Hearsay Poetry

Four poets walked into a room and…well. We shared poetry. This episode of Hearsay Poetry is simple and sweet. Featuring a handful of works from Austin poets Jack McCabe, Elaine Fife, Laine Thompson, and myself. Sit back, listen, and we hope you enjoy.

Jack McCabe, a Rhode Island-born singer-songwriter, poet, and artist, decided Austin, Texas was the right place to be after many years of working on the railroad. Known around town as "Magic Jack," Austin's flourishing art and music community appeals to him as much as the weather (aka it's all good). Jack majored in fine arts, obtaining a BFA from the University of Rhode Island and a minor in Philosophy. He currently focuses on songwriting, performing, poetry, activism, and supporting the arts in Austin Texas.

Laine Thompson has been writing most of his life.  The first open mic he hosted was in Rochester, NY at a place called Starry Nites café. When he moved to Austin, TX in 2006 he jumped into the open mic scene and was eventually introduced to Kickbutt Cafe where he became a co-host of the Austin open mic Spoken and Heard. With fellow hosts Ernie B. and Hot Tamale, Laine adopted the stage name Lost In Thought. You can see some of Laine’s poetry on his fan page, facebook.com/litfaceup.

Elaine Fife is a San Martian poet and author. She is the host of the San Marcos open mic Poet’s Universe and Facebook group Poetry and Art Share. She believes in sharing artistic expression to further understanding and love between people. Her writing focuses on universal feelings and metaphorical expression. She uses her gifts to connect others and hold space for intense emotional exploration. When she isn't writing she's going to school to become a therapist, practicing yoga or tarot, and manifesting beautiful things. She does everything with the goal of the higher ascension of community and family in mind.

Mathew Clouser is a poet and bon vivant. His works include Dereliction Omnibus, and the forthcoming Who Do You Think Works Here? He has worked in varying editorial capacities at The Rio Review and DUENDE. He lives in Austin, Texas where he is a volunteer with Chicon Street Poets. Take a listen as we discuss his recent thesis on mischief in poetics, the world of Pataphysics (to understand it is to misunderstand it), the evolution of language and form, and the perpetual abstract world. "Is a tree weird in the forest if no one is there to see it?" -Mathew Clouser, The Hearsay Poetry Podcast. Referenced Literature:

Trickster Makes This World, Lewis HydePataphysics: A Useless Guide, Andrew HugillZong!, M. NourbeSe Philip  

Mat can be found canoodling with the Bookhouse Boys collective, and on-line @sumocartwheel.

This is a special podcast (see title). This is a Hearsay Poetry Podcast of firsts: going live, featuring live music, and sharing a little bit of life during this strange time of quarantine. Please note and forgive any “live” moments, such as responding to Facebook comments or invisible hand gestures that don’t make sense. While I love producing this podcast and would love nothing more than to spend hours of my free quarantine time editing this audio down to a perfect listener experience, eh. It’s all gravy baby. Also, we should all know too well now that time isn’t free. Enjoy listening. And watch the live video on Facebook.

Jack Schultz started playing piano at the age of five. At sixteen he started to teach himself guitar and began writing songs. He found a bass guitar at the crossroads while the devil was taking a nap. He’s been laying down bass ever since, even picking up the upright bass to keep the devil off his back. Jack currently plays in four Austin bands: Choctaw Wildfire, The Swamp Bats (bass), Underwater Ghost Town, and Milicent Hughes (guitar).

What does it mean to bring a life lived into art? What is your truth? What are the similarities between music, writing, visual arts, and dance? Listen as poet Edith “Blackbird” and I discuss the various ways artists bring their experiences, both personal and external into their work, the diversity of voice, and Edith’s own development as a multi-media poet. Edith was born in the capital of Mexico but raised in Sinaloa state, in a small town near the Pacific coast. She started to participate in local events since elementary school like “Civil Mondays”, writing patriotic and traditional poems to perform for government members at the time alongside some classmates. In middle school, she competed in a statewide contest, winning second place. In 2005, she won second place in the nationwide contest, representing her high school. The Sonora University awarded her an honorable mention for her participation in their regional contest with the piece “Plegarias de Una Luna Enamorada” and was published in their anthology Realidad Aleatoria. In this same year, she discovered Jaime Sabines, a Mexican poet who's work project deep themes about love, loneliness, existential anxiety, and death, impregnated by his own feelings, which show the reality of a changing and decaying society.

Now living in Austin since 2017, Edith attends open mics around the city sharing her bilingual art. She has been featured twice for the “Austin Poetry Society” monthly event in 2018. She has won three Hearsay Poetry Ekphrastic Challenges, published on hearsaypoetry.com.

There are more things in the air this month besides love, heart-shaped balloons, or the societal expectations of mass-produced consumerist holidays (this podcast for example). If you are reading this, chances are you are listening. Though if you haven’t started listening yet, I promise at least an hour’s worth of wonderful discussion about the function of poetry to a poet, the use of metaphor and imagery, how my guest Susan found her poetic voice after writing novels, a ton of fuss and sass from Sgt. Pepper the dog, and a handful of wonderful poetry.

