Check out this video of Word Around Town organizers Stephen Gros and Teresa Juarez on Binarium TV.

hit em up at http://www.facebook.com/BinariumTV

Tune in to 90.1 KPFT to hear Joe B and Teresa Juarez on the show Radio Active!!!

They will be discussing and reppin’ WAT!? and the WAT!? Poetry Tour !!!!
The Word Around Town was originally put together as a poetry tour by three noteworthy Houston area poets: Zelene Pineda, Joe B and Stephen Gros, as a way to celebrate and exhibit Houston’s varied and talented spoken word artists and the venues that support them. This ambitious endeavor is presented as a week-long poetry marathon. That’s 7 days, 7 shows, 7 different venues. The original tour began in the summer of 2006 with 10 poets. The mission of the tour was to introduce poets to venues they’d never been to, and venues to poets they’d never heard before.
Now tune in and get some info already!!!!

Tune into this evening, as one of our newest additions to the Word Around Town (WAT!?) Poetry Tour, Blanca Alanis and Lupe Mendez join Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say on their radio show!!!!

Show starts at 7:30pm on 90.1 KPFT. Get all the information and details about the tour and happenings for the WAT!? live on the air tonight!!!!  Blanca will be reading some of her poetry, so be ready for a taste of what’s to come from WAT!?  Tune in, gente!!!

Blanca is a Mexican born poet who arrived to this country at a young age for better opportunities. Her parents didn’t have an education and weren’t able to read to their children. In elementary she discovered a love for reading and by middle school she began writing poetry. In 2008 she accomplished her goal of opening a bookstore where her and her family promoted literacy, arts, and Mexican/American culture. Some of Houston’s best artists, poets, and authors exhibited their work at Heights Books-Libros. Due to the economy the bookstore closed in early of 2011. Her first work was published by Boundless 2010, the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival.

Blanca is working mother, wife, poet, and artist. She enjoys writing, photography, and jewelry making. She is passionate about life and enjoys sharing her work with others. Blanca is very active in the Houston arts community and continues promoting the arts.

Lupe is a writer/educator/performer, originally from Galveston Island, Texas. Lupe has lived in Houston, Texas for the last decade, where he works with both Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, Word Around Town and the Brazilian Arts Foundation to establish free poetry and creative writing workshops open to the public. Additionally, when he is not playing Capoeira or working in the Education field, Lupe serves the Houston area arts community as a poet, organizer and host for such events as the former Latino Book and Family Festival and the “Word Around Town” Poetry Tour, a week long summer festival that showcases talented poets and spotlights local venues.

Lupe’s recent work is now part of Norton’s newest anthology -Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories From The United States and Latin America, the 25th anniversary edition of The Bayou Review (University of Houston-Downtown) and as of April 2011,in the UK, Flash (University of Chester, England)- the international forum for flash fiction.

Lupe is hard at work on submissions, working on creating more writing workshop opportunities and continues to share his poetry with performances at local high schools and colleges.

Joe B here ..writing you from Atlanta Georgia today on tour to promote the Rebel Crew’s new album called “Ghetto Boys , Astros & Rockets”. I will be returning the day before “the Word Around Town” tour begins. On this east coast tour we have a hand full of music dates booked but the other days I will be hitting up every open mic from Houston to New York representing Houston poets. As one of the creators of the W.A.T. tour and especially being the proud creator of the name it self I want to salute the Houston poetry scene and all its supporters. Know that the W.A.T. tour is still very much intact from the “root to the fruit” as they say and as I hit the east coast with another dope title (Ghetto Boys Astros & Rockets) …know that it is YOU (HOUSTON) that make both of these titles what they are and will become > Historical Houston cultural art projects. or aka that HOUSTON SHIT!!
Original , Confidant ,Organized & Independent. This is my word around the world and my lil 2 cents in this years W.A.T. tour. I’m looking forward to seeing you all.
& a supa shout out goes to Stephen Gros , Lupe Mendez , Teresa Juarez & Zelene! “we too hot to handle to cold to hold” RESPECT!

Sun, July 17th                             Bohemeo’s                                     708 Telephone Road
Mon, July 18th                            The Artery                                     5401 Jackson Street
Tue, July 19th                       Taft Street Coffee                               2115 Taft Street
Wed, July 20th       Talento Bilingüe de Houston (TBH)         333 South Jensen Drive
Thur, July 21st                      Khon’s Wine Bar                                2808 Milam St
Fri, July 22nd                           AvantGarden                                   411 Westheimer Rd
Sat, July 23rd                 Spring Street Studios                             1824 Spring St

The Word Around Town (WAT) tour is an annual weeklong poetry marathon held in Houston at a different venue each night of the week. The tour begins Sunday July 17th and continues through Saturday, July 23rd, 2011. Scheduled for seven night and seven venues, the line up consists of 19 of Houston’s top poets that promise to bring diversity and excitement to the spotlight while showcasing local venues.

