Friday, November 30, 2012

Daniel McGrath at November Open-Mic


Daniel McGrath was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza, featuring Bob Reuter reading from his new book, Tales of a Talking Dog, and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Typewriter Tim at November Open-Mic


Typewriter Tim was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Eamonn Wall at November Open-Mic


Eamonn Wall was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Marcel Toussaint at November Open-Mic


Marcel Toussaint was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Grady Manus at November Open-Mic


Grady Manus was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Tom Simmons at November Open-Mic


Tom Simmons was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Terrie Jacks at November Open-Mic


Terrie Jacks was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Lynn Wynen-Chamberlin at November Open-Mic


Lynn Wynen-Chamberlin was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Chris Parr at November Reading


Chris Parr was one of three featured readers at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.


Douglis Beck introducing Chris Parr

Julia Gordon-Bramer at November Reading


Julia Gordon-Bramer was one of three featured readers at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.

Steve Schroeder at November Reading


Steve Schroeder was one of three featured readers at the November •chance operations• at Duff's reading.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be our annual JKPublishing Extravaganza and Holiday Open-Mic on Monday, December 3.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; FREE admission.


Monday, November 26, 2012

Tony Renner Musical Guest at Duff's on Monday, November 26


Tony Renner will be the musical guest at the next •chance operations• at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, on Monday, November 26.

Featured readers will be Chris Parr, Steve Schroeder, and Julia Gordon-Bramer.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Tony Renner live 10.26.12 @ Noisefest 9 (LNAC, S. City St. Louis) from Chizmo.tv on Vimeo.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Chris Parr Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, November 26


Chris Parr will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, on Monday, November 26.

Also featured will be Steve Schroeder and Julia Gordon-Bramer.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Chris Parr is a performance poet who has read his work at art spaces, music venues, and poetry events, in his native New Zealand, as well as in Boston, New York and St. Louis.

Word Block


-- Chris Parr

Original handwritten •chance operations• "peoplefesto:"

Friday, November 23, 2012

Steven Schroeder Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, November 26


Steve Schroeder will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, on Monday, November 26.

Also featured will be Chris Parr and Julia Gordon-Bramer.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Steve's second book of poetry, The Royal Nonesuch, is forthcoming from Spark Wheel Press. His first book is Torched Verse Ends (BlazeVOX [books]). His poems are available from New England Review, Pleiades, The Journal, Indiana Review, Verse, Beloit Poetry Journal, Court Green, The Laurel Review, Copper Nickel, The Collagist, diode, and Verse Daily. They have also appeared by invitation in parks, public transportation, and business waiting rooms. He edits the online poetry journal Anti-, serves as a contributing editor for River Styx, and works as a Certified Professional Résumé Writer.

Trouble There on the Frontier

When water and government and children disappear
We take apocalyptic scripture seriouser and seriouser.

Coyotes mentor hens in history of the West they alter,
Chant chicken neck chicken foot then put them on the altar.

Legs of rumor running down this cowtown spread
Plagues and fantail sprays colored chorus girl red.

Hot shotgun hut admits no sunlight so we burn it.
Horse of course can’t recanter its curses so we burn it.

We draw Colt Peacemakers and X’s all over our maps
Traveled in covered wagons circling back to traps.

Autocracy and automobile and automatic buffalo
Sheriff’s deputies and dentists moved from Buffalo.
Trainhorn don't you know there’s no return to buffalo?

-- Steven D. Schroeder


Note: Originally published in Pleiades.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Julia Gordon-Bramer Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, November 26

Julia Gordon-Bramer reading at the Firecracker Press (November 2011). Photo by Ellen Herget.

Julia Gordon-Bramer will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, on Monday, November 26.

Also featured will be Chris Parr and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Julia says:
Here's what my Playboy Playmate bio would be:

Occupation: writer, Plath scholar, tarot card reader. She also teaches English at St. Louis Community College and Humanities at Lindenwood University.

Turn-ons: Sylvia Plath; cats; Kabbalah; the Buddha; correct use of subjunctive form

Turn-offs: Fascist dictatorships; airport security (same difference); winter
Guilty pleasures: satellite radio (XMU, Lithium, and AltNation)

Latest passion: weighing the evidence as to whether William Shakespeare was really Francis Bacon.

Villanelle for the Wife of My Stalker

He follows me around like the Moon at night,
waxing close over everywhere that I’ve been.
She pretends that everything might be all right.

She cuddles their baby and smiles too bright,
entrapped in his hard golden band ‘til the end.
He follows me around like the Moon at night.

He plans my return, makes arrangements, despite
what his dark moods, blow-ups, and death threats have meant.
She pretends that everything might be all right.

Long brown hair and beauty mark; she loves to write.
He’s made her his model of me, from back then.
He follows me around like the Moon at night.

He lies smug in their bed. With her, but not quite.
What’s unknown won’t hurt, and the truth can be bent.
She pretends that everything might be all right.

For five fearful years, this man has been my blight--
His forever love-curse we three cannot end.
He follows me around like the Moon at night.
She pretends that everything might be all right.

-- Julia Gordon Bramer

Julia adds this note: "Form doesn't have to be boring. It pushes the writer into new and unexpected places. Still, every syllable, the meter, and the repetition have a purpose. And with the villanelle form, it becomes like an incantation. Poetry is serious, powerful magic."

