Introducing The J3P ~ Kenyatta Rogers (S1E1)

This is the official launch of The J3P.

This poetry project is brought to you in part by DCASE | CHI

~

Watch the videos below to learn more.

Welcome to the J3P ~ Jeff Park Poem Plan Jefferson Park resident & poet Dave Landsberger describes how the J3P will bring poetry programming and events to th...

Kenyatta Rogers reads his poem "Carpet Bomb" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/146429/carpet-bomb Kenyatta Rogers is a Cave Canem Fellow and has been aw...

Kenyatta Rogers reads his essay "HAM" Kenyatta Rogers is a Cave Canem Fellow and has been awarded multiple scholarships from the Breadloaf Writers' Conferenc...

Kenyatta Rogers is a Cave Canem Fellow and has been awarded multiple scholarships from the Breadloaf Writers' Conference. He has also been nominated multiple times for both Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. His work has been previously published in or is forthcoming from Jubilat, Vinyl, Bat City Review, The Volta, PANK, MAKE Magazine among others. He is as a co-host of the Sunday Reading Series with Simone Muench, an Associate Editor with RHINO Poetry and currently serves on the Creative Writing Faculty at the Chicago High School for the Arts.

Filmed onsite at Ed Paschke Art Center, Jefferson Park, Chicago. Special thank you to Vesna Stelcer & Lionel Rabb.

For more info on J3P ~ The Jeff Park Poem Plan ~ join the community

xoxo

-dave

Proud to Announce my DCASE Grant

I’m happy to let everyone know that I have received an Individual Artists Program grant from DCASE - Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

You can read the announcement from DCASE here

This was the first time I’ve applied to DCASE, let alone applied for any grant in my entire life!

It was a lot of work to create my prospectus and create a budget, but I’m happy to have done so.

Like all other arts programming facilitators, I’ve had to throw out my original plan since COVID-19 hit. I’m rolling with the punches and trying to keep to my deadlines and original vision as much as I can, while also allowing for experiences that are more accommodating to Chicagoans and our changing lifestyles.

You’ll learn more about my project very soon. It’s a community based poetry project that I’ve been wanting to do ever since I moved into my house. I’m putting down roots in my neck of Chicago, and I want to make sure there’s more poetry there as long as I’m living there.

Special congrats to my friends Anjal Chande and Kathleen Rooney (of Poems While You Wait) for also receiving IAP DCASE grants!

Peggy Norbert Nature Museum 1~4~19

On a frigid January morning, Poems While You Wait had the privilege of writing poems in the Butterfly Garden at the Peggy Norbert Nature Museum.

I’ve always loved the Butterfly Garden so I jumped at the chance to write poems within. And my skin could certainly use the humidity. It made me think that biome experiences could be a thing if someone wanted to make that happen.

Poets! Danielle, Kathleen, Eric, and myself! These are my people.

Face to face events are nice. Here’s to a hopeful future full of more personal interaction.

Papillon ~ Mariposa ~ Butterfly ~ all these words are beautiful

I like this poem despite its familiar end. I had to write a poem about my butterfly shirt cuz, yknow.

I dunno this little one’s scientific name but I’m sure that it’s Latin and obtuse (unless you know Latin)

The most popular poem request was, of course, butterflies. Whenever we get an abundance of one topic at PWYW I always try to approach it from different angles.

Whenever there’s a lot of kids at PWYW I always make a more concerted effort to rhyme. It’s not that kids aren’t into free verse, it’s just that kids don’t deal well with their expectations of what a poem is being deconstructed. Trying to avoid tantrums!

A pergola to write home about

Wow - look at all these parents desperately trying to entertain their children on a Saturday morning. To be fair, a lot of the kids were really respectful.

Cue “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” by Rod Stewart

When we write for free we institute a “one poem per family” rule. This creates some interesting mashups. The rule exists mostly to protect the value of the poem itself - by rationing the poems forces the audience to consider the end result a bit more.

Ed Paschke Art Center Reading 10~13~19

In October I was privileged to read my work at the Ed Paschke Art Center in Jefferson Park.

I was reading alongside Richard Williams. This was his first ever poetry reading of his work. He ceased writing poems eighteen years ago after reforming himself after a stint in prison. His book is called, The Emotional Realist.

When you read poetry you can only hope that the poets reading in front of you are authentic and able to connect to the audience. Richard was crying up there.

Being reminded of poetry’s surrender as he read words (words nearly two decades old) was cool. Nothing cooler. What a way to start this reading series.