Three noteworthy Houston area poets, Zelene Pineda, Joe B, and Stephen Gros, originally put the Word Around Town tour together as a way to unify, celebrate and exhibit Houston’s most recognized spoken word artists and the venues that support them. The mission of the tour is to introduce poets to venues they’ve never been to, and venues to poets they’ve never heard before while providing an entertaining, educational and emotional experience for the public.

In the past the WAT tour has performed at a myriad of venues and event spaces friendly to poetry and the arts. The list includes notable community centers like M.E.C.A. and Project Row Houses, galleries like Aerosol Warfare and The Artery, as well as open mic staples such as Taft Street Coffee and AvantGarden. All shows start at 8pm and are free and open to the public.

Full Line up
• Blanca Alanis                 • R.T. Castleberry                      • Ken Jones
• Joe B                                  • Dee!colonize                            • Maria Palacios
• Brother Said                   • Chris Wise                                  • Marlon Lizama
• Marie Brown                   • Kathy Fay                                  • Kool B
• Jessie Noel                      • The Fluent One                        • Teresa Juarez
• Outspoken Bean             • Jasminne Mendez                 • Stephen Gros
• Lupe Mendez

Guest Performers:           • Meta-Four Youth Slam Team

For more information including biographical info please contact Stephen Gros
832.894.1558 :: Stephen@wordaroundtown.org

www.wordaroundtown.org
Facebook: facebook.com/wordaroundtown
Twitter: @wordaroundHtown
photo: Jane Tillery Photography: janetillery13@gmail.com

In honor of National Pride Month, celebrate the rich tradition of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer poets and poetry as Poets.org brings together a showcase of audio, video, poetry, and prose—resources as exciting and diverse as the communities they represent. Check out work by contemporary poets Kay Ryan, Mark Doty, Jericho Brown, Julian T. Brolaski, Eileen Myles, and others, along with classic poems by queer poets from Sappho to Whitman.

My personal favorite is probably Gertrude Stein’s love notes.   Dig around this wonderful site and enjoy!

On the web at: www.poets.org/LGBTQ

WAT is taking donations this year’s Tour! We only ask that you help if:

1. You want to.

2. You like WAT.

3. You like us to keep doing what we do!

We take donations in $1.00 increments with no limits!

Thank you, as always, for your support!

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.
T.S. Eliot

I don’t exactly understand this quote, but something feels right about it. We are creative people and the creative process among all art forms blurs lines and challenges the status quo. Poets and artists downright disdain the sterile and uninventive in our lives. Today though, I find myself coming back again to art and what it means to my writing. When I say art, I’m all inclusive here. A simple painting can tell a story as well as architecture, graffiti, movies, even dance. There are some people that will argue icanhascheezburger is a form of art. The need to express these things are what make us creative humans. I return to it when my poetry fails, and in the exposure… I find new poetry.

The Greeks had a name for this:  Ekphrasis.

Yes, it sounds like Greek to me, too. More specifically, Ekphrastic poetry is poetry written about art. While no one can (or should) tell you exactly how to do this, there are some guidelines you can follow to help make this exercise into possibly the best poem you’ve ever written.

1. Include yourself. Let’s be clear: this is more than a detailed and literal description of the Mona Lisa’s smile, the third bar from Beethoven’s fifth, or the penis on a Michelangelo sculpture. I want to know if you like that half grin, why you cry at that third bar, what you think about doing to that penis. It should reflect how your entire being can morph in relation to it. If you have never tried it, the result can be exhilarating. One of my favorite examples in modern poetry is Rainer Maria Rilke’s Archaic Torso of Apollo:

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Who would have thought half of a statue would have such an effect on someone?

2. Limit yourself when you write. We run into trouble when we try to encompass with our words the entirety of the artwork as it exists or existed. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but good luck trying to convey the beauty of Baryshnikov’s leaping prowess or the genius of Lady Gaga’s latest (can you call it a dress if it’s edible?) outfit with just descriptors and a few lines. It’s beyond difficult. The best way to approach this problem is to limit the poem to one or two aspects of the subject. If you want to murder a poem, you have to premeditate:

Her eye peeks out from
the octopus-inked curtain
of her bangs… I’m dead.

