Jan Steckel's Blog: Horizontal Poet Sings Bidyke Blues - Posts Tagged "poetry"

My fiction chapbook arrived today! It looks beautiful. Mixing Tracks won the Gertrude Press Fiction Chapbook Award for LGBT writers. Here’s the publisher’s blurb for the 22-page book:

“A darkly comic and oddly touching story of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a plane crash that crushes human bodies while leaving the mandolins unharmed. In Mixing Tracks, Jan Steckel strikes an unsettling balance between the consolations of memory, the thrilling ephemerality of youthful ambition, and our shared need for connection, even (or especially) when our world seems to have to come to its end.”

If you want to order one for $8, you may have to bounce around http://www.gertrudepress.org a bit, but please be persistent, and keep looking at the shopping cart icon. Sooner or later it will successfully register your order! Don't wait too long, though, because there are fewer than a hundred copies left. Start by going to the Catalog at the top of the site and pulling down the menu; click on Chapbooks.

Please help me by ordering Mixing Tracks from the Gertrude Press website at http://www.gertrudepress.org! If I can sell out this first print run, they may do another. If this fiction chapbook sells well like my poetry chapbook did, it may help me get a publisher for the full-length short story collection I finished recently. I’ll have some copies of Mixing Tracks to sell at my July readings, but I won’t be taking mail orders myself this time.

Upcoming readings:

Monday, July 6, 2009, at 7 PM. I’m featured with Joyce Jenkins (editor of Poetry Flash) and my husband Hew Wolff at the Gallery Cafe Reading Series hosted by Kit Kennedy. Open mic to follow. The Gallery Cafe, 1200 Mason St. at Washington, San Francisco, CA. 414-296-9932. Take the bus: #1 California, #30 Stockton, #45 Union. For more information contact Kit Kennedy, kitkennedy@yahoo.com, 415-305-1831.

Monday, July 20, 2009, at 6:40 PM. I’m featured with Seattle author Cat Ruiz plus open mic at Poetry Express, hosted by Mark States, Nance Wogan and Jim Barnard. Priya Indian Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. (near University Ave.), Berkeley, CA. 510-644-3977. Ask for special seating for poetry reading; 10% off dinner.

You can find details about my terrific co-featured poets at http://www.jansteckel.com/Events.html.

Publications

Fiction, poetry and essay publications over the past year and a half include work in Bellevue Literary Review, Sage Trail Poetry Magazine, The November 3rd Club, Outsider Writers, the anthology Getting Bi (2nd Edition), SoMa Literary Review, The Eloquent Atheist, Street Spirit, S.F. Heart, Faithful Fools Anthology: Living in the Land of the Dead, Vol. 3, Redwood Coast Review, and Bi Women. I have work forthcoming in Canary, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, and the anthology Best Bi Short Stories. My wonderful webmistress and Woman-Stirred colleague Nicki Hastie is gradually adding links to many of these to my website writing resume at http://www.jansteckel.com/Writing.html. Drop by to check out what’s new!

Dear Friends,

I'm thankful for what health I have, for my family, husband and you, my friends. I'm grateful that so many things still get me excited. This morning it's the fact that my poem "Tom's Quality of Light" is one of six nominees for the Goodreads Newsletter Poetry Contest. The quality of the other poems nominated is very high. Please read them all and vote at http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2....

In other news, my poetry chapbook THE UNDERWATER HOSPITAL won Phases One and Two (the "popularity contest" part) of the Rainbow Awards for LGBT books, thanks to your votes, my friends. I'm grateful for that, too! It is now being considered by a jury of LGBT writers for the final award. Results should be out by mid-December.

My poem "Water and Salt" will be coming out soon in The Crazy Child Scribbler, while four poems were just accepted by Full of Crow's poetry editor MK Chavez.

Wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving, and hoping you also have many things for which to feel thankful.

Warmly,
Jan

Happy New Year, friends! I'm thrilled that four of my poems appear in January's issue of the online magazine FULL OF CROW. It's the debut issue for FULL OF CROW's new poetry editor MK Chavez. The poems are "The Rose Grew Round the Briar,""Pretty, Wild," "My Jericho," and "Dance of the Perseids." Hope you enjoy them at http://fullofcrow.com/poetry/01/jan-s...

My husband Hew Wolff and I will be the featured readers at The Poetry Zone in Santa Barbara, Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 2-4 PM. Come read a poem of your own at the open mic, hosted by Suzanne Frost. Upstairs at the Karpeles Manuscript Library, 21 W.Anapamu, Santa Barbara, California, USA.

