Julia Gordon-Bramer Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, November 30

Julia Gordon-Bramer will be one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, November 30.

Also featured will be Phil Gounis and Ben Moeller-Gaa.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE. [Note: Tavern of Fine Arts opens at 5:00 p.m. for pre-reading dinner and drinks, which will also be served throughout the evening.]

Julia Gordon-Bramer is a professional tarot card reader, writer, and scholar of Sylvia Plath. Her book, Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath was published this year by Stephen F. Austin State University Press and can be ordered on Amazon. In 2013, the Riverfront Times called her St. Louis’ Best Local Poet.

Conscious Uncoupling

I’m sad about Gwyneth and Chris:
how mean the press presses
and paparazzi snap them running
through airports with hoods up,
sunglasses on, tears streaming.
The Star is on display
in my grocery stands, and its
journalists crucify Gwyn’s talk
show hyperbole, a down-
play of pain. I don’t listen
to Coldplay much and I don’t
have time for movies, but it isn’t
right. This public hunger to murder
the famous, just because
we are not. Maybe I’m sad
for Gwyneth and Chris because
every relationship is fragile, and we
are all searching through our acts
for story with substance, hoping
we are more than just how we look,
as we hide the wrinkles and seek
ripples in the water, a turn of words
to stay stuck in the brain. Something
lasting. To live and be
worth remembering. To teach our kids
what love looks like on and off
movie screens: sometimes breaking,
sometimes broken, occasionally healed,
and without Starbucks’ soundtracks.

-- Julia Gordon-Bramer

Ben Moeller-Gaa Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, November 30

Photo courtesy of Mike Schrand / St. Louis Public Radio
Ben Moeller-Gaa will be one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, November 30.

Also featured will be Phil Gounis and Julia Gordon-Bramer.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE. [Note: Tavern of Fine Arts opens at 5:00 p.m. for pre-reading dinner and drinks, which will also be served throughout the evening.]

Ben Moeller-Gaa is the author of two chapbooks, the Pushcart nominated Wasp Shadows (Folded Word 2014) and Blowing on a Hot Soup Spoon (poor metaphor design 2014). He has an English Writing degree from Knox College and has haiku published in Acorn, Modern Haiku, Simply Haiku, A Hundred Gourds, The Heron's Nest, Frogpond, Shamrock, World Haiku Review and others. He currently is a contributing editor to River Styx, works for Sigma-Aldrich and resides in St. Louis, MO with is wife and cat. Visit Ben's web site here to learn more about Ben.

all day rain
the refrigerator's
ommmm

Modern Haiku 46.3


bumblebee
i, too, am drunk
with wild azaleas

Shamrock 32


twilight
losing count
of blackberries

tinywords 15:2

-- Ben Moeller-Gaa

Phil Gounis Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, November 30

Phil Gounis will be one of three featured reader at the •chance operations• reading at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, November 30.

Also featured will be Ben Moeller-Gaa and Julia Gordon-Bramer.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE. [Note: Tavern of Fine Arts opens at 5:00 p.m. for pre-reading dinner and drinks, which will also be served throughout the evening.]

Phil Gounis first came into public awareness in the early 1970s when he and several colleagues presented a series of experimental films in the Saint Louis region. During this period, Gounis also began to publish his poetry in several alternative press outlets and read on KDNA FM radio. Some of the participants in these readings later formed the nucleus of River Styx Magazine. In 1976, he initiated a weekly blues program on KCLC radio at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. His show featured recorded blues music spanning five decades and in studio performing artists. He also hosted and produced a monthly live poetry and jazz program entitled "Verbatim."

In the early 1980s, Gounis contributed to the work of the Soulard Culture Squad. This group of poets and musicians performed throughout the historic Soulard area and published several poetry collections.Later he co-founded a magazine of politics and popular culture called Steamshovel Press. At the end of the decade and into the ’90s he took part in radio programs such as Off The Beaten Path, Poetry Beat and Literature for the Halibut on KDHX FM in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 2005, Intangible Studios released his CD, Form Matters. Since then he has published two poetry collections Some Of These Have Appeared (Firecracker Press) and Upgrading the Allusion (JK Publishing).His work also appeared in Flood Stage: An Anthology of Saint Louis Poets.

Music In The Air

Keeps slept under the stairs
he did not speak
a word
in his mind
Keeps would repeat
the same Prayer
night after night
it was night most of the time
and freezing when it rained
which was all the time
still
Keeps was faithful
to the duty
of keeping hope
and bright expectation
intact

the day after Thanksgiving
as dawn cracked
Keeps awoke on his knees
and heard a commotion
up above his head
he reached upward and felt the belt
of an escalator
and knew
that his petitionary days
were over

-- Phil Gounis