You don’t have to see the whole photo to get the point.

3. Don’t limit yourself when choosing your subject. A dear personal friend of mine, Billy Collins (ok, ok. It’s a friendship in spirit, not reality) wrote a poem called Candle Hat about the hats that artists used to wear so that they could paint at night. Collins brings his genius wit to ekphrasis in a roundabout way by going after the artist instead. Here is an excerpt of his description of Goya:

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he knew
we would be amused by the extraordinary hat on his head
which is fitted around the brim with candle holders,
a device that allowed him to work into the night.

You can only wonder what it would be like
to be wearing such a chandelier on your head
as if you were a walking dining room or concert hall.

But once you see this hat there is no need to read
any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates.

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him
lighting the candles one by one, then placing
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work.

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention,
the laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow.

After reading that, any poet can see what I mean when I say the end result can be worth it.

4. Don’t use work that doesn’t inspire you. Don’t stick with penis statues if that isn’t what gets you off. Modern art forms are everywhere. If you are inspired only by pop culture though, please be original about it. And if your own artwork is what inspires you, you might even find that you have a museum worth of work ahead of you that can make or break a career. Blurring the lines between literature and visual medium is highly popular. It won’t die any time soon (much like the Goth scene.)

So I’ll say an atheist prayer that this pretty little blog will get through to some of you inspiration-less, direction-less poets that are banging on the mental wall of their own mediocrity. I’ll go a step further and challenge you that the next time you find a voracious appetite for art, stand up and be a poet about it.

The year was 2005. i was a sophmore in High School, president of the Tinta Roja Writing Club and an immigrant rights organizer. i liked to doodle and i loved poetry.

Although no one in the writing club was old enough to drink, a couple of us dared to go to the open mic nights at what was then, Helio’s, after we fell asleep at an Inprint reading near the Menil. That is when i became re-connected to Nuestra Palabra through a Corazónada Karla Aguilar and I had that first night. Soon there after, the poets at Helio’s graciously began to corrupt me with hip-hop, jazz, food, books,poetry and wine…

After the whirlwind romance that was the first summer, it became apparent that performers and definitions of “Spoken Word Poetry” varied from venue to venue, poet to poet. Most were kinda bad, some were developing (like me!), and some haunted you for days cause of how phenomenal the were…

I’d see the brave poets that dared to hop venues, went to bars, churches, cultural centers, parties, anywhere! Audiences embraced them for their versatility and guts to venture outside their respective hubs.

We all had Hubs, you know, that place where everyone knows your name and you don’t even have to sign in, and they’ve got your whisky or cafecito ready, you feel me?

So that’s when and how the WAT sperm and egg got cozy in my developing teenage brain. A bright eyed “Why can’t we all just get along?” inspired the idea to promote struggling venues and cultural centers, introduce quality poets to new audiences, show the diversity and comradery of our city, as well as the mentorship that was inevitable with this union.

It would be called “The Word Around Town” poets that personified the Houston poetry circuits would make the rounds together at 7 venues throughout the city that hosted poetry, in 7 hot summer days.

But an idea is just an idea, no matter how great it is.

That’s all WAT was until Joe B took me under his wing and ‘dem boots hit the ground running…

All the while the unforgettable, “Ladies Man, Man’s Man” Stephen Gros worked his magic to introduce and promote WAT in the local literary circles that neither Joe nor I had access to.

We ventured out and met poets we had never hear before, and reinforced ties with poets and venues we already knew. Our closing party merged Rock n’Roll and Hip-hop, Jam and Salsa. Oh, and we picked up new poetry fans that wouldn’t have seen us otherwise.

At Taft St Coffee

Six years later, there is no doubt in any one’s mind that WAT is a winning formula…

Six years later, i no longer reside in Houston. i went to college on the Border to pursue my passion for human rights and community organizing. Which meant i haven’t been as involved as i’d like with the project for the past couple of years. Luckily for our sake,  Mr. Gros kept it together for the kids and took the lead.   Lupe Mendez and the”Head Bitch in Charge” herself, the lovely Teresa Juarez have fortified the team and together have taken WAT to whole new heights. while staying true to the original concept and most importantly, staying true to the poets.

Six years later I find my self in New York City, older and wiser but still as passionate about all the things i was passionate about when i was 16. With a new Hub in Spanish Harlem, a new partner in crime, good friends, and new nuts to crack, the fun begins again..

Fellow poets, get ready and stay tuned for future blogs on the the next WAT chapter…

The Word Around New York City

Con Mucho, Mucho, Amor,

-Z