You can find Hew Wolff's poetry on his website at http://www.hewwolff.org

Come a little early to look at the old manuscripts in the Karpeles Manuscript Museum. Check it out at http://www.rain.org/~karpeles/sbafrm....

What a wonderful review of my fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) by Mary Meriam in Gently Read Literature at
http://gentlyread.wordpress.com/2010/...

The book is still available for $8 at http://www.gertrudepress.org/catalog?...

Congratulation to Jane Ellen Glasser for winning this month's Goodreads Newsletter Poetry Contest with her delightful poem "Le déjeuner sur l’herbe." Thanks to all of you who read the poems and voted for your favorite. My poem "Cancer and the Man" came in fourth out of sixth finalists in the Goodreads poll.

How is everyone else's writing going? Anyone know a good place to submit poems about Passover? Seems like the right time to submit the ones I have, if not a bit too late.

One of the oldest rounds in English is "Sumer is Icumen in." See the manuscript here. It's so warm today here in Oakland, and the birds are singing so loudly in our back yard, that it feels like summer's on it's way. I have two readings scheduled for this summer, and I hope those of you in the SF Bay Area will save the dates.

The first is at the Berkeley Poetry Festival on Saturday, June 5, in front of the old Cody's bookstore at Telegraph and Haste. I'll be reading at 2:30 PM; the festival lasts from 12:30 to 6. I'll post more details soon.

The second is at Works in Progress (WIP), a women-only reading hosted by Linda Zeiser, on July 10, where I'm honored to be featured with Giovanna Capone. WIP will move to a new location in Piedmont that evening; details to follow.

You can find three poems of mine online now in Apparatus Magazine, edited by Adam W. Hart. Those of you who are poets and writers, be sure to let me know about your readings and publications, too! Enjoy the warmer weather.

Happy Pride, y'all! We marched in a Bisexual contingent in the San Francisco Pride parade today. So good to see old friends and make some new ones there. It was even fun lying on the sidewalk for two hours waiting for our contingent to move -- I got to look up a lot of skirts, some worn by women.

Speaking of women, if you're not all put off by the objectification (which in my case is strictly equal opportunity), I hope the women among you will consider coming to my July 10 reading in Piedmont/Oakland, CA, USA:

"Works in Progress Reading and Concert
(An Open Mic for Women)
Saturday, July 10, 2010, 6:30pm - 10 pm
Fireside Room, Plymouth United Church of Christ
424 Monte Vista (corner of Oakland Ave), Piedmont/Oakland.

The driveway on Monte Vista goes to the Fireside Room, parking lot & wheelchair access.

SIXTH ANNIVERSARY PARTY !!!
Poetry, music, champagne and cake for everyone!

Featuring Jan Steckel. Jan’s incredible poetry will leave you thrilled, stunned and grateful. Her Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) won the Gertrude Press fiction chapbook award for LGBT writers. The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) won in the lesbian and bisexual poetry categories for an international Rainbow Award. www.jansteckel.com.

And Giovanna Capone. An Italian American poet and fiction writer, Giovanna’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry, ed. by M. & J. Gillan. Her work has been taught in Poetry for the People, a grassroots-oriented workshop at UC Berkeley. Currently, she is at work on a manuscript of her original poetry.

Introducing Cheri Anderson, a contemporary jazz vocal stylist who infuses lyrics that are rooted in Love, music that is "Jazzin' the Spirit.” With songs about love, love of God, love of ourselves, and love of one another, Cheri sings with the smoothness of Nancy Wilson and the huskiness of Phyllis Hymen in a range that reaches five octaves.

$7-$10 Admission includes a free raffle ticket for a chance to win one
of six $25 certificates for fine dining at a local restaurant.

6:30 - 7:30 Pot Luck -- BRING YOUR FAVORITE FOOD TO SHARE!!

7:30 - 10:00 fireside Performance

Hosted by Feminist Author & Poet Linda Zeiser, Produced by Linda Zeiser & Carolyn Stull. For information, contact Linda at (510) 701-1022 or ZeiserpoetMC@aol.com.

Works In Progress is a creative space for women's art: Poets, Musicians, Comediennes, and Performance Artists. All are encouraged to share their works, completed or evolving. WIP is scent-free and wheelchair accessible."

