using dashes, same color as background, as spacers

Moon Flowers Sky

sparrow
----------clouds
--------------------dust
bowls
---------breasts
-------------------step
gate
--------hinges
------------------grain
spiral
-------lightning
------------------rain

Frank Parker
from Win Po: a work in progress

Audio of our reading now available!

 

GEORGE MATTINGLY / FRANK PARKER with LYON LEIFER

Saturday, March 26, 8 PM @ the Drawing Studio
33 S. 6th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721

Audio of our reading is now available for your listening pleasure on POG Sound! George Mattingly’s poetry is brilliant. His delivery immaculate. Lyon Leifer’s ragas on the bansuri are masterful. One person said to me afterward, “Finally! The way your poetry should be heard.”

a night of poetry and music

GEORGE MATTINGLY / FRANK PARKER with LYON LEIFER

Saturday, March 26, 8 PM @ the Drawing Studio
33 S. 6th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721
$5 General, $3 Students

George Mattingly is a book designer, writer of fiction, essays and poetry, photographer, and one-time letterpress printer and typographer. He has been a columnist for msnbc.com and taught publishing at The New College of California, San Francisco. He edited the literary magazine Search for Tomorrow (1969–1974) and founded Blue Wind Press (1970–). His books are Darling-Bender(1970), Breathing Space (1975) and the forthcoming new & selected, a while (2011).

born

into a

world

I

would not

could not

know

•

gravity

waves

hello

— George Mattingly

Frank Parker is the author of three books of poetry, Heart Shaped Blossoms: 1993-2007, zig-zag journeys (2009), and Win Po: a work in progress (2011), all from his Obscure Press. He edits the online journal Frank's Home: An Active Anthology of Verse and publishes widely on the web. He’s on the Board of Directors of POG and is the sound technician for POG and Chax Press readings. Frank maintains the web sites for POG and POG Sound.

Frank will collaborate with Lyon Leifer, bansuri master, for this reading.

O My Words
for Luis Garcia

a flute, a reed

cut from roots

a ring of bone

everyday air

skinny bird song

Palo Verde limbs

cats walk up and down

adobe yellow wall

— Frank Parker
from Win Po

Lyon Leifer is recognized in Europe, the Americas, China and India as a master flutist who performs both on western flutes and on the bansuri (north Indian keyless bamboo flute). After early studies in Chicago with Emil Eck and Walfrid Kujala, Mr. Leifer attended the Juilliard School of Music where he studied with Julius Baker. After graduating, he became a member of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Pursuing an interest in improvised raga music and flute playing in India, he then accepted a Fulbright Grant to study there with Devendra Murdeshwar, the inheritor of the legacy of the great Pannalal Ghosh. Remaining in India for five years, Mr. Leifer won the praise of Indian audiences and critics for his authentic renditions of raga melodies.
Lyon Leifer's web site

POG Directors Group Reading

Tomorrow, THURSDAY, Sept. 23rd! - POG Directors Group Reading - 7 PM, Club Congress at Hotel Congres, 311 E. Congress, Tucson. Most POG Board Members and, new this year, the POG Assistants will delight all with their literary talents. $5 General, $3 Student.

Samuel Ace
Charles Alexander
Lisa Cooper Anderson
Laynie Browne
*Whitney DeVos
Tony Luebbermann
Cynthia Miller
*Sean Munroe
Tenney Nathanson
Frank Parker

A Review of "Win Po" by KEN BULLOCK

Three poems into his chapbook, Win Po, and three lines into "O My Words," Frank Parker invokes long-gone poet Lew Welch: "a ring of bone," from the title of a touchstone lyric by Lew, and of his posthumous Collected Poems.

The last line is in diction Lew would've dug: "adobe yellow wall"

But its not just little homages that make the poem. Line by line, in any case, Frank makes 'em fit together, with a touch light enough it seems careless at times, part of his humor: "a flute, a reed/cut from roots/a ring of bone/everyday air/skinny bird song/Palo Verde limbs/cats walk up and down/adobe yellow wall"

That's it. It's dedicated to Luis Garcia, another humorous, spare poet, but Lu's gone out on a different sort of limb: living to sing about it.

Frank Parker sings about it from living, breezily sometimes, the lines directed to this or that friend, family member ... some of them poets.

David Gitin, poet and Frank's longtime Monterey neighbor--a crosstown neighbor--and frequent presence on frankshome.org, a website hosting a community of poems and poets, is dedicatee of "Letters from Tucson," where Frank's corresponding from, now: "when I wake it's dark/light coming soon//see you then//your friend"

Another poet, Michael McClure, is recipient of "Song": "breathe deep/blue sky//feathered edge/of nitrogen"

Finally, "Mirror in a Garden," for his daughter: "I reach for my cup/and the birds scatter."

Eleven poems, an odd number, with the qualifier, "a work in progress."

It's progress, in the sense of moving through the landscape, one he came to late, where he's seen much, once settled in.

What's exhilarating in Win Po is that rare sense of somebody finding himself, his voice--both at once--yet taking another step, and another, not stopping.

These are perceptions on the move, not snapshots so much, like the often-faded imitations of Imagism. No scent of the workshop; more like witch hazel. Bracing.

Frank's book's from Obscure Press, 34 1/2W. Kennedy St., Tucson, AZ. 85701-2202. If you get it, ask for it signed--and get him to initial the colophon, too: Frank's the printer.

A Pleasent Surprise from Heather Nagami

A surprise email regarding Win Po from Heather Nagami:

"Frank, thanks for sending me the link to your work. Wow, I really enjoyed reading it. I'm so impressed. I love the cover, too--the beautiful colors and texture. The poems themselves are so beautifully "textured" too in their layers of sound and meaning. I enjoy your subtle rhymes, the consonance, and the sparseness of the lines in terms of the number of words, but the fullness in terms of the feeling and image that is created. I think "Mirror in a Garden" struck me the most, esp. "the hundred wounded sparrows/ fly like arrows," but really all of it. It seems like a technical masterpiece--how the images next to each other create something new and how they seem to elegantly carve out such emotional depth, but then I feel bad talking about it like it's just a technical endeavor because it seems full of such pain, so I'm sorry if that's offensive. I just am in awe." -Heather Nagami (Tucson poet and web designer)

Updates over at frankshome.org

Win Po - a work-in-progress, by Frank Parker. Poems written since December 2009. I'm excited to see where this journey will go over the course of 2010!

From "This Tiniest of Fish", audio of parts 1, 2, and 3 read by the author, Kristina Erny. From her bio note:

"Kristina Erny grew up in Asia, & has lived in West Africa, as well as Kentucky, Indiana, and Arizona. She is interested in dialect, storytelling, language acquisition, spirituality & community (insiders vs. outsiders). In 2010, she completed her MFA from The University of Arizona. She currently lives in South Korea with her husband and son."

I appreciate Kristina's efforts and the cooperation of the U of A Poetry Center to record this outstanding young poet before she moved to South Korea!

Recorded 12 May 2010 by Frank Parker at the University of Arizona Poetry Center to whom we extend our gratitude.