Oil painting by Mariano Chavez, whose work was exhibited in the gallery where we read

I love this painting by Mariano Chavez - some mad Jack Kirby vibes

When I moved to Jefferson Park a year ago, I knew I wanted to approach the EPAC about poetry in the community. While Jefferson Park has many cultural gathering spaces there isn’t much real estate in the neighborhood dedicated to the arts themselves.

Drankin a “Paschke Pilsner” - all sponsors on my shirt can send checks payable to White Horse Poetic Industries, LLC.

Vesna & Lionel at the Ed Paschke Art Center were open to my idea of bringing poetry to the neighborhood in a series of readings. Over the course of a few months, we shaped into form what we’d like to do for the community.

I’ll put my setlist of poems at the bottom. One thing I really want to do with this series is expose the community to other ancillary Chicago poets. Not even the popular ones doing work, but the poets who maybe lived here for a year or two, here and there. I want to read poets tethered to Chicago, regardless of time served in wonder. This time around I read a poem from the recently departed David Berman, and from my friend and publishing-mate the Dominican Poet Frank Baez.

If something stands out from this reading in my mind aside from Richard’s presence, it would be how signature the Q&A was. There was lots of engagement and interest from the community about our work, process, and meaning. Ultimately a lot of conversation stemmed from my final poem “35th Birthday” which is about being at Mandalay Bay after a mass shooting occurred there.

Here’s to more local poetry readings in Jefferson Park. I’m not going anywhere.

Setlist

Field Museum 7.9.19

The Field Museum invited Poems While You Wait to write poems for their donor night. We had the privilege of sitting underneath the taxidermy elephants with our typewriters.

Look up and see the windows change color between the tusks

In the 12 years that I have been writing public typewriter poetry I’ve had a whole range of experiences and emotions regarding my creative output in these settings. Some days I feel like each poem is trash: I can’t connect to the emotion of the request or I can’t appreciate the exercise because the topic feels uninspired. Some days I feel like I’m getting my lines in for the day.

This day at the Field Museum I felt as if I was emptying myself into a glass, taking form. I don’t think they’re all stellar, but I’m really satisfied with those I included below.

I wrote 10 poems. Eric and I did a NBA fantasy draft (modern era) starting five. I surprisingly found myself picking Karl Malone on my team of 5. Picking Karl Malone for your all time top 5 is like picking cereal for breakfast when you have a whole buffet in front of you.

Sometimes people get poems about Florida without them really knowing that’s what they’re getting. I had heard of some algal blooms in the Midwest that more likely inspired this topic, but given that Florida has such a long history of this funny business I thought it best to go here. Rick Scott is an idiot.

Inspired by the ongoing archaeological wars happening in China. I can always feel a connection to writing about bones.

This requester saw me wearing a White Sox hat and they specifically requested that I write a poem of praise about the Cubs. So I went in.

Everybody in Poems While You Wait has topics that they’re ideal for. I typically get a lot of the sports poems, for instance. I also receive a lot of poem topics around general nerd culture: comics, videogames, and in this case, anime. This was for a young woman, and I’m mostly archiving it here because I don’t want to forget how happy she was when she read it.

I always like to try at least one prose poem per PWYW session. This is based on a true story, and if I had more time and real estate on the page to work with, I could explore this idea a lot more, maybe channel some Transtromer.

Channeling my Merwin vibes. This might be the most realized poem I wrote of the day, but not the most interesting. If something is realized but not interesting, is it even done?

Green terrace to my left while writing.

Maximo the Titanosaur at my 2 o’clock

You can read more of my work with PWYW here

Randolph Street Market 5.26.18

One of my favorite topics to receive: Dealer's Choice.  It was a particularly beautiful spring morning, and I was reading Louise Gluck's The Wild Iris. Holy. Shit. Those. Poems. Always been a Matins man m'self.

Another great title because it gave me an immediate rhetorical posture and form for the poem. This poem has since been revised to be itself a bit more. Turns out the title was best for the first draft but not for moving forward as it was somewhat limiting.

My first poem is usually always my most uninhibited - this was the first poem of the day. I kinda ran out of space at the end, and was generally struggling with my machine all session.

Poems While You Wait was at the Randolph Street Market, writing poems and ringing in the official start of the outside market.  Antiques, gumbo, furniture, furs, marmalades and reclaimed wood.  The typewriters fit in. 

I wore an aloha shirt and went to a barbecue later.

Harold Washington Library 4-29-18

Poems While You Wait helped celebrate The Harold Washington Library's Poetry Fest.  There were 8 poets writing both upstairs and downstairs.  The poems were free, to celebrate National Poetry Month.

I almost collapsed of hunger halfway through the performance but found some beef jerky across the street.

