Today: Desert Poetry Night...

Arizona is celebrating its 100th birthday this year.
Welcome to world poetry days 2012!
April is America's Poetry Month  -  on April the 30th 2012 ( Monday ),
desert poetry night will be held at Annmarie's Old Gas Station right here in Chloride Arizona.
   There will be poetry about people who settled the West: the landscape, the wildlife and the hardships they endured.
   The premiere of the Global Night Car project will be held right here under the Arizona stars... All friends of good music and poetry are welcome.
   There will be an open mike for all poets, right here under the Arizona stars.
   Also there will be a tribute to American legend Johnny Cash celebrating
his 80th birthday. More info: www.world-internet-books.com
*
 *OLD GAS STATION CREW*
CHLORIDE AZ
Tennessee Ave
near famous DIGGER DAVES

desert poetry night

desert poetry night

at Annmarie’s old gas station in Chloride, Monday April 30^th, 6 pm

Two poets, Fred Schywek from Germany and American born Annmarie Sauer, also translate poetry and produce multi-lingual books. Thus European authors can be read in the USA and American poets in Europe.

In the framework of April National Poetry Month, supported by the Academy of American Poets, they decide to organize a desert poetry night in Chloride, Arizona, at Annmarie’s Old Gas Station.

The experimental global night car will be premiered in the USA: it is a collaborative poem by nine poets from different countries and continents. Yet there also is cowboy poetry and work from locals like Jandolin Marks from Dolan Springs will be heard. Also Cooper Gallegos, California, will read from her latest book. Singer/songwriter and local country star Al Brock will perform in the Johnny Cash tribute for his 80 birthday this year. Donna Meyer will offer Chloride limericks. We strive for diversity and openness. Cowboy poetry by Judd Bishop will be read by his son Dan Bishop and Jean Bishop will read from her mother in law’s work, Jennielee Bishop. There is also an open mike.

Fred Schywek will read from Felsenleiter/Rockstairs and from Weiße Mühle/White Mill with a translation in English as a preview for the books to be published in early autumn.

Annmarie Sauer will read from Traces/Sporen in which you’ll find several Cerbat and Chloride landscape inspired poems. Dori Vaughn will perform/interpret three poems of her choice from Traces/Sporen in American Sign Language.

You can follow the developments concerning these readings on:

www.world-internet-books.com

www.poets.org

American Sign Language and Poetry

 

© sms:foto duisburg/rhein 2012

Dori Vaughn works in a school as an interpreter/assistant for children who cannot hear. She even, in her lunch break, thought hearing children to sign, so that the deaf children would be less isolated. When I asked her whether she could sign some of my poems, she hesitated a moment and said yes. Signing is interpreting. American Sign Language (ASL) is not “English”. So she practiced while I spoke the text and she looked for the best rendering of the image or the concept. She also practice ‘off the page’. Working from a written text is a job not many interpreters like to do, and poetic language of course is an extra challenge. She also discussed the content of the poem, what I had meant, how it came about. I however wanted to know how she read the poems, because a poem once written, is read and interpreted by the reader and might carry a different weight or connotation. Dori does a great job and adds to the beauty of the event of April 30, 2012: desert poetry night.

Route 66-III

The buildings are about energy in a strange way. Providing gas, shade, sustenance.

People must have had big dreams with grand designs to match. So they built plywood castles sold by Mr. Barocchio.  And of course an ice machine was part of the luxuries of life. Across the street mail boxes. I wonder where these people live who do receive mail.

Then wonderful honey yet at 23 dollars for a big pot rather expensive: but the taste of the woodland honey is sublime. The surprises of the road...
So the drive to Kingman with a taste of honey ready for sweet dreams ends here.

Route 66- continued

The route is all about the road, the place longed for, dreamed of, imagined in one's soul. The state of the road doesn't matter.
Neither does the means of transportation. being on the move, desire, solitude and beauty are the guiding lights.  

Restaurants I didn't stop at. And forlorn places where time was framed in old signs: Roadrunner Restaurant.
One  almost hears the jazz of those days in the purring motor.


Waterside property advertised in the enormous and beautiful Mojave Desert... No, no, not a sedentary life, near a moist air river.



It is all about the road, the encounters, the sharing of long vistas which heal your eyes. There is a road to where you're going.
May traveling the Route 66 help each of us find our road, straight or winding, up and down with left curves and straight ahead: a metaphor for life, a road with many futures.

 

 From the glamor of Hollywood to the Old Historic Route 66. At first still maintained but then fallen to the wayside.


Present Past and Future is the slogan of Route 66...

 The Best Western in Bartsow with a view of the trucks going by on the I 40. Imagine the joy of a road all to oneself... In Ludlow there is a new coffee shop, its fate uncertain.

House -garage - gas station -
Ludlow café -
all derelict
publictés fanées
faded billboards
fallen by the wayside

a good life
with a real house across
at the east direction
nobody took
all went west

and needed shelter
repairs
gas
sustenance
courage for the crossing
but NO CHECKS CASHED


neither is anybody responsible
for fire or theft
of ones dreams
on Route 66.
How long before new Ludlow resembles the old
before the desert has taken back its space
before a new generation builds
a fresh watering hole for the thirsty and weary

From art deco to Hollywood nature

The art deco in Hollywood is incredible, many buildings are worthwhile closer inspection. It speaks of lighthearted fun and quality of life for those who could and can afford it and who exit theaters with security screening the surroundings. Yes men in black, but no Johnny Cash.

The street musician, unperturbed was great blowing his trumpet and singing. Some passers by putting something in his trumpet case. With the lights of the Hard Rock Café on the shiny sidewalk we leave the boulevard to go look for the Hollywood sign.

 We tried Mulholland drive and ended up in narrow private streets with lots of security and signs stating "armed response". Quite the opulent serie noire athmosphere.

We never got to the sign but found a nice spot with a tree tunnel cave.

Wild tobacco grows there and a band of crows circle and call to you.
Peaceful in the warm California spring sunshine. A two and a half hour hike would have been too much under this sun on exposed hills.
Maybe one day in other season...