22nd Annual World AIDS Day

Approximately 35 million people have died from AIDS-related illness since 1981. Most have been children and adults under the age of fifty. A few have been among the best people I have personally ever known.

ACT-UP           UNAIDS          The Global Fund        All4Good          Angels in America       

Best of the Web Nominations

Congratulations to the following poets whose poems I nominated for the 2010 Best of the Web anthology, published by Dzanc Books:

Amy King, "All Moons Are a Scrumptious White Silver"

Karyna McGlynn, "Square in the gut of lovemaking lessons"

Natasha K. Moni, "Letter to a Lover Whose Name Spells Dark Bird"

The above work appears in the sixth issue of Siren, along with several other deserving poems (and great art, not eligible for the anthology, which is limited to writing in online publications), a few of which made this decision difficult. Bravos all around.

excerpts from the nominated poems:

That took her voice in half.  She dipped it in a pan

of dead lilacs and licked the inner thigh seams. 

I turned around on rotary machines. 

The best of us plunge cultural defectors that crow

a weaker side for the salt of tides ripping our childhoods out.

- Amy King

A cubic inch of Texas tumbled to the bed

 

My eyes were still swollen from dusting

 

                       

                                         Just then, I pinched the blue

 

bonnet cat-claw of what could be my future, entire

- Karyna McGlynn

...our limbs liquid

 

our eyes opening like lilies.  Meet me and we will

forget our bodies were ever anything but

 

a little salt, water

waiting to be stirred.

- Natasha K. Moni

we move

To Merce Cunningham, one of the 20th century's greatest dancers and choreographers, this simple fact was cause for celebration, reflection, and his life's work. He died on Sunday at the age of ninety, still dancing into his 70's and still active in the dance world until his death, choreographing work that will long outlive him. His enduring legacy will mostly be defined by his insistence that movement, in and of itself, is enough to justify the art of dance. This was a revolutionary idea when he entered the dance world in 1939, when conventional wisdom held that dance needed to follow and depict a narrative. (Just as today few in our culture, perhaps poets alone, it sometimes seems, and perhaps not even all poets, understand that poetry can be experienced primarily through sound, and even if there is no clear, easily deciphered, or linear narrative or "meaning," a good poem always offers something to savor: the sound of words.) Cunningham's was a sensual world and to enter it was to be elevated into a closer relationship with one's own body and senses.

His impact also includes his frequent collaborations with artists of other genres, including musicians, visual artists, poets, and architects. Again, this was a new idea when Cunningham was discovered by the modern dance pioneer, Martha Graham in the 1940's. Still today such collaborations are rare. Below is a video of his work with the artist with whom he created dozens of collaborations, the musician John Cage, who was also his life partner for five decades until Cage's death in 1992. Their work together included the innovative practice of Cage composing music and Cunningham choreographing dance independently of each other and then performing the two simultaneously on stage.  

  

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(Also see Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Mr. Cunningham's essay, "Space, Time, and Dance.")

speak OUT

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Possibly the best of all slogans or battle cries used by a movement, or an organization as part of a movement, is ACT-UP's "Silence=Death." And it's true and wise beyond the scope of AIDS, when applied to so many things. Art is perhaps the embodiment of the axiom as it, by definition, speaks, and often speaks "truth to power." Likewise, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is not just an oppressive military policy, but a dictum reflecting and endorsing a larger and dangerous worldview that gains support from the policy for its application in all spheres of life. It is in direct opposition to Silence Equals Death. 

To help extinguish the policy, and hopefully the larger belief system, make a brief visit to the Courage Campaign and sign a petition to do just that.

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happy (belated?) birthday siren

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If I get this posted by midnight (I've been watching Stephen Colbert a lot lately, which has interrupted a few relationships of mine, like my long-standing nightly dates with Charlie Rose, and now it seems I can't type a few sentences past 11:30...) I can still say happy birthday Siren. The first issue went up online three years ago, and the sixth issue went up recently. Bravo to all sixty-one writers and artists who have made it grow.

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More news about the little magazine in the next few days.

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sufferin' til suffrage

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siren's new issue!

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photo by Gundega Dege

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Finally... it's issue six!

POETS Michelle Bitting * Mark Cunningham * Valerie Fox * Amy King * Ryan Laks * Gareth Lee * Karyna McGlynn * Natasha K. Moni * Sally Molini * Cait Rappel * Paul Siegell * Elizabeth Volpe

ARTISTS Gundega Dege * Matina Stamatakis * Lafayette Wattles

& News & Notes from former contributing authors and artists Arlene Ang, Kristy Bowen, Stephanie Dickinson, Jehanne Dubrow, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Ira Joel Haber, Dorianne Laux, Rachel Loden, Kiki Petrosino, Peter Schwartz, and Alex Stolis
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art by Matina Stamatakis

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