Alameda in the Shutter-Click

From Ballena Bay to Crab Cove, pilings, tide lines,
orange-eyed night heron, cluster of sandpipers.
Every picture laid with transparency over
an older island, when the naval base boomed, or earlier,
when beaches swarmed like Coney Island or Roman baths.
Sepia-toned beribboned hats, ankle-length skirts for the surf.
1918. 1908. 1905. Long-dead bathing beauties balance,
boating and swimming. Neptune Beach, Surf Beach Park,
Sunny Cove Baths, Terrace Bath. New-built Painted Ladies
stand house-proud. Nineteenth century: Tall ships
at Grand Street’s foot, masts poking out of the palimpsest.

Just like place-names, pure sound now, hide Spanish meanings:
“Tree-lined Avenue.” “Bay of the Whales.” Surely it’s more
than poppies, snapdragons, marinas, sunset over San Francisco.
These names: “Yacht Club,” “Mariners Square,”
“The South Shore Beach and Tennis Club,” conceal
ascending aspirations, wavelet after rising wave of immigrants
lacquering over squalid beginnings. (We’ll be Americans too,
and rich, when we live in such place names as these.)

Duck and hooded merganser, coot and grebe.
Each bird only the part you can see.
How much is underwater, paddling madly,
just to look serene for one snap of the camera?
Do they lie high or low in the water, like tall ships,
barnacled bottoms silently scraping the pier?

From South Shore lagoon to the Alameda Estuary:
gulls descend on mussel-bound rocks, seaweed-sheathed,
just as slippery before tide-tables were printed here.
Species introduced, species extinct. Landscape changes:
landfills, dredging, tunnels. Posey Tube and Webster Tube.
Park Street Bridge and High Street Bridge.
Hello and goodbye: to draw a bridge
or to photograph a drawbridge.
The poet is a camera, click, click, click.
Get shutter speed right, correct focal length,
and what was hazy leaps into the clear.


(Winner of the 2007 Jewel by the Bay Poetry Award. First appeared in the Alameda Sun, Aug. 3, 2007)

Dear Friends,

Save the date, if you live in the SF Bay Area! I'll be among several featured readers at Works in Progress, an open mic for women. Good food, live music. NB: there's an admission fee. If you want to read, best to call Linda, the organizer (below), WELL before the reading, as the open mic list often fills up even before the show. Hope to see some of you women there! Though this is a lesbian-run reading, all women are welcome.

Warmly,
Jan


WORKS IN PROGRESS, An Open Mic for Women

Fireside Room, Plymouth United Church of Christ, 424 Monte Vista, Oakland

Saturday, March 12, 6:30-10:30 pm


Kimberly J. Miller is an accomplished vocalist who has performed across the United States, in England and on Russian Radio. She has opened for Chaka Khan, Chris Williamson, members of The Association and Three Dog Night. Her soulful, powerful performances have won her critical acclaim for a number of stage roles and well as for her concert “Salute to the Women of the Blues I & II” which were commissioned by and performed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Kimberly will be accompanied by the illustrious Karen Mullally and Shari Kline!

Other incredible lesbian performers who will knock you out include:

Celeste McCarty, Karen Thompson, Tyler Stanley, Patty Overland, Bev Jo and Jan Steckel..

$7-$10 Admission includes a raffle ticket for a chance to win one of six $25 certificates for fine dining at a local restaurant!

6:30 – 7:30 Pot Luck - BRING YOUR FAVORITE FOOD TO SHARE!!
7:30 - 10:30 Performance, Fireside Room

Hosted by Feminist Author & Poet Linda Zeiser, Produced by Linda Zeiser & Carolyn Stull. For information, contact Linda at (510) 701-1022, ZeiserpoetMC@aol.com.

Works In Progress is a creative space for women's art: Poets, Musicians, Comediennes, and Performance Artists. All are encouraged to share their works, completed or evolving. WIP is scent free and wheelchair accessible.

Dear Friends and Family,

Hope you're well. I wanted to ask for your help in a winner-take-all poetry contest. Don Kingfisher Campbell, a SoCal poet and poetry promoter, posted my poem "Declaration of Independence" on his poetry contest blog at http://winnertakeallpoetry.blogspot.com/

If you have the time, would you visit his blog? Please scroll down to my poem: entrant #2, Monday, May 23. And if you like it, would you leave a positive comment there? Whoever gets the most positive comments wins, and I could really use the cash and the ego boost right now. If you have difficulty leaving a comment, you may have to register with Google.

Thank you!
Warmly,
Jan