Spring

Rain Fever
Nest Balance
Color Wind
Spoken Egg

Nest of Flames instant anthology

Spring starts with a time of balance. A month later birds build nests.
Join us at an instant book party to assemble

Nest of Flames

Bring 50 copies of your page (both sides!) of writing/drawings/photos/music/? . Place them on a table.
Collate one of each page and the cover (designed by Kate Kelly) and staple them on the side.
Read your poem(s), talk about your images, etc.
Go home with a book.

Poetry Cafe at Conklin Barn, SW Corner of High Street and NY Avenue, Huntington, NY

8pm, Friday, April 18

Does ‘Nest of Flames’ refer to the Phoenix? to Heraclitus? to Garuda? to the Fire Sermon? to Arthur Rimbaud? to Charles Henri Ford? to John Ciardi? to the Talking Heads? to Bob Dylan? to Marion Roach? to a solar eclipse? to Samantha Hahn? to a sea anemone? to an all-electric home on a holy day? Yes.   Mostly to your own sense of the term, obvious to you, but perhaps to no one else.   And to whatever rises from all of these like the young but ancient phoenix.

Extra margin at the left of the top page and the right of the bottom page for stapling.   Maybe your name somewhere for future generations.

RSVP (to be sure 50 is enough copies—not required) or for more information: stevenschmidt@optonline.net

Poets In Port, July 25, 2008

Poets in Port will feature Jack Barrett Wohl at 7:30 pm on Friday, July 25, 2008 at Caffé Portofino, 249 Main St., Northport, opposite the theatre. There will also be an Open Reading — the audience is encouraged to bring their poems and participate. For more information, contact Steven Schmidt.

Leonard Cohen ("Anthem", on The Future): "There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
Many poets write poems showing one thing, one crack, one ray of light. What I like about Jack's poems is that he usually tries to do more.

Too... You

I've walked rivers with carnivore gods
each step through burning darkness like coals
and I      to stay alive         thought
I buried what I needed to

but how did you know where my heart was hiding?

why did you shine your angry siren-light
your hurt hunger
into my almost becalmed
memory of fury and tears?

will you say I signed up for this as a writer?
I can hear your voice: "you should have read the small print"
when I thought I could trickle
the hurricane I had felt

I cannot turn away ... put you back ... tuck you in
 between covers

can't walk away or break the weld
to your bared soul

can't find the door to close
can't outfly or climax out of it
you've entered me en flagrante
by love and lust and burning smothered tears
you've been too honest

too raw   too you    to turn away

--Jack Wohl

Video of my poetry reading at Peacesmiths

Alternating with songs performed by Heather Lev. It's here.