Friday, November 16, 2012

Chris Parr at October Open-Mic


Chris Parr, co-founder of •chance operations• took the opportunity to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

Chris will be one of three featured readers at he next •chance operations• at Duff's on Monday, November 26. Chris will be celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it... along with Julia Gordon-Bramer and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Will Kyle at October Open-Mic


Will Kyle was one of five readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon-Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Christy Callahan at October Open-Mic


Christy Callahan was one of five readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon-Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Grady Manus at October Open-Mic


Grady Manus was one of five readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Rae Cailliach, "Autumn Wears a Red Dress"


Rae Cailliach was one of five readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Autumn Wears a Red Dress

Autumn comes gaily clad,
Cooling the skin, but enflaming the eye;
She is the raucous harbinger of

Winter’s silent and unprotesting
Final death; the immodest,
Elderly grey,
Corpse to be concealed
Reverently beneath
Modest, white morgue sheets
Of snow and ice.

Autumn, she comes,
Crying and wailing;
Beating her chest,
Exposing her distress;
She can not be consoled,
Until that tantamont tango,
Naked and whole,
At last.

From the Debutante Spring
That grew like a wallflower;
Danced bare-legged and
Gawky limbed;
Rode her Papa's toes
Like an awkward colt.

Through to Summer ,
A Fine and Generous Lady
Ample bosomed,
Carnal and knowing,
Her skirts full and lush,
Fertile and green;
Her suitors, potent;
Her children, many.

Comes Autumn, then, finally,
Liberated from decorum and duty,
By the windsong echo of
Death-bone rattling drumbeats
Of thanks and praise;
Blessings.

Autumn dons her gayest dress;
Flaunts her harlot fashions,
Taunting like a Hollywood starlet
The phantom that approaches
To claim her last dance.

Autumn hosts a feast! A party!
A festive Big Easy Wake,
Held just before the
Last rites will be given.

Bare legged again,
But veined now, and thinner skinned,
Shedding her accessories
Coyly, one by one,
She boldly leads
Mourners dressed in riotous color;
And Dixieland bands,
Trumpets gleaming, toot sweet,
Through dream-soaked streets,
Announcing
The Year’s last breath.

Dressed in bold finery,
With nothing to celebrate
But certain death,
The Old Year is carried jubilantly
On the shoulders of the parade
To the Midnight of the Seasons.

On this Eve
The pyre is lit;
The uninvited and the dead
Feast with the living;
And the soul of
The unborn New Year
Runs mad with prophecy
And redemption in the streets;
The Old Year's breathe rattles
Like kindling,
And She lays to rest
Upon the dead wood crackling orange
Against the black night.

And Autumn wears a red dress
To the funeral.

-- Rae Cailliach

Author's Note: This was originally written just after Katrina and dedicated to the annual Red Dress Run in New Orleans (which actually occurs in Spring.) This is a poem that seems born (or borne) by hurricanes. I finished this and read it on October 29, 2012, as Hurricane Sandy was arriving in New York City.

"Autumn Wears a Red Dress" © 2005, 2012 Rae Cailliach

Will Kyle, "Mirror Zone"


Will Kyle was the musical guest at •chance operations• on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

You can hear a version of "Mirror Zone" as performed by Will's band Swords & Horns by clicking here.

Mirror Zone

I'm afraid
You're afraid
Everyone's out there burning in their graves

Let us go
Let's go out
I'll find you out
Everyone we've told

I don't care
What we do
We will just slide away

And then we'll all be in the mirror zone

Oh, oh, the mirror zone

You will run
I will chase
I will burn
You will find every little piece of you ...

Down inside
In your heart
You will pull it up
And then we'll start
From the beginning of your ...

Life is hard
You don't care
But you will find your way
When you're older
I promise you

Oh, oh, the mirror zone

-- William Kyle

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Drucilla Wall, "Laurel Oak"


Drucilla Wall was one of two featured •chance operations• readers on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Laurel Oak

Each leaf a single finger,
pointing at every angle,
smooth in the dense, bronzey canopy
that had expanded skyward
for a hundred years,
a mere sapling when the house
was built beside it.

Each leaf an exclamation,
terminus of trunk, limb, and twig,
pulsing the root telegraph
of water, earth, and sun.

I shot your portrait with the rippling bark
filling the frame around you,
a second presence blending with your hair.
We knew the comings and goings
of that raccoon nested in a hollow
higher than our roof. We saw
the songbirds of spring and summer
taking rest, the eagle alone in the dawn
on his way to the river’s hunting ground.

The black breath of the storm swept
from the west, killing the power,
and caught me at the shop,
away from you.
Your voice kept breaking on the phone,
“I am in the basement, with the cat,”
as if that would comfort me.

I would have run through the torrents
and lightning to get home,
only our daughter was with me.
Somewhere a transformer exploded.
Your voice hesitated, “Out the back,
it lit up for a second. The tree,
there’s nothing there—just bucketin’
down like a feckin’ machine.
I heard something, like the sea, rushing,
then the siren,
I am in the basement, with the cat.”

-- Drucilla Wall