Susan Niz's most recent chapbook, Left-Handed Like a Lightning Whelk, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. Her first poetry chapbook is Beyond this Amniotic Dream (Beard Poetry, Minneapolis, 2016). Her short work has appeared in Wanderlust Journal, The Write Launch, Chaleur Magazine, Typishly, Tipton Poetry Journal, Carnival Literary Magazine, Crack the Spine, Blue Bonnet Review, Two Words For, Belleville Park Pages, Ginosko, Cezanne’s Carrot, Flashquake, Opium Magazine, and Summerset Review. She has been featured in live poetry shows in Minneapolis. Susan writes across genres. Her novel Kara, Lost (North Star Press, 2011) was a finalist for a Midwest Book Award (MIPA) for Literary Fiction. She has a Master’s Degree in Education, raises kids, has been a grassroots community organizer, and conserves Monarchs. She recently relocated from Minneapolis, Minnesota to the Austin, Texas area.

Listen as Dane and I discuss writing origins, periods of writers’ block, a bit o’ writing influences, and a TON of meandering philosophical ideas regarding life, death, consciousness, social media, religion, language, and who knows what else. And of course, we also read poetry.

Dane grew up in Temple, TX, studied classics at Notre Dame, and moved to Austin eight years ago. An artist who made a pragmatic turn, he learned to build software and discovered how beautiful digital machinery can be. He returned to writing and performing poetry last year after a long hiatus and draws inspiration from french philosophy and the modernists, specifically Gilles Deleuze and D.H. Lawrence. Find him performing at poetry open mics around town.

What is the balance of an artistic life? What does success look like? How do people and the environment influence creative growth? Listen to poet and writer Jennifer Hill and I discuss her life’s road to becoming a writer, her various roles in the literary world, and how success has shifted over the years. We also share wonderfully crafted poems from Jennifer’s father Charles Hill, niece Daniela Tejeda, E.E. Cummings, and of course, Jennifer.  jenniferhr.wordpress.com/

@danielapoetry

Born in San Antonio, Jennifer Hill is a writer, editor and content developer living in Austin, Texas. She graduated with a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing from Emerson College, where she served as a poetry editorial assistant for Ploughshares. She has worked as a story analyst in Los Angeles, a reporter in Boston and a freelance writer and editor in Austin.

Daniel Benjamin is a wordsmith originally from Dallas, TX, now residing in Austin. His influences range from beatniks to the Bible. This range of influences surfaces in his writing as dry honest inflection with rhythm and rhymes that mirror the poets of the late ‘50s to early ‘60s. Listen as Daniel and I discuss the ever-changing times and its influence on state of mind, writing, and collective sentiment. We cover the dark and light-hearted sides of living, from states of hopeless existence to silly paper-bag poetry.

Daniel also does music booking and promotion under the moniker DumbProphet and works as a Carpenter. You can see him perform (usually) at Hearsay Poetry, which is held the second Fridays of every month at Infinite Monkey Theorem, 8pm.

What does it mean to be an artist? What is the balance between the creative end product, the sense of self, and the exchange with the audience? Listen to Jim Trainer, singer-songwriter, poet, and journalist, discuss his pursuit to share candid moments, break down the fourth wall, and to bring the reader into all situations. “It’s all about the authentic life. Poetry is for the people. That’s who it’s for.” -Jim Trainer.

Singer-songwriter, journalist and curator of Going For The Throat—a weekly publication of cynicism, outrage, correspondence and romance. Jim Trainer publishes one collection of poetry and prose every year through Yellow Lark Press. Love&Wages is his 5th. Please visit jimtrainer.net for his collections, and for music, film and appearances.

Love&Wages doesn’t veer from the street level often, but flies fancifully when it does, in the thrall and arms of lovers past, real and imagined. Largely written during Trainer’s return to hard labor in the Fall and Winter of 2018, Love&Wages is an industrial pastoral and not a kind one but for the hardworking men and women who move through the collection, at odds and finding for grace among the rigors of blue-collar life. For all the romance Trainer strips away from labor with his work poems, his tributes to lovers overflow, are devotional and muse-like and as close as he can come to a reason to rise in the predawn dark and head to line and yard in the rust-colored dawn. Perhaps the only balm offered by Trainer here is with his dedication—for Dignity, as a reminder that the deal working-class men and women make is with themselves, even as their humanity is wagered as the cost of survival.

In what ways are you willing to fail? Is vulnerability necessary for success? Ponder these questions with Austin, TX native poet and musician Christina M. Jackson. Also poetry! Listen to us read pieces from Pablo Neruda, W.H. Auden, and our sweet selves.

In a desire to resolve moments from the past with hope for the future, Christina M. Jackson’s creative style continually reflects both the bright and dark sides of life. Sometimes her writing reflects childlike descriptions of landscapes and troubled times whereas other times there are adult themes and urban neurosis. Being a native of Austin, Texas did help her to connect with numerous communities for musicians and writers, eventually allowing her to be published locally on several occasions. You can find her work in CC&D Magazine, the Waco, Texas Wordfest 2015 Anthology, and a video that was created by Texas Nafas. She's claimed that "lately [she's] had more of a taste for improvisation over preparation" which came in handy when she hosted two events for Austin International Poetry Festival this year. You can locate her latest works on her Facebook Page: Iron & Zen- Christina M. Jackson Poetry.