comments »
Thursday, May 23rd, 2013
“First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.”
~ Donovan
Dear Beings of the Universe/Good Luck Charmers,
The moon is full. We are on the Quest. We set off this morning, our little quest within the big Quest. We are going to Fairyland, which is good because I am not just Lady, I am a fairy. We will tell the beings in the basement under Fairyland our stories from Stations of the Lost and Found.
This Fairyland we’re going to is in Minneapolis. On the way, we are stopping in Elgin:
- Much of Elgin is in the county of Kane.
- Elgin National Watch Company’s logo features Father Time.
- Elgin has a Symphony Orchestra and some examples of homes in the Queen Anne style.
- The Indian Removal Act of 1820 and the Black Hawk Indian War of 1832 led to the expulsion of Native Americans who had settlements and burial mounds in the area.
So that Act was 193 years ago, basically, two or three lifespans ago, roughly 8 generations ago. How could one possibly justify the expulsion of Native Americans? What were the settlers thinking? And so overtly, too: the Indian “Removal Act.” It led to the Trail of Tears. Interestingly, many ethical Christians protested the act.
So there’s this potpourri of information that one can dig into—what parts of it apply to the Quest?
What I know:
- I am a fairy and we are going to Fairyland.
- I was asked to ask Brahman to stop the suffering of Samsara. This is part of my long quest and what I was told in the Dream.
- I am Lady of the Church of Not Quite So Much Pain & Suffering.
- Native Americans figure.
I like time and the thought of going West on a quest. East, too, but I’ve been more East than West.
Peace & blessings & love,
Lady
P.S.: I would like to leave you here with a Bree poem from the new Matter Ring:
The Riser
 You are the bartender salting the rim
of the earth. You are shaking things up,
good company.
You are the hostess the whole room
rounding while we straighten our shirts
in the mirror moon easily makes
of your eyes,
good company.
The salesman on the ready, always, you
make something out of us, like it was
no thing, this us. And this is us waiting.
We are what we make of each others army.
And you time things right, ever the
doorman, you of the first infantry, opening
into us, you also pull away from us, and off
of us rise.
~ Bree
Tags: Donovan, Elgin, Fairyland, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Native Americans, Quest, Stations
Posted in Art, Bio, couples, Creative Writing, creativity, dreams, Events, Lady, ladymemoir, Letters to the Universe, Philosophy, Poetry, Relationships, smith & Lady, spirituality, Travel Notes | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 21st, 2013
Getting through it is what a woman’s period is about—getting through the end of the cycle, bloated, sloughing, cleansing. How the blood blooms, body aches and then svelteness after the sloughing. Like our sight of the moon showing more and more light then sloughing it off.
But a moon when full is like a bright plate, a pendant, something resonant.
A woman when sloughing off her blood? What’s that? Is it just that we do it together? Is it just about cycle?
A woman when sloughing off her blood, a woman when aging through the cycles, she’s not always so keen on it.
The moon, though, the moon is always keen.
A woman is kind of like a tide and a beach and a powerful beachcomber, a powerful self-grooming beach. Not a bitch, a beach.
There are many metaphors for a woman, but I am working on conveying some kind of idea here about grooming and aging and here we have again the thing about the woman and the moon.
Perhaps just the getting full and release and the similar period of time—that’s it? But as far as cleanliness, the moon is always pretty clean and keen.
A woman picking through her mind can be keen. A woman letting herself recognize her framework, her bones, the beauty of her bones and how the tissues hang on them, a woman can love how her tissues hang on her bones. A woman can love how her tissues billow on her bones. A woman can love how her tissues firm and slacken and slacken and firm on her bones. A woman can have so many expectations for herself and make them happen.
The moon takes whatever comes, actually. The moon is slowly battered over and over but what we see from here is bright silver patina.
Women, they are battered as well, we all are. I’m not talking about assault, I’m not talking about violence—there’s been enough of that. What I’m talking about here is the battering of the days and nights. What I’m talking about here is the battering of being through so many cycles. And the upside of the cycles is renewal, there’s that, too.
Let’s have gentle means round these circles, let’s take them tenderly. They seldom ever end.
~ Lady
Posted in Lady, Letters to the Universe, Philosophy, Poetry, spirituality | No Comments »
Monday, May 20th, 2013
Poet, Philosopher, Radical Christopher Shillock – foto from his websites
It pays to be nice to poets
Couple years ago a Myspace friend — Christopher Shillock, Minneapolis poet philosopher revolutionary with punk political street cred I admire — messaged me he was visiting Cleveland and were there any open mics.
One of the cooler places to read is the basement of Mac’s Backs Books. Co-owner Suzanne has been hosting readings since the early 1980s. She’s a selfless supporter of poetry . . . had she not bought so many poet’s books and given them such sweet deals for the past 34 years, she might be rich by now, that is if anyone CAN ever get rich running an independent bookstore.
Suzanne immediately added him as a third feature for that week’s reading, Lady cooked us dinner, and I drove him to the reading. Next night he took me to dinner where we were both unmasked as dangerous facades with soft pussycat centers, which is pretty amazing considering his black leather jacket and wild hair coming across like someone you’d not want to disrespect in a dark alley (and there are even a few folk who fear me, go figure).
For the curious, there’s his blog tcbard.blogspot.com/,
an older bio mindspring.com/~jcsiii/,
a glowing newspaper article tcdailyplanet.net/news/2005/12/03/chris-shillock-anarchist-action
and his Facebook page facebook.com/christopher.shillock.
After Lady published my memoir last year, Chris offered to set up a book reading/one-night art show for us in Minneapolis. I’m really looking forward to this, going to a new city to read before an audience of strangers.
So take it to heart and be nice to strange poets . . . you never know when they’ll be nice right back at you.
Poet, Philosopher, Radical Christopher Shillock with sweet innocent Smith
– foto from his websites
Posted in Bio, Poetry | No Comments »
Saturday, 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
Posted in Photography, Poetry | No Comments »
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