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...

Walk of fame II -Startiing with Kermit the Frog

The stars on Hollywood Boulevard: 2000 of them are interesting, some names remind us of good times, fine music, great acting, wonderful locations like the Kodac theater and the colorful Capitan.

All is for sale:

Rocket launchers and arsenals for private wars.
Machine guns, grenades, hand guns and of course pepper spray.
 Frilly underwear for more personal power games. I saw the woman I never became, shoes I could never wear.

 The divide in society is enormous, one sees the rich, the 1% and the players, the people trying to be that and those lost by the wayside, the 99%. Some sleeping rough, eating out of the thrown away food in garbage cans. Some wear their plight with dignity, but sleeping in doorways with just a blanket and a plastic bag with meager belongings shouldn't be a normal view in any town.

 Scientology and churches in general are prominently present. All denominations are represented.
Luckily there is a lot of creativity like in this nice mural where the seated audience looks at the strollers, the flaneurs of the boulevard.

The road to Hollywood

Driving from Arizona to Los Angeles involves getting gas, several times... and yes in California gas is more expensive! A person has to ea,t so why not in Franky's diner. All dolled up, with signs and pictures, also several pictures of Marilyn and rat packs... Coca Cola signs but Pepsi is served. The value is in the highly collectible  Coca Cola signs, not in the root beers.


 We made it to Hollywood and were greeted by Charley Chaplin peaking around the corner and enough signs to be sure you know where you are: this is where it all began...

Tomorrow more of the Hollywood Boulevard. One of the many Boulevards of Broken Dreams after crossing crazy eight lanes freeways. In the evening even Mickey Mouse is tired... Although Elvis and Dart Vador were still going strong.

April snow

The winter had been rather dry, so nobody complained when a pouring rain came down after the Friday evening local fish fry.  The rain danced and played on the tin roof in gentle and hard rhythms.

 Usually spring is nice and friendly. I have picnicked at Lake Mead at Christmas day and at the top of Hualapai mountain the next, with just a shirt and a sweater. Now I try to stop the wind from entering by putting pillows in front of the door
and the words a carpet of snow have become rather literal. Yard art is enhanced by nature. Here a sculpting by Bob Stördahl, putting old rust from the mines to good use.

Animal Dreams - Barbara Kingsolver

What to do on a blustery day with showers except photographing the light and shadows of life.

Just find a warm place inside and read.

Being a fan of Barbara Kingsolver’s writing I was pleasantly surprised to find her book in a small town for $2. I have read five of her books, this being the sixth one. She writes rich stories, with a tapestry of characters which ring true. In Animal Dreams Codi, the main character is at a juncture in her life, and goes back to Grace, Arizona where she grew up with her sister Hallie, who is in Nicaragua, helping the people with  their crops, and a distant father. Codi is in the habit of running to another place when life doesn’t turn out the way she wanted. One could say it is all about the luxury of forgiveness and living a sweet life so one has sweet dreams... Her memories seems unreal until the day she fully participates in life with loss, love and belonging. Some quotes which touched my heart:

* I couldn’t ask Emelina for directions to my own childhood home; I didn’t want her to know how badly dislocated I was. I’d always had trouble recalling certain specifics of childhood, but didn’t realize until now that I couldn’t even recognize them at point-blank range.

* Children robbed of love will dwell on magic.

* ”Insomnia’s different,” I said.  “You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That’s what it’s like in my head. The light stays on.”

* The winter rains would soon dry up. Then there would not be another drop till July. During those brittle months the taste and smell of rain would be lost to us, beyond the recollection of children and the deepest root tips of trees. That is the way of the seasons in a desert place.

My Grace is Chloride, AZ.

Cowboy dreams of wild horses

 I had seen wild mustangs before and yes they used to hang out along the back road to Mineral Park, AZ. They used to be a bit higher up but clearly visible. And then, they were gone. Three, four, maybe five years I didn't find them. Yet now low and behold, they are grazing even near the road's edge. Driving gently and stopping in order not to scare them away we watched them grazing while keeping an eye on the car.

There are still two cowboys running cattle in this area and it is obviously free range land.

One is from Quail Springs Ranch.

It is still cowboy country  and culture with places like the Dambar where good cowboy food can be had in a rustic and pleasant ambiente.