That morning I listened to the new Twin Shadow album "Caer" and I think it rang into some of the work.

Something that sticks out was the woman ordering the poem "homeless and hungry" and never returning to claim it.  

Eat your beef jerky when you have it.

Been reading Bryan Doerrie's "All That You've Seen Here is God" ~ his translation of Ajax is good

Religious topics are rare for pwyw ~ I wonder why ~ perhaps its too private for poetry even?

This poem feels good - I wrote it second - some version of this will end up in the next book

A little girl asked for a haiku

Beef Jams Debut C2E2 Social

Beef Jams was fresh off the griddle and ready for Chicago at c2e2 - check out some photos from the show.

BEEFJAMS.COM

~to buy a copy of Beef Jams Tournament Edition, clink the link above~

Table partners in small time crime:

Greg & Fake - @gregandfake

Marc Koprinarov - @crambackward

Brian Mead - @madebymead

John Bailey - @nanodeath

JB Roe - @mortcrimpjr

Beef Jams Tournament Edition Debuts at c2e2

Beef Jams Tournament Edition is a full color 46 page anthology comic featuring a ragtag group of Basketball Playing Long Haul Truckers and their off-the-court hi-jinx, led by their All-American Mascot, Phylo the Cheeseburger.  Phylo is joined by smut philosopher power forward, Axel Suede, feral old tymey prospector point guard, Big Run, and vaping Romeo center, Cheef Chaw.  Read along as the truckers “travel” their way in to your heart in this all new comic with their "foul" behavior!  

Here's a rundown of some of their adventures in the book:

• Phylo the Cheeseburger is challenged on his USDA Grade A status by the BEEF COUNCIL.  Phylo must prove that he is untainted and 100 through three distinct feats of beefery.
• In T-SHIRT CANNON OF MASS DESTRUCTION Phylo steals a powerful weapon from the mascot of the military industrial complex. Beef on the lam.
• Barry the Bookie Centaur drags Phylo on an epic quest, but Phylo feels more like the third wheel in BOOTY CALL.
• Remember when newspapers had Sunday Comics? We do too. Four news strip style BEEF JAMS SUNDAY FUNNIES.
• Planet Earth is set to collide with the planet Nibiru, but Phylo has been chosen as our planet's champion to beat an alien baller 1 on 1 for Armageddon in SUPER BEEF JAMS 2K6
• Cheef Chaw is climbing a mountain choking on vape clouds to create his own destiny in CLIFFHANGER QUEST
• Junior cheeseburgers are juvenile delinquents pranking "Unca Phylo" in 3 NEPHEWS INNA FOUNTAIN
• Axel Suede smokes under the night sky and pontificates on balls in SMUT PHILOSOPHER
• The truckers are down 1 with 1 second left in the game, call TIMEOUT

At the show we have some exclusives for the fans that turn up

I highly recommend the BEEF JAMS GUIDE TO FLAT EARTH

Here's the schedule at tables L6/L5:

FRIDAY - Poems While You Wait will be poeming at our table from 2-5pm

SATURDAY - Brian Mead, artist of BEEF COUNCIL, is signing comics and his exclusive Beef Jams Print from 1-3pm!

SUNDAY - Challenge Greg to a chess match and LOSE!

The best basketball comic in the world in the best basketball town in the world. 

Dave Landsberger Homecoming

Hi, I'm Dave Landsberger and I founded Poems While You Wait with Kathleen Rooney and Eric Plattner in 2011.  

You might not know that though, considering I've been absent from PWYW since March of 2017.  

October marked my triumphant return to PWYW.

Reading at The Singleman Affair, Cafe Mustache, Chicago, IL

I read a few new poems in front of a Friday Night crowd at Cafe Mustache in Logan Square for a series entitled "The Singleman Affair".  I will rank the new poems in order of how well they went over.

1. Winter the Horror Poem
2. Beaver
3. Daylight Savings

On September 28, 2017, Poems While You Wait visited Randolph Street Market.  I wrote one poem that I like, titled "WAVES OF FALL".  I have since retitled it after the first line, "I WOULD BE RELUCTANT AS LEAVES"

On November 17, 2017 Poems While you Wait attended The Adler Planetarium's "Adler After Dark" series.  The theme this time around was "Adler After Dark Ages" so there were tunics all up in the place.  

I don't think I wrote anything that amazing this night, but here's some pics including an obligatory shot of Chicago from Northerly Island.  Lit purple for Veteran's Day, I really enjoy this color on the city.  I also enjoy how you can see the border of the light polution on the clouds to the right.

Here's to being more public. See you out there.